p. 6 | THE TWO COVENANTS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 11, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 15.

"THE TWO COVENANTS."

By Editor

Bondage or Freedom.

WE have been asked for an explanation of the two covenants as illustrated in the allegory of Gal. 4:21-31. It is not an easy matter to discuss in one article the matter of the covenants, which the question opens up; but sufficient we think may be given to make the subject clear. The passage reads as follows:—

"Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh; but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory; for these are the two covenants; the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

"Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free."

First of all, let us urge the reader not to consider the subject as one involved and difficult to be understood. We may tangle with careless hands, if we will, the most beautiful skein of silk, or with proper care and right desire we may find the clue and rewind its glossy threads. So it is with this allegory.

The solution lies not in some preconceived theory of the covenants, symbolized by the two women, but in a knowledge of the simple facts on which the allegory is based. These we will find fully recorded in the Scriptures.

1. When God called Abram out from his country, his kindred, and his father's house, He declared that He would bless Him, make his name great, and that "in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." Gen. 12:1-3.

2. After the manifestation of his unselfishness with Lot, respecting choice of land, the Lord again told him: "Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward; for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth; so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." Gen. 13:14-16.

3. Abram, seeing that he had no son, and, according to all human calculation, would have none, concluded that he must adopt his steward Eliezer as his heir. To correct this idea, the Lord renewed His promise the second time. "And, behold, the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, This [Eliezer] shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And He brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them; and He said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And he believed in the Lord; and He counted it to him for righteousness." Gen. 15:4-6. And then God confirmed this by a solemn covenant. But Abram's faith was yet to be tested. Sarai was humanly barren; and, as she and Abram questioned over the matter, they concluded in their unbelief that some other way besides the legal way must be devised for God to work. So Sarai concluded she would have to bear a son by proxy, and she gave her handmaid, a bondwoman, to Abram to wife. Abram, in unbelief, adopted the arrangement, and took Hagar to wife, who conceived a son, and in the vainglory of unbelief, despised her mistress. For this she was by Sarai driven out. Sarai laid the blame at the door of her husband. And, truly, if Abram had simply continued to believe, the unholy arrangement would not have been made. Genesis 16.

4. Again the Lord appears to Abram, enjoins upon him a perfect walk before Him, and the fourth time promises to "multiply" him "exceedingly," to make him "a father of many nations," changes his name to Abraham, and yet again declares, "And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." Gen. 17:1-7. Then follows the ordinance of circumcision, the sign of God's covenant.

5. Once more the Lord promises, and this time with reference to Sarai: "And God said unto Abraham, As for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be. And I will bless her, and give thee a son of her; yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her." Gen. 17:15, 16. Abraham's faith could not quite grasp this, and he reverts to his human arrangement: "Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is ninety years old, bear? And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!" Verses 17, 18. Once more the Lord in His goodness declares that Abraham might know that the arrangement was not of human ordering, that salvation was not by fleshly schemes. "Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. . . . My covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year. And He left all talking with him, and God went up from Abraham." Verses 19-22. Surely the Lord has made it plain that the seed, which meant salvation, must come in His way, and by His power.

6. Once again to confirm his faith and rebuke Sarah's unbelief, the Lord comes to Abraham and Sarah and promises the seed at a certain time. Gen. 18:9-15.

7. At the time declared Sarah bore the promised son, and rejoiced greatly in God. He was duly named Isaac, and was circumcised. At a feast made when Isaac was weaned, Ishmael, the son of Hagar, mocked him. Abraham yet seemed to feel that in some way Ishmael, the fruit of his doing, the son of a bondwoman, should share in the heirship. Sarah's perception was clearer; she saw that such ideas would break up the home, and pervert the blessing of God. She therefore said to Abraham: "Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And the thing was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son." But Sarah was right; for "God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, harken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." See Gen. 21:1-12.

Surely this is clear that the seed must be through the lawful wife, the free wife, according to God's law, and by the power of God. To demonstrate all this, and to perfect the faith of Abraham, came the great trial of Abraham's faith, recorded in Genesis 22, in which Abraham, in figure, received his son from the dead.

Now for the lessons, or some of the lessons, which the Lord would teach by this history.

1. The son born of the bondwoman was after the flesh. His mother was a bondwoman, unregenerate. So was her son. He was of the flesh. "They that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh;" and "the minding of the flesh is death." Rom. 8:5, 6, margin. "They that are in the flesh can not please God." Verse 8. "For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die." Verse 13. "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit. . . . Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like; of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Gal. 5:17-21. To be born of the flesh is, therefore, to be born in the bondage of sin.

2. This arrangement with Hagar, who bore the son after the flesh, is a figure of "the covenant of Sinai, which gendereth to bondage." What was the covenant at Sinai? It was a mutual agreement between God and Israel, in which the Lord made certain clear declarations as to what His will was concerning His people, and the people promised to obey. Here is the account: "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 are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel. 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." Ex. 19:5-8. It is an obvious fact that as a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, this covenant is no stronger than its essentially weakest promise.

That promise was the promise of the people. They promised of themselves, after the power and wisdom of the flesh, to be all that God wished them to be. The same element of self-salvation was in it that was in Abraham's arrangement through Hagar. Abraham reasoned that the Lord, of course, would fulfil His promise, but He needed some of his human help after all; and so the unholy arrangement with Hagar was made. It gendered to bondage.

At Sinai, Israel after the flesh simply said, Let the Lord do His part, and we will do ours. They did not know God; they did not know themselves. They wanted the material blessings, but their hearts were not in harmony with God's voice and law. "The carnal [fleshly] mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Rom. 8:7.

That this was the condition of Israel is shown by subsequent events. When, three days afterward, God's voice was heard and His law was given, the people said to Moses, "Speak thou with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die." Ex. 20:19. Within the next forty days they were bowing to a calf of gold. Yet, if the people had known God, if they had been free from sin, His voice would have been the sweetest music. Instead of praying, "Let not God speak with us, lest we die," they would, like Moses, have been hungering and thirsting for more of God, pleading with a clear faith, "If Thy presence go not with us, carry us not up hence;" "We beseech Thee, show us Thy glory." The Lord knew the people needed a new heart. He knew that in their sins they could not bear His glory. His feelings were thus expressed: "O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear Me, and keep all My commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children forever!" Deut. 5:29.

What was the result of the people's promises?—Bondage, a deeper bondage in sin than ever. In themselves they had no power to do God's will. In himself man has no power to work righteousness. He is "impotent," "without strength," "is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Read the third and seventh chapters of Romans, and learn, reader, if you do not know it by sad experience, that man of himself is powerless to cleanse himself or work the righteousness of God. And every effort to save himself, or to help God out by human device, is of the Sinaitic covenant, and genders to bondage. For even Jesus, our Brother in the flesh, said: "I can of Mine own self do nothing." "The Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works." But he who persistently builds upon his own foundation, or places as materials in his building the wood, hay, and stubble of human devising, is building a hopeless prison, under whose ruins he will be crushed.

"The Flesh Profiteth Nothing"—

That is the great lesson God would have us learn, first of all, by simple faith in His Word; but, if necessary, by the sad failure of all our flesh-laid plans.

4. So Jerusalem, of earth, stands a monumental failure of earthly, fleshly hopes. It stands for Abraham's effort to supplement God's promise; it stands for man's side of the covenant at Sinai; it stands for the king which Israel, after the flesh, would have; it stands for the utter rejection of Christ and God for Barabbas and Cæsar; it stands for the utterly baseless hopes of those who are looking for the kingdom of Christ to be set up in Palestine through the return of the Jews; it stands for the utter hopelessness of all salvation by human works. This is the great negative lesson of the allegory.

5. "He [that was born] of the free woman was by promise." Whose promise?—Not man's in any way, but God's. It was wholly of God—in purpose, in plan, in arrangement, in power, in result. He was not a child of the flesh. The flesh had no power to bring him forth until the all-powerful word of the Creator was given. He was begotten of the Word. He was born of the Spirit. He did not bring forth Himself. There were no politics or expediency in it; the human instruments were simply willing subjects to God's working, cooperating by yielding, blessed by receiving, bringing forth the living fruit, not carving dead, cold forms by human effort.

6. "Ye Must Be Born from Above." Our spiritual birthright is heavenly. The kingdom of the sons of God is eternal. Jerusalem above is its capital city. There is our citizenship. The mother of the faithful brings forth no children to bondage. Her husband is Lord over all. His mighty, creative, and redemptive power sweeps the universe. Whom He "makes free is free indeed." These children may now be clothed in the weakness of flesh, but they are free in God. They may be sleeping in the grave; their record is on high; their life is hid with Christ in God. They may be bound with chains, suffering affliction, but they rejoice in the higher freedom from sin. The mother is represented as looking down upon them, travailing for the fulness of the greater birth, when the children shall all come home. That day draws on apace; the rejoicing is about to break forth. If we desire this freedom, now and eternally, we may find it by yielding all to God. He will do the work.

7. The new covenant is established upon "better promises," even the promises of God. It has no weak links. Every one is forged in the workshop of God, from His eternal power, wisdom, and love. Not one can fail. If the soul will but yield to Him, God will cleanse away his sins, will put within him a new heart and create within him a new spirit, will write His perfect laws by the finger of love upon his heart, and put them in his mind, and thus make him to know—to come into harmony with—Himself. That soul can keep God's law; he loves it. The new covenant brings forth to freedom, to love, to happiness.

"Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise." So it is with every one who has been born again. He may and will be persecuted, but this need not move him. Men may deny and blaspheme God; it does not change his love. Others may trample underfoot God's law; he can not do it, for it is enshrined in his heart. He loves the entire law. The Spirit which is in the law has made him a new creation in Christ. He is one with the law.

Praise God for all its blessedness. The child of the free woman obeys God, but it is the obedience of a regenerated heart by faith. He works, but it is God that worketh in him to will and to do of His own good pleasure. He is led of the Spirit, and therefore does not fulfil the lusts of the flesh. He sings, with the psalmist, "O how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day." He exclaims, with his blessed Lord, "I delight to do Thy will, O my God; yea, Thy law is within my heart." With the beloved disciple he says, "This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not grievous." With Paul he declares, "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me." And to the power and wisdom and love of his blessed Lord he ascribes all the glory.

These are some of the lessons of the allegory of Galatians 4. Which shall we choose, human wisdom and effort, or God's word of power? bondage, or freedom?