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Let us continue our study in the Covenants of HaShem and which ones have implications today for the non-Jewish believer.
Under the Noahic Covenant of human government, the decadence of humanity in turning to idolatry was much more rapid than it had been in the 1,656 years from Adam to the Flood. Three hundred sixty-one years after the Noahic Covenant, therefore, YHWH appeared to Abraham in the twelfth chapter of Genesis and established the fourth covenant made with mankind, called the Abrahamic Covenant. This covenant was restricted to a particular descendancy of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob. Understand that Abraham was a "non-Jew" but his offspring would bring into existence the Jewish people. This Abrahamic covenant separated Israel from the other nations. The specifics of the Abrahamic Covenant, as given to Abraham and confirmed to Isaac and Jacob, can be found in Genesis 12:1-3; 13:14-18; 15:1-21; 17:4-8; 22:1524; 26:1-5; and 28:10-15. This covenant, too, has seven facets, or sections. It would be from Judah, Jacob's son, that the Jewish people would originate. Because of this fact it is best to understand that the Abrahamic Covenant was in reality a "Jewish" Covenant.
First, it had to do with a real estate arrangement, "a land that I will show thee." Second, "I will make of thee a great nation." Third, "I will bless thee." Fourth, "I will make thy name great." Fifth, "Thou shalt be a blessing;" sixth, "I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee;" and seventh, "In thee shall all the "Gentile] families of the earth be blessed" (or better understood as "bless themselves" by imitating the actions and faith of the Jewish people). The seventh section, and only this section, contains specific, particular provision for the Gentiles. The first six provisions of the Abrahamic Covenant were exclusively to Israel and the Jewish people.
The Abrahamic Covenant has certain other definite characteristics. It is a covenant of faith. "And Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness." A Jew's relationship to God is a vital relationship of faith based on the Abrahamic Covenant. When a Jew approaches God in prayer, he makes his petitions premised on that covenant. The Jew never approaches God in the name of Moses because his standing before God is not premised upon the Mosaic Covenant. However, when the Jew prays, he opens his prayer with these words: "God, God of our Fathers, God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.. "
The Abrahamic Covenant is a restricted covenant. It alienates all other nations from the economy of Israel. It is an unconditional covenant, containing the repetition of the oath of God, who swore by his own name, saying "I will ... I will ... I will ... I will ...." This unconditional covenant is contingent upon God's faithfulness to Israel, not in Israel's faithfulness to God (thank goodness). Despite Israel's failure, the Holy One reassured the prophets, "Yet for my Holy Name's sake, and the sake of the covenant that I made with thy fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, I will perform."
The Abrahamic Covenant, like all other covenants between the Eternal One and mankind, is an everlasting covenant; it can never be terminated, can never be altered, or changed or revised. The only demand made upon the Jew by this covenant is his commitment of faith in that covenant relationship established with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Four hundred thirty years after the giving of the Abrahamic Covenant, Israel requested that God reveal to them his requirements of them so that they could exercise the faith and express the standing they had through the Abrahamic Covenant. Therefore, in the Jewish year 2448, God gave Israel the Torah on Mount Sinai. This law of God is also called the Law of Moses, because Moses himself was personified and wrapped up in the words of that Torah. The Law, or Torah, given to Moses on Mount Sinai, has never been considered by the Jews as the premise of their relationship with God. Their relationship with God is entirely premised on the Abrahamic Covenant.
The five books of Torah, the Pentateuch, are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Moses wrote all five books of the Torah; even the passages that refer to him, he wrote in the third person, for every word of it was dictated to him by God.
The way of the Torah teaches the Jew where he came from, where he is, and where he is going. It instructs him in every minute detail of his daily life and relationship to God. In this Torah are six hundred thirteen commandments. Of these, two hundred forty-eight are positive commandments, instructing Israel what they must do, while three hundred sixty-five are negative commandments, telling Israel what they should not do.
The Mosaic Covenant strongly emphasizes the distinction of the Jew as separate from all the other nations. While the Gentiles could eat all flesh, the Mosaic Covenant restricted the dietary practice of the Jew to only certain forms of flesh. What was clean to the Gentile was unclean to the Jew. He was instructed not to worship as or with the pagans, and was commanded not to dress or conform to the Gentile standards of conduct.
Time and space took on a special dimension of holiness for the Jew. The observance of the Sabbath day was uniquely designated to Israel alone. According to rabbinic interpretation, a Gentile who observes the Sabbath is worthy of death, because he is stealing a commandment that was given exclusively to Israel. All six hundred thirteen commandments of the Jewish law were explicitly given to Israel alone. The Jew did not obtain salvation or a standing with God as a result of keeping the commandments of Torah, for his standing with God was already established by faith on the basis of the Abrahamic Covenant. The observance of the six hundred thirteen commandments was the exercise of that faith and standing he already had with God. He did not keep the law in order to be a Jew; he kept the law because he was a Jew.
The giving of the Abrahamic Covenant separated Israel from the Gentile nations. The giving of the Mosaic Covenant intensified this separation between Israel and the Gentile nations. Every section of the commandments given to Moses began with the restrictive phrase: "And the Eternal One spake unto Moses, saying, 'Speak unto the children of Israel and command them...."
Under the Abrahamic and Mosaic covenants, Israel was never commanded to convert the Gentiles to their faith or religious practices. On the contrary, they were commanded explicitly not to convert the Gentiles to Judaism. If a Gentile sincerely sought to follow this faith and practice, it was the responsibility of the rabbis to discourage such a decision unless it was proved totally sincere, intelligently made, and clearly understood on the part of the convert.
The covenant of Moses given at Mount Sinai included both the Written Law and the Oral Law. They are inseparable, and the Oral is as binding as is the Written.
This Mosaic Covenant was totally a conditional covenant. The people of Israel, in requesting this covenant, said, "We will do it and we will hear it." They did not say, "We will hear it then we will do it." In this request, Israel committed themselves to obey unconditionally the words of Torah. By acknowledging obedience to the law before they heard its terms, they implied that they did not sit in judgment as to whether or not they thought a law was good or bad, whether it was reasonable or unreasonable, whether it was logical or illogical. "We will do and we will hear."
This covenant of Moses at Mount Sinai was the total embodiment of a conditional covenant. "This do and thou shalt live...." "Honor thy father and thy mother—that thy days may be long in the land."
Such statements as these appear connected with almost all the commandments. In Moses' closing address in Deuteronomy 28:58-62, we find the epitome of the essence in the Mosaic Covenant as a conditional covenant:
If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD; Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses, and of long continuance. Moreover he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou west afraid of; and they shall cleave unto thee. Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed. And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.
A failure on the part of Israel to fulfill the words of Torah did not affect or threaten their standing before God in the Abrahamic Covenant, for the former took precedence over the latter, and the latter could not jeopardize or abrogate the former. In otherwords if Israel failed to keep the Mosaic Covenant (keep the sacrifices in lieu of the absence of the Temple, they are not without a valid prior Covenant with God!
The Torah was given to Israel in the wilderness as a premise for their conduct when they would come into the land of Israel. All those commandments related in the acknowledgment by the people were not initiated in the wilderness, and indeed could not be obeyed until they had come into the land. Therefore, throughout the Torah appears the phrase: "When thou comest into the land which the Lord thy God divest thee' then shalt thou observe...."
Actually, in the wilderness Israel was under such a special economy that they did not so much as practice circumcision. In Joshua 5:2-9 is the account of Joshua circumcising at Gilgal the male children who were born in the wilderness.
The covenant of Moses was the testament of Moses. Like any other will or testament, it could not be effective until the death of the testator. "For your sakes," said Moses, "I cannot enter into this land." The necessity of the death of Moses was imperative before Israel could inaugurate the fulfilling of the Torah, "when thou comest into the land, which the Lord thy God divest thee."
The terms of that conditional covenant focused on obedience, while the penalties for Israel in failing to obey the words of Torah were an expulsion from the land and a scattering among the Gentile nations. By so doing, Israel's relationship to the Abrahamic Covenant was not affected. Their privilege under the conditional covenant of Moses demanded such a diaspora in penalty for failure to keep the covenant. The Diaspora, however, did not terminate the Mosaic Covenant either. The Jew in the Diaspora was still obligated to fulfill ninety commandments. In fact, the Jew today is obligated to fulfill all the words of the Torah except those whose fulfillment are contingent upon the function of Temple worship in the land.
The Abrahamic Covenant had made provision for a blessing in the land. Now the next statement is crucial for our understanding of the Covenants. The Mosaic Covenant at Mount Sinai made no condition or promise for a regathering of Israel from the dispersion to which it had been sentenced by the Divine judge. But God would, after having regathered His scattered peoples who had become assimilated by intermarriage with the heathen, have to reveal His Torah to them all over again. What we are speaking of here is not so much a "new" Covenant as a "RENEWED" Covenant. It just so happens if you look up the word for "new" as used by Jeremiah in your Hebrew lexicons and dictionaries that is exactly what you find. The word chosen by "holy men of old" such as Jeremiah in this instance is "renewed" and NOT "new as in replaced and discarded". Now you should have a better understanding when reading Jeremiah 31 that God is doing nothing "new" at all; rather, He is continuing to do what He has done since the beginning…."I will put My law in their inwards parts, and write it in their hearts" (Jer. 31:33). God is putting the Torah "again" into the hearts of these people; that part of Israel which was to be regathered as referred to in the Covenant of Moab. Therefore, if the Torah were to have such a provision for a regathering of dispersed Israel so as not to abrogate the Abrahamic Covenant, a "new" covenant, better understood as "re-newed" would be required in the Torah.
There is such a "new" covenant mentioned in the Torah. That new testament, or new covenant, was made with Israel at Mount Moab immediately before the death of Moses. Moses recorded the words of that covenant in the twenty ninth and thirtieth chapters of Deuteronomy. This new covenant is restricted to Israel and concerns the regathering of Israel from the nations in the last days. This is not a Covenant to be made with the non-Jew or the Gentile Christian Church not matter what they say, believe, or what some of the corrupted documents of the New Testament assert. "These are the words of the covenant, which the Eternal One commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb [Sinai]." (Dent. 29:1)
With the giving of this covenant at Mount Moab, providing for the regathering of Israel in the last days, the clause of the Abrahamic Covenant stating, "I will give thee a land," is reaffirmed. At the same time, the new "renewed" covenant at Mount Moab in no way infringes upon the lengthy penalty of Israel scattered among the nations as demanded by the Sinaitic Covenant for their disobedience.
Jeremiah the prophet gave a great deal of attention to the regathering of Israel in the last days. In Jeremiah 31:8-11 are these words:
Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither. They shall come with weeping, and with supplication will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble: for I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn. Hear the Word of the Eternal One. O ye "Gentile" nations, and declare it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd cloth his flock. For the Eternal One bath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he. Therefore shall they come and sing in the height of Zion....
Not only did Jeremiah predict the return of Israel from the Diaspora in fulfillment of the new or "re-newed" covenant, or new testament, that God made with Israel on Mount Moab, but he also predicted the revival of Hebrew as the spoken language of modern Israel: "This saith the Eternal One of hosts, the God of Israel; As yet they shall use this speech in the land of Judah and in the cities thereof, when I shall bring again their captivity...." (Jeremiah 31:23).
In the context of the New-Renewed Covenant of Mount Moab, Jeremiah's commentary in chapter thirty-one very specifically identifies the Moabic Covenant: "Behold the days come, saith the Eternal One, that I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant [at Mount Sinai] that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. Which covenant they break...."
This New/Re-Newed Covenant of Jeremiah 31:31 is the "New" Covenant of Moab, found in Deuteronomy 29-30. It is an unconditional covenant. This "New/Re-Newed" Covenant is a restricted one. It applies only to Israel (the northern kingdom) and Judah (the southern kingdom) and not to the Christian Church. This New Covenant which promises to restore dispersed Israel to their land is one covenant for both Israel and Judah. As in the vision of the "two sticks" in Ezekiel 37, Israel and Judah would return united and be called Israel.
This New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah does not include the Gentiles. It is not the "New Testament in my blood shed for the sins of many [the Gentiles]," spoken of by Yeshua at the Passover. The New/Re-Newed Covenant, or New Testament, of Mount Moab and Jeremiah 31:31, is exclusively for Israel. It has no relationship directly or indirectly to the collection of the twenty-seven books of the Christian scriptures called the New Testament. The Christian scripture, called the New Testament, was so named by the church fathers, not by the Apostles. Neither the Christian scripture, called the New Testament, nor the death of Yeshua, has any prophetic significance in the New Testament of Israel at Moab or Jeremiah 31:31! They are entirely different. The New Testament to Israel has no dimension to the Gentile Christian, and the New Testament to the Gentile Christian has no dimension to Israel.
There are, however, two direct references in the Christian's New Testament to Israel's New Testament of Moab and Jeremiah 31:31. One occurs in Romans 11 and the other in Hebrews 8. Both of these are in the context of the future restoration of National Israel as stated above. There is no instance in the Christian scripture where these or any other covenants are "spiritualized" and applied to the Gentile or the Christian Church. Such application of these "Jewish 'New' Covenants to the Gentile Church is the work of monks and replacement theology which occurred over 1700 years ago and sadly continues today.
The promise of the New Covenant of Moab and Jeremiah 31 is not only unconditional but it is eternal and nonretractable. In verses 35-40, that dimension of infinity or eternality is stated: "Thus saith the Eternal One, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Eternal One of Hosts is his name: If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the Eternal One, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus saith the Eternal One; if heaven above can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, [then] will also I cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Eternal One."
Before we proceed with the other Covenants I think it best we devote more time to this "New/Renewed" Covenant since mainline Gentile Christianity look here for their standing and foundation for Covenant with God. It can be proved, and I will continue to do such, that this covenant has no bearing on the Gentile Church then the only inescapable conclusion available is that the Christian Church exists without a Covenant with God!
Shalom.