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The Mosaic
Covenant was established by God with the
people of Israel at Mount Sinai after he led
them out of slavery in Egypt (Exod. 19-24).
With it, God supplied the Law that was meant
to govern and shape the people of Israel in
the Promised Land. The Ten Commandments with the sign of the Sabbath formed
the basis for the rest of the 613 laws in
the covenant. God gave this law to
distinguish the nation of Israel from the
surrounding nations as His special kingdom
of priests and His holy nation (Exod. 19:1-7). The
covenant was conditional and had either
blessings or curses based on Israel’s obedience
to the covenant laid out in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28-29. The
Israelites were required to obey all of God’s
laws
and in return God promised to protect and
bless them (Exod. 19-24; Deut. 30:15-18;
1 Sam. 12:14-15).
Galatians 3:10 says,
“For all who rely on works of the law are
under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be
everyone who does not abide by all things
written in the Book of the Law, and do
them.’” (cf. Deut. 27:26; Rom. 10:5; James 2:8-10).
The word
“law” is used here to describe the entire Mosaic Covenant. The New
Testament writers use this expression for
the entire legal code that God made with Israel after the exodus.
The Ten
Commandments, or Ten Words, served as the framework for the
rest of the laws in the covenant.
Exodus 34:27-28 says, “Then the
Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words,
for in accordance with these words I have
made a covenant with you and with Israel.”
So he was there with the Lord forty days and
forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink
water. And he wrote on the tablets the words
of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.”
And Deuteronomy 4:13 says, “So He declared to
you His covenant which He commanded you to
perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and
He wrote them on two tablets of stone.”
No one had this set of laws
prior to God giving them to Israel on Mount
Sinai.
Deuteronomy 5:2-3
says, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us
at Horeb. The Lord did not make this
covenant with our fathers, but with us, with
all those of us alive here today.”
The Sabbath was unique to Israel.
Nehemiah tells us that the
Sabbath was made known to Israel after the
exodus. The Sabbath was not
given to anyone to be kept as a day of rest until it was given to Israel in the
wilderness.
Nehemiah 9:13-14 says, “You
came down on Mount Sinai and spoke with them
from heaven and gave them right rules and
true laws, good statutes and commandments,
and you made known to them your holy Sabbath
and commanded them commandments and statutes
and a law by Moses your servant.”
The entire Old Covenant was made
obsolete by the New Covenant.
Hebrews 8:13 says,
“In
speaking of a new covenant, he makes the
first one obsolete. And what is becoming
obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish
away.”
Notice the temporary
nature of the Old Covenant:
• The law
was weak, useless and made nothing
perfect (Heb. 7:18-19).
• God
found fault with the Old Covenant
and created a better covenant,
enacted on better promises (Heb. 8:7-8).
• The Old
Covenant is obsolete, growing old
and ready to vanish away (Heb. 8:13). [The book of Hebrews was
written before the destruction of
Jerusalem in A.D. 70.]
• The Law
was only a shadow of the good things
to come and can never make someone
perfect (Heb. 10:1). |
Each covenant is a standalone, legal
contract unless otherwise stated. Each
covenant has its own set of rules and
regulations.
God’s laws
change according to the covenant you live
under. Look at how the New Testament
describes the end of the Old Covenant Law
(including the Ten Commandments):
• The Law imprisoned us
(Gal. 3:19),
• The Law was only a
guardian until Christ came (Gal. 3:24-25),
• The Law was a yoke too
hard to bear (Acts 15:10-11; Gal. 5:1-4),
• We have died to the law
through the body of Christ (Rom. 7:4),
• The Law arouses our sinful passions
(Rom. 7:5),
• The Law produces fruit
that leads to death (Rom. 7:5),
• We
have been released from the law (Rom. 7:6),
• The Law was the
Ten Commandment
law (Rom. 7:7),
• The Law increases sin
which produces death (Rom. 7:8),
• The
Law has come to an end (Rom. 10:4),
•
The letter of the Law kills (2 Cor. 3:6),
• The Law was a ministry of death
(2 Cor. 3:7),
• The Law was a
ministry of condemnation (2 Cor. 3:9),
• The Law had no glory at all (2 Cor. 3:10),
• The Law was brought
to an end (2 Cor. 3:11),
• The
Law had to change (Heb. 7:12),
• The
Law was set aside (Heb. 7:18),
• The
Law is obsolete (Heb. 8:13),
• The
obsolete Law includes the Ten Commandments
(Heb. 9:1, 4),
• The Law was done away
with in place of the New Covenant (Heb. 10:9). |
God had different laws for
each covenant. That’s just how covenants
work. Each covenant has its own set of
rules, regulations, and laws.
Many things from the Old Covenant Law
have clearly changed. Because of Israel's
unfaithfulness, God said He would bring
their Sabbaths to an end (Isa. 1:13;
Lam. 2:6; Hos. 2:11), and the New Covenant
clearly says that the Sabbath, along with all the
other ceremonial requirements of the Old
Covenant Law have come to an end (Acts 15:1-20; Col. 2:13-17;
Eph. 2:13-16; Gal. 4:10-11; Rom. 14:5-12).
Under the New Covenant,
where is anyone commanded to keep:
•
The seventh day Sabbath?
•
Circumcision?
•
The dietary restrictions
and the cleanliness laws?
•
New
moons celebrations?
•
Holy Days?
•
Annual
Feasts?
•
The Levitical Priesthood?
•
Animal
sacrifices? |
Each covenant is a
new legal contract. A contract must have all
of its legal requirements clearly defined in the
contract. Each covenant in the Bible can use
elements from previous covenants, reapply
them, or omit them completely and give
totally new laws.
Jesus
gave His church the New Covenant to live by
in place of the Old Covenant law.
John 1:17 says, “For
the law was given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ.”
Hebrews 7:22 says, “This makes Jesus the
guarantor of a better covenant.”
Hebrews 8:6-7 says, “But as it is, Christ has
obtained a ministry that is as much more
excellent than the old as the covenant he
mediates is better, since it is enacted on
better promises. For if that first covenant
had been faultless, there would have been no
occasion to look for a second.”
Hebrews 12:24 says, “and to Jesus, the
mediator of a new covenant, and to the
sprinkled blood that speaks a better word
than the blood of Abel.”
Hebrews 13:20
says, “Now may the God of peace who brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the
great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of
the eternal covenant.”
The Old
Covenant was not
eternal.
Unlike the Mosaic Covenant
that was made with Israel alone (Exod. 19-24), the New
Covenant is made up of people from every
nation, tongue, and people on earth who accept Jesus
Christ as their Lord and Savior (Gal. 3:28;
Eph. 2:11-22; Matt. 28:18-20;
Isa. 9:6; Rom. 10:9; Luke 2:11; 19:10;
1 Tim. 1:15; 4:10; Acts 13:23; Titus 2:13;
1 Jn. 4:14).
The New
Covenant that Christ gave us has its own
legal code, the law of Christ.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23 says, “For though I am free from
all, I have made myself a servant to all,
that I might win more of them. To the Jews I
became as a Jew, in order to win Jews.
To
those under the law I became as one under
the law (though not being myself under the
law) that I might win those under the law.
To those outside the law I became as one
outside the law (not being outside the law
of God but under the law of Christ) that I
might win those outside the law. To the weak
I became weak, that I might win the weak. I
have become all things to all people, that
by all means I might save some. I do it all
for the sake of the gospel, that I may share
with them in its blessings.”
Paul was
not being hypocritical, he was saying that
he adopted certain Jewish customs when he
was among the Jews (something only a
circumcised Jew could do), even
though he was not under the Old Covenant law
anymore; and that he adopted some of the
customs of the Gentiles when he was with
them so he could win as many people as possible to
Christ. Then he went on to say that he is
not without a law to live by, because he was
under the New Covenant, “law of Christ” which is the law
of love (cf. Gal. 6:2).
Christ freed
us from the bondage of the hundreds of
commands in the Old Testament Law and
instead calls on us to love. 1 John 4:7-8
says, “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 Paul said in
Romans 13:8-10, “Owe no one anything, except
to love each other, for the one who loves
another has fulfilled the law. For the
commandments, “You shall not commit
adultery, You shall not murder, You shall
not steal, You shall not covet,” and any
other commandment, are summed up in this
word: “You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor;
therefore love is the fulfilling of the
law.”
Christians are
ministers of the New Covenant, not the old.
2 Corinthians 3:4-6 says, “Such is the
confidence that we have through Christ
toward God. Not that we are sufficient in
ourselves to claim anything as coming from
us, but our sufficiency is from God, who 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.”
Why would anyone want to go back and try to
live by the Old Covenant Law when we can have
Christ Jesus as our guide?
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 says, “From now on,
therefore, we regard no one according to the
flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ
according to the flesh, we regard him thus
no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ, he is a new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come. All
this is from God, who through Christ
reconciled us to himself and gave us the
ministry of reconciliation; that is, in
Christ God was reconciling the world to
himself, not counting their trespasses
against them, and entrusting to us the
message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are
ambassadors for Christ, God making his
appeal through us. We implore you on behalf
of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our
sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin,
so that in him we might become the
righteousness of God.”
All of the
laws in the Old Covenant have come to an
end. The
New Covenant of Jesus Christ is a better covenant than the Old
Covenant was in every possible way.
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