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The Everlasting Covenant

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 19, 1907

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 84, No. 51.

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The Everlasting Covenant

THE following question was submitted to the Signs of the Times by one of its correspondents:—
What is God’s everlasting covenant? Is it “Obey and live”? If not, what is it?
The reply is brief but clear, and we think all our readers will read it with interest. We therefore quote it in full:—
God’s everlasting covenant is that relationship between the believer and Himself in Jesus Christ, by which the believer is saved. If we understand “Obey and live” aright, it is comprehended in that expression. We would prefer to put it, “Believe and live,” for the man who will truly believe will be the man who will truly obey. Originally man stood in the very current and fulness of God’s life; he took himself out of that current; faith brings him again into that same current of life. The term “obey” is sometimes used in the case of believing, or rather, yielding to the command to believe, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Obedience would be yielding to that injunction. Obey and believe are used synonymously in John 3:36, A. R. V. It is a great deal better to express it in the other way, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, or faith in God through Christ. “Without faith it is impossible to please him.” That is a great eternal truth, true before man fell, true during his fallen condition, true throughout all eternity; for that in which we have faith is that which molds and shapes and revives and purifies. The finite then is ever looking to the Infinite, the imperfect to the Perfect, the child to the all-wise Father. Therefore there is constant growth in grace, in knowledge, in fulness, in development. That everlasting covenant is the new covenant, not new because its teachings first existed, but new because confirmed by the death of Christ, later than other covenants were confirmed. The last Sabbath-school quarterly covers the ground of the covenant, and if the term “Obey and live” were understood in the light of the other teachings of the pamphlet, there would be no trouble over the expression.