brakelite
Member
- Joined
- Jul 28, 2011
- Messages
- 873
You are quite correct DHC, and my former post was written poorly and gave an incorrect impression. Allow me to reconfigure my thoughts on this.Hello Brakelite.
Your reply was not correct, God did ask Israel to sign the covenant. A legal transaction was conducted
between God and the nation of Israel. Please read the following;
A 'covenant' is an agreement between two parties.
A 'mediator' is the one who negotiates between the two parties.
The 'contract' is a written or spoken agreement, legally enforceable by law.
Was the covenant that God established with Israel at Mt Sinai a legal covenant or contract?
Exodus 19
5 Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be
My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
6 and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that
you shall speak to the sons of Israel.
7 So Moses came and called the elders of the people, and set before them all these words
which the Lord had commanded him.
8 All the people answered together and said, All that the Lord has spoken we will do!
And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.
From the verses above there is a well defined contract between God and Israel.
The elders agreed to the terms of the covenant, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do!"
It is clear that the elders consented to the agreement with God. Then Moses returned to the Lord
with the people's consent. The contract or covenant has been established, Moses was the one who
conducted the negotiation.
All that remains now is to ratify the agreement between God and Israel.
God and Israel must sign the contract which will be enforceable in court.
Exodus 24
3 Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances;
and all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!
4 Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at
the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel.
5 He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord.
6 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
7 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!
8 So Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.
The covenant is now legal, formal consent by both parties has been reached.
This is now a covenant signed in blood, sealed. Israel has agreed to obey the
laws or the book of the covenant. A covenant between God and Israel!
Gentile nations were not a party involved in this agreement. The terms of the agreement
do not apply to the Gentile nations. Scripture most clearly identifies physical Israel and God
as the parties legally bound by this contract.
Notice how God asked Moses to present His offer to the people. Here are all the elements of a true covenant. Conditions and promises are laid down for both sides. If the children of Israel accept God's proposal, a covenant will be established. How did they respond to the divine offer? "And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord."
So yes, Israel certainly did promise to obey, and God, on condition of their obedience, accepted.But not on condition of Israel's promise, but on condition of their obedience. The letter to the Hebrews tells us that there were two things wrong with the old covenant. It was faulty, and it was based on poor promises. This can not mean or refer to the Ten Commandments. Although those commandments were the basis for the covenant, they were not the covenant itself. The covenant was based "on all these words". The verbal agreement between the two parties was the covenant. God presented the law, and then the covenant was made. Obey the law and I promise to etc.... Paul says the covenant was faulty and based on a poor promise. Was the law faulty? Not at all. Did the law contain a poor promise? No. But the agreement between God and Israel was faulty, and did indeed contain a poor promise.
The Ten Commandments were the basis for the agreement. The people promised to keep that law, and God promised to bless them in return. The crucial weakness in the whole arrangement revolved around the way Israel promised. There was no suggestion that they could not fully conform to every requirement of God. Neither was there any application for divine assistance. "We can do it," they insisted. Here is a perfect example of leaning on the flesh and trusting human strength. The words are filled with self-confidence. "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient."
Were they able to keep that promise? In spite of their repeated assurances, they miserably broke their word before Moses could even get off the mountain with the tables of stone. Do we begin to see where the poor promises lay in the Old Covenant?
The book of Hebrews begins to unfold. There God is reported as "finding fault with them." Hebrews 8:8. He said, "Because they continued not in my covenant ... I regarded them not." Verse 9. The blame is placed squarely upon the human side of the mutual pact. Thus, we can see exactly why Paul wrote as he did about this Old Covenant in Hebrews 8. It did gender to bondage, it proved faulty, had poor promises, and vanished away - all because the people failed to obey their part of the agreement. Putting all these things together we can see why a new covenant was desperately needed, which would have better promises.
How were the New Covenant promises better? Because God made them, and they guaranteed successful obedience through His strength alone. "I will put my laws into their mind ... I will be to them a God ... I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." Hebrews 8:10-12.
The new covenant does not involve a change in the laws of God, (as opposed to the laws of Moses) but rather in the way they are obeyed. God writes His laws on the hearts and minds of the converted child of God and they are then empowered to obey in God's strength.
It is most important for us to understand that the New Covenant law written on the heart is exactly the same law that was graven on the stone. Those great spiritual principles reflect the very character of God, and form the basis for His government. The difference is not in the law but in the ministration of the law. Written only upon the tables of stone, they can only condemn and minister death, "because the carnal mind ... is not subject to the law of God." Romans 8:7. Received into the heart which has been spiritualized by the converting grace of Christ, the same law becomes a delight. The beloved John declared, "For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous." 1 John 5:3. Not only is the law not grievous for the Spirit-filled child of God, but obedience becomes a joyful possibility. The psalmist wrote, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart." Psalms 40:8.