The Mosaic Covenant and Beyond

Exodus 6:2-8. God also said to Moses, "I am the LORD. 3 I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty,... I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they lived as aliens. 5 Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

6 "Therefore, say to the Israelites: 'I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. 7 I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. 8 And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.' "

Exodus 19:3-6. Then Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain and said, "This is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you are to tell the people of Israel: 4 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."

I ended the last post with the suggestion that anyone reading the posts should try to use the categories for understanding covenants by applying them to the Mosaic Covenant. Kevin did such a great job I thought I would stick them at the beginning of this post.

Parties: Between God and Israel (house of Jacob and sons of Israel). (Exodus 19:3)
Conditions: Exodus 19:5 "...if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant..."
Promise: continuing verse 5 "...then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine."
Purpose: Exodus 19:6 "...and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation..."
Verse 6, in my short-study opinion, is meant to reflect the breadth of what this covenant should mean to the nation of Israel. If they were to be a kingdom of priests, one would wonder to whom? Just as a priest was a mediator between God and the nation of Israel, so too was Israel by existing as the nation who brought forth the great mediator between God and the rest of mankind - Jesus Christ.

Through the Mosaic covenant, we have the promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Israel) extended to the entirety of their descendants. The parties of the covenant are God and the people of Israel. Because of this, the promise of bringing them into the land promised to Abraham is repeated in the above passages. New to this situation is the promise that they would be a special possession of God. Although God rightly holds the deed to all of the earth, in his plan and purpose of redemption Israel would be His people like none else could claim to be. It is an exclusive relationship, and anyone who wanted to know and worship the true and living God had to in some sense enter in through what God would communicate through this special people.

One of the primary purposes for this covenant is revelation through the relationship of God to Israel. God was acting in history to communicate His nature and glory to a world that had lost all knowledge of Him. God's relationship to Israel would provide the context for him to reveal himself to a greater extent than the general revelation of the heavens which proclaim his glory. Think how often in the Old Testament God proclaims that he will do something through His people so that the nations around them would know, "I am the Lord." God had left his fingerprints all over the created order, but now he was making a bolder, clearer declaration of His character by binding Himself by covenant with this people. Here we can understand what is meant by "kingdom of priests".

The implications of the above paragraph are incredible. It is God who has initiated the opportunity of relationship. He is the active party in our whole expedition of discovering who he is. Left to our own ability and reason alone we would be unable to know Him, and continue to form gods in our own image. We are not left in an Epistemological fog when it comes to questions about God. We can have knowledge of spiritual reality because God has cut through the fog and revealed himself in time and space. (More later on this)

The covenant carried with it the conditions of obeying his voice. The stipulations of the covenant called the Mosaic covenant can be found through the remainder of Exodus, as well as in Leviticus, Numbers, and repeated in Deuteronomy. We usually refer to these stipulations as Old Testament Laws, there are 611 or 613 of these stipulations 9depending on who is counting). A summary of these laws can be found in Exodus Chapter 20, you may know them as the ten commandments.

So, for homework. In what sense are we responsible to keep the ten commandments. Are we bound to obey all of them or at least some of them. What about the 613 commandments which they summarize? How do they apply to you and I?

'Old' Covenants

When Jesus used the term New Covenant he was not saying anything novel, but placing his life, ministry, and work in the flow of God's prophetic purpose for history and redemption. In essence, he was saying that the promise of God made through Jeremiah (Chapter 31) and Ezekiel (36) was being fulfilled in Him. He was the mediator of the New Covenant. It is often said that the God we meet in he Bible is a covenant making and covenant keeping God. It has been his modus operandi to make covenants that would fulfill his ultimate purposes in redemption. I will not attempt to cover all of them, but I want to look at a couple of the covenants found in the Old Testament. Whenever you look at covenants you should probably think about a couple of key things.

1. Who is the covenant being made with? Who are the parties involved?

2. What are the conditions of the covenant?

3. What promises do the parties make in the covenant?

4. What is the purpose of the covenant?

There may be other important aspects but these should help for now. So, how about the Abrahamic covenant found in the book of Genesis. In chapter 12 and 15 God makes some promises and solidifies a covenant with Abraham. The bottom line of the covenant is that through him, all the nations on the earth will be blessed. The Abrahamic covenant marks the period of time in God's revelation of history where he begins the plan of redemption. Ultimately Jesus would be the fulfillment of the blessing to all nations through Abraham, but the covenant itself has some specifics that should be note.

1. Parties: The covenant was in essence of promise of God to make Abraham a great nation from his offspring, give the people an incredibly central portion of the land in the known world.

2. Conditions: Intitially in Chapter 12 Abraham must go forth into a new land. Much of chapter fifteen is a dramatic display of the oath where God declares that he will take the oath for both sides, taking responsibility for the fulfillment Himself.

3. Promises: The promises are to multiply his offspring and eventually bring them into the land.

4 Purpose: The purpose is ultimately for God to bring his blessing to all nations through the people he has placed in this central role of time in and place.

So here is your homework... Use these four categories to understand the Mosaic covenant in the OT. I'll give you a hint, look in Exodus.

Covenants and Testaments

Covenants are all over the Bible. In fact many theologians would suggest that the idea of a covenant between God and mankind is the structural key to understanding the Bible. Sometimes God makes a covenant with a specific person, sometimes he makes a covenant with all of creation (like the rainbow after the flood), sometimes he makes a covenant with an entire nation and people. The covenants have specific purposes dependant on who they are made with and for what time. Either way, here are few things to keep in mind about covenants:

1. Covenants define a relationship and set commitments and expectations for the parties involved. They define the nature and guidelines of a particular relationship, how the relationship is established, and what the boundaries of the relationship are.

We understand this quite well in some modern situations. I have known of people who when selling a portion of their land, made a covenant to secure the relationship of their new neighboring owner. They did not want to sell and then find out that the owner would subdivide the land or put in a used car lot. The covenant defined how the two neighbors would relate to one another and what the expectations were for one another

2. Covenants usually involve some sort of oath or ceremonial swearing of commitment.

3. Covenants usually have some detailed stipulations.

Now let's end our brief little lesson with an observation about the Bible. It is organized around two major covenants. For sake of simplicity (and because God called one of them "New") they are called The Old Covenant and The New Covenant. Now some of you are thinking, "I thought it was called the Old Testament and the New Testament?" You are exactly right!. The two words are synonyms in English and share the same word in Greek.

So, for your homework. In Luke 22:20, it says the following, "In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."
Wow, a new covenant!. Was Jesus the first person to use this language or not?

Of Old and New Wineskins

Recent events in my life have made me aware of a door of attack used by false teachers to disquiet the hearts of believers and draw them into false teaching and all sorts of wierd practices. The door of attack is the lack of understanding about how the Old Testament relates to New Testament believers. When I was an undergrad at Liberty I had a Thesis project to do for a program I was in and as a Biblical Studies major, this was my topic of choice. It's a subject that fascinates me and I need to revisit occasionally to remember just how important it is. Over the next few weeks I am going to pick some topics within this study to write about.

The next post will deal with the question, what is a covenant?