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The Two Covenants

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The S.D.A. Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 8, 1880

FromThe Signs of the Times, Vol. 6, No. 14

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The Two Covenants

By Eld. J. G. Matteson

BY ELD. J. G. MATTESON.
God has made a covenant with his people in the last days. All that enter into this covenant obtain forgiveness of their sins, and eternal life. But those who are strangers to it must bear their own sins and at last reap corruption. Gal. 6:8. It is of the greatest importance to become acquainted with this covenant; therefore we will listen to the testimony of the Scriptures on this point, for they alone are able to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 2 Tim. 3:15. And these testimonies are so plain that no one can misunderstand them, if he will weigh the evidence carefully and honestly before God.
The two covenants, the old and the new, are fully and clearly presented in Jer. 31:31–34, and Heb. 8:6–12. In Heb. 8, the Holy Spirit testifies by the apostle of the ministration of Christ, as our high priest in the heavenly sanctuary. Verses 1, 2. Then he speaks of the priests under the old covenant, whose ministration only served unto the example and shadow of the ministration of Christ in Heaven. Verses 3–5. But of Christ he says: “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” Verse 6.
It is this new and better covenant which we desire to understand and to enter into; for it is founded on better promises than the old. And Christ, whose ministry is more excellent than that of the earthly priests, inasmuch as he is more excellent than they, is our divine mediator in this new and better covenant.
The Scriptures speak of several covenants before Christ. But to avoid all misunderstanding, the Lord shows clearly, first, what covenant he calls the old and first covenant; and then describes the second in unmistakable terms. And this second covenant he calls “a better covenant” and “a new covenant.”
THE OLD COVENANT.
“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; not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.” Heb. 8:7–9.
THE NEW COVENANT.
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” Heb. 8:10–12.
“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.” Verse 13. The old covenant has utterly vanished away. There is no more any good reason to say, that any man, even though he be a Jew, can obtain any temporal or eternal blessing by the promises contained in that old covenant.
We will now consider, first, *THE OLD COVENANT: what it was; and how it was established and sealed; and, second, THE NEW COVENANT: wherein it is like and unlike the old; how it was made and ratified; and what it contains.*
1. THE OLD COVENANT. The covenant which is here presented, and denominated old, is that covenant which God made with the ancestors of the Jews in the day when he took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Heb. 8:9.
The word diatheke, which is rendered covenant, means any disposition, arrangement, institution, or dispensation; hence a testament, a will, a covenant, i. e., mutual promises on mutual conditions, or promises with conditions annexed: meton., a body of laws and precepts, etc.—Greenfield.
The old covenant, now under consideration, was not the ten commandments; for it was that covenant which the Lord made with the house of Israel when he led them out of the land of Egypt. And this no one can deny who believes the text quoted.—Heb. 8:9. It was a voluntary agreement between two parties, and not an unconditional law.
This truth is further proved by the statements of the Bible concerning the old covenant in Ex. 19 and 24. Here we do most certainly find thefirst mutual agreement, or covenant, which the Lord made with the house of Israel after the time when he “took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”
*1. What the old covenant was.*** This old contract contained a promise from the Lord to make the Jews a favored people above all other nations on the earth, on the condition that they would obey his voice and keep his commandments.
Moses went up on Mount Sinai where the Lord spoke to him, and told him to remind the people of their deliverance from the Egyptians, and then present unto them the covenant which the Lord proposed to make with them. Ex. 19:2–4.
THE OFFER OF THE LORD.
“Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob.” Verse 3.
The condition: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant.”
The promise: “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 a holy nation.” Verses 5, 6.
THE ANSWER OF THE PEOPLE.
“And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him, and all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.” Verses 7, 8.
God’s holy commandments and laws, and among these the Sabbath, existed before they were publicly proclaimed on Mount Sinai. Abraham obeyed the commandments and laws of God. Gen. 26:5. The Lord proved the Jews before they came to Sinai, whether they would walk in his law or no. Ex. 16:4. And it was the Sabbath by which he proved them. Verses 27–30. The world also was full of sin before the law was publicly proclaimed on Sinai. And when there is sin, there is also law; for “sin is the transgression of the law.” 1 John 3:4. Besides this, the Sabbath was instituted at creation. Gen. 2:3. Thus it was a part of God’s holy law from the beginning of the world.
These considerations show how the Lord could present obedience to his holy law (or commanded covenant) as a condition of the old covenant, before the law was publicly proclaimed.
Then was not obedience to the law of the Lord, the ten commandments, a condition of the old covenant? Certainly.
Has not this law, then, vanished away with the old covenant?
This question is best understood by considering what the new covenant contains. We have no desire to introduce anything more in the second covenant than the Lord himself has brought in; neither do we wish to draw back from a single point which the Lord has written in it.
*2. How the old covenant was established and sealed.*** When the people had promised to enter into the covenant, the Lord was not in a hurry to seal it. They must first be informed of many points relating to this covenant, in order to understand fully what they were doing.
In the next chapter (Ex. 20) we read how the Lord himself proclaimed the ten commandments in the hearing of the people. Then follows, in chaps. 21, 22, and 23, those civil and ecclesiastical laws which the Lord gave Moses to make known unto the people.
In the twenty-fourth chapter we read that “Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments [or commandments]; and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said will we do.” Verse 3.
This was the second time the people promised to obey the Lord. It would seem to us that this was enough; but it was the will of God that this important agreement should be made still plainer and more sure before it was sealed.
Then Moses wrote all the words of the Lord in a book. Verse 4. This book is called the book of the covenant. “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people; and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Verse 7.
This was the third time the people promised to obey the Lord. And this time everything was recorded, that it might not afterwards be forgotten or changed. Thus the old covenant was finished, and then sealed with blood.
The young men had offered burnt offerings of oxen unto the Lord, and half of the blood was left in basins. Verses 5, 6. “And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” Verse 8.
Thus the old covenant was established according to the plainest Scripture testimony. We have considered how it was made, and what pertained to it. There were two parties that mutually entered into it; a mediator who brought it about; one condition and one promise contained in it; and a seal that made it of force. We will now name these things in order:—
a. The first party: The Lord, Creator of heaven and earth.
b. The second party: The house of Israel. And this term signifies in the old covenant all the Jews, both believers and unbelievers. This cannot be misunderstood.
c. The mediator: Moses. He laid before the people all the words of Jehovah, and returned answer to the Lord, wrote the book of the covenant, and transacted the whole business between the two parties.
d. The condition: To obey the voice of the Lord and keep his commandments.
e. The promise: That the Lord would bestow great blessings on the Jews in preference to all other nations.
f. The seal: The blood of animals that were offered.
And what was the object of all these things?
That they should “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,” and to develop a people who would preserve the word of God in the earth. The house of Israel was a type of the true “Israel of God.” Moses was a type of Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant, “the Apostle and High Priest of our profession,” “who was faithful to Him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.” Heb. 3:1, 2.
The covenant itself was a type of the new covenant, and the blood pointed to the precious blood of Christ, whereby the second covenant should be sealed when the first vanished away.
2. THE NEW COVENANT. This we have already quoted as it is found in Heb. 8:10–12. It was not made with the Gentiles, but with the house of Israel. The Jews are preferred in the new covenant as well as in the old.
Many try to throw contempt on those who keep the Sabbath of the Lord by calling it Jewish. They forget that the new covenant was made with believers among the Jews. Christ himself was a Jew according to the flesh. The prophets and apostles were all Jews, and the first Christian church consisted of Jews. If we ask, What advantage, then, have the Jews? The Scripture answer is clear and unmistakable:—
“Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.” Rom. 3:2. And again the apostle testifies, that he could wish himself to be accursed from Christ for his brethren, his “kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants [this signifies at least two 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. Amen.” Rom. 9:3–5.
We Gentiles have nothing to boast of. We were by nature “aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” Eph. 2:12. Truly, unto us belongs only confusion of face.
How, then, can the new covenant be of any benefit to us?
By the blood of Christ we may be made members of the Israel of God. Eph. 2:13. Through Christ, both Jews and Gentiles “have access by one Spirit unto the Father.” Verse 18. “Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God.” Verse 19.
The Jews are represented by the natural branches of the olive tree, which is an emblem of the church of God, but the Gentiles are wild branches. “Thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear; for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee.” Rom. 11:20, 21.
Thus we see that the new covenant is made with the house of Israel, or the believing Jews, and that the Gentiles can be made partakers thereof by faith and obedience.
Considering the new covenant carefully, we find the following points:—
a. The first party: The Lord of Heaven and earth.
b. The second party: The house of Israel, or believing Jews.
c. The mediator: Christ, our Saviour.
d. Two conditions: 1. To love the commandments of God, and 2. To know the Lord.
e. Two promises: 1. Those who are members of this covenant are the people of God, and 2. Their sins are forgiven.
f. The seal: The precious blood of Christ. Heb. 9:12.
(To be Continued.)