The two covenants
PROTECTED CONTENT
If you’re a current subscriber, log in below. If you would like to subscribe, please click the subscribe tab above.
Username and Password Help
Please enter your email and we will send you a password reset link.
Searching the Scriptures
David A. Bass, Rockford Church of Christ
According to II Timothy 3:16-17 “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God…” The Bible is our “rule book” (blueprint) by which we are to live. II Peter 1:3 reads, “According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness…”
One of the most important lessons to be learned regarding the Bible is the difference between the Old and New Testaments (II Timothy 2:15).
A failure to understand this distinction has led to many misconceptions and false ideas. Today, some totally ignore the Old Testament while others use it as the authority for their religious acts.
The Old Testament is truly a valuable part of God’s word. It should be read and studied. Paul wrote in Romans 15:4, “For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.”
In order to properly understand the New Testament we must have a working knowledge of the Old Testament. For example, we read in Luke 17:32, “Remember Lot’s wife.”
As we begin this study I would like to look at several things pertaining to a proper understanding of the Old and the New Testaments.
When was the law of Moses given? The O. T./Covenant was given at Mount Horeb/Sinai about 1,500 B.C. after the children of Israel had come out of Egyptian slavery. We read in Deuteronomy 5:1-3, “…and Moses called all Israel, and said unto them, Hear, O Israel, the statutes and judgments which I speak in your ears this day, that ye may learn them, and keep, and do them. 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.”
A covenant is: an agreement between two parties, equally binding on each party with conditions to be met and promises to be fulfilled. When used with reference to God, the Hebrew word suggests a type of covenant wherein one of the two parties had an overwhelming superiority over the other and could dictate his own terms.
It is vitally important to understand that God made this covenant with Israel and Israel only. Deuteronomy 5:3, “The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with us, even us, who are all of us here alive this day.”
He did not make it with their fathers; i.e., their ancestors such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; nor anyone else who had come before them. Nor did He make it with the Gentiles (all the other nations who were not present on that occasion). The O.T./Covenant was “unknown” until Mt. Sinai (Nehemiah 9:13-14).
This Covenant God made with Israel included the Ten Commandments listed in Exodus 20:1-17. In Deuteronomy 4:13 notice the following words, “covenant,” “10 commandments,” “two tables of stone” all refer to the same thing: “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.”
Look at Deuteronomy 9:9-10, “tables of stone,” “tables of the covenant,” “tables of stone written with the finger of God,” “all the words.” Here Moses said, “When I was gone up into the mount to receive the tables of stone, even the tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you, then I abode in the mount forty days and forty nights, I neither did eat bread nor drink water: and the Lord delivered unto me two tables of stone written with the finger of God; and on them was written according to all the words, which the Lord spake with you in the mount out of the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly.”
I Kings 8:9,21 “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt…(21) 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.”
Notice, there was “Nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone.” Yet, we are told that the “covenant of the Lord” was in the ark! Therefore, the “covenant” included the “ten commandments” that God made with Israel. We will continue this study next time.
Visit with us at the Rockford Church of Christ on Sunday morning for Bible study at 9:00 and worship at 10:00. We are located just down from the Dollar General on Highway 231. Search the Scriptures!
