Series - Covenants

The Mosaic Covenant & Other Covenants

Wed, 03/01/2017 - 12:00am

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The Mosaic Covenant as a Historical Placeholder for Other Covenants

If the commandments in the “Ten Words” on Sinai (Exod. 20) and all those that followed in their train were too stringent for a fallen people to keep, at least the covenant God made with Israel, and which they voluntarily entered into (in Exod. 24), distinguished them among the other nations of the world. It did this to the extent that they were preserved as a distinct people in continuity with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.1

Just as the Noahic covenant guarantees the perpetuation of the regulation and predictability of the rhythms of nature, thereby creating the stage of history for God’s program to play out upon, the Mosaic covenant acts to set the covenants with David and Phinehas within a theocratic outlook—even if both of these covenants transcend the temporary “old covenant” and are embraced by the coming New covenant. Another way to say this is to imagine the people of Israel as connecting the Mosaic covenant to the New covenant brought upon Israel at Christ’s return (Isa. 61:2b-3; Jer. 31:31-37); a covenant that supersedes the old one, but without morphing the promises God made out of all recognition. Read more about The Mosaic Covenant & Other Covenants

Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 3

Fri, 02/10/2017 - 12:00am

(Continued excerpts from the book-in-progress. Read the series so far.)

The Relationship between the Abrahamic & Mosaic Covenants

The covenant with Abraham was, as we have seen, the source from which the people of Israel were created. But a people without a land can never truly be a nation, and Yahweh had promised that very thing (Gen. 12:2; 17:20; 21:18; 46:3; 48:4. cf. Deut. 7:6-8). A nation’s identity is tied to its surroundings; the familiar topography which is recalled in its literature, poetry and songs (e.g. Psa. 137:1-6). So God promised a specific territory to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for an everlasting possession (e.g. Exod. 32:13). In fact, the last mention of Abraham in Genesis is in tandem with Isaac and Jacob and the land (Gen. 50:24). There was an oath-based guarantee of Israel-in-the-land in existence hundreds of years before Moses brought the people to Sinai. Read more about Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 3

Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 2

Wed, 02/01/2017 - 12:00am

Detail from Moses with the Ten Commandments (Rembrandt, 1659)

(Continued excerpts from the book-in-progress. Read the series so far.)

Relationship

The covenant Lord comes to establish a relationship. This relationship is not yet predicated upon the finished work of Christ at Calvary, so the judicial element demands law. Still, it also entails the fact that the God of the Law is the God also of grace. If He were not, there would be no hope of relationship and the covenantal purposes of God would be reduced to futility.

The laws found in Exodus through to Deuteronomy are given, for the most part, to restrain Israel’s sin and to proclaim an ethics of human value, regardless of social status, and of the unity of communal life.1 The commandments can be summed up in two: Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18.2 Read more about Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 2

Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 1

Wed, 01/25/2017 - 12:00am

Detail from Moses with the Ten Commandments (Rembrandt, 1659)

(Continued excerpts from the book-in-progress. Read the series so far.)

With the Book of Exodus we bid adieu to the Patriarchal period and are thrown into the misery of slavery and hopelessness. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are long dead. The covenant promise is all but a forlorn hope. Even Joseph’s eminence in Egypt has been forgotten; at least by those who matter. Genesis ends with a small tribe of “Israelites” leaving their homeland and descending in to Egypt.

Yet the first half of the Book of Exodus contains some of the most compelling narrative ever written. Exodus is a book about redemption. The redemption envisaged in the early chapters is predominantly a deliverance from servitude. Many who came through the waters were not saved spiritually, as the incident with the golden calf (Exod. 32) proved. Read more about Exodus & The Mosaic Covenant, Part 1

Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 8)

Mon, 01/02/2017 - 12:00am

Isaac Blessing Jacob - Govert Flinck, c. 1638

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Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob (Parts 2 & 3)

The sequel has Isaac making a pact with Abimelech after which the God of Providence gave him water. Since there had been quarreling over water sources the conflict was resolved by covenant (cf. Heb. 6:16), Isaac named the new place “Beersheba,” meaning “well of the oath.” God’s blessing came in conjunction with an oath which was clearly understood by both sides. The chapter ends by noticing Esau’s marriage to two pagan wives and the grief it caused to his parents. Notwithstanding, when it came time for the aged patriarch to pass on the mantle, his intention was to give it to Esau (27:1-4). It was only the subtlety of his brother, with the collusion of his mother, that prevented Isaac’s wishes from becoming a reality (27:11f.). Read more about Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 8)

Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 7)

Wed, 12/14/2016 - 12:00am

Isaac Blessing Jacob - Govert Flinck, c. 1638

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Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob (Part 1)

After Abraham

Having arrived at the crux of Abraham’s saga, which is the test of his faith as recorded in the twenty-second chapter, the story of Genesis moves to the death of Sarah and the purchase of a gravesite for her. Abraham bought the burial ground and the cave of Machpelah because although he had wealth, he was never a recipient of the land itself (cf. Gen. 37:1).

When the covenant was being solemnized God had told His servant he would go to his Fathers in peace, and his posterity would only claim the land after spending four hundred years in Egypt (Gen. 15:13-16, 18). This is the reason Abraham “waited for a city … whose builder and maker is God” (Heb. 11:10). He knew that he himself would not own the land of promise. Genesis 25:7-10 records Abraham’s death and burial. Read more about Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 7)

Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 6)

Wed, 11/30/2016 - 12:00am

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Abraham’s Temptation to Spiritualize?

With Abraham on Mt. Moriah

When we come to Genesis 22 we arrive at one of the key events in the Bible; the offering of Isaac, the son of promise to the Promiser. The retelling of this story by Kierkegaard in his book Fear and Trembling poses the question of how Abraham could possibly have justified his actions to himself or to his son. The philosopher’s conclusion is that he could not. Neither in the three days’ journey and especially in the final moments before the intervention of God could he have been absolutely sure that it was God who commanded him. For what was commanded seemed to fly in the face of what God had so deliberately promised. But, as Kierkegaard so poignantly puts it, “Abraham is not what he is without this dread.”1 Read more about Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 6)

Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 5)

Fri, 11/11/2016 - 12:00am

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Problems with the Promise & Fulfillment Motif?

John Sailhamer is a critic of the common evangelical dogma that teaches a “promise-fulfillment” way of looking at the two Testaments, because by setting things up that way, the almost irresistible temptation will be to interpret the Old Testament through the lens of the New Testament, and in particular with the first coming of Christ culminating in the Gospel. Such an attitude threatens to turn the Old Testament, the Bible of Israel, and of Jesus and the Apostles, in to a book of colorful stories and sermon illustrations for New Testament preaching. 1

This might sound very good. As a matter of fact it does sound good to very many evangelicals. So good in fact, that it has often been assumed by pious minds as a natural implication of having a New Testament. But the “promise–fulfillment” idea so frequently recommended cries out for a bit of careful examination. The received wisdom is that we don’t start by reading through the OT to find its meaning, but that we begin by reading the NT, with emphasis on Paul’s Gospel, and we then interpret the OT through our understanding of the NT, especially our understanding of the work of Christ. Essentially what is being urged on us is the hermeneutical priority of the NT. Without the interpretive mindset we have gained from the NT, so the thinking goes, we are not in a position to rightly understand the OT. Hence, the OT is to be interpreted, not on its own merits, but by the NT. An earlier quote from Goldsworthy again makes this clear: Read more about Making a Covenant with Abraham (Part 5)

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