The Two Covenants by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Mar 22, 1883

The Two Covenants.

By John Nevins Andrews

(Continued.)

THE law of the Lord is perfect. Ps. 19:7-11; 111:7, 8; 119:96; James 1:25; 2:8-12. It is God's great rule of right by which sin is shown. 1 John 3:4, 5; Rom. 3:19, 20; 7:12, 13. But the first covenant is declared by Paul not to have been faultless. Heb. 8:7. This is another palpable proof of a distinction between the moral law and the covenant which God entered into with Israel respecting it. Nor is this to be met by the statement that Paul pronounces the law itself to be faulty, and therefore the law and the covenant may be identical. For the law thus designated by Paul was not the ten commandments, but the Levitical law. And here are a few points out of many in proof of this assertion:—

1. This law was received under the Levitical priesthood. Heb. 7:11. But the ten commandments were received before that priesthood had been appointed. Compare Ex. 20 with Ex. 28.

2. This was a law relating to priesthood, tithes, and offerings. Heb. 7:5, 12, 28. But the ten commandments said nothing concerning this.

3. It was a law which required that the priesthood should be of the tribe of Levi, and which had to be changed in order to have a priest arise out of the tribe of Judah. Heb. 7:12-14. But the ten commandments had no precept that related to the subject, or that needed to be changed for that reason.

Finally, with one further proof of the distinction between the moral law and the first covenant, this point of the argument shall be closed. The first covenant having waxed old and vanished away, the new covenant is made by God in its place. Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-13. And now observe the grand promise of the new covenant: "But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." Jer. 31:33 . It is therefore certain that the dissolution of the first

covenant is not the abrogation of the law of God. That which was the law of God in the days of Jeremiah, six hundred years before Christ, is the subject of this prediction. This law was not only to survive the dissolution of the first covenant, but it was to continue to exist under the new covenant, and to sustain even a more sacred relation to the people of God under the new, than under the old, covenant. Here the argument on this part of the subject is rested. It has been shown,

1. That the first, or old, covenant was not the law of God, but the contract between God and Israel concerning that law.

2. That the law of God is a covenant only in a secondary sense; viz., in that it constituted the condition of that agreement or contract by which God became a husband to Israel.

3. That when the old covenant vanishes away, the law of God remains in full force, and is ready to enter into the most sacred relations with the people of God under the new.

Let us now consider wherein the first covenant was faulty. It was not because it was so closely connected with the law of God; for the new, or better, covenant is even more intimately connected with the law of God than was the first, or old, covenant. The old covenant gave man the law of God upon tables of stone; but the new puts it in his heart. It was not because the law was faulty: for that is so perfect that even under the New Testament it is made the standard by which sin is shown. Ps. 19:7-11; Rom. 3:19, 20, 31; 1 John 3:4, 5. But Paul plainly intimates wherein the new covenant is better than the old one. It is "established upon better promises." Heb. 8:6. Then it follows that the first covenant was established upon promises not so well adapted to man's case; and this very fact is, of itself, a decisive proof that the first covenant was not simply the law of God, but a contract between God and his people. Let us now examine the nature of the promise upon which the first covenant was made. Jeremiah designates the first covenant as made when Israel came forth out of Egypt. And thus he has laid open this covenant, and the nature of that promise upon which it was established. Jer. 11:3, 4: "Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: Cursed be the man that obeyeth not the words of this covenant, which I commanded your fathers in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you; so shall ye be my people, and I will be your God." The promise of the Lord that he would be their God was upon condition that they obeyed his voice. Nay, the condition was even stronger than this: "Do them according to all which I command you; so shall ye be my people." But suppose they should fail to do this? Then the promise was forfeited. Surely, fallen man needs a better promise than this. It was just in God to require a man to live in exact conformity with his perfect law of right; but it was inevitable that man would forfeit his title to the promises of God. It is true that there were in the ceremonial law ordinances of divine service, and a worldly sanctuary connected with the first covenant. Heb. 9:1, 10. But these could not take away sins. They could only point forward to Christ. The promises of the first covenant were upon condition of obedience to God's perfect rule of right. But such promises were insufficient to meet the helpless condition of fallen man.

So the apostle says: "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second." Heb. 8:7. But because the people of Israel broke the covenant of the Lord, he justly finds fault with them, and seeks to give the place to a second and better covenant, established upon better promises. And hence it is, that God, by his prophet, gives the people of Israel to understand that they have forfeited the blessings of that covenant, and that the branches of their olive tree will be broken off. Jer. 11. And following this announcement, a few years later, is the cheering promise of a new covenant. Jer. 31:31-34. It was about 600 years before the birth of Christ that the new covenant was thus foretold. The apostle Paul makes the following expressive comment: "In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." Heb. 8:13. Thus it appears that the first covenant had in Jeremiah's time become old, and thenceforward, to its close, it was "ready to vanish away." And when our Lord came to do his work, he took away the first that he might "establish the second." Heb. 10:9. J. N. A.