Christ, the Law and the Covenants
Stephen Terry
Commentary for the June 7, 2014
Sabbath School Lesson
“This is the covenant I will make
with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my
law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they
will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one
another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them
to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and
will remember their sins no more.” Jeremiah 31:33-34, NIV
When I look
up into the sky on a rainy day after the sun has come out, and I see a rainbow,
I marvel at the beauty of the separated colors of the spectrum as each
suspended rain drop becomes a prism. My high school science education comes
into play as I pick out the different colors according to the acronym, Roy G.
Biv: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet. The Bible tells us
that this is the reminder of God’s promise to never again flood the Earth, no
matter how evil things become.[i]
The Bible calls such a promise a covenant. But is it?
A covenant
is similar to a pact between two nations who make certain promises to one
another and agree to be held accountable for failure to perform under the terms
of the pact. Peace treaties are examples of covenants. When nations, even
losers in time of war, are treated with dignity and respect, it is possible to
have a meaningful covenant. However, when one party dominates or even coerces
another to acquiesce to sign a punitive covenant, as the allies did with
Germany after World War I at Versailles, it can assure that the covenant will
soon be ignored. In that case it almost guaranteed a return to a state of war
as happened when the same nations who signed the treaty ended up at one another’s
throats only two decades later. When one party refuses or is unable to hold the
other party or parties accountable, there is no working covenant, even though
there may have been valid promises.
When we
consider the idea of covenants in the Old Testament, an idea that very much
influenced the New Testament view due to the prevalence of Judaic perspective
on early Christianity, primarily through the book of Hebrews, it may seem
strange to portray God in this light. After all, are we the created able to
hold the Creator accountable for non-performance under the terms of the various
biblical covenants? The idea that we can seems to fly in the face of the modern
Christian understanding of God. In many places, the Old Testament does make it
seem that our actions can placate an angry deity as with Abel’s offering as
opposed to Cain’s.[ii] Yet,
this is not a true covenant in the sense of a pact or treaty as it is very much
one-sided. God is able to hold man accountable as He did with Cain, yet who is
able to call God to account or bring Him to justice regarding perceived
infractions? Job tried to plead his case against unfair treatment from God.[iii]
God’s response was essentially to tell Job to shut up because he is not God.[iv]
All the power is on God’s side; therefore there is no “covenant” that may hold
Him accountable.
If mankind
is told that a Moabite is not to enter the congregation of Israel for ten
generations,[v] but
God makes an exception for Ruth,[vi]
who is able to challenge it? If God instructs mankind to execute adulterers,[vii]
but God chooses to spare David and Bathsheba, again, who can challenge God over
the exception? Not only does God grant notable exceptions in these situations,
but the progeny of these exceptions ultimately bring us by direct descent to
the Messiah, Jesus. This concept may have been so difficult to understand for
those who saw the relationship with God as covenantal that Matthew had trouble
even writing the name of Bathsheba in Christ’s genealogy, calling her instead the
one who “had been Uriah’s wife.”[viii]
I do not
write these examples to make the point that God is wrong in any way. Instead
the problem seems to be with how we view our relationship to Him. When we
cannot understand correctly that relationship, it creates all sorts of
dissonances within our faith. Naturally if we see things covenantally, we will
begin to feel that our righteous obedience will somehow bind God to perform
according to our expectations, in spite of the examples I have just cited. As a
result, we are tempted to continue to urge obedience as a holy grail of
salvation. Grace may have little practical meaning for some in this camp,
others may see it as simply a little extra sugar to add to our works to make up
the difference and get us over the hump to be saved. For all of these, chapter
nine of Paul’s Epistle to the Romans is problematic. Verses fourteen through
sixteen are especially so as they completely negate any idea of expiatory
obedience.[ix]
Paul even goes so far as to echo the very sentiment presented to Job when he
protested the injustice when he had been so faithful, writing, “But who are
you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one
who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’””[x]
Perhaps, we
should drop the whole idea of covenant as some sort of a contract, treaty or
pact with God, and simply recognize these statements as promises of God with caveats. God is God so he gets to call
the shots, even if we erroneously think His promises are in some way linked to
our obedience. When we obey moral precepts, it is for our benefit not His. He
gains nothing by our righteousness. However, we gain a better world to live in.
A world where we don’t have to worry about being murdered, robbed, or even
slandered is a much better world than what we have now and therefore worth
striving for. Even our churches have those who have been injured by these
things. In this sense, there is a moral covenant, not with God, but with our
fellow man and too many are not living up to this social contract, and too few
who are in breach of this contract are willing to be held accountable by the
rest, notwithstanding efforts to do so from a personal level all the way up to immoral
actions both nationally and internationally. Perhaps this is because we need to
understand better how God deals with these things in order to more effectively
deal with them ourselves.
So, how can
the promises of God mean anything if He cannot be bound to perform them? They are
meaningful because of His nature. That nature is ruled by mercy and compassion.[xi]
This mercy and compassion are so integral to God that they overrule even the
instructions He has given to us. This is why God made exceptions for Ruth,
David and Bathsheba. Perhaps
this is why John could so easily say “God is love.”[xii] Maybe this is why He also is our example in
dealing with moral failures to “err on the side of mercy.”[xiii]
Strangely,
some, who freely acknowledge their dependence on God’s compassionate nature, can
still fail to see the usefulness of that same quality in their natures when
dealing with the stumblings of their friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. As
I write this, of course, I acknowledge that I am guilty as well, for we all are
sinners,[xiv]
and I stand just as much in need of compassion and grace from my fellow man as
they do of me.
The same
grace that God extended to Ruth, David and Bathsheba, He extends to us. The
same exceptions He granted them He grants to us each day, even when we are
unaware of it, without regard to any worthiness on our part.[xv]
Even if we act poorly to one another and to Him, He extends grace to us, so
much grace that Jesus died to show us how far such grace could go.[xvi]
We might be
tempted to ask, “If His grace abounds even when I am disobedient, then why
should I be obedient?”[xvii]
However, it is not a matter of obedience. It is a matter of grace. Because God
extends His compassionate grace toward me, I should desire to do likewise
toward others[xviii]
in gratitude for what he has done for me. Jesus even went so far as to explain
this in a parable about debt[xix]
as a metaphor for the debt we owe God for His compassion toward us.
Some may justify
their hard judgment of others by feeling that they are forgiving for sins
against them but they are zealous for sins against God. Yet, every sin is
against God, and we are not God’s keepers of that record of wrongs. Salvation
is of God. Nonetheless, we sometimes act as though others need to confess to us
or they cannot be saved. But all judgment has been given to Jesus, not to us.[xx]
Perhaps this is because with our sinful natures, we find it difficult to extend
Godlike grace to others. However, He knows that Jesus will judge others with
perfect compassion and grace. How wonderful it is that our salvation is in the
hands of such a loving, compassionate Savior and not in the hands of others
like ourselves.
