Which is Right? by Uriah Smith

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 8, 1874

Which is Right?

By Uriah Smith

In the World’s Crisis of Oct. 7, 1874, Eld. Grant, sub-editor, labors hard to prove that the old or first covenant was the ten commandments, while in the same paper, the editor-in-chief, Eld. Couch says that “a covenant is a contract or bargain made between two parties.” If Eld. G. succeeds in his effort, Eld. C. will have to retract the definition he gives to the word covenant; for the ten commandments are not a contract or bargain made between two parties. Eld. C., however, is right in his definition of covenant. Its first, leading, and primary signification is “a mutual agreement or bargain made between two parties.”

But are not the ten commandments called a covenant? Yes; and it is very easy to tell why, and in what sense they are so called. But because Eld. G. finds the word covenant applied to the ten commandments, with a great flourish of trumpets he proclaims the whole question settled; just as the immaterialist, when he finds the term, soul, applied to man, thinks he has proved beyond controversy that man has an immortal soul.

Like the word, soul, the word, covenant, has come to have a variety of significations. Because it signifies a contract or agreement, it has a secondary or derived definition, meaning the conditions or terms of the agreement. The contract or agreement between God and the children of Israel was that if they would obey him they should be a peculiar people unto him above all people. God’s promises are always suspended upon condition of obedience; hence he calls his law his covenant; and this was in existence before he entered into that special agreement with Israel; for when he was making known through Moses the conditions upon which he would bless them, it was expressed in these words: “If ye will obey my voice and keep my covenant.” God, then, had a covenant before the covenant made with Israel. And Moses in Deut. 4:13, tells us what constituted God’s covenant: “And he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments.” And this explains why the ark is called the ark of the covenant, and the tables the tables of the covenant; and in what sense they are so called: because they contained God’s covenant of ten commandments, not the mutual agreement entered into with Israel. They broke this covenant commanded unto them, which nullified the covenant made with them. But the old covenant which was done away was not God’s covenant commanded to them, by any means, but the arrangement entered into with them.

But there is one fact that forever settles the question of the nature of the old or first covenant; and that is that it was a covenant that was made with Israel. There were two parties to it: God and Israel. Therefore it was a

mutual agreement between those parties. Hence it is folly to try to make that covenant mean the ten commandments, for they are not an agreement or contract between two parties.

U. S.