HOW TO LIVE FOREVER   PART SIX

Shortly after God had released the Israelites from Egypt, He made a binding agreement with them. The agreement is generally known as the Old Covenant:

“And He declared to you His Covenant which He commanded you to perform, the Ten Commandments. And He wrote them on two tablets of stone.” (Deuteronomy 4:13)

The Israelites had solemnly agreed to keep the covenant, but they broke it within weeks of making it.  Forty years later, Moses revealed at least one reason why the Israelites broke their agreement:

“Yet Jehovah has not given you a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, until today.” (Deuteronomy 29:4)

God had not given them a heart and mind to understand their obligations under the Old Covenant. They were not able to understand that their obligations, that is, keeping their obligations, would give them everything they desired in life.

The words of the Old Covenant, the Ten Commandments, would shepherd them into happiness, but they couldn’t see that.  Because God did not permit them to see that. In other words, God did not give them sufficient wisdom to perceive the wisdom in the words of the Agreement.

So they broke the Agreement, the Old Covenant, thus making opportunity and requirement for a New Covenant. Which of Course is what God intended from the start, else why did He “not give them a heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear.”?

So there would be another Covenant, a New Covenant. The words of the New Covenant would be the same, but this time God said:

“I will put My Laws into their mind and write them in their hearts.”

This time, the words of the Covenant would come with perception, understanding, and wisdom. That is, those who made the New Covenant with God would be given the wisdom to understand the wisdom in the words of the Covenant. God would uncover the New Covenant and make it plain to those who make it. As Isaiah puts it:

“And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering which covers all people, and the veil that is woven over all nations.” (Isaiah 25:7)

That was one aspect of God’s side of the New Covenant, that He would give people the spirit to understand the intent of the words of the New Covenant.

The other aspect of the New Covenant is that God would turn Satan’s ambitions into dust:

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." (Hebrews 8:12)

Satan brought sin and death into the world, with the intention to destroy all human beings. The New Covenant, through the Human Jesus, who was the Sacrifice that brought the New Covenant into force, removed death forever:

“He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from all faces. And He shall take away from all the earth the rebuke of His people. For Jehovah has spoken.” (Isaiah 25:8)

The two Agreements, the two Covenants, the Old and the New, are exactly the same. Both are the Ten Commandments. The difference is that someone who makes the New Agreement with God, the New Covenant, has their heart circumcised to understand the Covenant that they are making:

“And Jehovah your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your seed, to love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul, so that you may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:6)

The Old and the New Covenants are the same, but the additions to the Covenants are different. Additions? Yes.

When the Old Covenant was made between God and the Israelites, it was sufficient in itself, just as it was, and it needed nothing added. It was all the Israelites needed to have a proper relationship with God, and to have a good life.

Except the Israelites broke the Covenant almost immediately and shattered their relationship with God. So God added something to the Old Covenant in order to restore the Israelites’ relationship with Him. He added a system of sacrifices in order to cover their sin:

“For I did not speak to your fathers, nor command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices. But I commanded them this thing, saying, Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, so that it may be well with you. But they did not listen, nor bow their ear, but walked in their own plans, in the stubbornness of their evil heart, and went backward and not forward.” (Jeremiah 7:22-24)

The Old Covenant originally did not include sacrifices. Sacrifices were added to the Old Covenant in order to remedy the hardness of the Israelite heart. (Except, as we have seen the sacrifices were in fact no remedy):

“For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:4)

But even though they would be ineffective, sacrifices were added to the Old Covenant, which of course required a costly priesthood to perform the sacrifices. And with the priesthood came a whole edifice of rules and regulations.

So as well as the Covenant itself, the Israelites became bound by what would later be referred to as the Law.

But the New Covenant is completely different, because the New Covenant requires no remedy for sin. Because under the new Covenant God is able, through Jesus Christ, to overlook sin:

“For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities I will remember no more." (Hebrews 8:12)

And since the new Covenant requires no remedy for sin, the New Covenant requires no “law” to be added to it. The New Covenant doesn’t need a system of rituals and sacrifices. So there is no “law” attached to the New Covenant.

And since there is to be no system of rules and regulations attached to the New Covenant, the “Law” of the Old Covenant is not relevant to the New Covenant. The Old Covenant, and its additions, disappeared with the coming of the New Covenant. At least, it disappeared for those who have made the new Covenant:

“In that He says, A New Covenant, He has made the first one obsolete. Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13)

So what is called the law, the Old Covenant law, plays no part in the New Covenant.  And if we attempt to add the Old Covenant law to the New Covenant, we are no longer under the New Covenant. As Paul warned:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty with which Christ has made us free, and do not again be held with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say to you that if you are circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised, that he is a debtor to do all the Law, you who are justified by Law are deprived of all effect from Christ; you fell from grace.” (Galatians 5:1-4)

But this can be a little confusing. The Law is not the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is the Ten Commandments and the Law is what was added to the Old Covenant. Of course, to someone under the Old Covenant, the Law and the Covenant are virtually the same thing, because those under the Old Covenant are bound by both the Covenant itself and the Law.

The New Covenant is also the Ten Commandments, but there is no “law” added to it.

So to someone under the New Covenant, the Old Covenant Law is irrelevant. Under the New Covenant, an added priesthood and its sacrifices and laws aren’t necessary.

Because a priest is one who links God and humans, but those under the New Covenant are themselves priests, and have direct access to God without need of another priest. As Peter said:

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9)

We have seen that the Old Covenant was encumbered by the Law, but the New Covenant has no such encumbrance.

But there are things in God’s religion, under both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, which are not part of either Covenant but which are still required to be observed. Things which came before the Covenants, and things therefore that the Covenants did not bring. But things nevertheless which must be observed.

For example. In the early days of the Christian religion, there was a question such as we are discussing here. That is, does a Christian who is not an Israelite have to observe the “law” of the Old Covenant.

The Christian elders came to the conclusion that no, the Old Covenant “law” did not apply to new Christians.  But the elders did say that there was something in the Old Covenant “law” that new Christians had to observe:

“...but that we write to them that they should abstain from pollutions of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood.” (Acts 15:20)

Apart from the obvious requirement to avoid idols and fornication, the elders said to avoid eating animals which had been strangled and from eating blood. Why?

Because long before the Old or New Covenant, God had said:

“Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herb. But you shall not eat of flesh with the life in it, or the blood of it.” (Genesis 9:3-4)

God had said that humans must not eat blood, and therefore flesh for human consumption had to be slaughtered in such a way that the blood drained from it. (And of course a strangled animal still retained its blood.)

So the elders could not exempt new Christians from not eating blood, even though not eating blood was part of the Old Covenant law.  The elders could wipe away most of the Old Covenant law for new Christians, but they could not allow eating blood, because that was a rule from God which long preceded the Old Covenant.

So we see that there are requirements in God’s new religion which are not strictly part of the New Covenant. The Passover is another example, as are the other Feasts, and the rules about clean and unclean animals.  These things did not come through the Old or New Covenant, but are still  requirements of God’s religion.