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THE TWO COVENANTS

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 2, 1876

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 18.

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THE TWO COVENANTS.

By Uriah Smith

BY ELD. U. SMITH.
(Concluded.)
TEXT: Heb. 8:8: “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.”
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, 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? Here 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.
In the prophecy as originally given, and as quoted by Paul, it is plainly stated with whom the Lord would make the new covenant: “Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant; not with the Gentiles, but ‘with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah.’” The new covenant, therefore, is made with the very same people with whom the old was made.
Paul elsewhere mentions this fact in a number of places. In Rom. 9:3–5, he says, “For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” There is no question but Paul is here speaking of the literal seed of Abraham. He continues: “Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever.”
These are very important and lofty distinctions conferred upon that people. Let us for a moment consider them. To them pertained “the adoption.” God adopted Abraham as his friend, and his posterity as his children, because when all others had apostatized from him, Abraham alone was found faithful; and of him God bore testimony that he had obeyed his voice, kept his charge, his commandments, his statutes, and his laws. Gen. 26:5. So that people were set apart to be the depositaries of God’s law, and preserve the worship and the knowledge of the true God in the earth.
And to them pertained “the glory;” that is, the manifestation of God’s glory among men. This was exhibited at the giving of the law, when Moses was obliged to put a vail over his face to hide the glory of his countenance; and after that in the visible appearance of God’s glory in connection more especially with the ark and mercy-seat.
And to them pertained “the covenants,” plural, both of them, the old and the new. He does not say that to them pertained “the covenant” referring to the old, while the new pertained to some other people; but both were theirs. “And the giving of the law.” Then the law was distinct from the covenants. “And the service of God, and the promises.” All the promises came through the same channel. No promise is made to any one who is not in some sense a member of the Israel of God.
And, finally, our Lord himself, as concerning the flesh, came from that people. Many seem to think that all they need to say about the Sabbath is that it is Jewish; and they look upon anything to which they think they can apply this term with apparent if not real abhorrence. But in what condition should we find ourselves to-day, had not the Jews acted the part they have acted in our world’s history? They received the lively oracles to commit unto us. By them truth was kept alive in the world. They were for long ages the only conservators of the knowledge of the true God, and of revealed religion in the earth. And our Lord said that salvation is “of the Jews.”
Those things did not become Jewish by being for a time in the charge of that people. The law did not become Jewish, because they alone were found worthy for a long period to be its depositaries; nor was our Lord merely a Jewish Saviour, because, as pertaining to the flesh, he sprang from that people.
Let us not despise the Jews, but honor them for the high distinction they once enjoyed, pity them that through blindness they rejected the blessings of the gospel, and pray for them, that they may yet, some of them, come to the light and be re-united to the good olive tree.
Away with this cry of Jewish; for the new covenant itself was made with Israel and Judah. How, then, do the Gentiles come in to share in its blessings? Paul explains in Eph. 2:13–15. After speaking of the Gentiles as aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, he says, “But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.” In verse 19 he adds, “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizenswith the saints, and of the household of God.”
Thus plainly is it stated that through Christ the Gentiles are brought into such a relation to God that they are no longer strangers from the covenants of promise. The middle wall of partition between the Jews and themselves was broken down by what Christ abolished on the cross.
We have already noticed that it was the old covenant that was abolished, and nothing but the old covenant. Now if that covenant was the ten commandments, the text should read, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the ten commandments.” But it does not read thus. It does not even intimate a change of those commandments. It reads, “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances;” and no one who can lay claim to any respectable degree of common sense, will for a moment contend that there was anything in the ten commandments pertaining to ordinances, or that could come under the head of what is here said to have been abolished.
These ordinances point unmistakably to the services and ceremonies of the Jewish worship, which constituted the body and substance of the old covenant. These peculiarities of the Jewish worship, their circumcision, priesthood, and offerings, for a time hedged in that people, as by an impassable wall of separation, from all other nations. This was the middle wall of partition which kept them separate. And this being broken down, what is the result?
Here a most ludicrous and ridiculous blunder is made by some opponents of the Sabbath, even those who claim to be ministers of the word. They assert that the wall of partition was broken down in order that the Jews might come out where the Gentiles were, and partake of their liberty and blessings, the privileges of the gospel, and the first-day Sabbath.
This is just exactly the opposite of the truth. The Gentiles had no blessings to offer. We have already seen from Paul’s testimony that they are without God, without Christ, and without hope, and have no interest in the covenants. The gospel was not theirs, but was preached to Abraham, to Moses, and the Hebrews, all through their history; and all its blessings were included in the new covenant, which, like the old, was made with that people. Gal. 3:8; Heb. 4:2.
No! the middle wall of partition was broken down that the Gentiles might go in where the Jews were, and be partakers of the blessings and promises which they had in their possession. Through Christ they enter in. He hath made both one so far as they will accept of his work and his offering. The Gentiles who thus come in, are then no longer Gentiles, but members of the commonwealth of Israel; no longer far off, but made nigh by the blood of Christ; no longer strangers, but fellow-citizens with the saints.
That the Gentiles are then reckoned as Israel in a certain sense, Paul elsewhere very clearly shows. Rom. 9:7: “Neither because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children; but in Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God; but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”
In harmony with this, he testifies to the Galatians: “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Gal. 3:29. All who are Christ’s, then, are the children of Abraham, not literally but spiritually, and are accounted for the seed. So we hear him saying to the Romans in language still more pointed: “For he is not a Jew which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God.” The inward work of grace, then, in the heart, under the gospel, constitutes one a Jew in reality, and an Israelite indeed.
Nothing need be added to such plain statements of the apostle, yet he uses an illustration in Rom. 11, which beautifully illustrates this point, and is entitled to a passing notice. He there represents the Jewish people, while they were the children of God, by a tame olive tree, and the Gentiles by a wild olive tree. The branches of the tame olive tree were broken off, and grafts from the wild olive tree, the Gentiles, were inserted in their places. Did this change the tree and make a Gentile tree of it? No; it was the same tree; but now the Gentiles are brought in to be a part of it, and thus partake of its root and fatness, the blessings of the new covenant, the promises of God through Abraham and his seed.
Having now seen with whom the new covenant is made, namely, with Israel and Judah, and how the Gentiles come in to share in its blessing, namely, by joining themselves to the commonwealth of Israel through Christ, thus becoming Abraham’s seed, we now inquire,
When was the new covenant made? In Matt. 26:26–30, we have an account of the institution of the Lord’s supper. After he had broken the bread, “he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; for this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” The blood of Christ is the blood of the new covenant, the word testament, as already noticed, being the same as covenant. The disciples present on this occasion were Jews, and there, as representatives of the whole Christian church, they entered into the new covenant with the Lord. God had now set forth Christ as the Saviour of the world, virtually proposing to all that if they would receive him and his offering, on the conditions which he, in his divine teaching for three years and a half, had set before them, they should receive the remission of their sins, as it was for this purpose that his blood was shed. And they by partaking of those emblems, accepted the arrangement.
The next day Christ’s blood was actually shed upon the cross, and there the new covenant was ratified and sealed. Paul says, “For a testament is of force after men are dead; otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.” From that moment the new covenant was in force. And right in connection with this fact we call attention to what Paul says concerning the ratification of a covenant: “Brethren, I speak after the manner of men: Though it be but a man’s covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto.” Gal. 3:15.
When a covenant is once confirmed no change can be made in it, not an item can be added, and not an item can be taken from it. And if this is true of a covenant made by man, how much more of one made by the Lord! After the new covenant was ratified, therefore, upon the cross, no addition whatever could be made to it, and nothing taken from it.
Now we ask where Sunday-keeping comes in. Where was that incorporated into the new covenant as one of its provisions and duties? We have never yet heard the claim put forth that it originated the other side of the cross. It is always placed this side. Then it is too late. It could not be added after the covenant was confirmed by the blood of the cross, on Paul’s showing. Even if its origin could be traced back to the days of the apostles, it would avail nothing. We deny that it can be traced to that early date. It is lost in the theological bosh and bogs of the days of Constantine. But if it could be traced beyond that, to the days of the earlier fathers, to the days of the apostles, to the day of Pentecost, even to the day of the resurrection, still “Too late!” must be branded upon its brazen brow, and we must regard it as an interloper, an intruder, a usurper, a fraud, and a deception. It has no place in the new covenant, and we are under no obligation thereto.
But what of the Sabbath? We answer, The Minister of the new covenant was careful to affirm its perpetuity and consequent binding obligation in this dispensation, by affirming in the most positive manner, the perpetuity and immutability of that law of which it is an integral part; that law which is the standard of righteousness, and from which not a jot or tittle was to pass while the heavens and the earth should remain. Matt. 5:17–20.
And the prophecy of the new covenant, itself, has something very emphatic to say about the law. Under this covenant says God, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” As Paul quotes it, it reads, “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts.” To what law does this prophecy refer? To that which was the law of God in the days of Jeremiah, which no one will dispute was the ten commandments. If it does not mean this, then it should have read, I will put a new law into their minds, and write it in their hearts.
And if, as our opponents contend, the law of ten commandments was the old covenant to be abolished, the prophecy of the change should have read, This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: I will abolish my law, and take it out of their way. Or if the law was not to be abolished, but only changed, that fact should have been noted in some such language as this: This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: I will change my law, and adapt it to the genius of the gospel dispensation.
But it says nothing of this kind, as the reader has sufficiently noticed. It says, I will put my law into their inward parts, and write it in their hearts. I will incorporate it into their very being; I will take away the carnal mind which is not subject to the law of God, so that it will be their delight to keep it in sincerity and truth.
And this is further indicated in the fact that when the Minister of the new covenant came to take away the first and establish the second, he said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart.” Ps. 40:8; Heb. 10:5–9. And as he was, in all holy affections and loyalty to God, so must all his followers be.
But if we take the ground of our opponents, what is the difference between the old and new covenants? The old covenant being the ten commandments which people were then to obey, the new covenant is the code of requirements in force under this dispensation. And what are these? The same exactly as the original ten with the Sabbath left out! The old covenant was therefore imperfect and faulty because the Lord had inadvertently put a Sabbath into it; so he undertakes to make a better one by giving the same law over again, leaving the Sabbath out. But as soon as this is done, lo! it is found that the Sabbath cannot be dispensed with; for even man’s physical necessities imperatively demand it. Mentally, morally and physically, society would plunge into complete anarchy and ruin, were it not for this beneficent institution.
Now what shall be done? Under these circumstances men step in to remedy this defect which the Lord has made in the new covenant; and the apostles, or somebody else, give to the church a new Sabbath. Then having a Sabbath inserted, is not the new covenant identically the same as the old? Oh! no; for another day is taken, which, as a Sabbath, has no foundation in fact, and no earthly significance whatever, and the Sabbath is put upon that day, and then it is all right! So the old covenant was one with a seventh-day Sabbath, and the new is one with a first-day Sabbath. The trouble, then, was not with the Sabbath in itself considered, but only with the day on which it was kept. And the only trouble with the day, we must conclude, was, that it was the day on which God rested in the beginning; for that alone gave it all its significance.
This is a fair statement of the case; but does it look like the work of the Lord? Does it not look like the short-sighted and blundering work of men, or rather like the work of the great foe of all righteousness, who is working behind the scenes, to impel mankind into every species of error and confusion?
If, then, under the new covenant that law which requires the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath is written in the heart of every believer, how does it happen that Christians who have lived under this covenant, and who have certainly enjoyed the blessing and favor of God, have lived and died in the observance of the first day of the week? This is with many a very perplexing question. But we think it is subject to a fair and consistent solution. We reply, that these persons have had the true principle of obedience implanted in their hearts. And they have kept the first day of the week, because they have for a time labored under a misapprehension of what the law requires. In keeping that day, they supposed honestly they were rendering obedience to the fourth commandment of the decalogue; or in not keeping any day in a true Sabbatical sense, they have supposed honestly that God’s law required nothing of the kind at their hands. Had they become convinced that the fourth commandment required of them the observance of the seventh day, whether they were keeping another day or no day, would they not have immediately changed their practice accordingly? Assuredly, every individual of them. Otherwise the principle of obedience was not in their hearts, and they were not in covenant relation with God.
Therefore, leaving them with the Lord, who will deal with all in accordance with the light they have enjoyed, and the sincerity with which they have followed it, it becomes us all to look rather for the truth of our time, and to our own circumstances and obligations. Paul speaks of times of ignorance which God winked at, and other times of greater light when he commanded all men everywhere to repent. Our times are of this latter character. Covering after covering, which the great apostasy has thrown over the law of God and other portions of his truth, has been lifted off, and men are accountable to God, for the increasing light. We are living in days of reform, preparatory to the coming of Christ; and we have reached the last reform; for we can find nothing higher nor holier than that law of liberty which is designed to develop perfect characters in us, and by which we are to be judged in the last day. Jas. 2:10–12. Friend, you may heretofore have honestly kept the first day of the week for the Sabbath, and have enjoyed the favor of God; but you can do so no longer. The light has now come clearly forth; and before whomsoever it is set, he has no longer a cloak for following the traditions of men.
Blessed be God, for so graciously condescending to take mankind into covenant relation with himself. Reader, are you yet a stranger from these covenants of promise? If so, you are without hope. The present brief scene of turmoil and trouble, and then the regrets, the remorse, and the pains of the second death, for privileges unimproved and mercies abused, are your only portion. In place of this infinite evil, you may have infinite good. Join yourself to the commonwealth of Israel. Christ is the way; and he invites you to come. The promises are of value untold, and will soon be fulfilled. The opportunity will expire by limitation when Christ concludes his work as priest. Come while you may. And soon in that heavenly city, which bears upon the twelve foundations with which it is garnished the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb, and upon its twelve gates of pearl, the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, and into which all who have entered into covenant relation with God, both of the literal and spiritual seed, will have a right to enter, you will realize what an infinite blessing was couched in that arrangement through which God condescended to be our God, and took us to be his people.