THE SABBATH by L. A. Phippeny

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Feb 15, 1905

THE SABBATH

By L. A. Phippeny

THE OLD AND NEW COVENANTS.

THE term New Covenant receives this designation in contradistinction to the term Old Covenant, and both are derived from the special mission of Israel as a people separated from other nations, and from the special unfolding of the principles of the everlasting covenant and the Gospel through that people.

A few weeks before the law was spoken from Sinai, the Lord commanded Moses as follows: "Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: . . . 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." Ex. 19:3-6. The covenant itself—that is, the subject matter concerning which promises were made—was the law spoken from Sinai. Thus: "The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; . . . 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." Deut. 4:12, 13. And the people said, as one man, "All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." Ex. 19:8.

But the record in the eighth chapter of Hebrews is that they broke that covenant, they continued not in it. And because they broke it, the Lord spoke of a new covenant that He would make. This New Covenant was to be established on better promises than the old. What were the promises of the old? -We have just read them. Who made them? -God and the people. There are His promises, and there are theirs. The record is that God found fault with them. The history shows that they found fault with God also. Who made the promises that could be bettered? -Surely not God, for His promises were based on His everlasting covenant founded in the revelation of His own character. His promises meant every good thing for the people and for the earth. They embraced salvation, redemption, sanctification, wisdom, the character of God manifested in His people, consecrated service for them,-all promises of the everlasting covenant. Their promises were with reference to this covenant-His law.

Then the only promises that could be bettered must have been the promises made by the people. How could these promises have been bettered? The answer is revealed in the statement of the

Conditions of 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 mind, 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." See Hebrews 8.

The answer is very plain, then, why there might be better promises. Read their history by the side of the New Covenant. They wandered from God; they held to a form of religion, but the law was not in their minds nor in their hearts; they claimed to be the people of God, when in truth they were not, for He desired them to worship Him who would worship Him in spirit and in truth; they claimed to know God, but their knowledge of Him was that of the head, not of the heart; they professed to be the keepers of a knowledge of the true God, and they were that too literally-they failed to spread the truth, because it did not live in them.

It was not God's fault that they did no better. It was their own stubbornness and pride and evil hearts that constituted the fault. If they had stood in the proper relation to the Lord, their promises would have rested in his ability to enable them to keep them. They would have seen that they could not prevail against the enemy in their own strength. They would have trusted in the power of their Redeemer. But their whole history shows murmurings, complainings, and unbelief. They entered not into soul-rest, and some of them did not even enter into the rest of the land of Canaan.

The Covenant Relation

at that time embraced Israel as a nation. Nevertheless it had to take them in first as individuals. And if they had discerned clearly the force of this fact, all of the conditions of the covenant would have been met in their lives. They would have been an holy nation. Their experience, however, is not vastly different from the experience of men and women in other ages. They knew well enough what their personal attitude should be toward God. We know what our attitude should be toward Him. But they were careless and indifferent. Are we as careful as we should be? They were proud of the national features of the covenant. There are plenty of people to-day who quiet the voice of conscience and put off a positive reformation in their lives while boasting the possession of great light. They rest upon a name, but are dead.

Over and over again was it demonstrated to Israel that personal and national salvation depended upon the indwelling presence of their Saviour. Moses realized it, and cried, "If Thy Presence go not with me, carry us not up hence." The everlasting Gospel was being preached to them, with its fundamental truth of salvation by virtue of the overcoming merits of another, and not by virtue of inherent merit in one's own self. Their experiences are recorded for every after age. Isn't it about time the world-the church, at all events-should have learned the lesson?

Faith An Essential Element.

It appears clearly, therefore, that the poor promises of the Old Covenant were the promises made by the people, based upon their own human strength, which is always weakness, rather than upon the power of God working in and through them. It is safe to make promises of what we will do, but only in the name and help of our God and His Christ. And the fulfilment, the keeping of those promises, rests upon the absolute surrender of every-thing into the hands of our great Leader. Because so few really do this is the reason why so few abide in the New Covenant relation to God. It requires faith to do it, and faith is an essential element of the New Covenant. It was lacking in the promises of the people in the Old Covenant-except faith in what they could see and understand, and that is not faith. There was no quiet soul-rest under the old promises. There is none yet, for there are still many of the poor, old covenant promises made. There were a few, very few, at that time who qualified their promises by adding to them the essential thing-the power of God. His character was revealed in some of them, and they entered at once into soul-rest. They entered into the everlasting-the new-covenant, and they entered into Canaan.

The Ten-Commandment Covenant.

Some have stated that the Ten-Commandment covenant was limited to Israel as a nation, basing this inference upon the following statement made by Moses to the people: "The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." A proper conception of the true meaning of the Ten-Commandment law will show that the inference is erroneous. The force and application of Moses' statement will be seen by a perusal of the prologue of the Ten Commandments as spoken by the Lord Himself. The prologue reads: "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

It is quite true that upon this fact of deliverance from Egypt the covenant then spoken was made with the children of Israel. But what did the deliverance signify? -It signified the only possibility of their having an opportunity to enter into or receive the benefits of the everlasting covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, or any of the fathers. What is deliverance? -Salvation, redemption, recreation. Who was their Deliverer? -Christ, the Creator. And so we come back at once to the everlasting or new covenant and its promises. The immediate basis for establishing the covenant with them differed, of course, from that of their fathers, for the fact of their deliverance from Egypt was a fact then in history for the first time. But the principles underlying the deliverance and the covenant were old.

There were, however, some features of the covenant with Israel which appertained peculiarly to that people. And yet not to Israel because they were Israelites rather than Jebusites or Ammonites, but because the features belonged to that dispensation, and embraced Israel because it was through that people that the Lord was bringing in the promised Seed-the Redeemer. With Israel's deliverance from Egypt, a special work of education and revelation was introduced in the unfolding of the plan of redemption. The everlasting covenant was re-established with them; special statutes and judgments regulating their social relations and national conduct were given through Moses; and the scheme of typical sacrifices and offerings introduced when man fell, and, transmitted through the faithful, was enlarged, centralized, and embodied in the sanctuary and its elaborate services. All of these features were involved in the promises for and by Israel in the compact made with them at that time. And as a whole they are sometimes referred to as the old covenant.

What Passed Away at the Cross?

Some of these features passed away, but not all. The system of sacrifices and offerings, and all laws and ordinances regulating that system passed away, because all sacrifices were typical, pointing forward to the antitypical offering-Christ. At His death, these "commandments contained in ordinances," together with all rites and ceremonies pertaining to the sacrificial system, no matter how imposed, were nailed to His cross. They ceased. The statutes and judgments regulating social and national life aside from the typical system, as obligatory upon individuals, also ceased by limitation when the Jewish nation rejected Christ, and the Lord no longer recognized them as the chosen nation.

But that feature of the covenant which revealed God's character, which is called "His covenant," did not pass away, and could not pass away any more than God and His Christ can pass away, as we have noted in other studies. That was God's part of the compact, not only with Israel, but with Abraham, and with Noah, and with Adam, and with every soul under the everlasting, or new, covenant.

God’s Promises to Israel.

What more beautiful, more enduring, more blessed, than the Lord's promises concerning this very covenant, spoken to Israel when they entered into the compact to keep it. If they would hear, and obey, and keep it, "then ye shall be a peculiar treasure, . . . a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." Are the promised blessings a new revelation, or new in principle to the new or everlasting covenant? -O no! Listen to Isaiah: "Ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God." Listen to Peter, writing in the time when the New Covenant had been established by the accomplishment of Christ's mission in the flesh, when Israel meant the seed of Abraham in Christ, where there was neither Jew nor Greek, but a new man, a new creation: "But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people." For what purpose? -"That ye should show forth the virtues of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light."

This was indeed the mission to which Israel of old were called when the Lord took them by the hand to lead them forth from Egyptian darkness into the light of liberty, and into the promised land. The Gospel was preached to them in order that they might enter into rest and lead others in. They failed because of unbelief. And yet their promises at that time to do what the Lord commanded them to do, and to be what He called them to be, constituted their part of what is called the Old Covenant. But they broke the covenant; they failed to enter into rest; and therefore there still remains a rest-a keeping of a Sabbath in the New Covenant-for some to enter into, and under the same promises, too, on God's part. Let us believe, and enter in.