Deuteronomy 23

God is the King of the kingdom of heaven from all eternity. One day we will see Jesus reigning over everything in a renewed earth, where the wicked will no longer be nearby to oppress the righteous.

In between that eternity past and the coming eternity future the Lord is working out His sovereign purposes. In the Old Testament era, He gave Israel laws of the kingdom. In the New Testament age we follow the King by the Spirit of the Kingdom.

We are people of the Holy Spirit, but we can make excellent spiritual use of the Law of Israel. That Law teaches us about the coming King who has now come and who is reigning over us. When we find His heart for what is true and just and good, we can ask the Spirit of the living God to mold us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ, not just for a surface religious show, but with the power and integrity of a renewed heart and life.

The Lord Jesus loves purity within His body. That was once expressed with outward regulations for the worship assembly that kept the Israelites as a separate people until the coming of the King of the Ages. Now we have a holiness that no commandment could ever bring, and that no system of exclusion could ever produce.

Even today, there are some who must be prohibited from fully participating in the communing assembly of the Lord. There are others who have the appearance of godliness, but deny the power. They are not safe mentors of others. People are removed from positions of leadership in the church and even from the membership in the body of Christ not based on who their parents and grandparents were or because of some outward deformity, but because they will not repent when they are confronted with their own sin. Even their exclusion is an act of the grace of Jesus Christ with the sincere desire that they will reconsider their lives and be brought back into the fellowship of those who walk in the light.

In the Old Covenant ceremonies, the community of Israel was cleansed from external filth by bathing in water and waiting a given period according to the Law. In the gospel age, all kinds of people are sanctified with the renewal of a growing walk with the King by His Word and Spirit.

Jesus, God with us, has come. He became the unclean and excluded One for us. There was no sin in Him, but He was cut off from the assembly of the Lord in order that we might be brought in.

Under His present reign, we experience a freedom from the enslaving power of evil that could only be symbolized by outward ordinances in the days before the coming of the King. The slave is free. The prostitute is forgiven and cleansed, and eats with the Man of purity. The debtor is released from the bondage of what he owed but could never repay.

This is happening even now in the lives of those who know the power of the kingdom. The King has made a vow. He has promised to knit together a body of purity and truth by the power of His own atoning blood. To live in the light of His reign now is to walk in the power of eternity future. We are poor and needy, but the King bids us to go through His garden every day. We eat bread from His fields of peace and receive fruit from His tree of righteousness. We grow in Him, and His Name is glorified.We have hope in a world of grief.