Covenant similarities

[B-A-C]

There were quite a few covenants talked about in the Old testament..
So many that it seems when you do a "google" search on old testament covenants
you get a dozen different answers, and very few of them agree with each other.
Some talk about the Noahic covenant, or Abrahamic covenant, or Davidic covenant
or something along those lines... but what is "THE" old covenant? The one
that the Bible is talking about in 2 Cor 3:14; and Heb 9:15-18;

We get some hints some the New Testament...
2 Cor 3:14; talks about the old covenant.
Heb 8:7-9; talks about the old covenant also. But it says that Israel broke that
covenant ( Heb 9:9; )

The old covenant "had regulations of divine worship" ( Heb 9:1; )

One very powerful verse about the old covenant ( Heb 9:15; ) says that "the redemption
of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant"...

wow!! Even the people who followed the law (as best they could) had redemptions
of the transgressions (sins) that were committed under the first covenant!

The Old covenant required an inauguration of blood to take effect. ( Heb 9:18-22; )
When did this happen? ( Exod 24:5-8; )

What was this "book of the covenant" mentioned in those verses? ( Exod 24:7; )
Four verses earlier it says Moses told the people all the words of the Lord and all the
ordinances (laws).. and all the people said "All the words which the LORD has spoken
we will do". Hmmm... what were the words that the Lord had spoken?
The previous 4 chapters tell us. Exod 20 through 23. Basically this was the law,
the ten commandments and more. The commandments of God were the covenant.
The Law was the covenant.

In fact what did the ark of the covenant have in it? An ark is just a chest, a container
that protected the contents.. (even Noah's ark was built to protect the contents)
It wasn't the container (the ark) that made it Holy.. it was what was inside that made
it Holy... what was inside the ark of the covenant.. The covenant was inside.
OK.. that's great... what was the covenant... the Law. The stone tablets that God
wrote the 10 commandments on were what was inside the ark of the covenant ( Exod 25:22; )

The original stone tablets were broken by Moses.. so God made some new ones, but they
had the same commandments as the old ones. ( Deut 10:1-5; )

When James is speaking of "whoever keeps the whle law, and yet stumbles on one point"
what law is he talking about? The commandments ( the very next verse ( James 2:11; )
is an example of one of those commandnments.

Rom 8:3;

Paul says the law is what shows us what sin is. 1 Cor 15:56; Rom 7:7; )
In fact he says without the law, I wouldn't have known what sin was.
Sin is simply breaking the laws of God. We all have done it, we all still do it
sometimes.

Even in the old testament times, people could not keep the law. People sinned back then also.
However the law says if you sin, you have to die. ( Ezek 18:4; Ezek 18:20; etc.. )
So what did they do about that? God had an answer for that also.

.... to be continued ... priests and sacrifice.. the old testament answer.

 

[B-A-C]

... off on a tangent, for just a second...

So we have three timelines about the covenant here.
Before the first covenant... the people that were alive before Moses received the commandments.
What happened to them? Rom 5:14; doesn't paint a very good picture for them.

Then we have the timeline of the old covenant.. After Moses received the commandments
until the time Jesus was crucified.

Now we have the timeline of the new covenant. From when Jesus rose from the dead until His
second coming.

Was no one saved under the covenant of the law? Well it was difficult, but obviously some people were.
Hebrews 11 has a pretty good list of some of these people. I'm sure these weren't the only ones.

... back to our originally scheduled programming... priests and sacrifices...

 

[Dovegiven]

... off on a tangent, for just a second...

So we have three timelines about the covenant here.
Before the first covenant... the people that were alive before Moses received the commandments.
What happened to them? Rom 5:14; doesn't paint a very good picture for them.

Then we have the timeline of the old covenant.. After Moses received the commandments
until the time Jesus was crucified.

Now we have the timeline of the new covenant. From when Jesus rose from the dead until His
second coming.

Was no one saved under the covenant of the law? Well it was difficult, but obviously some people were.
Hebrews 11 has a pretty good list of some of these people. I'm sure these weren't the only ones.

... back to our originally scheduled programming... priests and sacrifices...

In Adam's day there wasn't such a bunch of sins requiring laws to make them sins. Cain was punished for murder, not yet a sin. Just living
under the imputed sin of Adam was tough enough. Seeing the Garden closed off by angels would have been hard to bear.
Since then all sons of Adam have suffered from that one sin of Adam, which was made sin when God commanded him not to disobey that one commandment.
It might be there are people who had very few commandments were able to obey those few, while never committing Adam's particular sin. Well, nobody
could anyway since none had access to that tree in the middle of the garden.

As sin increased in the world, so did God's commandments increase (were added), along with more grace. Then in Moses' day came the huge body of
commandments. Before that were, still in effect today, the Adamic/Edenic covenant, Noahic covenant, and Abrahamic covenant, all directly applicable to every
human on earth, the earth itself., Jews and Gentiles alike.

 

[B-A-C]

So now we see that the law was the covenant.
Breaking the covenant caused death. Eternal life.. resurrection
of the dead was known even in the old Testament.
Obviously no one wanted to die.. so it's interesting, about the same
time God gives the commission of the 10 commandments to Moses, he gives the
commission of the priesthood to Aaron. Now we have something called sin sacrifice.

There was something called a "scapegoat". It wasn't very humane, but it was somewhat
effective. The scapegoat was an animal that died in your place. In effect the innocent
animal paid the price for your sins and died for you.

Lev 4:26; talks about the sin sacrifice, the priest makes atonement in regard to
the persons sin and they are forgiven. ( Lev 4:25; Lev 7:37; Lev 23:19; etc.. )

Depending on what kind of sin you did, different types of animals were chosen to be
sacrificed. Lev 1:10; mentions a goat, also see Lev 3:12; 4:23; Lev 4:28; etc..
The priest is the one actually doing the sacrifice. Lev 4:23-24;
A lamb could also be sacrificed... Exod 12:5; Exod 29:38-41; Lev 3:7; Lev 3:32-35; etc...

An entire economy was built up around this animal sacrifice. There were livestock raised
for the sole purpose of being sacrificed. (this coninued even into Jesus' time).
These animals weren't cheap... if you sinned alot, you paid alot.

These couldn't just be any old animals either... they had to meet certain conditions.
They had to be "without defect" Lev 1:3; Lev 1:10; Lev 3:1; Lev 3:6; Lev 4:3; etc...
they could not be lame, or aged, or diseased, or have broken bones, they had to be
prime choice livestock. ( Deut 15:21; Malachi 1:8; etc... ) they couldn't even be blind.

If you couldn't afford a goat or a lamb, pigeons and turtledoves were acceptable.
Lev 5:7; Lev 1:14; Lev 5:11; Lev 12:8; etc...
pigeons and turtledoves were also used for atonement of women having children, to make
them clean ( Lev 12:6-8; ) Mary, the mother of Jesus still practiced this. ( Luke 2:24; )

But for big sins... a large expensive sacrifice was required. Bulls and Heifers.
(sometimes more than one!) even these animals had to be without blemish or spots.
Exod 29:1-14; Exod 29:36; Lev 1:5; Lev 4:3-20; etc...

It is estimated that some of those animals were the equivalent of a couple of months wages.
It even got to the point, that by the time Jesus was on the earth... these sacrifice animal
handlers were selling them in the temple. ( Matt 21:12; Mark 11:15; Luke 19:45; )

In practice you confessed your sins to the priest, who then decided what animal you needed to sacrifice
for that particular sin. It wasn't a one time thing. If you sinned again, another sacrifice was needed.

I imagine being a priest in those days was much like being a butcher. A very bloody job.

.. once a year, the priests themselves had to confess and sacrifice to the high-priest, who entered
a place called the Holy of Holies. ( Exod 26:33-34; 2 Chron 3:8-10; etc... ) He was the only person
allowed in there. This isn't in the Bible, but tradition says they tied a rope around the high
priests ankles before he entered the Holy of Holies, so in case he wasn't pure enough before God
and God decided to strike him down, they could pull his body out of there without having to enter in.

... to be continued ...

 

[B-A-C]

so... OK.. that was the "old" covenant.. it doesn't apply to me anymore. We are under the "new" covenant
so why should I learn about all this Old testament/old covenant stuff?

I personally believe that you can't really understand the new covenant unless you understand the old covenant.

For example... even under the new covenant...
There is still something called sin...
There is still a price for sin (death)...
There is still a sacrifice required for our sins... (in this case the "innocent scapegoat" is a lamb)
There is still a high priest that we confess our sins to...

... but we don't have to go to an earthly priest who himself had sin.
... we don't have to sacrifice an animal anymore everytime we sin.
... we don't have to confess all our sins to a priest, but can confess directly to our high priest.
... we aren't prohibited from entering the Holy of Holies anymore.

... there are a few other similarities and differences, most of this is found in the book of Hebrews.
I hope to take the items listed above and match them up to scripture one by one...

 

[B-A-C]

With all this talk about sacrifice for sin in the old testament in mind...

Why is Jesus called "the Lamb of God"? ( John 1:29; John 1:36; Acts 8:32; 1 Pet 1:19; Rev 5:6-13; Rev 6:1-16; ...
in fact over 25 times in Revelation )

We often hear the phrase "Jesus died for my sins". But why did He have to be sacrificed? ( 1 Cor 5:7; Eph 5:2; Heb 7:27;
Heb 9:26; Heb 10:12; )

Rom 3:23; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Rom 3:24; being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus
Rom 3:25; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate
His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;

"a gift by His grace"....
We often hear... we are saved by grace.... who is Grace, and why did she save me?
Grace is an undeserved gift. A free or unmerited (undeserved) favor.
Well what was the gift... and who gave it to us?

The gift was His blood, his death, his punishment on the cross... for our sins. For my sins, for your sins.

Rom 6:23; For the price of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Just like in the old testament... every time they sinned... another animal had to be sacrificed.
Every time we sin, grace has to increase. ( Rom 6:1; )

This is amazing grace.

 

[B-A-C]

Rev 5: 4-7; Then I began to weep greatly because no one was found worthy to open the book or to look into it; and one of the elders *said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has overcome so as to open the book and its seven seals.”
And I saw between the throne (with the four living creatures) and the elders a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. And He came and took the book out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne.

Rev 5:11-12; Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing.”