A brief look at God's Covenants

Let’s take a look at the covenants of God. If we look back at the covenants God made, first with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, then with their natural born descendants, the Israelites (and the ones who joined in with them as they came out of Egypt – Exodus 12:38) and finally to the called out ones (called out from the world) who have been grafted in with Israel (Romans 11), we see that each new covenant didn’t replace the one before it…it built on it! This is something that is often misunderstood. It is one of the many instances where what the Bible says must have precedence over what any person, study, church or denomination interprets the Bible to say. Some say that the new covenant replaced the old, and that the ‘church’ replaced Israel. This is not what the BIble says. (As an aside, the word translated as ‘church’ in most Bibles, actually means ‘called out ones’ or ‘congregation’, and it is rather odd that it came to be called ‘church’ which has actually quite a different original meaning.) The Bible says God will never forget Israel. Never! It says that Israel was meant to live within God’s covenant conditions, so as to be a light to the rest of the world, which would then leave their gods and worship the one true God, along with Israel. This is the way it was meant to work. But the law, the instruction that shows us how we are to live, also reveals to us that we can’t do that on our own, that we are deceived by our sinful nature. Our sinful nature has to die, and we must be reborn in our will, in order to follow God’s laws. When we trust (believe) in Messiah Yeshua and His sacrifice enough to be willing to ‘die’ with Him in our sinful nature, when we hate it enough to be willing to see it put it to death and follow Him instead of following our own will, then God promises His Spirit will write the law on our hearts and enable us to be obedient…as long as we are daily willing to see that sinful nature put to death (Luke 9:23) and follow Him. He draws us to Him, we respond in obedience and trust, He does the work of rebirth, and our grateful response, enabled by the Spirit, is to live in holiness according to His will. This is the covenant. That we will be His people and He will be our God. Galatians 3 speaks of the law given at Mt Sinai, as a guardian. In the sense that when we were children, we needed someone to teach us how to live and to guard us, to keep us from harm, but when we are grown, we know the right way to live without someone teaching us. Assuming we’ve been taught right! I like to use the example of a hot stove, with bright red elements, as being very attractive to a child. The law (as guardian) keeps us away from the hot stove, and its potential to harm us severely. UNTIL we grow up, and the understanding that the hot elements will hurt us becomes an internal knowledge, and we no longer need that external guardian. In the end, the stove must still not be touched, right? You don’t grow up and then it is OK to touch the hot elements. That will still harm you. In the same way, the law of God is good and teaches us how to live, and we don't outgrow that need. Sin is still sin. Living without God's law is sin. Read Psalm 119 to learn how good the law is. If you marry, you make a covenant with your spouse. If you remarry, the covenant doesn't change does it? The new covenant God makes with us remains the same covenant, in its basic terms and conditions, as the one made with the Israelites (the natural born ones and those grafted in) as set apart from the world. But the new covenant is better, in that God has done a new thing in us, the partner. If you read Hebrews 8 carefully, you see this in verse 9, where God says this new covenant will not be like the one He made with the people of Israel and Judah, who did not remain faithful…and so broke the covenant, causing God to turn His back on them. But did He forsake them?? NO, not at all, though He did turn His back on them for a time. You see in the very next verse (vs 10) that He will make a new covenant with who? ISRAEL! But this time, He will not make the covenant that requires an external guardian, but He Himself (through His Spirit) will write His perfect laws on our minds, in our thoughts, in our very personality…SO we will be able to obey Him! That’s always been the point. There will be no more need for an external guardian, and it will be put aside (Hebrews 8:13). For each person, from the least to the greatest, will already know the instruction (Torah, sometimes translated ‘law’) of God; see verse 11, it will be written not on tablets of stone, but on the softness of a yielded heart. How amazing is that!? On the subject of remarriage, in the book of Hosea, God gives a picture of this remarriage. God commanded His prophet Hosea to marry Gomer. Gomer was and continued to act as a prostitute, and she persistently committed adultery against Hosea, breaking the marriage covenant. This is a picture of God’s people (all of us), who even though we had the law (the marriage covenant) continued to worship and serve things, imaginations, or interpretations instead of God. This is spiritual adultery. It wasn’t until Hosea turned his back on Gomer, leaving her to her lovers, that she realized what a bad state she was in. Then Hosea was instructed to buy her back from the servitude of sin she was in (from a pimp who owned her) and she was sent away to become clean (set apart from the world), with the promise that Hosea would take her back, and call her children (the children she bore to Hosea, but it is implied they were not all his) his own. So we see that God redeems His own from our bondage to sin, that He teaches us His ways (the same ways He taught the Israelites) so we know how to live before Him, and that one day He will return to make the new covenant official (the wedding supper of the Lamb – Rev 19:9). In the meantime, we are the ‘betrothed’ of the Lord, and need to keep ourselves apart from the dirt of the world…clean before God, as we wait for Him. This is very important, this keeping clean. We see this time and again in the Bible (1 Cor 5:11, Eph 5:5 are just two). I encourage you to always, always, trust the words of the Bible (in a good translation, of course…such as ESV or NASB or NKJV) in its context (the WHOLE Bible) over the words (doctrine) of ANY church or person or Bible study. Look for a place to worship that preaches and teaches God’s ways, and helps you understand what it means to be ‘in the world but not of it’ and what it means to be ‘clean’ before God. But even then, always trust what God tells you in His Word (which means you have to intently study it YOURSELF!) over what anyone else says. Yeshua (Jesus) says He did not come to bring peace (human unity) but a sword, that following Him would mean separation (Matthew 10:17-42). He was talking about separation from the religious system! Do not fear, but be aware. Let others live as they will, but YOU live as God teaches you in His Word!