THE COMMANDMENTS,—PART 1.
By A. C. Spicer
The Two Covenants.—Continued.
IV. It remains now to notice more fully what God asked of Abraham as a condition upon which those covenant promises were made. “Walk before me, and be thou perfect,” is the brief record of the requirement of God. As already noticed, that statement, in subsequent scriptures, is expressed as follows: “Obey my voice”; “Keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.” And God gave as a reason why he covenanted with Abraham, “Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.” So, also, when God proposed to renew that covenant with the Israelites before Mt. Sinai, he said, “Now, therefore, if ye will obey my voice, indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests and an holy nation.” These statements conclusively show that the covenant promises of God to his people, both temporal and eternal, were conditioned upon their obedience to him. This fact is clearly discernible from the following scriptures wherein the people are subsequently re-enjoined to remember their covenant obligations, or admonished for not remembering them, &c. In short, this fact appears more or less definitely set forth in nearly all subsequent scriptures wherein this covenant of grace is spoken of. For instance, see Lev. 30th and 31st chapters, especially the 31st. “Ye shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. If ye walk in my statutes and keep my commandments, and do them; then will I give you,” &c., enumerating some of the promised blessings. “And I will walk among you and will be your God, and ye shall be my people.” Verse 12. “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you,” &c. Verses 14, 15, 16, &c. See also Deut. 29 and 31. But this is most clearly seen in those scriptures where for convenience, or for the purpose of emphasizing this very fact, by a figure of speech (called in Rhetoric metonymy, which consists in a change of terms, putting the effect for the cause or the cause for the effect, &c.) the law, the keeping of which was the object for which the covenant was made, is put for the covenant itself. In Deut. 4:13; 9:9–11, it is perhaps most fully and definitely expressed: “And he declared unto you his covenant which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.” It appears absolutely certain that the direct object or purpose God had in view in covenanting with his people was to secure honor and obedience to his commandments, and that the covenant promises were all conditioned upon such honor and obedience. It appears everywhere, also, where those covenant promises are repeated to God’s people, that10it is done to encourage to such obedience. Other objects appear ’tis true; as, honor to God and his authority, the temporal welfare of his children, their redemption from sin, and their eternal welfare. But these objects are to be secured through obedience to just authority and a holy life, and through this means alone. But let not the mistake be made of confounding the law with the covenant. As observed in the introduction, a covenant is a mutual agreement or contract for mutual and reciprocal advantages, what a law cannot be. Law is not of the nature or character of a covenant. Law commands. A covenant solicits, importunes, invites. By law, obedience to just authority is commanded by the law-giver, and a penalty pronounced for disobedience. In a covenant, mutual agreement and co-operation are solicited and voluntarily responded to when mutual promises are made. The moral law of ten commandments simply commands obedience to just authority, pronouncing its penalties for disobedience. As spoken from Mt. Sinai by God, it was subsequently termed “his covenant,” and the tablets upon which it was engraven were called the “tables of the covenant,” and the ark in which they were deposited was termed “the ark of the covenant,” or they were respectively called “the testimony,” and “the ark of the testimony,” for convenience of speaking, for brevity, and to emphasize the fact that obedience to his law was the direct object of the covenant. Nevertheless, the covenant in respect to that moral law was a very different and distinct thing. As confirmed to Israel just before the formal rehearsal of the law from Mt. Sinai, it is expressed in these brief, but comprehensive, words:— 1. God’s soliciting proposal: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant.” 2. God’s encouraging promises: “Then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation.” 3. The responsive promise of the people: “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do.” Ex. 19:5, 8. Again, though “the book of the law” written by Moses (Ex. 24:4; Deut. 31:24, 26) is termed “the book of the covenant,” yet the covenant of the people to keep that law was a separate and distinct thing from the law itself. The belief is induced by the language of Ex. 24:3–8, the attendant circumstances, and the language of subsequent texts (as Deut. 29:1), that God commanded Moses to enter into a special covenant with the people to induce obedience to the special and temporary statutes written in the book of the law by Moses, as he commanded him to make a covenant with them subsequently in the land of Moab in respect to the same things, viz., “All the words of this law that are written in this book,” (Deut. 28:53), which subsequent covenant seems to have been but a repetition of the same special covenant and of the same limited, temporary, and special character. It is said that after those statutes were written in the book, and special preparation had been made for a formal entering upon such covenant and a confirmation thereof, “Moses took the book of the covenant and read in the audience of all the people;” and verse 3 affirms that he “told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments.” The soliciting requirements of God are not stated, nor are the encouraging promises; but the responsive promise of the people is emphatic: “All that the Lord hath spoken will we do, and be obedient.” Then the covenant was confirmed by the sprinkling of blood. Thus it is apparent from every point of view that neither did the moral law form any part of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, nor did “the book of the law” constitute any part of the temporary covenant of Horeb, any more than the constitution and laws of the United States, which a foreigner covenants to honor and to keep when he takes the oath of allegiance, forms a part of that contract then agreed to. The naturalized citizen may break his covenant, violate his oath, and forfeit all the protection and blessings promised and implied on the part of the government; yet our constitution and laws remain unimpaired, and the sanctioning penalties thereof will be visited upon such offending citizen without asking his consent. The covenant was broken; but the law remained firm. God, then, asked of Abraham and of his people that they should yield willing, cheerful, and implicit obedience to all his commandments and laws, and to maintain a godly walk and a holy life. It was not outward compliance alone, nor yet simply legal conformity, that God required, but heart sanctification. With great anxiety, much painstaking, and frequent repetitions, God appealed to the hearts of his people to love and be obedient to him for their own good. As set forth in a former article when treating upon the subject of circumcision, what God required was confession of sins, repentance therefor, humiliation of heart, mortification and subjugation of the flesh, subjection of the will, appetite, and passions, and the chastening of the same; a “crucifying of the flesh with the affections and lusts”; “a putting off the old man” of sin with his evil deeds, and “putting on the new man, renewed after the image of him that created him”; and hence the exercise of faith unto obedience, “obedience unto righteousness,” and “righteousness unto holiness,” or “the sanctification of the spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ” to the “purging of the conscience from dead works, to serve the living God.” “Ye shall sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for I am holy”; “and ye shall keep my statutes and do them,” is the sum and substance of God’s uniform and invariable requirements. Or in the language of Moses (Deut. 10:12, 13), “And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul; and to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good.” Chapter 6:5, 6: “And these words [the commandments on the tables of stone, and the statutes and judgments contained in the ‘book of the law,’ which had just been repeated to them] . . . shall be in thine heart. And thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up,” &c. It was highly important to the covenanter to understand fully the requirements of God upon his people. Let the whole of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, but especially chapter 26 of Lev. and chapters 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 28, 29, 30 and 31 of Deut., be read with care, and a more enlightened and correct idea of God’s conditions and requirements may be obtained, as, also, a safer foundation for Christian hope and trust. Those conditions and requirements were of very solemn import. Man had departed from allegiance to his God. They required his return. Man had allowed his appetite and passions to overrule his better judgment and discretion. They required him to “subject the body and keep it under;” commanding those to be subservient to reason and religion. Man had become estranged from affection for God and from the predominant love of the innocent, pure, beautiful and true. They required of him such a change of nature that he could love his God supremely. In short, man had become a sinner, and by sinful indulgences his whole nature had become perverted and corrupted, and tended only to death. Those conditioning requirements demanded an entire renovation and change of inward sympathies, affections, desires and purposes, and a corresponding change in the outward life, unto obedience and true holiness. Religion then was no mere ephemeral sentiment, or superficial sympathy. If, indeed, as is believed, the promises under the new covenant are based upon the same conditions, and the same requirements of God are laid upon us, then to be a covenanter with God now implies promises of grave and solemn import, and obligations of supreme interest to every professor of the religion of Jesus Christ.