THE TWO COVENANTS TEXTS
These are the texts relating to both covenants.
(From The New King James Version. Copyright © 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
· "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-not according to the covenant [the old] that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt" (Jer 31:31&32).
· "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law [old covenant], do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar-- for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children-- but the Jerusalem above is free" (Gal 4:21-26).
· "For the law [old covenant] was given through Moses, but grace and truth [new covenant] came through Jesus Christ" (Jn 1:17).
· "For you have not come to the mountain [Sinai] that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: 'And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.' And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, 'I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.') But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel" (Heb 12:18- 24).
· "Who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter [old covenant] but of the Spirit [new covenant]; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory" (2 Cor 3:6-9).
· "Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave, though he is master of all, but is under guardians and stewards until the time appointed by the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, "Abba, Father!" Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ" (Gal 4:1-7).
THE OLD COVENANT - The old covenant is a bilateral
covenant made between God and man wherein we are accepted if we obey God's commandments.
In other words, it is a conditional acceptance. It is 1) Truth in 2) an authoritarian
atmosphere 3) backed or enforced by reward and punishment.
It should be pointed out that, though many see the old covenant simply as another form of penance like that of the pagans, it was radically different. Many of the offerings (Lev 4) were sacrificed for unintentional sin (Heb 9:7). This was a radical departure from the pagan sacrifices. It speaks to the purpose of the old covenant which was meant to reinforce their sense of moral obligation to the law. If you had to sacrifice an innocent animal for overlooking one of the laws, it would have a profound impact on you.
· "Now therefore if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant,
then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people" (Ex 19:5).
(This is a conditional covenant - the condition is obedience.)
· "So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments: and He wrote them on two tables of stone" (Deut 4:13).
· "Cursed is the man who does not obey the words of this covenant which I commanded your fathers in the day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, 'obey My voice, and do according to all that I command you; so shall you be My people, and I will be your God,' that I may establish the oath which I have sworn to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as it is this day" (Jer 11:3-5).
· "IF you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and perform them, … then I will give you [blessings] … "But if you do not obey Me, and do not observe all these commandments, … but break My covenant, I will also do this to you: I will even appoint terror over you … " (Lev 26:3 & 14-16).
· "But if the ministry of death [old covenant], written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance … how will the ministry of the Spirit [new covenant] not be more glorious? For if the ministry of condemnation [old covenant] had glory, the ministry of righteousness [new covenant] exceeds much more in glory" (II Cor 3:7-9).
· "Because the law brings about wrath" (Rm 4:15).
THE NEW COVENANT - The new covenant is a unilateral promise by God to give the kingdom (Canaan, a symbol of the kingdom of God) to Abraham and his seed, Jesus. Jesus paid the price to redeem this earth and become its king. When we believe, we are adopted into His family. It is functionally: 1) Truth in 2) a relational atmosphere 3) "enforced" by faith and love.
There was no real deliverance from guilt in the old covenant system (Heb 9:9). The only sacrifice that dealt with all forms of sin, intentional and unintentional, was on the Day of Atonement (Lev 16:16). The High Priest, a symbol of Christ, presented that sacrifice. The Day of Atonement prefigured Christ's sacrifice, as our High Priest. His sacrifice dealt with the guilt accumulated under the old covenant and made it possible to offer us the new. It was presented at the end of the year as a type of Jesus atonement, which is the basis for our names being written in the Book of Life at the end of this age (Rev 20:12).
· "Get out of your country, … to a land that I will show you. I
will make you a great nation; … and you shall be a blessing. … And in you all
the families of the earth shall be blessed" (Gen 12:1-3). "To your
descendants (seed) I will give this land" (vs. 7). (This is a promise by
God that simply needed to be accepted by faith, the provision for which Jesus
made on the cross.)
· " 'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars'… 'So shall your descendants be.' And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Gen 15:5&6). [Why would He do that? If I believe God then I don't need the old covenant of moral coercion/ reward and punishment. "Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder" (Heb 11:6). If I believe God has the answers and the way to a full life, I will follow and I don't need to be coerced into it.]
· "The law (as commands from Sinai, the old covenant), which was 430 years later, cannot annul the [new] covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise (new covenant) of no effect" (Gal 3:17).
· Hebrews, Chaps. 7-10 speaks a lot about the covenants.
· "For on the one hand there is an annulling of the former commandment [the old covenant of reward and punishment] because of its weakness and unprofitableness, for the law made nothing perfect" (Heb 7:18&19).
· "In that He says, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete" (Heb 8:13).
· "Who has made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter (old covenant) but of the Spirit; for the letter kills [the conditional nature of the old covenant destroys freedom and real life], but the Spirit gives life" (II Cor 3:6).
· "It is the Spirit [driven by the new covenant] who gives life; the flesh [driven by the old] profits nothing" (John 6:63).
· "Not having my own righteousness, which is from the law [old covenant], but that which is through faith in Christ [the new]" (Phil 3:9).
· "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes" (Rm 10:4).
· "For if there had been a law [old covenant] given which could have given life [put love in the heart], truly righteousness would have been by the law. … before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ … But after faith has come [in the new covenant], we are no longer under a tutor" (Gal 3:21- 25).
· "For the law was given through Moses [to restrain the selfishness of man and start the tutor (Gal 3:24) working], but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ [with the ability to change man's selfish heart]" (Jn 1:17).