Covenant Class, Lesson 10-E

 

The Covenant Relationship Lesson Ten (part five)

Relation of the New Covenant to the other covenants:  The older covenants—with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Levi, or David—sometimes continue in force even after the commencement of the New Covenant.  At other times, the New Covenant brings such a departure that the older covenant must be considered abolished, whether this means a fulfillment of the original, or instead leaves it a broken failure.

Covenant	Post-NC status	Reason
Noah	Continues	God’s promise stands
Abraham	Continues,fulfilled	Heirs:  Jesus and faithful
Moses	Abolished, fulfilled	Became obsolete
Levi	Abolished, unfulfilled	Resumption of Melchizedek priesthood
David	Continues, fulfilled	Jesus reigns eternally on David’s throne, King of kings and Lord of lords

 

Noah:  God’s covenant-promise and blessing was that the world would never again be a worldwide destruction of the world by means of flooding water.  Even for Christians of the NC age, the rainbow remains the covenant-sign of God’s gracious forbearance and restraint.  However, another destruction has been foretold—not by water again this time, but through the destructive element of fire (2 Peter 3:3-11).

Abraham:  God’s covenant-promises were given in variety and in great scope, and we noted in our study a “shadow” feature that often brings a dual fulfillment.  One fulfillment falls to Abraham’s physical descendants, and another to those who are his spiritual descendants because they share his faithfulness.  Paul speaks of Abraham’s descendants in three senses:

1.  physical offspring, marked by physical circumcision

2. spiritual offspring (Jewish or Christian), faith or “circumcision of the heart”

3. Jesus as the true and singular “seed” who inherits the Abrahamic blessing alone and exclusively (Gal. 3:15-29), yet shares this blessing with all who are “in Him.”  And these become “baptismally circumcised” through faith so as to remove them of their “flesh” (Col. 2:9-12).

Moses (the “Old Covenant”):  This is not an easy discussion!  Let’s first lay out some considerations:

1.  Jeremiah’s prophecy of the NC stresses contrast with and discontinuity from the OC (Jer. 31:34).  The New will not be like the Old, which Israel had broken.[1] 

2.  Jesus insisted that He came not to abolish, but to fulfill the Law (Matt. 5:17-20).  Since Jesus (and Paul) took issue with the Law, they faced suspicion, insinuation, or outright accusation that they were playing liberal with the Law, allowing or even encouraging immorality among God’s people.  However, both insist that their teaching is more stringent, not less. Jesus meant that He came to uphold the same ethical, moral, and holiness considerations that drive much of God’s Old Covenant Law; He certainly was not an “anything goes” teacher!  Thus, He would “fulfill” the true purpose of the Law (which actually had failed under the OC), as opposed to just “abolishing” the Law outright.  Thus, this saying does not rule out abolishing the OC, but merely insists on upholding its holiness and morality—even after the OC is abandoned.

3.  Jesus took away the Law, “nailing it to the Cross” (Col. 2:14)[2].  The difficulty here is deciding whether this marked the termination of the authority of the Law for everyone, or whether Jewish Christians who were “crucified with Christ” (as Paul declared of himself) thus experienced a “personal” end of the Law.  See Rom. 7:1-6, 8:1-4, 10      :4 and Gal. 2:19-20, 3:21-25.  In Paul’s thinking (see Col. 2:11-13), dying with Christ also brought the end of the “flesh” as the spiritual control of one’s life (the opposite of this was living by the Holy Spirit).  So, being baptized into Christ for a Jewish man may well have spelled the end of the Law’s condemning authority over him, but the Law may not yet have been abolished for everyone.

4.  Hebrews gives the most extensive treatment to the relationship of the two covenants—the New certainly is superseding the Old, but (at the time of writing, before 70 AD) it was not gone yet.  After quoting Jeremiah’s prophecy of a New Covenant, we read, “By calling this covenant "new," he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear” (8:13).  By His appearing and death on the Cross, Jesus had made the OC obsolete—only a fool would consider the choice and opt to remain in the Old[3].  Still, the Old is not yet dead, but is “aging [and] will soon disappear.”[4]  This was written before 70 AD. 

5. Jesus forewarned of a final judgment against the nation of Israel (see Mark 13, Matthew 24, and Luke 21), including the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.  This judgment fell in 70 AD, and may be understood as God’s final dealings with Israel as His chosen nation.  One could even understand a judgment falling first on Pentecost (the “baptism in the Holy Spirit”) and lasting through the destruction of Jerusalem.  From Jesus’ Cross until 70 AD, both covenants were in force and overlapped for a generation.  Thus, from the time of John the Baptist until Jerusalem was destroyed, the Kingdom was preached with New Covenant implications, and this final generation of OC Jews was given opportunity to leave Judaism and to be baptized into Christ.

6.  The Twelve Apostles were promised to one day occupy “thrones” from which they would judge the nation of Israel (Matthew 19:28; Luke 22:29-30).  Their role is apparently to distinguish between true and false Jews, based on their responsibility to follow God’s direction from OC to NC.  Paul’s long discussion of the distinction between true and false Jew in Romans 9-11, and his earlier discussion of spiritual failure among Jews (Rom. 2:17-29), indicate the lines of judgment.

Levi:  The priesthood had been given to the Aaronic clan of the tribe of Levi (Ex. 40:15; Num. 25:10-13; Neh. 13:29; Jer. 33:20-22), while the Levites were privileged to handle the sacred objects in Jewish religion.  As the OT era came to an end, God voiced His desire to continue the Levitical priesthood covenant, but noted serious lapses in faithfulness among priests (Mal. 2:1-9).  Yet this covenant of priesthood was considered broken and annulled, having failed its purpose.  God instead resumed the priesthood of Melchizedek in Jesus (Heb. 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:1-17).  Also, the OC order of a representative, limited priesthood gave way to a “priesthood of all Christian believers” (1 Peter. 2:5, 9). 

David:  The dynasty of David was punished for faithlessness among the kings of David’s dynasty.  Still, God’s covenant with David continued and His faithfulness to the promise to an eternal dynasty remained true.  The punishment was severe, bringing Israel under the authority of a gentile, pagan throne for some six centuries.  Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and then Rome ruled over God’s people, but the promise remained.  Finally, Jesus was born the “king of the Jews”, the “son of David.”  After enduring the Cross and being resurrected, Jesus ascended into heaven and took his place on the throne of God (Acts 2:29-36).  Jesus now reigns not only over Israel, His reign far surpasses anything known by David and his dynasty—Jesus is now “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14, 19:16).

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1The obligations binding under the OC were binding ONLY upon those who were partners to this covenant—i.e. Jewish people!  So while a Jew converting to Christianity might question whether the Law retained continuing authority over him, this is a total non-issue for Gentiles who were never under the OC.

[2] Many commentators deny that “the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us” was actually the Law, suggesting instead that it is some record of our sins.  Of course, Seventh Day Adventists have a special contention here, not wanting to find anything that would abolish their Sabbath worship.  The parallel in Eph. 2:14-16, however, makes this identification with the Law certain.

[3] In Gal. 4:21-31, Paul allegorizes the OC as “Hagar” and the NC as “Sarah”, with the implication that the OC binds one in slavery while the NC in Christ brings liberation and freedom.  Earlier in the same epistle, Paul insisted that the true purpose of the Law was to be a “tutor” or “disciplinarian” providing guidance to Christ and make attachment to Him the obvious choice (3:21-29).

[4] This notion of the OC enduring even after the Cross is also found in 2 Cor. 3, where Paul insists on the greater glory of the NC, yet never actually declares the OC to have been abolished.  Instead, he refers to the OC as “that which fades away” (3:11).  It is fading, but apparently not gone yet.