Covenant Contrasts Part 2
(The old covenant verses that you will read in this series are true. They are God-breathed Scripture. But their time is over. They have no bearing on our new covenant lives with Jesus. Yet they are taught Sunday after Sunday as words to live by. They fill our Christian books, devotionals, and sermons. This mixed covenant message leads to confusion, frustration, angst, and a huge lack of confidence in our life with Jesus. And this way of teaching must come to an end. May you grow in the knowledge and grace of the new covenant as we study these covenant contrasts together.)
Another word for covenant is arrangement. The Old Testament, for the most part, describes life under the old covenant; life under God’s old arrangement with the children of Israel. In the New Testament, Jesus announced the coming of a new covenant. This new covenant is our new arrangement with God ushered in by the death and resurrection of Jesus. The old covenant, in effect prior to the coming of Jesus, is over, dead, gone, expired, and obsolete (Hebrews 8:13, II Corinthians 3:11). The new covenant has come.
The foundation for life under the old covenant is best described as “DO and RECEIVE.” Your RECEIVE depended on your DO. Verses like Joshua 1:8 are prototypical of this arrangement. “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success” (Joshua 1:8).
Do you see the pattern? Be careful to DO according to all that is written in the Law in order to RECEIVE prosperity and success. If you do X. God will do Y. If you obey the Law, God will bless you. If you keep His commandments, God will reward you. Likewise, as we learn from other Old Testament passages, if you fall short, a curse will follow.
Even though all of these old covenant conditional promises of God are OVER, we have them preached to us in devotionals, books, and sermons. My friend, if you have believed the gospel message of Jesus Christ, you are no longer under the “DO and RECEIVE” of the old covenant. What we have now is so much better, because Jesus is the author of a better covenant (Hebrews 13:6). I will describe our beautiful new arrangement of life with Jesus next time.