# What, exactly, is the Old Covenant?



## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

We talk about the Old Covenant as if it includes most of the Old Testament system of worship. I haven't always found this description very compelling.

Where, in the OT, do we find the description of what the Old Covenant actually entailed? When I read Exodus 24, I see the Old Covenant as essentially describing the will of the Israelites to do what the Book of the Covenant describes.

Is the Old Covenant the OT law and worship system, or the agreement by the Israelites that they will do what the law prescribes?


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## VictorBravo (Sep 11, 2015)

I think the best place to go for guidance is Hebrews Chapters 8-10.

There you see express discussion of the old covenant. It is described as the entire Mosaic covenant, most especially, the mode of worship under Moses.

As for whether it was the agreement by the Israelites to follow the law, I wouldn't say that is the old covenant in itself. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 shows that it is based upon God's oath to their fathers.


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## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out? Doesn't the OT describe it thoroughly? In addition, the Mosaic covenant is a different covenant than the Abrahamic Covenant. I don't see the relation between the two to be that important to understand the Mosaic covenant. Deuteronomy 7:6-8 seems to be primarily drawing upon the Abrahamic Covenant, not the Mosaic.


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## KeithW (Sep 11, 2015)

pkananen said:


> Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out?


The Old Testament does not use the phrase "old covenant". It is the New Testament which uses the phrase "old covenant" (2 Cor. 3:14) to explicitly identify which of the Old Testament covenants is being referred to as the "old covenant". Of the various covenants God made with men (where the word covenant is used): Noah, Abraham, Moses, "new", etc., it is Hebrews 7-9 which specifically identifies the "old covenant" as the one given to/through Moses. (Hebrews 7-10 also calls the "old covenant" the "first covenant". It also calls the "new covenant" the "second covenant" and the "better covenant".)

From a high level, the old covenant is the one with Moses and is based on God fulfilling promises based on the Israelites fulfilling conditions. Their agreeing to the covenant did not ratify (put into effect) the covenant. It was the blood sprinkled by Moses on the book of the covenant and on the people which ratified the covenant. So the emphasis of the old covenant is not really so much on whether the Israelites initially agreed to it or not, but on what God stated were the contents of that covenant. (An aside, the _contents_ of any covenant God made with men did not contain terms which were added by men.)

The contents of the old covenant are pretty broad. You mentioned one key phrase - "the book of the covenant". This is mentioned in Exod. 24:7; 2 Kings 23:2,3,21; 2 Chron. 34:30,31.


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 11, 2015)

pkananen said:


> Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out?


Because, apart from an abstract and detached scholarship (that cannot help but be artificial, supposing the OT is self-interpreting anymore), NT theology is needful to put us on the right track to understand the OT in biblical-theological, organic development.




pkananen said:


> In addition, the Mosaic covenant is a different covenant than the Abrahamic Covenant.


True.




pkananen said:


> I don't see the relation between the two to be that important to understand the Mosaic covenant.


Do you think it is important to your understanding of the New Covenant, to see the relation between the NC and the preceding covenant(s)?


Some things to bear in mind.
1) Ex.20:22-23:33 is the "Book of the Covenant" in the technical sense. It is the original oath-covenant which Jeremiah then contrasts to the promised "new covenant" that will come. Written on a scroll by pen in the hand of Moses the mediator.

2) The oath covenant is inseparable from all subsequent legislation associated with it, including worship regulation, amplification of previous stipulations, new rules, etc. The Old Covenant is more than an oath, a scroll, the five books; it is the context of national, intergenerational life from Sinai to Bethlehem.

3) The oath covenant is inseparable from the Declaration (10 commandments) and Foundation upon which it rests. Voice of the Lord, Finger of God, Tablets of Stone. And that divine Word-encounter culminates (fulfills) the salvation event which begins that book of Exodus, which is firmly attached to the promises at the heart of Genesis' activity.

4) Inseparability doesn't mean indistinguishability, any more than the Old-New Covenant's relations could be.

5) Genesis has to be understood as first-and-foremost the Israelite _nation's_ possession. No one had ever read *Genesis* before Moses wrote it. That claim is not the same as saying no one of Abraham's children prior to Moses had ever read/knew Israel's family history, or had reliable historical accounts going back to the flood or before it. There is "true," and there's "inspired." And the inspiration comes along with _authoritative interpretation_ embedded in the written text (not to mention associated prophetic wisdom)

6) Nevertheless, it was still a failure of popular and scholarly interpretation--at least in Jesus' time, if not frequently in earlier ages--to read Genesis "through the lens" of Sinai, rather than as the beginning of the story of world-redemption, with a progressively narrowing focus. Abraham was not intended to be viewed as "the first Torah-keeper," and outstanding in that work; Jehovah leaving to Moses the future duty to write down the law Abraham supposedly knew.

7) It is important, therefore, to NOT read Genesis _either as_ a simply sequential chronology and prequel to Exodus; _or as_ a book of heroics. It is the original book of promise (not law), fulfilled at one level in the generation that initially embraces it as it's official history; which generation of fulfillment finds itself still promising future generations an even more satisfying fulfillment.

8) For all these reasons, it is not reasonable to take a text like Dt.7:6-8 and propose that Moses teaches Israel thereby a pure "Abrahamic" grace-truth; and in vv3&11 he teaches pure "Siniatic"/old covenant law-truth. There is too much enfolding and enveloping of the former with the latter. We grasp that there are two conceptual principles (law & grace) both at work here; but trying to tease them completely apart (like separating conjoined twins) is too much of a delicate operation. We were not meant to divide them perfectly or ideally.


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## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

Contra_Mundum said:


> pkananen said:
> 
> 
> > Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out?
> ...



I disagree that the OT cannot be understood on its own merits. It's the Bible that Jesus and the apostles had and loved. Whenever they explained the coming of the Messiah, they only used the Tanach for evidence. That doesn't mean the NT doesn't help us understand the OT, but it also doesn't really change how we read the OT. After all, God's word is unchanging and timeless.




Contra_Mundum said:


> pkananen said:
> 
> 
> > I don't see the relation between the two to be that important to understand the Mosaic covenant.
> ...



Yes. 



Contra_Mundum said:


> Some things to bear in mind.
> 1) Ex.20:22-23:33 is the "Book of the Covenant" in the technical sense. It is the original oath-covenant which Jeremiah then contrasts to the promised "new covenant" that will come. Written on a scroll by pen in the hand of Moses the mediator.
> 
> 2) The oath covenant is inseparable from all subsequent legislation associated with it, including worship regulation, amplification of previous stipulations, new rules, etc. The Old Covenant is more than an oath, a scroll, the five books; it is the context of national, intergenerational life from Sinai to Bethlehem.
> ...



This is interesting. I'll have to think about this a bit more, but I think I get what you're saying.


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## Bill The Baptist (Sep 11, 2015)

pkananen said:


> Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out?



Because the NT is essentially a commentary on the OT.


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## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

Bill The Baptist said:


> pkananen said:
> 
> 
> > Why should I have to go to the NT to find this out?
> ...



If that's true, you're proving my point. Commentary helps in understanding, but is not essential to understanding. But there is obviously more revelation in the NT, although nothing that wasn't previously talked about in the OT.


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 11, 2015)

Peter,

I'm a bit shocked at your notion that the OT is somehow "self-revealing" when Jesus and the Apostles make it plain that it required the Person and work of Christ to make plain that all of redemptive history spoke of Him:

And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

(Luke 24:25-27 ESV)

Why does Paul speak of the "mystery" that was not revealed until the time of Christ (namely the ingrafting of the Gentiles), if the OC and its import is, as you state "self revealing"?

Why is it the case that *everyone* (including Jesus' own disciples) did not understand His person, work, and mission until His Resurrection, Ascension, and sending of the Spirit if the OC is "self-revealing"?

The OC is clearly revealed in the New Testament as representing Christ's mediatorial office (Prophet, Priest, and King) in types and shadows. It takes the fulfillment of the type - the fulfillment of everything that the OC typified, in order for the OC to be fully understood.

To claim otherwise is to read the OC with a veil over one's face.


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## Semper Fidelis (Sep 11, 2015)

Machen from "The Origin of Paul's Religion"



> The really distinctive achievement of Paul, however, does not consist in the mere geographical extension of the frontiers of the Church, important as that work was; it lies in a totally different sphere—in the hidden realm of thought. 1 What was really standing in the way of the Gentile mission was not the physical barriers presented by sea and mountain, it was rather the great barrier of religious principle. Particularism was written plain upon the pages of the Old Testament; in emphatic language the Scriptures imposed upon the true Israelite the duty of separateness from the Gentile world. Gentiles might indeed be brought in, but only when they acknowledged the prerogatives of Israel and united themselves with the Jewish nation. If premonitions of a different doctrine were to be found, they were couched in the mysterious language of prophecy; what seemed to be fundamental for the present was the doctrine of the special covenant between Jehovah and His chosen people.
> 
> This particularism of the Old Testament might have been overcome by practical considerations, especially by the consideration that since as a matter of fact the Gentiles would never accept circumcision and submit to the Law the only way to carry on the broader work was quietly to keep the more burdensome requirements of the Law in abeyance. This method would have been the method of "liberalism." And it would have been utterly futile. It would have meant an irreparable injury to the religious conscience; it would have sacrificed the good conscience of the missionary and the authoritativeness of his proclamation. Liberalism would never have conquered the world.
> 
> ...


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## Contra_Mundum (Sep 11, 2015)

pkananen said:


> I disagree that the OT cannot be understood on its own merits. It's the Bible that Jesus and the apostles had and loved.


This OT the Pharisees and Sadducees also claimed to understand fine, while disagreeing not only with Jesus' understanding, and the Samaritans', but also between them on numerous points.

So, who or what is the arbiter of the correct understanding? The OT had prophetic teachers throughout it's inscripturated history, both the compositional phase(s) and the stable interims. The time of greatest declension (it appears) in the ability to understand the OT "on its own merits" came in the 400 "silent years" just prior to the arrival of John the Baptist. Not coincidentally, the end of the period of the judges (another period of great declension in revelation-appreciation) is remarked of in 1Sam.3:1 as a time when "the word of the Lord was rare."

The principle is simply this: if we want to know what the books of Moses meant originally, we must have recourse not only to the 5-books themselves (and to the multiple "takes" on them, reduced to some handful of common-denominator conclusions among elite opinion-makers). But equally we must look to Joshua, to Samuel, and other unnamed prophets who gave the first inspired interpretations. We must look to the contents of subsequent books, and to the people described therein: to a man like Jephthah, Jdg.11, who from v15 rehearses certain parts of the history of redemption contained in Moses, and from which we are obliged to presume he learned it. Or Samson, who was ordained a Nazarite from birth, which requirements are defined by the Law.

Likewise, the writing prophets and poets of the monarchical era, writing from within the old covenant context, add to the "true and accurate" understanding of the law and history generations that preceded them into the pages of canonical literature, the inspired interpretation of the past.

There is an inherent danger in assuming one has the tools to "enter into" the ancient scene of Moses' generation _unencumbered,_ as it were, with the knowledge of another generation; thereby to investigate the matter _de novo,_ or as if he was one of the original participants, based ONLY on the surviving data proper to that *moment* of history; and thence to come to pristine truth. For one thing, the original wilderness-generation had prophets, who supplied the "gaps" in the necessarily abbreviated record. What do we have comparable to them, _except for subsequent prophetic revelation?_ Leaving the latter prophets aside, we thus have nothing but our own presumed genius to tell us what all that meant to the first generation. It is absolutely necessary for us to rely on the prophets, and then also Jesus and the apostles to arbitrate the case and show us the path to proper appreciation.

If we come to a firm conclusion about the old covenant, or anything in the OT, studiously avoiding (as we are able) any taint of NT influence on our thinking; then we come to the NT and to Jesus and his apostles, and read that conclusion into their words and actions, we are quite as likely to impose on them a tendentious reading, as do those who impose too far upon OT conditions the full benefit of NT light and fulfillment.

This scenario is by no means unusual. Faithless scholarship has been doing it for years, turning the Israelites into Semitic nomads who were never actually in Egypt; turning the conquest of Canaan into a centuries long migration/discplacement event, marked more by assimilation of and into the prevailing culture; turning the Pentateuch and much of Israelite history into pious (and barely disguised) forgery-and-fiction. (Likewise, the NT has been subjected to a bifurcation of the religion of Jesus too often sought "behind" the Gospels; and the religion of Christianity, his followers--who eventually were an amalgam of the competing schools of the disciples, each giving a slant on Jesus' in their phony Gospel accounts; all dominated by Paul's and pseudo-Pauline letters.)

Popularly, today we contend with "HebrewRoots" movement types and others recasting the Christianity of Jesus as if it were vastly different from the Christianity that emerges on history's stage. Folks like this assert that the trajectory of Christianity after the first century abandoned its Hebrew origin, and became "Greek." Sometimes, even Apostle Paul is criticized for allegedly pushing the church in this direction, and away from the stricter Jewishness of Jesus and the original apostolic mission.

All these sorts of approaches--scholarly and popular--are built on false premises and method. And the basic error is the supposition that the Old Testament (a part of revelation) is fundamentally self-explanatory, and/or evolutionary, not requiring the fullness of revelation at any given time to inform understanding in any particular portion.

A chronological reading and appreciation of Scripture, the admiration of unfolding revelation, is perfectly legitimate. But it cannot be done in any way that reduces the true interpretation of such material, found in a later generation's inspired writing, to the judgment that it is a mere _privileged preference._


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## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

Interestingly, Jesus is saying something close to what I'm saying: "“O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!"

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not saying that I could've understood the OT apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ in the NT scriptures.


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## Clark-Tillian (Sep 11, 2015)

I'm a bit confused by this statement (I didn't lift the entire quote and back and forth debate due to length). You wrote:

"I disagree that the OT cannot be understood on its own merits. It's the Bible that Jesus and the apostles had and loved. Whenever they explained the coming of the Messiah, they only used the Tanach for evidence. That doesn't mean the NT doesn't help us understand the OT, but it also doesn't really change how we read the OT. After all, God's word is unchanging and timeless."

In one sense, Jesus and the apostles could only use the Tanakh because that was all God had revealed in writing up to His Son's incarnation; Jesus could not possibly expound Hebrews 8-10 as it was written after His ascension. On the other hand I cannot affirm your proposition. Christ, as a person, was/is the ultimate revelation. His very words were new revelation; in Matthew 5 his constant refrain of "but I say unto you" is evidence for this. His works were also new revelation: John 14--Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake." Jesus certainly corrected erroneous Judaic interpretations of the Tanakh, but he often did so on his own authority, based upon his identity. Neither do the Apostles limit themselves to the Tanakh. They appeal to Jesus himself--as a person, in his 3 fold office and two-natured personhood. As Vic, pointed out Hebrews 8-10 is a case in point; the Tanakh in no way breaks things down as those three chapters do--they are a high-water mark in this regard. The Servant Songs in Isaiah are clear to us as being obviously messianic, and they are. However, Paul's famous "kenosis" passage in Phil. 2 takes things quite a bit further.

Moreover, your assertion that although the NT can help us understand the OT but does not change our fundamental reading of it seems self-refuting. How can additional understanding not change our reading/interpretation? 

Lastly, you are correct in stating that God's word is unchanging and timeless. And although the Tanakh does assert and prove this, Christ IS the Word and, therefore, is the final stopping point for irrefutable evidence to this fact.


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## pkananen (Sep 11, 2015)

All I mean is that what expanded revelation we find in the NT really can't contradict what the OT says.

I think we're mostly saying the same thing.


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## MW (Sep 11, 2015)

2 Corinthians 3:14 says, "until this day remainteth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament: which vail is done away in Christ."

The Mosaic economy deliberately concealed the bright glory and perfect freedom of God's grace because it could not be borne or enjoyed by the people as a people under age. Only in the full revelation of Christ can the glory of the types and figures of the old testament be seen and the Spirit of liberty be enjoyed.


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