Objection 5: The Bible says that the Ten Commandments are the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai, that is, the old covenant. (See Deut. 4:13.) This covenant has been abolished, and we live under the new covenant. Therefore we have nothing to do with the Ten Commandments.
The text reads thus: “And he [the Lord] declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform, even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.” Deut. 4:13.
The key word here is “covenant,” translated from the Hebrew word berith, which may be translated “compact, league, covenant.” The gist of a “covenant” is an agreement between two or more parties. Webster’s Dictionary thus defines covenant: “An agreement between two or more persons or parties.”
We find various references to God’s covenant with the Israelites of the Exodus, couched in covenant language. For example, “The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb.” Deut. 5:2. “The tables of the covenant which the Lord made with you.” Deut. 9:9.
Why did Moses describe the Ten Commandments themselves as the covenant? For the same reason that Moses said to the Israelites, “And I took your sin, the calf which you had made, and burnt it.” Deut. 9:21. Strictly speaking, the sin was not the calf itself; the sin was idolatry, false religion, breaking the first and second commandments, the rebellious will demonstrated in so doing. But the golden calf was a symbol of the sin committed, so Moses calls it the sin.
Likewise, the covenant was an agreement made by the Israelites to follow God’s laws, all of them, including the civil and ceremonial laws (Ex. 19:5-8). But the Ten Commandments, being the core of the law, were the symbol of the covenant.
Webster calls a covenant, “a solemn compact between members of a church to maintain its faith, discipline, etc.; also, the document recording such a compact.” The important thing about the Mayflower Compact was not the document that memorialized it, but the actual agreement of the Pilgrims; the paper might be important as an historical document, but the important thing at the time was the solemn agreement.
This is always the case agreements or covenants; the important thing about any contract is not the writing on paper that memorializes it, but the mental agreement itself and the attitude of lawfulness accompanying it, that is, the will to be bound by an agreement one has entered into, the will to be bound by one’s word.
When the Israelites came to Sinai, the Lord said to them through Moses: “Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: and you shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shall speak unto the children of Israel.” Ex. 19:5, 6.
The response of the Israelites was agreement: "And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord bath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord." Verse 8.
Then follows in the next chapter the proclaiming of the Ten Commandments by the voice of God. This is followed, in the next three chapters, by a summary of civil statutes, which show the application of the Ten Commandment's principles, and by an even briefer summary of certain ceremonial requirements that the Lord gave to the people through Moses.
Then in chapter 24 we read that Moses “told the people all the words of the Lord,” and again the people responded, “All the words which the Lord bath said will we do.” Verse 3. “And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord.... And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord, hath said will we do, and be obedient.” Verses 4-7. Then Moses took the blood of certain sacrificial animals and “sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” Verse 8.
Here the record explicitly states, not that the words of the proclaimed statutes and judgments and laws were the covenant, but that the covenant was made '“concerning all these words.”
Refer back for a moment to objection 2, on the two laws. Here two comments may properly be interjected:
1. The fact that Moses wrote a copy of the Ten Commandments in this “book of the covenant” does not minimize the force of the distinguishing fact that God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own hand on tables of stone. A copy implies an original. Endless copies of the Ten Commandments have been made. The Israelites had simply heard the Ten Commandments as God spoke it. They promised to be obedient. Moses, in giving them a copy to see in a book, made doubly certain that they fully realized what they were covenanting to do. God Himself had not yet transferred the words of the Decalogue to stone. The distinction between the earthy touch of Moses hand and the divine hand of God and the sharp distinction between the varied laws in the book and the one supreme moral law are sharply emphasized a few verses further on: “And the Lord said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and he there: and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law, and commandments which I have written; that thou may teach them.” Ex. 24:12
2. The fact that statutes and judgments and certain ceremonial precepts in addition to the Ten Commandments were included in the covenant does not make them all one law or confuse their distinctive features one whit. The essence of the covenant, the agreement, between God and the Israelites was that they would obey Him. This meant that they would faithfully keep not only the Ten Commandments but also the civil statutes, which were to govern them as a nation, and the ceremonial precepts, which dictated the religious ritual by which they expressed their desire for forgiveness for transgressions of the moral laws.
However, the very fact that the civil statutes were simply an extension of the Ten Commandments’ principles, and the ceremonial precepts simply set forth the means by which the Israelites were to express their sincere desire for freedom from sins committed against the moral code, fully justified the Biblical description of the Ten Commandments as that concerning which the covenant was made. The civil statutes and ceremonial laws were accessory to the Ten Commandments; they owed their existence and meaning to it, but it was not dependent on them.
With these facts in mind we are able to understand a whole series of statements concerning the “covenant” that is found in the Bible record following the Exodus experience. Five facts stand out sharply as we trace the record of this covenant through the Old Testament:
1. The frequent references to it by one after another of the prophets.
2. The sorry fact that Israel so repeatedly broke it.
3. The repeated combining of the statement that the people broke the covenant, with the statement that they had violated various commands of the Ten Commandments, the latter fact explaining the former.
4. The reminding of Israel that sacrifices were not a substitute for obedience, and the essentially minor status that the Lord gave to the ceremonial ritual.
5. The promise of a new covenant. Anyone who reads the Bible attentively will surely agree with these five statements.
Moses warned Israel against transgressing the covenant by serving “other gods.” (Deut: 17:2, 3) The Lord revealed to Moses that after his death Israel would “go a whoring after the gods of the strangers of the land. ... and will forsake me, and break my covenant which I have made with them.” Deut. 31:16. When Joshua was dying he warned of the day when Israel would transgress the covenant by serving “other gods.” (Joshua 23:16) A judgment was pronounced upon Solomon because he had gone after “other gods” and had not kept “my covenant.” (1 Kings 11:11.) In the last years of the kings of Israel the inspired writer recounted their long years of turning repeatedly to heathen gods and rejecting God's covenant. (See 2 Kings 17:7-23)
Jeremiah was instructed by the Lord to tell the “men of Judah” in their dark hour of national disaster that they had failed to keep the covenant He had made with their fathers at Sinai, “saying, Obey my voice, and do them, according to all which I command you: so shall you be my people, and I will be your God.” But “they went after other gods to serve them.” Jer. 11:4, 10. Hosea declares: “The Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood touches blood.” Hosea 4:1, 2. And he goes on to add a little later in his description: “They have transgressed my covenant.” Hosea 8:1.
Despite their almost constant turning away from God's moral precepts, they did not always turn from the ceremonial laws of sacrifices, burnt offerings, feast days, and the like. They evidently at times observed these ceremonies while transgressing the Ten Commandments, as though the religious ritual could substitute for obedience to the moral law. It is this fact that explains some striking passages in the Old Testament and reveals still further the sharp contrast between the ceremonial laws and the moral laws.
Through Hosea the Lord said to the morally corrupt “inhabitants of the land”: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. But they like men have transgressed the covenant.” Hosea 6:6-7. It is true that the Israelites sometimes forgot even the ritual of their religious services. But that, evidently, was not at the heart of their apostasy.
Long after they had “transgressed the covenant” of moral law, they were still observing the sacrifices, rituals, and feasts in obedience to the ceremonial law, as if the outward forms were a proper substitute for heart obedience to God's moral requirements. That is why the Lord, through Hosea, pronounced this judgment: “I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her Sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts.” Hosea 2:11. A reference to the ceremonial law reveals that all the special days here listed are found in that code. In similar language the Lord inquires through Isaiah, “To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?” Isa. 1:11. He describes their offerings as “vain oblations.” “Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.” Isa. 1:13 NIV
And why was this whole ceremonial service of offerings and special holy days so abhorrent to God? Because their observance of the ceremonial law was hypocritical! The sacrifices, the Passover Sabbath, Day of Atonement Sabbath, and essentially all the ceremonial rituals and remembrances were intended to express their repentance for violations of the moral code and a desire for cleansing from sin. But the Israelites were set in evil ways and had no heart desire to reform. “Your hands are full of blood.” Verse 15. After pleading with them to turn from their corrupt ways, the Lord declares, “If you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land.” Verse 19. Here is the echo of the covenant agreement made at Sinai.
Jeremiah presents a similar description of the violation of God's moral code by rebellious Israel:
“Will you steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom you know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?” Jer. 7:9,10. Then follows this declaration that shows perhaps more sharply than any other in this series of passages the clear distinction between moral and ceremonial laws: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: but this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk you in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” Verses 21-23.
But did not the Lord give commandments at Sinai concerning offerings? Bible commentators believe that the only way to resolve the apparent contradiction is by interpreting this passage in Jeremiah to mean that by comparison with the glory and primacy of the moral code given at Sinai, the ceremonial statutes pale into insignificance. To borrow the words of the learned commentator, Lange, on this passage:
“Thus those commentators are right who find here this meaning, that the whole of the enactments relating to sacrifices do not enter into consideration in comparison with the importance of the moral law.”
It is doubtless in this same sense that we may understand those scriptures that equate the covenant with the Ten Commandments (Deut. 4:13), even though certain ceremonial laws and civil statutes were also involved (Ex. 24:3-8). As earlier stated, the civil statutes were only an extension of, and the ceremonial laws only all accessory to, the Ten Commandment law.
Now, in this long, dismal record of Israel's backsliding, where lay the trouble? Were the terms of the covenant at fault? Nowhere do the prophets suggest that the Ten Commandments were either inequitable or deficient. Had God failed in His part of the agreement? No. The trouble was with the Israelites, who failed to live up to their promises.
They were stiff necked, hard of heart, rebellious. Christ could say to His Father, “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:8. But not so with the children of Israel. “Their heart went after their idols.” Eze. 20:16. “The sin of Judah ... is graven upon the table of their heart.” Jer. 17:1. The children of Israel had promised at Sinai, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.” Ex. 19:8. But they knew not how deceitful were their hearts, how weak their will and their spirit.
Only after reviewing this sad history are we are able to appreciate the promise of the new covenant as foretold through Jeremiah:
“Behold, the days come, says the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant 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 brake, although I was an husband unto them, says the Lord: but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; after those days, says the Lord. I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Jer. 31:31-33.
The promise of the new covenant is not a forecast of an era when grace would supplant law, but of a time when the law of God would be written in men’s hearts by the grace of God acting upon those hearts. So far from God’s law being abolished, it is enshrined within those who have received a new heart.
Now, if there is only one law, as some contend, then the new covenant, under which all of us declare we may live today, calls for the writing upon our hearts, not only of God’s moral precepts, but of all the ceremonial statutes also! The logic is inexorable—if there is only one law. Could better proof be offered that there must be more than one law?
The writer of Hebrews, in referring to this passage in Jeremiah, makes clear that the trouble with the old covenant lay, not with the law, but with the people. The Lord found “fault with them.” (Heb. 8:8.) In the same connection we read concerning the new covenant, that Christ “is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” Verse 6.
The first covenant broke down on the faulty promises of the Israelites. The second covenant is built upon the divine promise of God to change our hearts.
The first covenant was ratified at Sinai by the shedding of the blood of sacrificial animals. (Ex. 24:5-8) The second covenant was ratified at Calvary by the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ. (Heb. 9:12, 23) The mediator of the first covenant was Moses. (Ex. 19:3-8; 24:3-8) The mediator of the second covenant is Christ. (Heb. 8:6)
Under the first covenant the worshiper brought his offering to all earthly priest, who ministered at an earthly sanctuary, which ministry could not of itself “make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience.” Heb. 9:9. Why? Because this earthly sanctuary service “stood only ill meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them, until tile time of reformation.” Verse 10. Only as the worshiper looked by faith beyond the animal sacrifices to the sacrifice of Christ, the promised Messiah, could he receive genuine spiritual blessing and forgiveness of sins. And because it was possible for a child of God in the days preceding Christ's first advent to exercise true faith and to look beyond, the new covenant experience could be his.
Under the new covenant we appropriate by faith the offering made by the Lamb of God, coming boldly to the throne of grace and into the presence of our great High Priest. We look back to Calvary and upward to heaven. (Heb. 9:11-15, 24-26; 10: 19-22) It was foretold of Christ that He would “cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” Dan. 9:27.
No longer was there any occasion for the slaying of animals; hence the laws regarding such offerings became unnecessary. There were no longer to be earthly priests drawn from a certain tribe and according to a certain law of the ceremonial code. Hence we read, “For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.” Heb. 7:12. The Levitical priesthood was changed, abolished, and so was the law that governed the selection and the ministry of that priesthood.
Yet under the new covenant God promises, “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts.” Jer. 31:33. Far from doing away with or changing this law, He is going to write His law on our hearts. So it is very clear that the law He is writing on our hearts is wholly different law from that dealt with in Hebrews 7:12.
The New Covenant entails not a change in the Ten Commandments, but rather a change in the location of these commandments: this is the essence of the difference between the two covenants. And the effecting of this change requires Christ and His divine sacrifice. In other words, to live under the new covenant is to live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
Faith and obedience to God’s commandments go hand in hand. How significant in this connection is the description of those who will finally be awaiting the return of Christ: “Here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.” Rev. 14:12.
Yes, and how significant is Paul's statement that the “carnal mind,” which distinguished rebellious Israel, is “not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8:7. Also his statement of what has taken place for them which are in Christ Jesus: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8:3,4.
The weakness is not in God's holy law but in us who are too weak of ourselves to give obedience. When we are changed by the gospel from carnal to spiritual, then the law can be written in our hearts. The person who says that he has nothing to do with the law because he lives under the new covenant, reveals instead that he has nothing to do with the new covenant, for the new covenant believer has the law engraved on his heart.