Except for those times when the Spirit of God fell on them, God lived with the men and women under the old covenant differently than He lives with us. He was external to them, but He is internal to those of us who are born again through Christ.
We have a new heart and a new spirit within us. But what exactly does this mean?
Jesus basically fulfilled everything that needed to be fulfilled when He said, “It is finished.” How He did all this, including the fulfillment of the law and the prophets, is beyond the scope of my brain. But I do know that Jesus is both the beginning and the completion all things (see Revelation 22:33).
Our heart has been transformed by Christ and now has the capacity to contain Him fully through the presence of the Holy Spirit within us. In other words, when we have Jesus within us we effectively have Jesus' fulfillment of the law and the prophets (see Matthew 5:17).
So as a born‐again believer, it is just as impossible for me to fast like they did under the old covenant as it is for me to practice the law like they did under the old covenant. Oh, I can do it, all right, but to do so would be to reject what Jesus did on the Cross. If I were to try to live under the law like they did back in the old days, then I would completely abandon the grace of God.
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit
