Keep Your Covenants Straight

            Deuteronomy 5 presents a challenge right out of the blocks.  In verse 3, Moses says that the lord did not make a covenant with the fathers but with the current generation.  But, wait, didn’t the original exodus generation die in the wilderness because of their refusal to take the land?  Isn’t this an entirely new generation, save Joshua and Caleb?  What gives?

            It would seem that the fathers in question are the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  God did not make this covenant with them.  Instead he made a different sort of covenant with Israel as constituted at Sinai.

            This is an important thing to understand in terms of ‘getting’ Israel through much of the Old Testament.  There is a fundamental difference between the covenant made with Abraham and the one that constituted Israel as nation.  Paul makes this distinction in Galatians 3:  the covenant with Abraham predates the covenant of Sinai by 400 years.  The covenant with Abraham is a covenant of promise for all humanity.  The covenant at Sinai is for Israel and it is contingent and conditional.  If Israel, as nation, is faithful, the Lord will keep her in her land.  If she’s not, she’ll go into exile. 

            Now there are principles in the Sinai legislation that carry through to the New Testament church.  After all, underlying much of the social legislation was a desire for mercy, peace, and justice.  So, even if the specifics don’t apply universally, we can see indicators of underlying universal principles.

            The take-away for us is that in the coming chapters, there will be lots of ‘ifs,’ lots of contingencies, and lots of calls for obedience.  It’s important that we hear them as Paul hears them.  We are not under the covenant of Sinai; that covenant fulfilled its purpose with the coming of Jesus.  We are under the covenant with Abraham, the covenant that predates Moses and lasts to the new creation.  While we want to pay attention to those New Testament passages that warn us about walking out of step with the Spirit (Eph. 4:30), we also don’t want to think that somehow salvation is contingent on being ‘good enough.’  Salvation is contingent only on God’s promise, “I will bless all peoples through you,” and it’s fulfillment in Jesus.