THE TEN COMMANDMENTS NOT THE OLD COVENANT.
By G.
A FRIEND has sent us a copy of a so-called "Bible-reading" which a certain minister compiled for the purpose of proving that the law of God was the old covenant that was abolished at the Cross, and that, therefore, the Sabbath of the law was done away. Now any Bible-reading having such an end in view must be a structure of perverted scripture, reared upon a false basis; and, as would naturally be supposed, the one at hand starts out from a false premise, namely, that the Ten Commandments constituted the "old covenant." In support of this fallacy, the first question and answer are as follows: Question.—What constituted the old covenant? Now this text does not mention the "old" covenant at all. The Ten Commandments are God’s own covenant, which He commanded the people to perform, without any reference to their option in the matter. Deut. 4 : 13. It is again referred to in chapter 9 : 9–11 as "the covenant," and not the "old covenant." This is not a conditional covenant, as was the one to which the people became a party by thrusting in their own worthless promise. It is a covenant commanded, and not an agreement, as the old covenant became through the people’s promise. The old covenant is very explicitly stated in Ex. 19 : 5, 6. After reminding the people of His great work of deliverance in bringing them out of Egypt, the Lord 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." When Moses carried these words of the Lord to the congregation, "all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." This conditional promise of the Lord, and the people’s promise to obey His voice and keep His covenant, constituted the old covenant, or the agreement between the Lord and the people. Thus the old covenant was made before the people had heard the voice of the Lord from the Mount Sinai, or knew what His covenant was which they had covenanted to keep. It was the people’s promise that made the covenant so faulty that it had to be taken out of the way; because they broke their promise to obey God’s voice and keep His covenant commanded, and that, of course broke their covenant with God. The new covenant is established on "better promises" (Heb. 8 : 6) because the promises are all the Lord’s; the people’s weak, presumptuous promise does not come into it at all. But as proof that the Ten-Commandment law is not the old covenant, we have the fact that it is the condition of the new covenant, just as it was the condition of the old; therefore the law loses none of its force under the new covenant. Of the new covenant, the prophecy says: "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put My law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people." Jer. 31 : 33, A. R. V.; Heb. 8 : 10. In the previous verse the Lord says that this new covenant shall not be according to the covenant that He made with the fathers when He brought them out of Egypt, which covenant they broke. Then what is the difference between the two covenants, when both are concerning obedience to the same law? Simply this: The old covenant was made with an unconverted mass of people, and they threw into it their rash promise to obey a law which they did not have at heart. Of course such a covenant must fail, and God realized it at the time; for He said to Moses: "O that there were such a 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. But the new covenant is with such individuals as will receive the law in their hearts, and, by faith in God’s promises instead of their own, will be able to keep it always, as He designs. Only such have any covenant relation with God. The old covenant was made with the natural fleshly Israel as a nation, while the new covenant is with the spiritual house of Israel as individuals. It is in keeping with the special Sabbath covenant of Isa. 58 : 13, 14, and includes it, the Sabbath commandment being the seal of the law. Having thus demonstrated that the leading thought of the "Bible-reading" to which we have alluded is unscriptural, and therefore unsound, it is clear that only by sheer perversion could the Scriptures be made to support it. So it is unnecessary to follow it further. G.