The Divine Covenants
The Sinaitic Covenant (Part 4)
During this Mosaic period gross failure characterized the history of Israel as a nation. This was foreshadowed by the behavior of Aaron while Moses was on the mountain as he participated in the worst kind of idol worship; the making of the golden calf. They regarded the Law as oppressive. It seems significant that the behavior of the Israelites at that time was appropriately demonstrated when Moses came down from the mountain the first time with the tablets of the Law, and seeing the behavior of the people, he threw the stones to the ground, “breaking all ten of the commandments”
You remember that we have said earlier that God’s covenant with the Israelites at Sinai required governmental obedience as well as personal obedience to His instructions, and that the national blessings promised were contingent on those in authority being obedient. In other words, the governmental authorities were not to tolerate the kind of behavior that was demonstrated by many of the Israelites. This causes us to wonder how God reacts to the tolerance of sin within the church today, when the church authorities not only don’t discipline the offenders, but promotes the sinful behavior, such as we have seen in the Episcopal Church in promoting a homosexual to the priesthood.
Sentiment and fear of man’s displeasure have been common throughout the church.
· Ps 1:1-6, Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. [2] But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. [3] He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. [4] Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. [5] Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. [6] For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Had Israel been faithful to the covenant as required in Ps 1:1-6 then Canaan would have been a land flowing with milk and honey.
But the Law was despised, discipline was neglected and self-will was rampant; and as a result, famines, wars and diseases became common. So God withdrew His blessing.
Was God fooled by their behavior? Not according to Deuteronomy 28 and 29 where He predicted that the people would fail.
But how did the types that we can detect in the Mosaic period prepare the way for the dawn of Christianity? I’m glad you asked. Let me list the ways and then we will come back and take a look at each one.
· The special and peculiar relationship which Israel had with God.
· The typical significance of God’s giving the Commandments to Israel
· The circumstances of God’s placing Israel under the Law typified the fact that it was not given to unredeemed sinners in order for them to get God’s favor.
· To define the corporate character of Israel.
· Representation of the truth of sanctification.
· The teaching of the tabernacle and the ceremonial institutions.
· The significance of the promised land.
Now remember that the Old Testament types were designed to teach us by way of contrast as well as comparison. So first, let’s notice the special and peculiar relation which Israel had with God.
They were His chosen people, and He was their God in a way that He was the God of no other people! We have here a foreshadowing, a type, of God’s dealing with His people today; each of them receives mercy on a covenant basis---the Everlasting Covenant made with Jesus---and on the ground of it they are delivered from the power of Satan and become part of the kingdom of Christ.
Second, the revelation of law at Sinai did not come about independent of what had preceded it, as if it was laying the foundation for something altogether new. The law did not come from God just because He was the Creator, exercising His prerogative to do so; the law was required to be fulfilled. It was as the Redeemer of Israel that God announced the Ten Commandments. And since the Law had to be fulfilled, this was a hint of the Savior who was to come. The Law then was not given to Israel as a deliverer from evil, nor as the bestower of life. It was not designed to rescue them from bondage, nor to grant them favor and blessing from God. All of that was already theirs.
· Gal 3:16-22, The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise. What, then, was the purpose of the law? It was added because of transgressions until the Seed to whom the promise referred had come. The law was put into effect through angels by a mediator. A mediator, however, does not represent just one party; but God is one. Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law. But the Scripture declares that the whole world is a prisoner of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.
The net of the above is that grace took precedence over law. The idea here is not that they might by observing the law work themselves into a great relationship with God, but that, as already standing in such a relation, they might walk worthy of it, and become filled with the fruits of righteousness.
This shows us the relation that the law has to the people of God in all periods of world history. In all periods God has first revealed Himself to His people as the giver of life and blessing and then as the requirer of obedience to His commands. Their obedience does not entitle them to justification. All the blessings of Israel were solely of grace, received through faith. And faith is the acceptance of God’s gifts and the trusting in the promises He has made. The order of life’s experience by each saint is first receiving God’s mercy followed by an obligation to obey His commandments. Surely it is obvious to all of us that fallen man cannot earn anything at God’s hands, or even perform good works that are acceptable to God without the sovereign grace of God.
Next, if the circumstances of God’s placing Israel under the law is a type of the fact that it was not given to unredeemed sinners in order for them to get God’s favor, then on the other hand, it is equally clear that the redeemed are placed under the law for a reason. Otherwise, the most important past act of God’s mercy would have no effect on us today. The Christian needs the law to help control the spirit of self-righteousness. It is important to understand that our daily measuring ourselves against the high standard of the law produces humility, or should. As we realize how far short of obedience to this standard we are, we come to a greater appreciation of what Jesus did for us as individuals.
The law acts as a restraint on our behavior and tends to hold us back from breaking the law. As a rule of life, the law is always before us and is an assist to us in the matter of sanctification.Let’s look back at Ex 19:5-6.
· Ex 19:5-6 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."
God said this at Sinai. Notice that there was a contingency: Israel’s entering into these blessings was dependent on them being obedient.
But the terms of the “new covenant” under which Christians live, are quite different. Here there is no contingency, but certainty because the condition was perfectly fulfilled by Jesus. God has now said:
· Jer 32:40 I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me.
· Ezek 36:27, And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
At this point a question might arise, “How would I know which of these passages, and promises, I most nearly fit into?” The answer is that if the heart is unresponsive to God’s voice and disregards His commandments as well as being unrepentant, then we have no reason to believe that we are among those to whom the promises are made.
Let’s look now at the question of the “corporate character of Israel”.
Under previous covenants God had dealt only with particular persons and everything associated with them was uniquely individualistic. But at Sinai God established a formal bond between Himself and the favored nation. For the first time we see the people of God placed in an organized condition. Israel in their national capacity was a people set apart from all others and to the degree that they fulfilled their separation, this foreshadowed the church which Jesus would establish. Some may argue that as a type, the believing individuals within Israel were fallen and imperfect. Yes, that is true. Likewise churches, even the best of them, are imperfect shadows of the true kingdom of God.
But there will be a perfect church. That will be revealed at the second coming of Jesus. However, in the New Testament we find the clearest and fullest unfolding of the people of God in their corporate character. Here the body of Christ is revealed as the object of His love and the reward of His sacrificial work.
The truth of sanctification is the next type that we will look at. The divine blessings of justification and sanctification always go together because we are told that those whom God justifies, He also sanctifies. But we need to look at them separately.
In Romans chapters 4 and 5 we see Paul dealing with the concept of justification. This is the passage where we see Abraham justified by faith. He expands on this theme in the rest of chapters 4 and 5. In chapters 6, 7 and 8 he deals with the various aspects of sanctification.
This same order is seen in the covenants. Gen 15:6, Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. Here God justified Abraham. So God began the Abrahamic Covenant by justifying His servant Abraham and clearly this is a type of the process and order that God uses in dealing with all His elect.
Then in the Sinai Covenant we see the idea of sanctification presented when God gives the Ten Commandments as a standard of obedience and personal spiritual growth. Of course, we understand the concept of sanctification as the process of growing spiritually as we grow older.
It must be agreed that one is not in a position to serve God until he has been delivered from the slavery of Satan. So the deliverance of Israel from the slavery of Egypt laid the necessary foundation for them to become God’s chosen people as a nation. This deliverance provided Israel with the obligation to follow and be obedient to their deliverer. This provides us with a further type that the God who has delivered the elect from the bondage to Satan can expect those delivered to respond by being obedient to His commands.
So, that which happened at Sinai, typified the sanctification of the church. The first words God addressed to Israel after they reached Sinai were,
· Ex 19:4-5, 'You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.
In giving Israel the Law, God provided Israel with the rule, or standard, of conduct to which they were to adhere.
Next, the teaching of the tabernacle and the ceremonial laws were designed to prepare the way for Christianity. The significance of the tabernacle and its worship can only be properly understood when we recognize the place it has in connection with the ceremonial law. And the ceremonial law needs to be understood as subordinate to the moral law. It is true that the tabernacle in its dimensions, material and furnishings were to be understood as typical of Jesus. The more fully the ceremonial law was designed to accomplish the prime purpose of enforcing the requirements of the Ten Commandments, the more they achieved their ultimate purpose: that is causing the people to be convicted of their sin and preparing their hearts for Jesus. You see the Holy Spirit had not been available to all people at that time so this process was designed to cause them to become more aware of their need to be convicted of their sin.
Some of you recall that we have studied the tabernacle before and it is sometimes referred to as “the tabernacle of the testimony”. The tabernacle, which included the tablets of the Law, taught a couple of things. First, the holiness of God and the high standard of purity the people were required to meet. Second, they became aware of their own sinfulness, continually falling short of the standard. So they became aware of a continual struggle between God’s holiness and the sinfulness of the creatures. The outcome of this realization was that the more often they thought of their sinfulness, the more often they were required to resort to blood sacrifice at the tabernacle.
Now think of how strikingly all of this has its counterpart in the experience of the Christian. The more enlightened he is by the Holy Spirit, the more is he aware of his depravity; then the more he is made aware of the blood of Jesus which cleans him of all his sin.
The tabernacle was also called the “tent of meeting”. It was the place where God would meet His people and where they were able to come near to Him, but only so close. They would meet God only through their priest. But there is a typical picture here of the fact that Christians can approach God directly and personally by virtue of their High Priest, Jesus the Christ. And it is only through Jesus that we have access to God the Father. It is for this reason that we pray to God directly, but “in the name of Jesus”. It is because of the sacrifice of Jesus and our acceptance of that sacrifice that we can go directly and personally to the Father.
The final lesson we learn from the Sinai covenant as preparing the way for Jesus is the significance of the Promised Land. Canaan was a type of heaven. To the Israelites it was their final home-land. Canaan was the inheritance of the nation Israel. It was there that God had His home in the tabernacle and the temple. It was the place of life and blessing (the land of milk and honey). The mental impression one gets of the “land flowing with milk and honey” is one of the ideal life. While there is no ideal life on earth, the type here of heaven is an image of the perfection of our existence in heaven.
Augustine really summed up the meaning of the Sinai Covenant when he said, “The Law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the Law might be fulfilled.”
We began this study of the Sinai Covenant by asking a number of questions, the answers to which we will now summarize.
What was the precise nature of the covenant which God entered into with Israel?
· It was a constitution which pertained to them as a nation, and was for the regulation of their religious, political, and social life.
Did it concern only their temporal welfare as a nation?
· No. The substance of the covenant was according to the unchanging principles on which God’s throne is founded: none but those who are partakers of God’s holiness and are conformed to His righteousness can commune with Him and dwell with Him forever.
Was a radical change now made in God’s revelations to men and what He demanded of them?
· No. For it had as its foundation the Everlasting Covenant of grace, while in substance it was a renewal of the Adamic Covenant of works. Further, the Sinai Covenant must not be considered as an isolated event, but as an addition to the Abrahamic Covenant.
In saying that the Sinai Covenant was founded on the Everlasting Covenant of grace, we mean that it was owing to the eternal covenant among the Trinity, that the Lord dealt with Israel in pure grace in delivering them from Egypt and brought them to Himself. In saying that in substance it was a renewal of the Adamic covenant of works, we mean that Israel was placed under the same Law as Adam was, and that as Adam’s continued enjoyment of Eden was contingent on his obedience, so was the nation Israel.
Was an entirely different way of salvation now being introduced?
· Certainly not. Salvation has always been by grace through faith, never on the grounds of works, but always producing good works.
· The regenerated in Israel looked beyond the sign to that which was signified and saw in the shadow a figure of the substance, and obtained through Jesus acceptance with God.