Confirming the Covenant.
By Editor
THE following letter comes from an esteemed friend:— "I am a little puzzled on Dan. 9:27, about Christ confirming the covenant for one week. I have always understood that this was the new covenant, and that it was made when the Lord's Supper was instituted. If so, how could it be confirmed for a week when half the week was passed when it was made? Heb. 2:2 speaks of the disciples confirming what began to be preached by the Lord at first; I suppose when he first began to preach. I do not find where he said anything about a covenant, unless it was in teaching the law of God. I wish you would speak of this in the SIGNS. W. P." The writer seems to be troubled over the word confirmed, and also as to what is meant to make the covenant. Greenfield's Lexicon says that covenant means "any arrangement, institution, or dispensation." The word is very broad in its signification and very extensive in its application. The first covenant was that arrangement with the children of Israel, consisting of mutual promises and conditions, found recorded in Ex. 19:5-8. The promises which the Lord made were conditioned upon the obedience of the people, which they promised on their part. The new covenant is more largely of promises, inasmuch as in it the obedience which was promised in the first is the effect, rather than the cause, of the fulfillment of the promises. These promises are found in Jer. 31:33, 34, and are quoted by Paul in Heb. 8:10-13. The angel said to Daniel, "Seventy weeks are determined [cut off] upon thy people;" that is, the first or old covenant with Israel should yet continue seventy weeks, and the last of these weeks was also devoted to confirming the new covenant with the same people. And in the midst, or middle, of the week the Messiah should cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease; that is, he would render those sacrifices void by the sacrifice of himself. His sacrifice ratified the new covenant; but the last week of the seventy was only half fulfilled, and that week, as well as the sixty-nine, belonged to that people. The ministry of Christ was three years and a half, and he confined his labors to "Judah and Israel," according to prophecy and promise. He said he was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and when he sent forth his disciples, he said to them: "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not; but go rather167to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The ministry of Christ and his disciples was according to the promises which God had made; it was a part of the process of giving effect to those promises. Hence it was a confirmation of those promises, and of course of the covenant which consisted of the promises. There was no absolute dividing time between the two covenants. They actually overlapped each other during that week. Though the sacrifices and temple service of the old were of no effect after the death of Christ, and the new was in full effect after that event, both covenants had an interest in that one week—the last of the seventy weeks. The new was preached by the Saviour and by his disciples, while the old was in full force. The new was ratified at the cross; but the old covenant had not then utterly passed away, for the people of Israel had not yet been rejected from the special privileges which they enjoyed as children of that covenant. When the Saviour gave the commission to his disciples, after his resurrection, they were told to begin their work at Jerusalem. The door to the Gentiles, by which they were placed on a full equality in privileges with Judah and Israel, was not opened until the end of that week. The text to which the writer of the above letter referred, Heb. 2:2, really answers his whole question. Yet we thought best, for the benefit of many readers, to bring out some of the facts on this subject. The whole ground is covered in our argument in the pamphlet containing a refutation of the "Age to Come."