The Vast New Covenant Transition

Authors George Davis and Michael Clark have a chapter in this book called Not Forsaking the Assembly, a phrase from Hebrews 10 which has been used disparagingly toward those who remove themselves from corporate church. I have posted a segment from that chapter below and it’s well worth the read. You can get a free download here.

What is new and living about people meeting in earthly sanctuaries, all facing a speaker’s platform in total passivity until a dominate leader looks down upon them from his pulpit and directs them to move, pray, sing or pay? Is this what Jesus consecrated for us to walk in? What is new and living about churches with earthly structures with their presiding priests and pastors? Even the pagans order their temples after this pattern. Is this what Jesus died for–to put a new patch on an old, worn out religious garment? Are we to enter through the veil of His torn flesh so we can sit passively on a pew for seventy years and then die? Is this what it means to assemble in that new and living way? Will our tombstone in the church yard read, “Here lies Joe. He was faithful to assemble in the old covenant way for seventy years and his pastor was proud of him”?

If it is not new and living it is not a New Covenant assembly, regardless of how many people are gathered under one roof. The epistle to the Hebrews is a warning and an exhortation. Its author repeatedly warns that those who draw back from this heavenly way to return to the old religious traditions risk failing to enter into the fullness of God’s intention. The question is, do we have ears to hear this warning?

It’s clear from this epistle that the early Jewish believers were dividing into two camps. Some were forsaking assembling in this new and heavenly way and were turning back to the earthly forms of the old religious order, refusing to heed the high calling of the sons of God. They were forsaking the assembling together as His living body, just as surely as unbelieving Israel at Kadesh Barnea grieved God and did not go in and inherit the land of promise.

Those who refuse the new and living way by turning back to dead religious forms are forsaking the general assembly and church of the firstborn. Those who refuse to go on in this heavenly way and return to sitting mutely on a pew are the ones who are forsaking the proper assembly. The author of Hebrews later tells us of our heavenly calling and assembly, which should not be forsaken.

George Davis and Michael Clark, The Vast New Covenant Transition