Hello J.E.,
Thank you for your most interesting post. I feel that we are getting close to the hub of the argument.
You wrote in response to me:-
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Quote:
The question is, does the Old Covenant form part of the Everlasting Covenant? I suggest that it does not.
Steve while YOU may “suggest” that they are not, the Scripture (i.e. God) says they are! You have already been shown this here.
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With respect, doing a word search on ‘Everlasting Covenant’ does not constitute an argument. The Everlasting Covenant is revealed to be the New Covenant in Christ’s blood (Heb 13:20). Each of these texts that you have quoted is speaking of Christ (John 5:39; 2Cor 1:20 ), not of the OC. Let’s take just one text:-
Num 25:10-13. ‘Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Phineas, the son of Eliezar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal. Therefore say, “Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace; and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant and an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’
Now where are the physical descendants of Phineas today? Where is their priesthood? What sacrifices do they offer? Where do they offer them? The wholeLevitical priesthood, Temple and all, was swept away utterly, finally and completely in AD 70 (unless You are a dispensationalist and believe that God will bring it back in some way during the ‘millennium’ <img src="/forum/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />). The physical promise to Phineas was abrogated in 1Sam 2:30. It is inasmuch as he is a type of Christ that the promise to him has been kept. Read the Numbers 25 text again and see if the Lord Jesus Christ doesn’t jump out at you! But the priesthood of which he was part, has not been modified, it has been utterly and completely changed (Heb 7:11-18, esp vs 12 & 18 ).
We can look at any of the other texts if you would like to.
You wrote:-
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However, God has ONE covenant plan of redemption which is developed throughout HIS redemptive history.
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Agreed, save that I would change the word ‘developed’ to ‘foreshadowed’. God does not develop or improve His plans (Acts 15:18 ). It is, ‘The mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to the saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches and the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory’ (Col 1:26-27 ).
However, when you continue:-
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In reality there is only ONE covenant which God makes with His people. The NC is none other than the OC more fully revealed.
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I remain in agreement, but start to get just a little bit twitchy, and when you go on to say:-
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the NEW Covenant is clearly an extension of the Abrahamic Covenant (Gal 3:8-9; Gen. 12:3; 18:18; 22:18).
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I want to cry out, ‘No, no, 10,000 times no! This is precisely where Paedobaptists go wrong. They impose Abraham upon Christ. ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I AM!’ (John 8:58 ). The Abrahamic Covenant was a covenant of promise (cf. Eph 2:12 ). It was an adumbration of something that, though it was yet to come, had been in the mind of God from all eternity (Micah 5:2 ). You must read the Genesis account of Abraham in the light of what we are told in the NT (Rom, Gal. Heb etc) if you are to understand it fully, not the other way around. Abraham may be the father of the faithful, but Christ is the author of faith (Heb 12:2 ).
You continue:-
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The law which will be written in the hearts is none other than the law which has already been given.
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Yes, but which law? The law that would prevent me from eating shrimp cocktail or pork sausages or wearing a polyester and cotton shirt is not written on my heart. Is it written on yours? The moral law has always existed, thus predating the Old Covenant. The foreshadowing of Christ in the sacrifice of clean animals only also precedes Moses (Gen 4:4, 7:2 ), but is now fulfilled in Christ. And being fulfilled, it no longer has any physical application to us.
You go on to say:-
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The NC is NOT “brand new” it is the fulfilling of the OC (just because something is fulfilled does not mean it disappears! When a glass is filled with water, the glass does not cease to be a glass ). The OC is not replaced, but continues on in the fulfillment of the NC! Essentially, the reference in Hebrews 8:13 to the OC vanishing away is to the form and not to the substance. To understand it any different is to make a grave hermeneutical error.
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With respect, not so! If I drink out of a paper cup, I drink once and then the cup has filfilled its purpose as a cup, so I throw it away. Even a glass or a pottery cup eventually breaks after continual use; then again, it has fulfilled its purpose and can be discarded. So the Old Covenant has fulfilled its purpose by introducing the New Covenant and is now finished. As it is written, ‘He takes away the first that He may establish the second’ (Heb 10:9 ). “Oh but He hasn’t really taken away the old covenant, He’s just amended it a little!” That’s not what the text says. Read it again. Read it from verse 5. You are forcing your presuppositions upon the sacred text.
So what of the OC has disappeared? Well, the Temple has gone, the priesthood has gone, the sacrifices have gone, the ceremonial laws have gone, the dietry laws have gone. They are all fulfilled in Christ. Even the moral law, as something that condemns me, has gone. Whereas it was written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them’, now we read, ‘There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.’ Does that mean that I no longer have to keep the 10 Commandments? ‘God forbid! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?’ God’s everlasting, righteous law is no longer written in tablets of stone to condemn my stony heart, but rather it is written upon my new heart of flesh, so that I can say, Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day!’ and, ‘His commandments are not grievous.’
You write:-
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As matter a fact if you will check “your references” you will discover that each is to the Mosaic Covenant in these instances (i.e. 2 Cor 3; Gal 3; Heb 7-8, etc.) and not the Abrahamic.
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I’m a bit puzzled by this. The Old Covenant is not the Abrahamic Covenant. The OC is the Mosac Covenant (Heb 8:9 ). I thought that was a given. The Abrahamic Covenant is a Covenant of Promise.
You continue:-
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As O Palmer Robertson states, ‘The Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants do not supplant one another; they supplement one another.’
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That is absolutely correct. In each of the Covenants of Promise, we see a little more detail concerning the coming Seed. The Mosaic Covenant, however, though it is a C of P, also contains the Old Covenant Law. ‘And this I say that the law, which was 430 years later [than the Abrahamic Covenant], cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ’ (Gal 3:17 ). The Mosaic Law did not contradict the promises of the earlier covenants but was ‘Added because of transgressions till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made' (Gal 3:19 ).
You also say:-
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The promise was: "they shall be my people, and I will be their God" (Jer 24:7).
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Yes, but the people of God are different under the NC than in the OC. Of the OC people it is written:-
‘Unless the Lord of hosts had left us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah (Isaiah 1:9 ),
but of His New Covenant people, He says:-
‘For they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.’
When Paul writes to the church at Corinth, he is writing, ‘To those who are (better ‘have been’) sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours.’ He knows nothing of an visible/invisible church; everyone to whom he is writing is a saint. Likewise, John writes; ‘But you ( ie. every single one of you) have an anointing from the Holy One (1John 2:20 ). To be sure, there are ‘Those who have crept in unnoticed’ (Jude 4 ), but they, ‘Were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went outthat they might be made manifest that none of them were of us’ (1John 2:19 ). Every NT letter supposes a church full of believers, in line with the NC promise of Jer 31:33-34. To be sure, there are warnings against apostasy, but they end, ‘But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you….’ (Heb 6:9 ).
I must draw to a close because of other duties and I’m concious of not having answered all your points by any means. They will have to wait for another day. Just one last thing. When you moved from Credo to Paedo, you passed me going in the other direction. I was baptized into the Church of England as a baby and thought I was a Christian for nearly 40 years because of it. In my ignorance and superstition I baptized all three of my children as infants also. But all the time I was dead in trespasses and sin, and no more born again than a dog. When The Lord finally drew me to Himself, I became aware of Acts 2:38; ‘Repent and be baptized!’ How could I follow my Lord’s command? I couldn’t if my infant baptism were true baptism, because the Holy Spirit calls for repentance first. Therefore, realizing that my first baptism was mere superstition, I requested true Christian baptism on the grounds of my repentance and faith in Christ. Praise the Lord, one of my children has followed me; I continue to pray for the other two.
Every blessing,
Steve
