I couldn’t remember where I heard it or read it, but I never forgot it. That is, I never forgot it in essence; actually I couldn’t quite remember how it went. So I did an internet search, confident that I would find it in ten thousand posts. But to my surprise this nugget took a little while to uncover.

But here it is: “Holiness is being so happy in God that sin has no attraction any more.”

Oh, how on target this is. It’s when my eyes are turned away from resting in the perfect Righteousness of Jesus Christ that I’m pulled like a magnet to some other attraction . . . which pulls me down. But it’s when I find all my glory and joy in Him alone that my besetting sins don’t beset. Holiness isn’t based on any striving . . . at least not on striving for anything more than simply striving to see and rejoice.

I may be giving John Piper some strange bedfellows, but this quotable quote seemed in my mind to connect with a blog post by one of my favorite fundamentalists: John Van Gelderen. Though I might not have put some things just the way he did, still I agree in essence with what he has to say about the so-called “Holiness Movement.” And—this might surprise people who know a little about it—he likes it.

In spite of the extremes and errors of some, the “Holiness Movement” of the early 1900s, with its Conferences, spawned some of the greatest missionary endeavors of the past century. The more I research missionaries, the more connections I find.

And that, with the second book in the Hidden Heroes series having just come out, is very near to my heart.

I’m a New Covenant Christian.

I say this without shame, with full understanding of the implications.

I believe that the New Covenant is not simply a new administration of the same covenant as the Old, but rather is a truly and radically NEW Covenant, based on the blood of Jesus Christ, completely fulfilling the Old. As we’re told in Jeremiah, Hebrews, Galatians, Colossians, and other places, the Old Covenant, by design, was not good enough. The New Covenant is better. Better. Better. In every way.

I believe that the New Covenant is not simply one more covenant in a series, to be one day superceded by yet another covenant, but, as resonates throughout the Scriptures is rather the final one, because nothing could possibly be Better.

Last time I blogged, it was to describe the wonders I beheld in the sacrificial system of Leviticus in 1994 when I studied it and found Jesus. This was a truly important step in my Christian growth.

What I didn’t happen to mention is that when I left Leviticus in 1994 to study Hebrews, I never returned, except for reference, until 2011. This year, reading through the Bible with my church family.

Is there benefit to reading the types-and-shadows parts of the Bible? Yes, because the outline and copy they show is definitely the outline and shadow of the One who was at that time yet to come.

But because my friend and fellow author Sharon has said it with fresh words, I want to refer you to her blog to explain why this is the first time for me to read all of these types-and-shadows parts of the Bible in . . . a lot of years. I’m reading or listening to it all, but as I read, I’m being reminded.

Praise God for the glorious New Covenant, through whose Author we can see Jesus Christ, who is, as Hebrews implies, the features on the face of God. We won’t give equal time to continuing to delineate the outline of the Hero and trace a copy of Him when we can look up and behold Him in His glory.