The Two Covenants by Uriah Smith

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · May 23, 1878

The Two Covenants.

By Uriah Smith

“For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” Heb. 8:8.

Perhaps all has now been said that need be said in this connection, respecting the old covenant. Every essential fact concerning it is clearly defined, and can easily be found. We have seen plainly brought to view the parties between whom this covenant was made, the time when it was made, what it contained, and the steps taken in its ratification. It was made between God and Israel, when that people came out of Egypt; it was the special arrangement between God and that people, whereby they became his peculiar treasure; the matter embraced in it was that privately communicated by the Lord to Moses, and by him written out in a book, called the book of the covenant; and it was dedicated with blood.

The ten commandments were not, therefore, the old covenant because, (1.) They were in existence, and were just as much binding on men before as after the exode. (2.) They were never dedicated with blood. (3.) They were set forth by the Lord himself as antedating his covenant with Israel, being the primary and essential basis of the arrangement then entered into with them.

We now turn to the subject of the new covenant, and shall pursue our inquiry under this head in the following channels: When was the new covenant announced? Why was it necessary that a new covenant should be made? By whom was it made? When was it made? With whom was it made? And what are its conditions and provisions?

The new covenant was announced by Jeremiah six hundred and six years before Christ, in the following language:— “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. 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, and will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Jer. 31:31–34.

This language is explicit in answering nearly all the inquiries raised respecting the new covenant. Over six hundred years before Christ, it was announced that such a covenant would be made. And the reason for this covenant is announced; namely, because they had already virtually annulled the first arrangement, by breaking God’s covenant.

Paul states this a little more fully in his letter to the Hebrews. He says, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold the days come saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” This covenant is declared to be faulty, not that there was anything wrong about it, in itself considered; but it was imperfect simply because its provisions were not ample enough, as we shall presently see, to meet the emergency which arose under it. And this is more than intimated in the next sentence: “For finding fault with them.” The fault, then, in reality, was with the people; and the fault with them was that they had broken God’s covenant, the ten commandments, and thus violated the conditions of the covenant made. Violating a law does not abolish the law, but it does break up or nullify any arrangement which is suspended upon the keeping of the law. Such was the effect of Israel’s transgression of the law. It did not abolish the law, but it did virtually abolish the old covenant, by releasing God from all obligations he had placed himself under on condition of their obedience.

Well, suppose the people did break the ten commandments, was there not a remedy provided for such cases? They, by their transgressions against God, became sinners; but was there not provision for the removal of sin, so that they could come back into the same relation to God, as if they had not sinned? There was the difficulty. To be sure, they had their services, their rounds of ceremonies, and their offerings. There was plenty of blood provided; but it was only the blood of beasts. Paul gives us a true view of the situation when he says that “without the shedding of blood there is no remission,” Heb. 9:22, and yet that it was “not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Not all the millions of offerings that were brought during the fifteen hundred years of that dispensation, nor all the rivers of blood that flowed around their consecrated altars, had removed a single sin; and unless something more effectual should be provided, all was lost.

The new covenant undertakes to supply this deficiency, by providing a sacrifice which can take away sin; for the grand result of it, as expressed by Paul, is, that their unrighteousness would find mercy at the hands of God, and their sins and iniquities would be remembered no more.

Prophecy, after announcing the fact that a new covenant would be made, again takes up the matter, and brings to view the minister, and the sacrifice. The prophet Daniel, speaking of the Messiah, says, “And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week.” There can be no question that this refers to the new covenant. Sixty-nine of the seventy weeks of Daniel 9, were to extend to the manifestation of the Messiah. The last one of the seventy weeks was allotted to the work of the Messiah and his apostles for Daniel’s people. Our Lord carried on the work in person for the first half of that week. In the midst of the week he caused the sacrifice and oblation (of the Jewish service) to cease, by the offering up of himself, thus providing the new covenant sacrifice. The apostles then took up the work and carried it out the remaining half of the week.” Heb. 2:3.

We now have before us the minister of the new covenant, our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice provided, his own blood, and the author of the new covenant, God, who made the first covenant of which Moses was minister.

We now inquire, With whom was the new covenant made? Was it made with the Gentiles? Here is an important point on which a great deal of misapprehension seems to exist. The idea generally conveyed on this question is, that God at first made a covenant with Israel, but they finally proved to be such a hard-hearted, stiff-necked and reprobate race, that God determined to cast them off, and select a better class of people with whom to enter into relation; so he cast off the Jews, and made a covenant with the Gentiles. And this is probably why we so often hear the expression, “Show us where a Gentile is ever commanded to keep the Sabbath,” &c.

What a short-sighted view does this betray! A more mistaken idea was never entertained. God never made, and never proposed to make, a covenant with the Gentiles. He has nothing whatever to do with the Gentiles, further than to hold them amenable to his government, and to open the way of mercy before them. So long as a man is a Gentile, he is in a Godless, hopeless state. And such is the state of every unconverted man. His condition must be changed before God can take him into favor with himself. U. S.