p. 2 | The Two Covenants

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Apr 29, 1908

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 34, No. 18.

The Two Covenants

2481.—The Two Covenants.

Will you please explain Gal. 4:24, 25

By reading the connection we see that the apostle gives us an illustration of the two covenants. He uses for this illustration the two sons of Abraham; one of them was the son of a handmaid, or a bondwoman, the other was the son of a free woman. The son of Hagar the bondwoman represented the old covenant at Sinai; the second, Isaac, the son of Sarah the free woman, represented the new covenant. The one stands for Jerusalem which now is, depending upon the old covenant; the other, for Jerusalem which is above, which is free, the mother of us all. If you will read the histories of the birth of Ishmael and Isaac you will have these facts set before you: First, Ishmael was the natural child of the flesh; secondly, he was a part of a scheme of purely human wisdom in fulfilling God's work; thirdly, that plan of human interfering and scheming could in no wise glorify God, and therefore Ishmael could not be a child of promise, a child of His grace. In the case of Isaac: First, he was a miraculous child. According to nature, he could not have been begotten by Abraham or born of Sarah; it was the power of God which brought this about. Secondly, it was not of human scheming, the plan was all of God. Thirdly, he was therefore the child of promise, in the fullest sense, and for his birth and existence all the power and all the glory belonged to God.

So the two covenants. The covenant at Sinai, trusted to as a covenant of salvation, had within it no power to save. It was man's declaration in response to God, "We will do, we will perform," and we will work all this, that, and the other thing. They were bound to fail; for it was wholly of human scheming, human planning, human power. All those who enter upon such a covenant as that, depending upon themselves, enter upon a covenant of bondage, and are as Ishmael was, children of bondage. The new covenant rests on better promises, even the creative power of God in His Gospel by which hearts are changed, souls recreated, and men and women born anew into the kingdom of God. And those who are thus born anew are just as truly miraculous children of God as was Isaac, and so are the children of Isaac, the children of promise.