Is The Old Covenant Relevant Today?
This is the second post from Chapter 8 of Friends With God: God’s Friendship With Israel And The Church. The first post in this series identified the fact that God’s covenants with us, be it the Old or New Covenant, are based on love to God and love to neighbour.
What Is The Status Of The Old Covenant?
We have seen throughout the chapters of Friends With God, that the Old Covenant scriptures were unequivocally considered the inspired Word of God by the early Church. (Matt 4:4, 7:12, Luke 4:4, 8:21, 2Peter 3:2, Eph 2:20)
Jesus constantly quoted from the Old Covenant as being authoritative teachings, which he also said could not be broken. (John 10:35) And, it’s through the authority of “the scriptures” of the Old Covenant that the writings of the New Covenant are validated. (John 5:39, Acts 17:2, 17:11, 18:28, Rom 15:4, Rom 16:26. 1Cor 15:3-4, 2Pet 3:16, 2Tim 3:15)
Despite the obvious reverence given to the Old Covenant scriptures by Jesus and the New Testament authors, many modern Christians limit their study to the New Covenant. In so doing, however, they are constantly being immersed in references to the Old, as it’s quoted from, or alluded to, in almost every chapter of the New!
Many events recorded in the New were also prophesied in the Old. It’s inescapable therefore that these two books are inextricably linked, such that neither is complete without the other, and as such they are in fact one “sanctified book”- which is simply what “Holy Bible” means.
Not Come To Abolish The Law or The Prophets
Jesus did not desire to undermine the authority of the Old Covenant scriptures. Rather, because they were originally inspired by God, they were logically the foundation for New Covenant teachings also. The laws within the Old Covenant were certainly not to be done away with, for he said:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. (Matt 5:17)
The Old Covenant is also a record of the relationships that God had with his friends Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David and many others recorded in the ‘faith chapter’ of Hebrews 11. Here we see the similarity between those of faith in the Old and New Covenants. After reciting about twelve specific individuals and their examples of faith, Paul then says:
And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthae; of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets. (Heb 11:32)
He then goes on to quickly summarize a great number of unnamed heroic acts of faith in the Old Covenant. He then encourages Christians to emulate these great people of faith. (Heb 12:1)
Clearly there were a great many faithful and righteous people in ancient Israel. Yet, Christian preachers often imply that it is only through the New Covenant that we can come to God, and that the Old Covenant is of no value. Yet the examples of these righteous people cited in Hebrews 11, contradict such simplistic and dogmatic statements.
God’s Reserved Righteous People
The scriptures only touch on the highlights of the lives of a few righteous people, yet throughout the history of Israel there were many thousands of righteous people in ancient Israel, who are only indirectly mentioned in scripture. At one time Elijah the prophet was not aware of any other faithful people in Israel, however God said to him:
I have reserved for myself seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal (the pagan god), and every mouth which has not kissed him. (1Kings 19:14-18)
God doesn’t tell us how many righteous people he has at any one time, but we can see from scripture that there were certainly thousands in Israel that loved his way of life, and were faithful to him.
In addition to the specific agreement between God and Israel, called the “Old Covenant”, scripture also includes genealogies, history, prophecy, poetry and songs- all of which elaborate on living the way of God, through examples of faith, courage and wisdom.
These are recorded in the Old Covenant for a Christian’s instruction in how to love God:
For whatever things were written before (in scripture), were written for our learning, so that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. (Rom 15:4)
All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: (2Tim 3:16)
See also James 5:10-11, Heb 11:1-38, 2Peter 2:6, Jude 1:7.
As we have seen in previous chapters, the Pharisees focused on the laws in the Israelite Covenant, to the exclusion of love, mercy and faith. They were legalistic in their interpretation of the law, and rather than being encouraging and patient in teaching the law, they were authoritarian in their administration, and punitive in their enforcement of it. They also added to the law by making up their own ideas about what was necessary to be righteous, hence the term “self-righteous”.
Their example served to demonstrate that if we focus on the Law of God, rather than the covenant agreements, of which these laws are an integral part, then we miss the value of the relationship between God and Man – which is what “being in a covenant” implies.
A loving, merciful, generous and kind relationship with God, and each other, is what all covenants with God are principally designed to initiate and establish, and are also obviously fundamental in any healthy relationship, or agreement, between two people. (Matt 23:23, Luke 11:42, Hosea 4:1, Hosea 6:6-7, Isa 58:6, Rom 13:9, Micah 6:8, 1Tim 1:5, 1John 4:7-21)
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What Is A Covenant?
The word ‘covenant’, due to its Biblical use, has naturally gained an important spiritual connotation, but it simply means a voluntary agreement between two or more parties. All marriages are covenants, and there are many various covenants between businesses and governments, as well as between governments and citizens. The New and Old Covenants are agreements between God and man.
Throughout this chapter, I will generally use the term “covenant” as opposed to “testament”, as the original Hebrew and Greek words are exactly the same, they are just translated differently in different versions of the Bible.
In only one instance, in Hebrews 9:16-17, is the word testament/covenant used in the sense of a “last will and testament”, but it’s clear that it’s used in this sense as an analogy only, although an important analogy nonetheless. This is explored in more detail in Appendix 14 of Friends With God, which will be put up as an separate post.
Given that love is the foundation of these agreements, how does one covenant relate to the other? The term “New Covenant” or “New Testament” is mentioned only 10 times in scripture, and the term “Old Covenant” is found only once. (2Cor 3:14) It therefore will not be all that difficult to consider and compare these few scriptures.
However, to identify the specific covenant with Israel as “the Old Covenant” is not strictly correct, as there are many covenants older than the one with the nation of Israel. There is a covenant between God and Noah (Gen 6:18) and another between God and all living things at the time of Noah (Gen 9:15-17), and God’s covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:18-21), and with Isaac (Gen 17:21), and with Jacob (Lev 26:42) and with David (Jer 33:21) and even with day and night (Jer 33: 25).
What is the relationship between all these covenant agreements? What is done away with and what is kept?
What of the friends of God, such as Abel, Noah, Enoch, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, David, Samuel, Gideon, Barak, Samson etc.? If you are a friend of God in one of these older covenants, is that better or worse than being his friend in the New Covenant with Christ?
Who is in which covenant, and is it possible to be in more than one covenant with God at the same time? For example, the covenant between God and all living things at the time of Noah, is something we are all in now, and this is obviously not in contradiction to any other covenant we are in with God.
When discussing any covenant with God, we must appreciate the context of scripture in understanding what is being talked about. For example, the only scripture that implies that the Israelite covenant is old, and of no value, is:
In that He says, A new covenant, He has made the first one old. Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away. Hebrews 8:13
While this seems to imply that the first covenant is old and obsolete, the problem is that the word covenant is not actually in the text, it was added by the translators. They also added covenant to Hebrews 8:7 and 9:1, thereby changing the entire perspective of this section of scripture.
These additions in the text are easy to see in the King James version, as most words not specifically in the original are in italics. Obviously, translators add words to make sense of a sentence, however in doing so there is also potential to confuse the intent of the scripture, rather than make it plainer. In future posts from this chapter we will examine if “the new covenant” is the actual subject of Hebrews chapter 8 and 9, as assumed by the translators, or not.
I will generally limit the discussion in this chapter of Friends With God, to how the Covenant with Israel compares to the New Covenant with Christians. For example, when Christ said to the Apostles This cup is the New Covenant in my blood (1Cor 11:25), how did this affect the status of the Israelite Covenant? This was particularly relevant to the Apostles, who were all Jews, and thus were in the Old Covenant when this New Covenant was instituted.
Also, very pertinent for modern day Christians, is the question of how should we relate to those in the Israelite Covenant? Persecution of the Jews over the past 2,000 years, culminating in Nazi Germany, has often been justified by a perverse understanding of a Christian’s relationship with Jews. Is any denigration of the Jews justifiable, particularly by those who live in and understand the intent and purpose of the New Covenant?
The Difference Between The New And Old Covenants
Since the Jews no longer have the role of representing the Kingdom of God on Earth, what is their status in relation to the New Covenant? Is the Old Covenant totally removed and of no value at all, and if so, what does that mean for all scripture in the Old Covenant?
In order to address these questions, there is no better place to start than to explore the one doctrine that is discussed in almost every book of the New Covenant:- circumcision.
While rarely mentioned in modern Christian preaching, circumcision was the doctrine of discussion in the first few years of the church, with variations of the term being used at least 50 times throughout New Covenant writings.
It’s a critical doctrine for Israel in the Old Covenant (Gen 17:10-17), but is apparently dismissed as being of no value for gentiles in the New Covenant. (Gal 5:2-4) This doctrine therefore is valuable to study, as it clearly highlights the differences and similarities between the New and Old Covenants.