# T David Gordon Contrasts Abrahamic & Sinai Covenants



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

The covenant between Abraham and the Sinai covenant contrasted in Galatians 3 and 4.
His five main points:
1. The Abrahamic covenant includes the nations/Gentiles, the Sinai covenant excludes them.
2. The Abrahamic covenant blesses, the Sinai covenant curses
3. The Abrahamic covenant is characterized by faith, the Sinai covenant is characterized by the works of the law.
4. The Abrahamic covenant justifies, the Sinai covenant does not.
5. The Abrahamic covenant is referred to as a "promise", the Sinai covenant is referred to as "law"
http://www.tdgordon.net/theology/abraham_and_sinai_contraste.pdf


----------



## whirlingmerc (Oct 13, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> The covenant between Abraham and the Sinai covenant contrasted in Galatians 3 and 4.
> His five main points:
> 1. The Abrahamic covenant includes the nations/Gentiles, the Sinai covenant excludes them.
> 2. The Abrahamic covenant blesses, the Sinai covenant curses
> ...



I generally agree but even in the giving of the law it was said God blesses those who love Him to a thousand generations
(And two of the commandments, obeying parents and taking birds eggs but not the mother bird have blessings of long life)


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

> I generally agree but even in the giving of the law it was said God blesses those who love Him to a thousand generations
> (And two of the commandments, obeying parents and taking birds eggs but not the mother bird have blessings of long life)



Gordon would agree. He is writing about the general tenor of the Sinai covenant as described by Paul in Galatians 3:10 


> For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Oct 13, 2014)

First, let me affirm that I like TDGordon, I know him, he has a lot of important things to say. And it is critical that we always read people--and especially TDG--in context. I've never met a more precise speaker than TDG, unless it was Jerry Crick.

That said, I think #1 & #2 demand nuance. It is false to say that because there is a calling of "all nations" wrt Abraham, and Israel's is a national constitution, that those outside the latter covenant are left out entirely.

The Gentile's mentioned in Abraham's covenant aren't IN it simply by virtue of their mention--not without adopting the faith of Abraham. Furthermore, if we consider Dt.4:6-8, we find that Israel's obedience is meant to stimulate admiration of the world.

Not only that, but consider that countless aliens (Gentiles) were incorporated into Israel, into the Sinaitic covenant over the centuries. Uriah the Hittite comes to mind, as does Ittai the Gittite, both men who served king David loyally. Caleb the Kenizite (Edom) was one of the first generation, and he was counted for a man of Judah.

No one can estimate (with any accuracy) how many "adoptees" stood at the foot of Sinai to make the original covenant, but there must have been thousands. The Lord delivered a host out of Egypt, which included a "mixed multitude" fleeing the land of Death. The whole company of the Exodus made covenant with Jehovah at Sinai, which was instantly a people with a "mixed" heritage.

So, I find the first point too artificial, making more of Abraham's "inclusion" as well as Sinai's "exclusion" than is warranted. I don't find Paul playing up this difference in any case.

Moreover, the second point could be observed to neglect that God says explicitly to Abraham "...I will *curse* those who curse you;" and Sinai includes *blessings* along with the cursings. True, Abraham is purely passive, while God alone takes on the malediction of the covenant; and the curses are exclusively pointed away from Abraham.

However, since the goal is to play up the contrasts (ala Paul in Gal.3&4), the way the second point is worded is too easily contradicted simply by the terminology present to the reader. I'm positive TDG explains his meaning sufficiently; but here you can see the danger of simply posting a set of headings, absent the context in which they are further explicated.

Points 3-5 do not stir up controversy, to my mind.


----------



## MW (Oct 13, 2014)

Dispensationalism teaches two contrasting covenants. Covenant theology teaches there are two unified dispensations under the one covenant of grace. Galatians 3 teaches this very truth. The Abrahamic promise was operative and could not be annulled. Hence the law was not serving to annul the promise, but to direct it to its destined end. The passage states with unmistakable clarity, "God is one." "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid." "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." The law was not serving as a co-ordinate covenant, but was made subservient to the purpose of grace.


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

I'll deal with the last statement first.


> I'm positive TDG explains his meaning sufficiently; but here you can see the danger of simply posting a set of headings, absent the context in which they are further explicated.



I did not think that I should post a 28-page essay on the board. That is why I provided the link to the whole thing. As you pointed earlier, Gordon appears to be a measured, careful expositor. 

As to your other points: 



> It is false to say that because there is a calling of "all nations" wrt Abraham, and Israel's is a national constitution, that those outside the latter covenant are left out entirely.
> 
> The Gentile's mentioned in Abraham's covenant aren't IN it simply by virtue of their mention--not without adopting the faith of Abraham.



I am afraid you are mixing apples and oranges. True, Gentiles, could come under the covenant if they were adoped into it, by circumcision, for example. This is part of Gordon's point. The Sinai covenant was primarily for _national Israel_ and was outward. As to the faith of Abraham, again your comment supports his conclusion. This promise was for all that embraced the


> faith


 of Abraham. Being ethnic Jew or not, made no difference. 

As to Paul, making a distinction, he could not have been clearer in Ephesians 2:12


> That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:



As to this comment:


> Moreover, the second point could be observed to neglect that God says explicitly to Abraham "...I will curse those who curse you;" and Sinai includes blessings along with the cursings.



Those curses came upon those who were not under the covenant. The Abrahamic covenant which foreshadowed the true seed, Christ, did not include a curse, because He became the curse for us. Expanding point 5, though not making it a separate point, Gordon intimated it was that the promise was not contingent, (as you pointed out, Abraham was passive), but the law was.


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

With all due respect, you did not deal with the text and his various points. He does not pit the covenants against each other, but that they served two different purposes.

Gordon Believes that John Murray pushed his monocovenantal views precisely to counter the Dispensationalists, but that he went too far.


----------



## mvdm (Oct 13, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> Gordon Believes that John Murray pushed his monocovenantal views



Gordon has not read Murray correctly or charitably.


----------



## mvdm (Oct 13, 2014)

armourbearer said:


> Dispensationalism teaches two contrasting covenants. Covenant theology teaches there are two unified dispensations under the one covenant of grace. Galatians 3 teaches this very truth. The Abrahamic promise was operative and could not be annulled. Hence the law was not serving to annul the promise, but to direct it to its destined end. The passage states with unmistakable clarity, "God is one." "Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid." "But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed." The law was not serving as a co-ordinate covenant, but was made subservient to the purpose of grace.



Indeed. Which renders Gordon's items 2-5 controversial, and in fact, these items are the subject of ongoing controversy.


----------



## MW (Oct 13, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> With all due respect, you did not deal with the text and his various points.



The text contradicts his points. I quoted the relevant texts. They are not serving "two different purposes," but functioning in two different ways to accomplish the one divine and absolute purpose. Every time TDG speaks of "law" as a distinct "covenant," he espouses dispensationalism pure and simple. If the law is not subservient to a higher purpose of grace it necessarily conflicts with it because it is made to set forth another way of life.


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

mvdm said:


> David Shedlock said:
> 
> 
> > Gordon Believes that John Murray pushed his monocovenantal views
> ...



Since when is disagreeing uncharitable? He simply put his writings in context. Did you read the entire Gordon article?


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

> Every time TDG speaks of "law" as a distinct "covenant," he espouses dispensationalism pure and simple.



Are you accusing Paul of being a dispie?

Which things are an allegory: for these are the _two covenants_;_ the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage_, which is Agar.

25 For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children.

26_ But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all._

27 For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not: for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband.

28 Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise.

29 But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now.

30 Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.

31 So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free.


----------



## MW (Oct 13, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> > Every time TDG speaks of "law" as a distinct "covenant," he espouses dispensationalism pure and simple.
> 
> 
> Are you accusing Paul of being a dispie?



No. The apostle Paul uses an allegory, whereas the dispensationalist takes him as speaking literally and historically. The apostle did not use the word "covenant" in relation to the law. He only uses it of certain persons of the "flesh." It is undoubted that unbelievers under the covenant of grace outwardly are still in bondage under the covenant of works inwardly. As for the law per se, the apostle had already stated very clearly that the law was added to the promise; it was not given to annul the promise. Hence the law in its divinely ordained function served the ends of the promise of grace, not the covenant of works. Men of the flesh turned it into a covenant of works to serve their own ends.


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 13, 2014)

> The apostle did not use the word "covenant" in relation to the law



"two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai" Galatians 3:26

That isn't the word "covenant" in relation to the word "law"


----------



## MW (Oct 13, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> "two covenants; the one from the mount Sinai" Galatians 3:26



"Which things are an allegory."



David Shedlock said:


> That isn't the word "covenant" in relation to the word "law"



Correct. The word is used in relation to Jerusalem which now is, that is, a body of people claiming "Sinai" as its identity-marker even after that identity-marker has ceased to serve the function which it occupied in the history of redemption.


----------



## PuritanCovenanter (Oct 14, 2014)

I posted a blog on this topic.Possible Misconceptions about Galatians. Law and Gospel are opposed? | RPCNA Covenanter

The Mosaic was an administration of the covenant of grace and not works.
Romans 7:13 Was then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful.


----------



## Peairtach (Oct 14, 2014)

The Old Testament was perverted by works' religionists, notably the Pharisees, whom the Apostle was dealing with a lot. 

As we know, the New Testament has been similarly misused/abused.

Sent from my HTC Wildfire using Tapatalk 2


----------



## AndyS (Oct 14, 2014)

That book (TLINOF) is next on my list. 

Not really looking forward to reading it, to be honest.


----------



## louis_jp (Oct 14, 2014)

David Shedlock said:


> Since when is disagreeing uncharitable? He simply put his writings in context. Did you read the entire Gordon article?



Gordon's treatment of Murray has been addressed here, among other places: http://www.kerux.com/pdf/Kerux.24.03.pdf


----------



## PuritanCovenanter (Oct 14, 2014)

From pages 63-66 of the Journal. http://www.kerux.com/pdf/Kerux.24.03.pdf

To see the footnotes and references go to the pdf link. 



> *Gordon and Estelle on John Murray*
> 
> As mentioned above, Gordon and Estelle take special aim at Murray’s teaching on the Mosaic covenant. The former seems particularly concerned to show that Murray was not only mistaken in his view of the Mosaic covenant, but systematically avoided entire books of the Bible (namely, Galatians) that contradicted his thesis. Gordon’s essay, “Abraham and Sinai Contrasted in Galatians 3:6-14,” is perhaps the most provocative essay in the entire book. His “exegesis” of Gal. 3:6-14 is simply an extended diatribe against John Murray. As he states in the preface: “…this essay intends, in large measure, to function as a counterargument to Murray” (240). In fact, he does not hesitate to challenge Murray’s competency as a New Testament scholar, arguing that to his knowledge, John Murray “never wrote so much as a paragraph about the Galatian letter” (253). In a footnote on the same page, Gordon says this:
> 
> ...



Looks like sloppy scholarship and falseness being presented on the part of those criticizing John Murray. The book 'Moses and Merit' does a good job defining the situation between Shepherd, Murray, Kline, and the authors of 'The Law is Not of Faith' in the first part of the book. 

https://wipfandstock.com/store/Merit_and_Moses_A_Critique_of_the_Klinean_Doctrine_of_Republication/

http://www.amazon.com/Merit-Moses-Critique-Doctrine-Republication/dp/1625646836 

It is in Kindle format now also.
http://www.amazon.com/Merit-Moses-C.../ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=&qid=

And yes, David, Mark has read the article and just about all things associated with this topic as it is infesting his denomination.


----------



## MW (Oct 14, 2014)

From T. David Gordon:



> Luther, for instance, was less squeamish than Professor Murray, and was quite willing to write a lengthy commentary on the letter. But then Luther was willing to recognize the covenantal contrasts in Galatians, and so was happy to write about it.



In writing on Galatians Luther regularly spoke of the "testament," and expounded it in the sense of being a last will and testament. He did not use the word "covenant" in the same sense it is used today. This will make it extremely difficult to substantiate the claim that "Luther was willing to recognize the covenantal contrasts in Galatians, and so was happy to write about it." He certainly taught a Law-Gospel contrast; but then he did not speak of these as a covenant of works and a covenant of grace.


----------



## Semper Fidelis (Oct 14, 2014)

WCF:


> III. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second,5 commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved,6 and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.7
> 
> IV. This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequeathed.8
> 
> ...



Vos from Hebrews: The Epistle of the Diatheke:



> Still another means of tracing the author’s view of the relation between the heavenly world and the make-up of the Old Testament religion is afforded in the peculiar meaning he attaches to the predicate ἀληθινός, translated in the English versions by “true,” but more adequately rendered by “veritable.” This is a predicate reserved for the things in heaven because, in contrast to the shadows of the Old Covenant, they constitute the solid reality, the veritable substance. In this characteristic use of the word ἀληθινός Hebrews coincides with the Fourth Gospel. There the Evangelist speaks of the Logos as “the true light,” and our Lord calls Himself “the true vine,” “the true bread,” and defines the latter as “the bread that comes down out of heaven, the bread of God” (6:33). And even more closely approaching the viewpoint of Hebrews is the contrast drawn in the prologue between the law given through Moses, and the grace and truth which came through Jesus Christ, for here, it will be observed, the Christian revelation is characterized as “truth” in distinction from the Mosaic law, to which this predicate does not belong. The meaning is not, of course, that the Mosaic law is untrue or false in the ordinary sense of the word; in fact, this misunderstanding is carefully guarded against by the form of statement employed: the law was given “through” Moses, which implies that Moses in the lawgiving was only the instrument of God, from whom nothing false or untrue can come. “Truth” here means what it means in Hebrews; it expresses the heavenly character of the Christian realities of revelation and redemption in which the higher world directly communicates itself, and the opposite of “the true” is the typical, wherein the connection with the heavenly world is present only in a mediated, shadowy form. And Jesus, because He is the center and exponent of this great projection of the supernatural into the lower world, is called “the Truth.” In the well-known answer to Thomas concerning the way to the place whither Jesus is going, our Saviour declares that He Himself personally is the way. His way is into heaven, and through identification with Him the disciples can reach the same goal. But our Lord further explains this fact, that the way to heaven lies through Him, from His being “the truth,” and “the life,” which means nothing else than that the veritable higher world has come down in Him, and that particularly the heavenly life has made its appearance on earth in His Person. All this is but the statement in a more general form of what the Epistle to the Hebrews affirms with specific reference to the sphere of priesthood and sacrifice.
> A couple of very instructive examples of the twofold relation in which the epistle places the things of the Old Covenant as on the one hand looking upward to the world of heaven, on the other hand looking forward to the New Covenant, may be found in what it teaches about the figure of Melchizedek and about the conception of the promised rest. In the historical sequence of things Christ is said to be a priest after the order of Melchizedek. Here we have the ordinary correspondence between type and antitype, the former pertaining to the Old, the latter to the New Covenant. To Melchizedek belongs the first, to Christ the later appearance on the scene of history. But in the third verse of the eighth chapter the author reverses this relation, representing it in this way, that not Christ was made like unto Melchizedek, but, on the contrary, Melchizedek was made like unto the Son of God. The introduction of the name “Son of God” here is highly significant. It describes Christ in His divine, eternal nature. From this eternal life that places the Son of God above all time and history, the eternity-character enveloping Melchizedek in the record of Genesis was copied, that thus delineated he might again in the time-perspective of history prefigure the historic Christ. The same observation may be made with regard to the “rest” promised the people of God. The rest of the land of Canaan given to Israel of old was a type of the supreme rest opened up by Jesus in the New Covenant. But this rest of Canaan was by no means the first or original embodiment of the religious idea of rest. Back of it and above it lay in the heavenly world the “sabbatismos” of God spoken of in the account of creation, and which is identical with the Christian rest, since believers are received by God into the rest that is His own. Generalizing this we may say that according to the teaching of the epistle the Old Testament things are both copies and copied from, and the latter because they are the former.
> It needs, after what has been said, no lengthy demonstration to show that Hebrews vindicates by this philosophy of history in the most satisfactory manner the identity and continuity of the Old Covenant with the New. Still it is not a work of supererogation to call attention to this. The concrete purpose for which the epistle was written gave occasion for placing great emphasis on the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old. And this undoubtedly is also the proximate purpose in the mind of the author when he formulates that antithesis: there the shadow, here the image itself. But the antithesis would be overdrawn and the author’s mark overshot if we were to interpret this as meaning the old has only the shadow of the new. As we now know, the author’s real intent is this: the old has only the shadow of heaven, the new has the full reality of heaven. And therefore to do the author full justice the stress should not be laid exclusively on the statement that there is “only” a shadow, but equally on the fact that there “is” a shadow of the true things of religion under the Old Covenant. The word in the prophets cannot take the place of the word in the Son, but it is a word in which God spoke. The sacrifices and lustrations could not do the work for which alone the priestly work of Christ is adequate, but they were in their own sphere faithful adumbrations and true means of grace, through which a real contact with the living God was actually maintained. When again and again, in pursuance of the immediate end in view, the author declares their weakness and unprofitableness (7:18), this is meant comparatively, but is not intended to void them of all religious efficacy. If taken in an absolute sense, such statements would warrant the inference that the Old Covenant had no spiritual substance at all, that the saints of old moved wholly among shadows, for which no body was yet in existence. This would be the same erroneous impression that is sometimes derived in an even stronger degree from the Pauline statements in which the apostle speaks of the religious life under the law, statements which seem to allow nothing for this life in the way of positive spiritual privilege and enjoyment, and to dwell only on the condemnatory, cursing, slaying function of the law. And yet we know from Paul that he was well-acquainted not only with the objective foreshadowing which the facts of the Christian redemption had found in the Old Testament but also with the subjective prelibations which had been tasted by the saints of those days. And so it is in Hebrews. With whatever degree of clearness or dimness they might themselves apprehend the fact, God stood in spiritual relations to the people of Israel; they were not cut off from the fount of life and blessedness. Through the shadows and ceremonies and all the instrumentalities of the flesh, God controlled with a sure and sovereign hand the religious destinies of each member of His covenant people. Not only under the influence of special inspiration were a David and other psalmists or a Jeremiah enabled to take to themselves prophetic draughts of the waters of life, which their vision saw springing up in the coming age; there was a direct and contemporaneous interaction between the redemptive approaches of God in the religious forms of that day and the believing and unbelieving responses with which they were met on the part of man. Instructive in this respect is the description given by the author of the dealings of God with the people during the wilderness journey and the people’s attitude during that journey to the rest that had been promised. So far as the form was concerned, this promise had come to them only through the medium of the σάρξ; it was enveloped in the prospect of the inheritance of the land of Canaan that God had held out from of old and renewed at the time of their redemption from Egypt. And yet it is clearly the author’s conviction that far deeper and more tremendous issues were decided on that occasion with reference to each of the participants in the history than the mere question, who of them would survive to enter the promised land. Through the shadowy forms, in the midst of which the actors moved, a great drama of belief and unbelief was enacted, the outcome of which was by God reckoned decisive in the eternal sphere. It was not only from the typical but from the everlasting rest that the unbelievers were excluded when God swore that fearful oath that they should not enter in. And those who believed were then and there given the right of entrance into all that the divine rest did mean and would come to mean in the future. The author is so vividly impressed with this that he does not content himself with comparing this Old Testament method of procedure with the method now pursued under the new dispensation, but approaches the comparison from the opposite end. He does not say, they as well as we, but we as well as they have had an evangel preached unto us, whence also he is able to hold up the unbelief of the Israelites as a warning example to the readers of his own day. No more striking proof than this could be afforded of the fact that he regarded the same spiritual world with the same powers and blessings as having evoked the religious experience of the Old and the New Testament alike.


----------



## mvdm (Oct 14, 2014)

Behold Gordon's "pitying the poor Israelites" for having to live under what the Reformed churches confess was a gracious covenant administered from the hands of our almighty, perfect, and loving God:

"...the Sinai covenant itself, as it was delivered by the hand of Moses
430 years after the Abrahamic covenant, was a different
covenant, different in kind, characteristically legal, Gentile excluding,
non-justifying because it was characterized by
works, and therefore cursing its recipients and bearing
children for slavery. If this doesn’t sound like any bargain,
recall that the original Israelites did not consider it a bargain
either, and they resisted Moses; efforts to engage them in it.
All things considered, many of the first-generation Israelites,
who received this covenant while trembling at the foot of
a quaking mountain and then wandered in the wilderness,
preferred to return to Egypt rather than to enter the covenant
with a frightening deity who threatened curse sanctions upon
them if they disobeyed. *I do not blame them; their assessment
of the matter was judicious and well considered, albeit rebellious.*
The Sinai covenant-administration was no bargain
for sinners, and *I pity the poor Israelites who suffered under
its administration, just as I understand perfectly well why
seventy-three (nearly half) of their psalms were laments. **I
would have resisted this covenant also, *had I been there, because
such a legal covenant, whose conditions require strict
obedience (and threaten severe curse-sanctions), is bound to
fail if one of the parties to it is a sinful people (TLNOF, p. 251)."


----------



## Peairtach (Oct 16, 2014)

mvdm said:


> Behold Gordon's "pitying the poor Israelites" for having to live under what the Reformed churches confess was a gracious covenant administered from the hands of our almighty, perfect, and loving God:
> 
> "...the Sinai covenant itself, as it was delivered by the hand of Moses
> 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant, was a different
> ...



Bizarre and incoherent.


----------



## Backwoods Presbyterian (Oct 16, 2014)

mvdm said:


> Behold Gordon's "pitying the poor Israelites" for having to live under what the Reformed churches confess was a gracious covenant administered from the hands of our almighty, perfect, and loving God:
> 
> "...the Sinai covenant itself, as it was delivered by the hand of Moses
> 430 years after the Abrahamic covenant, was a different
> ...



That sounds an awful lot like Scofield's take on the Mosaic Covenant. Scofield in his notes says the Israelites "made a mistake" accepting the covenant.


----------



## David Shedlock (Oct 16, 2014)

I concede the one-sided picture Gordon has apparently painted of Murray. I am also not happy with the quote above concerning the Israelites and the covenant. I fear he has gone too far.


----------



## AndyS (Oct 17, 2014)

PuritanCovenanter said:


> From pages 63-66 of the Journal. http://www.kerux.com/pdf/Kerux.24.03.pdf
> 
> To see the footnotes and references go to the pdf link.
> 
> ...



I sincerely wish that the issue of Kerux that you cited were published in a book format. (I hate reading texts that lengthy online.) It would be handy to be able to read that in conjunction with reading TLINOF.

Thank you for posting that link, BTW.


----------

