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The Mosaic
Covenant was conditional and it's
continuation always depended
upon Israel’s faithfulness to the covenant.
The covenants in
the Bible fall into two basic categories,
conditional and unconditional. Conditional
covenants are based on certain obligations
and prerequisites; if the requirements are
not fulfilled, the covenant is broken.
Unconditional covenants are those that God
fulfills through His divine power alone and
are not based on man’s response. Each
covenant addressed specific people groups
and circumstances.
The Mosaic
Covenant was a conditional covenant
established by God with the people of Israel
alone at Mount Sinai after he led them out
of slavery in Egypt (Exod. 19; Lev. 26:46;
Rom. 9:4). The covenant was meant
to govern every area of life for the
people of Israel in the Promised Land. The
Law was never meant to be a means of
salvation but would distinguish the people
from the surrounding nations as God’s
special kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exod. 19:1-7; 24:3-8).
The covenant was structured
after a Hittite, suzerain-vassal covenant
treaty from 1400 - 1300 B.C. and it was
designed to bring Israel closer to realizing
the promises made by God in the Abrahamic
Covenant. The Mosaic Covenant had very
specific, blessings and curses laid out for
Israel in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-30.
Exodus 19:5-6 says,
“Now
therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice
and keep my covenant, you shall be my
treasured possession among all peoples, for
all the earth is mine; and you shall be to
me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
These are the words that you shall speak to
the people of Israel.”
Exodus 19-24
are key chapters to understanding both
redemptive history and the history of Israel
as a nation. As a conditional promise, the
Mosaic Covenant was dependent on the
peoples’ response to the laws God gave them
through His servant Moses.
Exodus 24:7 says,
“Then he took the Book of the
Covenant and read it in the hearing of the
people. And they said, “All that the LORD
has spoken we will do, and we will be
obedient.”
God told Moses that “if”
Israel obeys, they will be His chosen
people, His treasured possession.
Ultimately, those blessings were to be
extended to all other nations and people
on earth. One by one the nations would
unite with Israel in serving Yahweh,
Israel’s covenant keeping God (Isa. 2:2-3; 11:10; 14:1;
Isa. 19:18-22; 45:14; 55:5; Isa. 56:3-8; 60:1-12;
Jer. 3:17; 16:19; 33:9; Zech. 2:11; 8:20-23).
God
warned Israel repeatedly that they could
lose their special status as His covenant
people and be rejected if they were
unfaithful to the covenant.
Jeremiah 18:5-12 says,
“Then the word of the LORD came to me: “O
house of Israel, can I not do with you as
this potter has done? declares the LORD.
Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand,
so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If
at any time I declare concerning a nation or
a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break
down and destroy it, and if that nation,
concerning which I have spoken, turns from
its evil, I will relent of the disaster that
I intended to do to it. And if at any time I
declare concerning a nation or a kingdom
that I will build and plant it, and if it
does evil in my sight, not listening to my
voice, then I will relent of the good that I
had intended to do to it. Now, therefore,
say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants
of Jerusalem: ‘Thus says the LORD, Behold, I
am shaping disaster against you and devising
a plan against you. Return, every one from
his evil way, and amend your ways and your
deeds.’ “But they say, ‘That is in vain! We
will follow our own plans, and will every
one act according to the stubbornness of his
evil heart’” (cf. Jer. 12:14-17; 26:1-6;
Dan. 9:1-2; 9:26-27).
The people of
Israel had promised Moses they would do
everything God commanded them to do but failed miserably every
time.
Ultimately, Israel
broke their covenant with God and received
the curse of captivity.
The Babylonian exile was a period in the
history of ancient Israel that started with a two-stage deportation (597
and 587 B.C.), and ended with the conquest of
Babylon by the Persian king Cyrus the Great
in 538/537 B.C.
After Judah’s captivity in Babylon ended,
Israel was restored with territorial
boundaries and with the possibility to be
reestablished as God’s special,
covenant-keeping people (Deut. 30; Jer. 4:27; 5:18; 46:28;
Ne. 9:20-31), but Israel soon broke
the covenant
with God again and they received the final
curse, they were destroyed as a nation.
The Old Covenant was replaced by the
New Covenant.
Hebrews 8:8-9
says, “For he finds fault with them
when he says: “Behold, the days are coming,
declares the Lord, when I will establish a
new covenant with the house of Israel and
with the house of Judah, not like the
covenant that I made with their fathers on
the day when I took them by the hand to
bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For
they did not continue in my covenant, and
so
I showed no concern for them, declares the
Lord.”
The New
Covenant is not like the Old Covenant. It
involves a transformation of the inner life
of those who receive it by writing God’s New
Covenant laws into their minds and hearts so
that they can know him (Heb. 8:10-11; 9:9; 10:14-17); and unlike the
Old Covenant,
the New Covenant brings complete forgiveness
of sins for those who believe in Jesus
Christ by faith alone (Heb. 8:12; 9:15; 10:12-18).
The Kingdom was
forfeit when Israel rejected their Messiah!
John 1:11 says, “When the
appointed time came His people “received him
not.”
Three days before his
crucifixion, Jesus pronounced Heaven’s
verdict on Israel; the coming destruction of
the nation and its temple services.
Matthew 21:42-44 says, “Jesus said to them,
“Have you never read in the Scriptures:
“‘The stone that the builders rejected has
become the cornerstone; this was the Lord’s
doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’? Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God
will be taken away from you and given to a
people producing its fruits. And the one
who falls on this stone will be broken to
pieces; and when it falls on anyone, it will
crush him.”
Matthew 23:37-39 says, “O
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills
the prophets and stones those who are sent
to it! How often would I have gathered your
children together as a hen gathers her brood
under her wings, and you were not willing!
See, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me
again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who
comes in the name of the Lord.’”
When the Jews rejected Jesus as
their Messiah, God brought the Old Covenant
to an end and instituted the New Covenant
with people from every nation on earth.
Romans 9:30-33
says, “What shall we say, then? That
Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness
have attained it, that is, a righteousness
that is by faith; but that Israel who
pursued a law that would lead to
righteousness did not succeed in reaching
that law. Why? Because they did not pursue
it by faith, but as if it were based on
works. They have stumbled over the stumbling
stone, as it is written, “Behold, I am
laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a
rock of offense; and whoever believes in him
will not be put to shame.”
The book
of Romans says Israel believed the Law was a
means to salvation so when Christ came, they
didn’t recognize him as their Lord and
Savior.
When Jesus
established the New Covenant he removed the “dividing wall of hostility”
which was the Old Covenant.
Ephesians 2:14 says, “For he himself is our
peace, who has made us both one and has
broken down in his flesh the dividing wall
of hostility.”
In Christ we have a new state of
harmony and fellowship with God and one
another, Jews and Gentiles alike that was
never possible under the Mosaic Covenant.
Christ “made us both one” by creating a new
people from the two hostile camps
(Col. 3:15; John 17:20-21).
The “dividing wall” represented the Old
Covenant. There was an inscription on the
wall of the outer courtyard of the Jerusalem
temple warning Gentiles that they would only
have themselves to blame for their death if
they passed beyond it into the inner courts.
Paul’s allusion to the wall illustrates
Christ’s reconciliation of all people into
the family of God (Eph. 2:15; Col. 2:14, 20).
Ephesians 2:15 says, “by abolishing in his
flesh the law with its commandments and
regulations. His purpose was to create in
himself one new man out of the two, thus
making peace,”
(NIV)
The Law
that God gave to Israel was only temporary,
pointing forward to the eternal covenant
that God would establish with people from
every nation on earth. The commandments and
ordinances (or regulations) were the 613
laws of the Mosaic Covenant, which included
many commandments that served to separate
Israel from the other nations. Thus the law
was a “dividing wall” (Eph. 2:14) which
Christ has abolished and rendered powerless
both by fulfilling it and by removing
the law’s condemnation for believers (cf.
Matt. 5:17; Rom. 3:21, 22, 31; 8:1; Heb. 9:11-14; 10:1-10). Christ is our
righteousness; in Him, believers fulfill the
law through love. The result is a new human race under
the second Adam, re-created in the image of Christ (1 Cor. 15:45, 49; Eph. 4:24).
We are ministers of
the
New Covenant of Christ Jesus!
2 Corinthians 3:6 says,
Christ has “made
us sufficient to be ministers of a new
covenant, not of the letter but of the
Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit
gives life.”
Romans 10:11-13 says, “For
the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes
in him will not be put to shame.” For there
is no distinction between Jew and Greek; for
the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his
riches on all who call on him. For “everyone
who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved.”
And Galatians 5:1
says, “For freedom Christ has set
us free; stand firm therefore, and do not
submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Christ has given us freedom from the yoke of
the law (Matt. 11:28-30). The
“yoke of slavery” was the burden of the
rigorous demands of the law as the means for
gaining God’s favor and it proved to be an
intolerable burden for anyone who tried to
keep it (cf. Acts 15:10-11).
The Old Covenant Law has passed away.
Christians are no more required to keep the
seventh day Sabbath, or the dietary
restrictions, then they are required to be circumcised, or go to the temple to offer sacrifices for
their sins.
Christ has freed us from
the bondage of the hundreds of commands in
the Old Covenant and instead calls on us to
love.
1 John 4:7-8
declares, “Beloved, let us love one
another, for love is from God, and whoever
loves has been born of God and knows God.
Anyone who does not love does not know God,
because God is love.”
And 1 John 5:3
continues, “This is love for God: to obey
His commands. And His commands are not
burdensome.”
The only way we
can do what God asks us to do is by the
power of the Holy Spirit living inside us.
Romans 8:11 says, “If the Spirit of him who
raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he
who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will
also give life to your mortal bodies through
his Spirit who dwells in you.”
The
Holy Spirit gives life to our mortal
bodies. This is the
resurrection life (Phil. 3:10).
Because of the new birth, we are enabled by
faith to obey Christ in all things by the
power of the Holy Spirit living through us
(John 6:63; 14:17; Rom. 8:11; 2 Cor. 3:6; 1 Pet. 3:18).
The
Holy Spirit is God’s promise, or guarantee of
eternal life for all who believe in him. The
Spirit lives inside us when we put our faith
in Christ and
trust in Him. It is only by faith that we
can be certain to live with Christ forever
(see Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 6:14; 2 Cor. 4:14; 1 Thess. 4:14).
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the
assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen.”
Biblical faith is a confident trust in the
eternal God who is all-powerful, infinitely
wise, and eternally trustworthy. The God who
has revealed himself in his word and in the
person of Jesus Christ. He is the God who will
“never leave or forsake” his own (Heb. 13:5).
We are not saved by keeping the Law, we are
saved by exercising faith in the one who did. Jesus
Christ offers us a better way. We become
Christians through God’s unmerited favor,
not as the result of any effort, ability,
or act of service on our
part (Eph. 2:8-10). God’s intention is
that our salvation will result in acts of
service, not in order to be saved, but
because we are already saved.
1 John 5:4 says,
“For everyone who has been born
of God overcomes the world. And this is the
victory that has overcome the world—our
faith.”
Under the Old Covenant, man
had to struggle to try and obey God’s
commandments. Now, the Spirit of God lives
inside of us and He gives us the power to
obey him. Christians must stand firm in
the grace that God has given us and reject
every form of legalism. The entire Old
Covenant is obsolete and has passed away
(Gal. 3:1-6; 5:1-6; Acts 15:1-28; Heb. 8:6-9:4).
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