FRIDAY
We can’t talk about God’s covenant with Israel without discussing the new covenant with God’s people. To put it simply, Jesus changed some stuff. The debate is regarding how much Jesus changed from the old covenant to the new. Some would argue for more continuity while others see more discontinuity in the text of the New Testament. This is a topic that creates a lot of confusion for Christians so it is worth discussing here, today.
Much of the conversation revolves around Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount:
Matthew 5:17–20 (NIV) 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
What does it mean to not abolish the Law but to fulfill it? Jesus isn’t throwing it out as worthless, but he is bringing it to it’s divinely purposed end. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians:
Galatians 3:23–25 (NIV) 23 Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. 24 So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. 25 Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.
Yet, what the Law reveals about God’s character and ethics is good and true for all time. In what follows in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus will call his followers to a higher standard of living than just what the Mosaic Law had been interpreted to prescribe. The Law had been interpreted to prescribe only behavioral, external holiness. Jesus calls his followers to a holiness of the inner life—motives, thoughts, passions, and desires. These are noticeably more difficult to obey.
I would argue that Christians are no longer under any of the Mosaic Law as law anymore.* We are, however, under the law of Christ. The Law of Christ reinforces the ethical truths that provide the foundation for the Law of Moses without many of the detailed commands. The Law of Christ is what is taught in the New Testament. The teaching of Jesus and the Apostles guide us into how we are to live in this new covenant relationship with God. Where we don’t have an explicit command regarding an ethical situation we are to fall back on “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself” as our guiding principle.
There are some key discontinuities as well. For example, the Sabbath day is changed in the church to Sunday instead of Saturday, and the requirement to Sabbath on the same day is diminished. Jesus says in Mark 2:27, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” Paul dismisses the necessity of Sabbath regulation in Romans 14:5-6 and Colossians 2:16-17. Similarly Jesus dismisses the dietary requirements of the Law in Mark 7:18-19. We look to Jesus and the Apostles to guide our theology and practice.
As I’ve tried to make clear this week, the Law is holy, righteous, and good (Rom. 7:12). It was never intended to be the way we earn our covenant status with God. It was always intended to be the way God’s people live who are already in covenant relationship with him. This has been misunderstood often in the history of God’s people (both Israel and the church) as we humans are always drawn to self-righteousness and earning our place in the family of God. It just doesn’t work that way. We are chosen to be in covenant relationship with God, then we are told how to live in this covenant relationship with him. To attempt to earn it is simply backwards.
The glorious truth of this new covenant in Jesus is that Jesus is our righteousness, God gives us a new heart, and the Holy Spirit empowers us to obedience. God does for us what his people have failed to do throughout the first covenant. Faithfulness to the covenant stipulations was required of God’s people, yet they constantly failed. We will see their immediate failure, next week. In spite of their violations, Yahweh remains faithful, still holding up his end of the covenant. He had every right to break covenant relationship with his people, but he didn’t. In fact, he had every right to never enter into covenant relationship with his people, but he chose to show mercy on his people.
Jeremiah 31:31–34 (ESV) 31 “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. 33 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Ezekiel 36:26–27 (ESV) 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
The old covenant in Exodus is type** pointing ahead to the new covenant in Jesus. In this new covenant in Jesus, we are baptized into the covenant and share a meal together in the Lord’s Supper to indicate our fellowship and unity with Christ. At our baptism we voice our oath to commit ourselves fully to faith and the lordship of Jesus. He has redeemed us so we now belong to him. He commits to this covenant to being our God, our Father, our husband (if I can carry forward the bride of Christ analogy).
Another difficulty on this topic is the definition of the people of God in the new covenant. Is it Israel and the church or is it just the church? God-loving, Bible-believing, genuine disciples of Jesus come to different conclusions on this topic so we can certainly disagree on this. However, I believe the most biblically consistent and comprehensive conclusion is that the church (believers in Jesus) are the people of God. When we went through 1 Peter we saw that Peter borrows the same terms from Exodus 19 and applies them to the multi-ethnic church dispersed throughout Asia Minor. Remember, Exodus 19 is the establishment of the covenant. Let’s read them back to back.
Exodus 19:5-6 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites.”
1 Peter 2:9 (NIV) 9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Romans 9-11 is essentially Paul’s theological answer to this question. In it he argues that the people of God have never been ethnic Israel, but only those among the people of Israel who are elected by God.
Romans 9:6–9 (NIV) 6 It is not as though God’s word had failed. For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. 7 Nor because they are his descendants are they all Abraham’s children. On the contrary, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 8 In other words, it is not the children by physical descent who are God’s children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham’s offspring.
*Some would argue that the Law can be divided up into ceremonial, civil, and moral laws. Christians are still under the moral laws but no longer under the ceremonial and civil laws, since the people of God are no longer a nation-state. Jesus has become our once and for all atoning sacrifice and the church, in-dwelt with the Spirit of God, has become the temple. I don’t find any biblical teaching that seeks to do this. The Apostles never seek to divide them up like this and the laws are never categorized like this. So I find this unconvincing. The solution I proposed above seems to be more in line with the teaching of Jesus and the Apostles.
**A type in biblical theology is an “analogical correspondence” between events, places, people in the biblical story that help to interpret one another.
Reflection
Spend some time today reflecting on the glory of the new covenant in Jesus and how it far surpasses the glory of the old covenant.