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Review and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 17.

THE TWO COVENANTS

Review and Herald

Oct 26, 1876

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 26, 1876

THE TWO COVENANTS.

By Uriah Smith

BY ELD. U. SMITH.
TEXT: Heb. 8:8: “For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
The subject of this text is the new covenant. This new covenant is called in the preceding verse, the second covenant. But a new implies an old, and a second implies a first. Two covenants are thus singled out in the word of God, as standing in this relation to each other: the one called the first, or old, covenant; the other called the second, or new, covenant. Why are two covenants thus coupled together, and made so prominent in the Sacred Scriptures? It is because these relate particularly to that great work, the redemption of a lost race, for the furtherance of which, even the Scriptures themselves are given. This is shown in the fact, that the new covenant is designed to bring all those who avail themselves of its proffered blessings into such a relation to God that their sins and iniquities will be remembered no more; which can be accomplished only by redemption. The conclusion is therefore clear, that these two covenants embody two grand divisions of the work which Heaven has undertaken for human redemption, and cover two special dispensations devoted to the development of this work.
The subject of the covenants is one in which every person has reason to feel the most lively interest; for it embraces the whole question of our relation to God in this world, and of all our hope for the future. There is no evil which, through Christ, we hope to escape, from which we are not guarded by these covenants which God has so graciously condescended to make with his people, and no good which we hope to obtain, which is not embraced in, and secured to us by them.
Paul, in Ephesians 2:11, 12, sets forth the condition of those who do not place themselves within the provisions of the covenants: “Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision, by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh, made by hands; that at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”
This presents in a startling light the condition of every unconverted man; and a more utterly wretched and abject condition it would be difficult to describe. No Christ, no hope, no God! Such is the condition of him who is a stranger from these covenants of promise. It becomes therefore a matter of infinite moment to ascertain what the new covenant is, upon what conditions its blessings are suspended, and what we are to do in order to become partakers of its benefits.
In addition to this general statement, we may remark that the subject of the covenants is becoming a theme of particular interest to Seventh-day Adventists at the present time, because it is just now considered a favorite point of attack by some of those who oppose the doctrine of the perpetuity of the ten commandments, and the still binding obligation of the original Sabbath. Having exhausted every other source of theoretical opposition to the Sabbath in their futile efforts to overthrow it, they now claim that in the doctrine of the covenants they find conclusive evidence that the ten commandments have been superseded by something better, and that the seventh-day Sabbath, at least, has consequently come to an end.
It is more particularly with reference to this phase of the question that the present examination will proceed. We will therefore fairly state, and then candidly examine, these claims of our opponents.
Briefly stated, then, their claim is this: That the ten commandments constituted the first or old covenant; that that covenant was faulty and has been done away; which is simply to say, in other words, that the ten commandment law was imperfect, and has been all abolished, the Sabbath with the rest.
In proof of this they quote a few texts of Scripture, which to new hearers would seem quite pertinent and positive. Thus, Deut. 4:12, 13: “And the Lord spake unto you, out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. 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.”
Here, they claim that the ten commandments are plainly called the covenant. Then they turn to Deut. 5:2, 3, to show that this covenant had no previous existence, but was established at Horeb, where Paul also, quoting from the prophet, says that the first covenant was made: “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Having found these texts so much to their mind, they turn to 1 Kings 8:21, for a statement to settle forever the controversy: “And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord, which he made with our fathers, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.” Verse 9 of the same chapter says, “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb.” They ask us what can be plainer. There was nothing in the ark but the two tables of stone, containing the ten commandments; yet Solomon says that in the ark was the covenant which the Lord made with the fathers of his people, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt. Therefore those commandments were the covenant.
And having established this point, they have only to quote Paul’s testimony, that the old covenant has waxed old and vanished away, to reach the conclusion so long and anxiously sought, that the ten commandments have been abolished, carrying with them the obnoxious seventh-day Sabbath into their eternal tomb.
Now to one who has not made this matter a subject of study, this seems very plausible. To those not familiar with this question, the quotations would seem to be to the point, the reasoning consistent, and the conclusion inevitable, that the ten commandments constituted the old covenant which has been abolished. To such we would say that this cable which our opponents make appear to the uninformed of such strength and fair proportions, does not contain one solitary fiber upon which they can justly hang a single proposition contained in either their claims or their conclusions. This we think we can clearly show.
That the old covenant has been abolished by being superseded by the new, Paul plainly states; of this there is no question. And we affirm further that nothing has been abolished but the old covenant. Whatever has been abolished was included in that covenant, and whatever was not included in that covenant still remains, unaffected by the change from old to new. If the ten commandments constituted the old covenant, then they are forever gone; and no man need contend for their perpetuity or labor for their revival. But if they did not constitute the old covenant, then they have not been abolished, and no man need breathe a doubt in regard to their perpetuity and immutability. This therefore becomes a test question. It determines as definitely as any one subject can, the whole question of the perpetuity or abolition of the moral law.
Can we then tell what did constitute the first, or old, covenant? What does the word, covenant, mean? Webster defines it thus: “A mutual agreement of two or more persons or parties, in writing and under seal, to do or to refrain from, some act or thing; a contract; stipulation.” This is the primary, leading definition of the word; and in looking for the old covenant, we look for some transaction to which this definition will apply.
We have definite data from which to work. We are told who was the author of the first covenant. It was God. We are told with whom it was made. It was made with Israel. We are told when it was made. It was made with that people when they came out of the land of Egypt. Jer. 31:32; Heb. 8:9. By these circumstances the old covenant is clearly distinguished from the Adamic, the Abrahamic, or any other covenant brought to view in the Bible.
We go back therefore to the history of Israel as they came out of Egypt, and lay down this as a consistent and self-evident principle: That the very first transaction we find taking place between God and the Israelites after they left Egypt, which answers to the definition of the word covenant, must be the first covenant, unless some good reason can be shown why it is not.
Do we find anything of this kind in the experience of that people? Anything which constitutes a formal and mutual agreement between God and themselves, based upon mutual promises? We find one, and only one, transaction of that kind. The record of it commences in Ex. 19:3: “And Moses went up unto God, and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain, saying, Thus shalt thou say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles’ wings, and brought you unto myself. 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.”
The briefest glance at this language shows it to be a formal proposition on the part of the Lord to the Israelites. Moses was the minister through whom the negotiation was carried on. Go down, said God to Moses, and make to the people this proposition: If you will obey my voice, and keep my covenant, I will secure you in the possession of certain special blessings above all people. With this instruction Moses went down to the people, and God waited for their answer.
Verses 7, 8: “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.”
Such was the response of the people. They said, “We agree to the terms; we will enter into the arrangement.” We now have the two parties before us, and the mutual, voluntary action on the part of each. This is the first transaction of the kind recorded between God and that people. It answers most strictly to the meaning of the word covenant. Therefore we say that this has the primary claim to be considered the old covenant of which Jeremiah prophesied and Paul discoursed.
It may be asked, then, how the ten commandments can be called “the covenant.” We answer, That is just where the people are misled. They are never called “the” covenant, referring to the first or old covenant. That the ten commandments are called “a” covenant, we admit; but what kind of a covenant? and in what sense are they so called? Please read again Ex. 19:5: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant,” &c. Then God had something which he called his covenant, which antedated the covenant made with Israel. It was already in existence, before any formal agreement whatever was made with that people. And this explains Deut. 4:13. Those who read that verse should be critical enough to observe that Moses does not call the ten commandments the covenant, nor a covenant, but his (God’s) covenant. “And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments.” These, then, are what God referred to in Ex. 19:5, in the words, my covenant; and these were already in existence when the covenant was made with Israel. It should be noticed, further, that the covenant of Deut. 4:13, is not a covenant made, but a covenant commanded; and surely any one can see the difference between an arrangement established upon the voluntary and mutual promises of two parties, and that which one party has power to enjoin with authority upon another party. But the covenant here mentioned, God did thus enjoin upon them without regard to any action on their part.
It is now easy to be seen why the ten commandments are called a covenant, and what kind of a covenant they were. They were simply the basis of that agreement recorded in Ex. 19:5–8. For the very first condition God proposed was, “If ye will keep my covenant.” In this sense, and this only, are the ten commandments ever called a covenant.
And this brings us to the secondary definition of the term covenant; which is, “a writing containing the terms of agreement between parties.” Thus the conditions upon which an agreement or covenant rests, are in a secondary sense called also a covenant. This may be illustrated by the relation which all good citizens sustain to their respective States. They are all in covenantrelation with the State. The State says, If you will obey the laws of this commonwealth, you shall be protected in your life, liberty, and property. The citizens respond, We will obey. This is the mutual agreement, the covenant, virtually existing everywhere between the citizen and the State. But when we speak of the State alone, its covenant would be its laws which it commands its citizens to perform. These are the conditions of the agreement, and hence may be called the covenant of the State, because upon obedience to these are suspended all the blessings which it proposes to confer.
Such was the relation established between the Lord and his people. He had a law which the very circumstances of our existence bind us to keep; yet he graciously annexed a promise to the keeping of it. Obey my law, and I will secure you in the possession of certain blessings above all people. The people accepted the offer. The matter then stood thus: The people said, We will keep God’s law. God said, Then I will make you a kingdom of priests, a peculiar treasure unto myself. This was the agreement or covenant made between them. But so far as God was concerned his law was his covenant, because it was the basis of the whole arrangement, and upon the keeping of that by the people, all the blessings were suspended which he proposed to confer.
1 Kings 8:21, may still present a difficulty to some minds. Does not Solomon here say that in the ark, where the ten commandments alone were, was the covenant which God made with the fathers of his people, when he brought them out of the land of Egypt? The key to the explanation of this passage lies in the antecedent of the word wherein. Solomon, speaking of the temple, says, “And I have set there a place for the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord.” Does the word, wherein, mean in which ark, or in which place? Hebraists tell us that the grammatical construction refers it unquestionably to the place. “I have set there a place for the ark, in which place, not in the ark, is the covenant of the Lord,” &c. Was the covenant always in the place where the ark was? See Deut. 31:26: “Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God.” That this book of the law is the same as the book of the covenant, see 2 Kings 22:8, and chapter 23:2. And the expression, in the side of the ark, means in a coffer or receptacle expressly prepared for it and placed by the side of the ark. See Prideaux, vol. 1, p. 152. Wherever the ark was there was this book of the covenant by its side. Hence Solomon could say, referring to the place where the ark was, that there, in that place, was also the covenant which the Lord made with that people when he led them out of Egypt.
Thus the strongest texts claimed to prove that the ten commandments constituted the old covenant, are found to contain not one shade of evidence in that direction. We have found in what sense the ten commandments are called a covenant, simply because they are God’s covenant, the basis of the agreement which he entered into with Israel. In the same sense the tables are called the tables of the covenant, and the ark, the ark of the covenant, because they contained this covenant; but none of these expressions refer to the covenant made with Israel by the mutual pledges to each other of the Lord and that people, as recorded in Ex. 19.
We now return to that chapter and resume the examination of the covenant then made. When the people agreed to obey God’s voice, verses 5, 8, they had not heard his voice, and knew not what conditions it might impose. But on the third day after this the Lord came down in fearful majesty, and with a voice that shook the solid earth from pole to pole declared the ten commandments. Here for the first time the people heard God’s voice which they were to obey. Then the Lord took Moses into a private interview with himself and gave him some instruction which the people were to follow in civil and religious matters, under this arrangement. This instruction is found in the latter part of Ex. 20, and chapters 21, 22, and 23 entire, and is an epitome of the civil and ceremonial laws given to that people.
In chapter 24 is resumed the narrative of the steps taken in the formation of this covenant. Moses appeared before the people a second time, and rehearsed in their hearing all the words which the Lord had communicated to him. And here the people, after having heard for themselves God’s voice, and being told all that he had said
to Moses, had an opportunity to answer again whether they would enter into this arrangement or not. At their first answer, Ex. 19:8, they did not know what would be required of them; now they understood all the conditions; and what will they answer now? Ex. 24:3: “And all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the Lord hath said, will we do.”
It would seem that this was all-sufficient. But the Lord moved very carefully in the matter, so that the people might have no opportunity to plead in after years that they did not know what they were doing in entering into this covenant with him. So he caused Moses to write out in a book all the words he had told him, that all points might be again carefully considered, and then to read it all over to the people. Verse 7: “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people.” Here they had opportunity for the third time to reconsider the matter and change their decision if they so desired. And what was their answer this time? “And they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do and be obedient.”
Moses then took blood which had been offered for the purpose, verses 5, 6, and sprinkled it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” Verse 8. Here the covenant was closed up, sealed and ratified, by the shedding of blood.
Keep this scene in mind while we pass down fifteen hundred and fifty-five years to the days of Paul, and notice his remarks upon this event. Heb. 9:17–20: “For a testament is of force after men are dead; otherwise it is of no force at all while the testator liveth. Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.”
Paul here plainly states that the first covenant was dedicated with blood, the words testament and covenant meaning the same thing, being from the same original word. And to what scene does Paul refer? To the very one recorded in Ex. 24:8, just described. Moses says, Behold the blood of the covenant; and Paul says that the covenant then and there ratified was the first, or old covenant.
Now to settle the fact, once and forever, that this covenant was not the ten commandments, we have only to remark that neither Moses nor the people had a copy of the ten commandments of any kind in their hands at that time. This will appear from the further record of Ex. 24. In verse 12, we read, “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there, and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.” The idea that God had already caused Moses to write out a copy of these commandments, and that he had begun to teach them by having spoken them and read them in the ears of the people, verses 3 and 4, is utterly inconsistent with this statement, that God was about to put into his hands a law containing commandments that he had written, in order that Moses might teach them. But before Moses was called up to receive this law of ten commandments which God had written, the first covenant had been made, closed up, finished, and ratified by the shedding of blood.
These facts throw a fortification around this point which it is not possible either to break or scale. The first covenant was dedicated with blood. But when that dedication took place, the ten commandments, in visible form, had not been put into the possession of the people; they had no copy of them; hence they were not dedicated with blood. Therefore, the ten commandments were not the old covenant.
Another line of thought showing just as clearly that the ten commandments were not the first, or old, covenant, is based on Deut. 5:2, 3, a passage to which our opponents appeal with such seeming assurance: “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.” Having assumed that the ten commandments were the old covenant, these verses are appealed to, to show that these commandments were here for the first time introduced, and hence came to an end with that dispensation. But the quotation is fatal to the assumption; for the ten commandments did exist before this time; hence they were not the covenant at that time made.
The book of Genesis, though so brief in its record that its fifty short chapters cover a period of over 2300 years, nevertheless abounds with indications that the principles of the ten commandments were well understood and acted upon, even from the creation down. Why was Cain condemned for killing his brother, if the law against murder did not exist? “Where no law is, there is no transgression;” and, “sin is not imputed when there is no law.” By what standard was it shown that Noah and his house alone were righteous, while all the rest of mankind were only evil and that continually, if there was no law for a standard in such matters? To be righteous is to be living in conformity with a standard of righteousness, or right doing. “By the law is the knowledge of sin.” On what ground were the inhabitants of the wicked cities of the plain given over to the vengeance of eternal fire on account of their vileness, if there was no law against unchastity? There was such a law; and Peter makes a statement which shows that it was as well understood then as now. He says that those cities were made an example unto all that should after live ungodly. This covers all time from that day to this, and onward to the end. And the ungodly of to-day may look back to Sodom, and learn how God will deal with them unless they repent. Are there moral principles binding on them now? So there were then, if their case is an example. Do men understand these laws now? So they did then. Is it an acknowledged principle now that a man cannot justly be punished who does not know, or has not had an opportunity to know, the law? So it was then. We have heard of tyrants who posted their laws so high that no one could read them, and then struck off the head of every transgressor; but God does not so deal with his creatures. No; the law of God was in existence and understood in ancient Sodom, as well as in the numberless Sodoms of to-day.
But some may be ready to suppose that even if the principles of the other commandments were known, surely the Sabbath was neither known nor regarded before the time of Moses. We answer that if it can be shown that any other commandment was known, tenfold more proof can be given that the Sabbath was known, and a commandment given for its observance. In proof of this it is only necessary to refer to the record of Genesis 2:2, 3, which records the origin of the Sabbatic institution in Eden. God rested on the seventh day. He then blessed the day; not the day past, but the day for time to come. Then he sanctified it. Sanctify means to set apart to a sacred or religious use. This could not refer to past time, but to the seventh day for time to come. And it was to be used in this sacred or religious manner, not by the Lord; for he does not need it; but by man, for whom, says Christ, the Sabbath was made. Mark 2:27.
How, then, we ask, could the Sabbath be thus sanctified for man’s use, or be set apart to be used in a holy or sacred manner by him? Only by telling man to use it in this manner. But just as soon as the Lord had told Adam to use the Sabbath in a sacred or religious manner, he had given him a command for its observance. The record in Genesis is therefore plain that a Sabbath commandment was given in Eden. And we should do no violence to the text if we should read it, And God blessed the seventh day, and commanded Adam to sacredly observe it. But a command given to Adam under these circumstances, was a command through him to all his posterity of every age and clime.
No more need be said to show to all who respect the testimony of God’s word, that the ten commandments were known through all the ages before the time of Moses, and that men were held under obligation to obey them. Therefore, these commandments were not the covenant made with Israel at Horeb, which covenant had no existence previous to that time.
(Concluded next week.)

REST

By Bonar

Not long! not long! The spirit-wasting fever Of this strange life shall quit each throbbing vein, And this wild pulse flow placidly forever. And endless peace relieve the burning brain.
Earth’s joys are but a dream; its destiny Is but decay and death; its fairest form, Sunshine and shadow mixed; its brightest day, A rainbow braided on the wreaths of storm.
Yet there is blessedness that changeth not; A rest with God, a life that cannot die; A better portion and a brighter lot; A home with Christ, a heritage on high;
Hope for the hopeless, for the weary, rest, More gentle than the still repose of even! Joy for the joyless; bliss for the unblest; Homes for the desolate in yonder Heaven!
The tempest makes returning calm more dear; The darkest midnight makes the brightest star; Even so, to us, when all is ended here, Shall be the past, remembered from afar.
Then welcome change and death! since these alone Can break life’s fetters and dissolve its spell; Welcome all present change, which speeds us on So swift to that which is unchangeable. —Bonar.

THE COMMANDMENTS.—PART 1.

By A. C. Spicer

In Exodus (Concluded).

II. The two methods of giving and preserving the laws given from Mt. Sinai.

(a) The announcement of the ten commandments from Mt. Sinai as the fundamental law of God's moral government was not entrusted to the mediation of either men or angels; but such was its importance , such the force with which God would impress it upon the people, and so would he honor it, that he himself personally enunciated it in a loud, articulate voice, from the mount, in the hearing of all the people; and then himself with his own hand engraved those precepts upon enduring tablets of stone. Not so was any other law of God ever given or honored.
In Ex. 19:9, we read, “Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee [Moses], and believe thee forever.” And in chap. 20:1–3, we read, “And God spake all these words, saying, . . . Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” &c., speaking all the words of the ten commandments. Moses testifies, while subsequently rehearsing the wonderful mercies of God to the Israelites (Deut. 4:12, 13), “And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire; ye heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice. 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.” And in Deut. 5:22, Moses declares, after having repeated the decalogue, “These words the Lord spake unto all your assembly in the mount out of the midst of the fire, of the cloud, and of the thick darkness, with a great voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them in two tables of stone, and delivered them unto me.”
Thus we see it is clear that God honored the moral law while rehearsing it to the people, by speaking it himself “unto all the assembly” of the people, with a great voice. And thus he distinguished it from the other laws given; for as we have seen in the passage above quoted (Deut. 5:22), when he had thus spoken these ten commandments, “he added no more.” He spoke no more in the audience of the people.
Again, as an additional and distinguishing honor to the moral law, and as indicating (I think) its permanent, enduring character, and for its better preservation, God wrote that law upon tables of enduring stone and delivered those tables to Moses for permanent preservation. Nor did he entrust the engrossment of those holy fundamental precepts to the hands of either men or angels; but he engraved them with his own finger.
“And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them.” Ex. 24:12. “And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon Mt. Sinai [at the close of the first forty days’ interview], two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God.” Ex. 31:18; 32:15, 16. Moses in his excitement, broke those tables. Ex. 32:19. (Perhaps this act was prophetic of the breaking of the law which they contained, afterward, by the people.) The Lord then ordered Moses to prepare other tables like the first, and promised to write the same words upon them that were written upon the first. Ex. 34:1, 2. Moses obeyed; and God “wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.” Ex. 34:28. Further testimony to the same effect was quoted above from Deut. 4:12, 13; 5:22.
God not only distinguished the ten-commandment moral law by thus heralding it and engraving it himself personally, but he directed that an ark should be built at great cost, after a pattern and directions that he gave (Ex. 25:10–15), to be its sacred and holy receptacle and safe repository, and directed that the tables of the law should be put therein. Verse 16. Moses obeyed (chap. 40:20); and therein was the engraven law preserved for about nine hundred and seven years thereafter, and until the destruction of Jerusalem by the Assyrians.
Thus was the moral law
1. Spoken to the people by God himself, personally.
2. By God himself it was engraven on stone; and
3. By God’s special directions, it was preserved in an ark built expressly for it under his personal supervision.
(b) Now, how were the national, civil statutes and judgments and the typical laws given, written, and preserved?
1. Certainly these were not spoken by God personally with that great voice when the moral law was thus rehearsed from Mt. Sinai; for, as already quoted from Deut. 5:22, Moses testified that when God had thus spoken the ten commandments “he added no more.” Besides this, the accountas given in Ex. 21:1; 24:3, 13–18; 31:1, &c., including the entire account from chapter 21 through, indicates clearly that those laws were given to Moses individually and through him as mediator to the people. Ex. 24:3, 7; Deut. 4:14. Moreover, Paul’s testimony upon this subject is conclusive that the typical law, which he terms “the law of carnal commandment,” “which stood only in meats and drinks, and diverse washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation,” which he declared, “was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” and which he hence termed, “our school-master to bring us unto Christ,” because of their services “having a shadow of good things to come,” was “ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.” Heb. 7:16; 9:10; 10:1; Gal. 3:19, 24. See also Acts 7:53.
2. Again, in Ex. 24:4, it is declared, that “Moses wrote all the words of the Lord,” the “statutes and judgments,” in a book, which book was thereafter termed “the book of the covenant.” Verse 3. Though it is not declared in Exodus that Moses wrote the typical law in the same book with the civil statutes immediately after it was given to Moses by the angels, yet it is declared in Deut. 31:9, that Moses wrote it.
3. Finally, “when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book,” Moses commanded the Levites, saying, “Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee.” Deut. 31:24–26. That was its place of deposit. It was not put into the ark, but in a pocket “in the side of the ark”—on the outside of the ark. That the “book of the law” was not put into the ark is evident from 1 Kings 8:9, 21; 2 Chron. 5:10; Heb. 9:4.

III. The three distinct and separate periods of time in which these laws were respectively given.

We have already seen that when God completed the announcement of the ten commandments to the people “he added no more,” and that closed that interview. Subsequently, whether on that day or some other one, is not stated, but probably on that same day, Moses “drew near unto the thick darkness where God was” (Ex. 20:21), and God especially forbade idolatry, and gave directions in respect to the worship of the people. Chapters 22–26. At some time subsequent to that interview, Moses was called up into the mountain (chap. 24:1, 2, 9–11) and received the civil code “by the disposition of angels.” Chapters 21, 22, 23. Then he came down, rehearsed all to the people, obtained their covenant to keep the law, wrote it in a book, read it to the people, confirmed the covenant by the sprinkling of blood on the book and on the people (chap. 24:3–8), and evidently fully instructed the people in respect to the law, and worshiped God in honor thereof, “offering burnt offerings,” and “sacrificing peace offerings of oxen unto the Lord.” All this required time; but how much we are not informed.
Subsequent to this, Moses was called up with Joshua into the mountain (chap. 24:12–15), and after seven days Moses was admitted “into the midst of the cloud” where God was, and was there “in the mount forty days and forty nights” (verses 16–18); during which time he was instructed in respect to the earthly sanctuary, the typical code, and the typical, ceremonial services and appointments, chapters 25 to 31, inclusive. This was a fourth interview between God and Moses on the mount, and at a third or fourth distinct and separate period of time. And yet there was another interview of forty days and forty nights’ duration, to complete the instructions to Moses. Chap. 34.
It is probable that several days intervened between the brief interview at the time the ten commandments were spoken and that at which the civil statutes were given; and certainly there must have been several days required between this latter interview and the next, for the rehearsal of those laws and the covenant, and then for their engrossment in a book, re-reading to the people, the repetition of the covenant, the sacrifices and the confirmation, and needed instructions, besides the seven days preceding the commencement of the first forty days’ interview. But it matters little how long this intervening time was, or that between the first forty days’ tarry on the mount and the second forty days’ interview, as the object has been accomplished when it is seen that there were distinct and separate periods of time occupied in giving the different laws.
Finally, the whole object of this article will have been accomplished if it shall clearly appear to the reader from the above, as it certainly does to the writer hereof.
1. That there were two distinct laws given from Mt. Sinai (a), the moral ten-commandment law spoken in a loud, articulate voice to all the people, personally, by God himself, without the mediation of men or angels, then written on tables of stone by the finger of God, and afterward distinguishingly preserved in the ark of God, by itself, at God’s special direction; and (b) the civil and typical code given by “the disposition of angels” in the hands of Moses as mediator, written by him in the book of the law, or “book of the covenant,” and kept and conveyed simply on the outside of the ark; and,
2. That the moral law, called “the law of God,” “the law of the Lord,” “the royal law,” &c., is as different in character, purpose, application, and perpetuity, from the “law of Moses” (Heb. 10:28), or “law of carnal commandment” (chap. 7:16) (as the other law is termed), as are the different and distinguishing modes and times of their enactment and the different and distinguishing methods of engrossing and preserving their record. A. C. SPICER.
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