2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
As I was writing yesterday, it occurred to me that God was leading me to discuss the continuity between the OT and NT as it relates to covenants. We all know that the old covenant of the OT would be replaced by a new and better Covenant of Grace with Christ’s death on the cross. However, it helps to look at the old covenant to understand the culture in which Jesus Christ was raised. God wanted the Jews to take these covenant agreements seriously, just as He wants us to do the same with our part in the Covenant of Grace today. His most basic reason for this is His eagerness to see as many people as possible saved from spiritual death. I PET 4: 17 helps to reveal why this should be so important to us. “The time has come for judgment to begin, and God’s own people are the first to be judged. If it starts with us, how will it end with those who do not believe the Good News from God?”
To begin, we need to go back the original covenant that was made between God and the Jews under Moses’ human leadership at the base of Mount Sinai fifty days after the first Passover. Today’s Jews, commemorate this giving of the Law as the festival of Shavuot, one which foreshadows our own commemoration of the giving of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost. Note that Pentecost occurs fifty days after Easter (the celebration of Christ’s resurrection). EX 24: 1-11 is the sealing of this covenant. “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Come up the mountain to Me, you and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu [Aaron’s sons who were also priests], and seventy of the leaders of Israel; and while you are still some distance away, bow down in worship. You alone, and none of the others, are to come near Me. The people are not even to come up the mountain.’ Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s commands and all the ordinances, and all the people answered together, ‘We will do everything that the Lord has said.’ Moses wrote down all the Lord’s commands. Early the next morning he built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he send young men, and they burned sacrifices to the Lord and sacrificed some cattle as fellowship offerings. Moses took half of the blood of the animals and put it in bowls; and the other half he threw against the altar. Then he took the book of the covenant, in which the Lord’s commands were written, and read it aloud to the people. They said, ‘We will obey the Lord and do everything He has commanded.’ Then Moses took the blood in the bowls and threw it on the people. He said, ‘This is the blood that seals the covenant which the Lord made with you when He gave all these commands.’ Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the leaders of Israel went up the mountain and they saw the God of Israel. Beneath His feet was what looked like a pavement of sapphire, as blue as the sky. God did not harm these leading men of Israel; they saw God, and then they ate and drank together.”
All of this ritual may seem to the modern reader rather laborious and even gross, but it had an important spiritual function. We must remember that these people never had the Law before this. RO 3: 26 speaks of God being patient and overlooking people’s sins, but dealing with them in the present time. This is revealing, because of the actual function of the Law as outlined in RO 7: 7, namely that the Law is what made people know what is sin and what isn’t. Before the giving of the Law, they had no way to know that. The issue of the blood is crucial because of what we learn in LV 17: 11 and HE 9: 22, “The life of every living thing is in the blood, and that is why the Lord has commanded that all blood be poured out on the altar to take away the people’s sins. Blood, which is life, takes away sins…Indeed according to the Law almost everything is purified by blood, and sins are forgiven only if blood is poured out.” In tomorrow’s message, we will look at how the issue of animal sacrifices is dealt with in sealing the new covenant, the Covenant of Grace, but for now let’s stay on the subject of the old covenant. It is interesting to note the description of God given in EX 24: 11 coincides with those given in EZK 1: 26 and REV 4. The continuity of the Scriptures in view of the times their God-inspired human writers lived could have only come from God. Ezekiel was writing between 593 and 560 BC during the Babylonian Captivity; the apostle John who wrote revelation was doing so in 98 AD while imprisoned on the isle of Patmos. You can be sure that Moses, Ezekiel and John never met each other until they were in heaven.
We are not wasting our time to view these citations in the overall context of covenant theology. This gives us a better understanding of the extent of God’s sovereignty, His will, and our responsibility to respond to it. The consistency of God’s teachings and His goals for us is there for the believer to see. The same is true of God’s compassion, patience, love, and righteousness. We must meditate on how this impacts our daily lives and how our decisions and actions should be affected by it.
PRAYER: O Lord, You have never asked us to do anything without a righteous reason. While sacrificing animals for their blood has been made unnecessary by Christ’s blood poured out for us on the cross, there was a reason for the animal sacrifices during ancient times. We marvel at the consistency of Your teachings, whether we are reading the OT or the NT. Because You are a God of infinite wisdom, You have given us a few important rules to live by and then shown us the consequences of living up to them and not doing so in the Scriptures. You have shown us many specific situations in the Bible to allow us to see how You interact with mankind and Your will with regard to keeping our covenants with You. We need to look at the good Your teachings practiced has brought to our human relationships, how much of Your work can be done through us, and the forwarding our own sanctification. In addition, we can see the road to spiritual and physical destruction that is opened by a lifestyle of sinfulness and rejection of You. Dearest Lord, we are blessed that we can turn to You for the guidance we need to keep our covenant agreements, knowing that You will never abandon us if we do so. We humbly offer You our worship, adoration, loyalty, trust, obedience, glory, honor, praise, and thanks. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, we will look at how the issue of animal sacrifices is dealt with in the NT and, if there is time, we will look at an example where the long-range consequences of keeping covenant agreements are crucial to the spiritual well-being of mankind. Throughout this study on covenants, we can see a pattern emerging of tough love, something like that which responsible parents must have for a habitually difficult child. I am virtually certain that mankind’s misbehavior has brought considerable pain to our Abba. Yet, He doesn’t give up on us, but keeps on doing whatever He can to bring as many people to His saving grace as possible. Of course, He has limits and must decide at times to reject an unrepentant habitual sinner. He wouldn’t be the righteous, just, and loving God that He is if He didn’t. But, He is eager to bless us and to give us every opportunity to be faithful, as His Son was. That kind of love is extended to each of us. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn