The solemnity of covenant relationship in all walks of life is impressed upon us during our passing years. “Though it be but a man’s covenant,” says the apostle to the Galatians, “when it hath been confirmed, no one maketh it void, or addeth there to” (R. V. Gal. 3:15). Since God is everywhere present, the believer is deeply moved to honor any covenant into which he enters.
Covenant in theology is God’s promise of blessing to be fulfilled on the performance of a condition, such as obedience.
There are two primary covenants referred to in the Scriptures. The “Old Covenant” and the New Covenant.” It is a paradox to the searcher of the Scriptures to find that the “New Covenant” referred to by the Apostle Paul in Hebrews 8 is actually the older of the two primary covenants. It is necessary for us to place ourselves in the position of the Hebrew brethren to whom the letter was addressed. To them the covenant made at Sinai, termed the first, had mistakenly superseded that which had been made to Abraham and later confirmed to Isaac, Jacob and David.
The Sinai covenant contained promises of temporal benefits to Israel as a nation if they obeyed God. Designed as God’s law, it was (and is) a masterpiece of typology whose hidden depths revealed to the searcher God’s life-giving promise made to Abraham; the law was a schoolmaster to direct them into the new covenant. It also contained God’s punishment for those who will fully neglected to live in accordance with its requirements.
In the letter to the Hebrews the apostle admonishes the Hebrew brethren: “Therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things that were heard, lest haply we should drift away from them” (R.V. Heb. 2:1). In chapter 5 he introduces the contrasting priesthoods, that of Aaron and Chiselled, pointing out their lack of perception to grasp the temporal qualities of the one and the eternal of the other, even the Melchisedec.
The sixth chapter opens, “Wherefore let us cease to speak of the first principles of Christ, and press on unto perfection, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God, of the teaching of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment” (R.V.).
Then in verses 13-20, he carries them forward into his dissertation of that which is the New Covenant and shows them the power of the Abrahamic or Jerusalem covenant.
The covenant made to Abraham is termed the new covenant and that of Sinai the first or old. It is necessary for us to keep the positions clearly in our minds. The immutable (or unalterable) qualities of the new are those to which we stand related in the eternal order.
The apostle, in writing to the ecclesia at Ephesus informs them : “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise having no hope, and without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12).
In this letter he is writing to Gentile believers and this reference to the covenants excludes the Sinatic as having any bearing on them. He constantly reminded the Ephesians that the present constitution, that is Israel of Paul’s day, was swiftly passing into destruction and therefore the covenants that applied to them were the Abraham and Davidic and not that of Sinai.
In turn, in the Hebrews, he is writing to those who were Israelite after the flesh, pointing out to them the eternalness of the covenant that embraced the Lord Jesus Christ as the covenant lamb provided to take away the sin of the world, or the Jerusalem covenant. Unwrapped as they had been before conversion with the burden of the law and its multitudinous requirements, they were once again slipping back into its death-stricken arms. The simile is seen today in our own lives if we, in turn, slip back into the traditional tentacles of the world. These encumbrances are expressed in the doctrine and moral practice of Christendom which cause us to forget the lofty Abrahamic covenant that grants us eternal freedom from death if we lovingly maintain through grace our position in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That which is termed Christianity places great stress on the “blood of Christ” as the saving influence in their hope of eternal life. In God’s purpose, the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and the pouring out of his life even unto the death of the cross is indeed the apex of redemption brought about through his death. His blood, while poured out, was not intended to be used to the extent that it is in relation to salvation that Christianity (so-called) would have us believe.
God’s covenant to Abraham was sealed by His authoritative signature of which there is no greater. “For when God made promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no greater, He swear by Himself. For men verily swear by the greater : and an oath of confirmation is to them an end of all strife. Wherein God, willing more abundantly to shew unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath” (Heb 6:13-17).
In Genesis 15 the greatest of all legal documents is presented to Abraham, the terms of which irrevocably deeded to him and to his seed, even Our Lord Jesus Christ, the earth as an everlasting abode. This is the new (original) covenant that Israel after the flesh through disobedience abrogated. God’s position as the author of the covenant forbids any tampering with it by man. It is the law of the covenant made by God to man and it is not placed before man as something that can be arbitrated.
Abraham received it as a reward for faith and obedience, which terms are applicable to all to whom God in His mercy chooses to reveal its conditions. To Israel God said : “Not for thy righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart dost thou go to possess their land ; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee, and that He may perform the word which the Lord swear unto thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”
God, who is the first cause and centre of our love and affection, so loved the world into which we have come that He provided the Lamb to take away the sin (or disobedience) of the world. Upon examination we find that God’s laws and ways are direct and with no variation. To Adam and Eve He gave the law which basically was “obey and live” contrasted with “disobey and die.” It has not changed in its structure and the law applied to us conveys the same vital message . . . “obey and live” and “disobey and die.”
All the component parts of the Sinaitic covenant were designed to foreshadow our Lord Jesus Christ as God’s way of reconciling man to Himself. All the sacrifices of this covenant were in vain if the Israelite failed in loving obedience to search its hidden depths. The slaying of the bullock as the offering for sin typified the great redeemer, whose conquering of the flesh by the indwelling of the Eternal Spirit brought life and light into an otherwise death-stricken world.
Sin, briefly explained, is disobedience to God’s law that ends in death. Love is the purpose of God expressed in the Abrahamic covenant, even that which our Lord Jesus Christ sealed as the first fruits of the new creation. It was in perfect obedience to God by the conquering of self-willed flesh that Jesus destroyed death. It is God’s way of expressing His love to us in the glorious free-willed obedience of His son, who, haying the power given unto him to take the kingdoms of the world, thrust the flesh aside and willingly walked toward His death on the cross that sin (or the diabolis) the enemy of man might be destroyed.
The New Covenant provided for us a bridge. This bridge stretches from that which was before creation outlined in Genesis to that which is eternity at the end of the Millennium. The Purpose, or the Word manifested (as John internationally wrote in his first chapter) was made flesh and dwelt amongst us and we beheld his Glory as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. The Lord Jesus Christ born of a woman, subject to the terrific strain of the flesh with all its self-willed destructive influences, did only that which pleased his Father. In him God’s love is manifested to us as the covenant victim. In him we find our greatest heights of loving expression in ecclesial life and service, where we are exalted to sit with him in heavenly places.
We find its true expression concentrated in the living church moulded into one in thought and purpose as we meet around the table of the new covenant. There is no longer any need of bleeding lambs and bullocks slain. Our great hope stretches beyond the veil of the flesh in the great order of Melchisedec as the writer to the Hebrews wrote : “Whither the forerunner is for us entered. even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec”(Heb. 6:20).
The apostle states: “Having, therefore, brethren, liberty to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, let us draw near with a true heart” (R.V. Heb. 10: 14-22).
When we are convinced that we are in Christ as part of the new and living way even “unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first horn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant,” we indeed humbly and reverently endeavour to petition our Lord to direct our paths until He come.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One