The
Two Covenants
By
Stephen Terry
Sabbath
School Lesson Commentary for November 26 – December 2, 2011
“…the
women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears
children who are to be slaves…” Galatians 4:24, NIV
So much has been written and said about two covenants in
Christendom that it has become trite. However, this week’s lesson compels us to
revisit the dichotomy, albeit with oft repeated assumptions and
interpretational constraints framed by extra-Biblical sources. Nonetheless, we
shall try to inject some fresh perspectives into this topic.
While Paul writes of two covenants in Galatians, many
today speak of an “old” covenant and a “new” covenant. Unfortunately, this
nomenclature creates confusion for many believers who conflate old and new
covenants with the Old and New Testaments from the Bible. The two are not the
same, yet people often speak of those in the Old Testament as living under the
Old Covenant, and identify the New Testament, which more clearly focuses on
Jesus, as being synonymous with the New Covenant.
Since the Old Testament repeatedly presents a message of
obedience, it and the Old Covenant are identified with a God who offers
salvation based on the righteousness of the obedient supplicant. The epitome of
this contract or covenant with God is held by some to be expressed in the Ten
Commandments carried down from Mt Sinai by Moses. But is it?
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he identifies one
covenant with Hagar and the other with Sarah. The two co-exist. They are not
old and new. They are simultaneous. When we make one old and the other new, we
imply that God made a covenant that man could never keep and then realizing His
mistake, He made a new one. This might work for a Greek or Roman demi-god, but
this cannot be for one true God who has created all things. If He is flawed,
has made mistakes, then He is less than perfect and by definition not God.
In fact, both covenants are the same, only the
understanding is different. The covenant that is associated with Hagar is
simply the contract man offers God based on his understanding of God’s will.
Since man’s understanding of God can never be complete, the covenant is necessarily
flawed and cannot produce salvation. This covenant is associated with a “checklist”
theology. Its adherents love to make lists of rules that they can peruse to
determine their level of righteousness.
Those checklists can be in the form of creedal or
doctrinal statements, liturgies, ceremonial rules or even the Ten Commandments.
The more items that can be checked off on the list, the closer the practitioner
is to God’s will and therefore also closer to righteousness and salvation.
Unfortunately, the more a person can check off on the list, the more
self-righteous they become as well. They begin to compare themselves to others
based on the checklists. They justify this judgmentalism by referring to Jesus
talking about knowing others “by their fruits.” These self-styled “fruit
inspectors” feel justified in looking down their noses at those who do not have
the ability to check off as many things on the “highway to righteousness” as
they have.
Such people become slaves to their own
self-righteousness. It is as difficult for these to see the covenant of Sarah,
as it is for the “camel to go through the eye of the needle.” Nevertheless,
Jesus extends hope for these people as He assures them that what for man is
impossible, for God is still possible. He assures us this in the parable of the
rich, young ruler who came to Him wanting a checklist faith. (See Mark
10:17-27) Like this young man, those who practice such a faith will go away
disappointed, realizing that all they have enslaved themselves to do was
without profit.
The covenant of Sarah is the better way. While Hagar’s
covenant is based on what man can do with a divine checklist, Sarah’s is based
on what God can do when man steps aside. Some following Hagar’s way would disparagingly
consider Sarah’s way “do nothing” righteousness. In a sense they are right.
Moses put it like this: “The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be
still.” Exodus 14:14, NIV Instead of
running about waving checklists in one another’s faces, we “need only to be
still.”
Abraham was following the way of Hagar when he fathered
her son Ishmael. But since this was doing God’s will according to Abraham’s
understanding, it was doomed to fail. God had promised an heir to Abraham. He
was going to provide that heir. Abraham’s part was “only to be still.” But like
many today that follow the way of Hagar, he could not understand that he was to
do nothing to fulfill the promise. In fact, doing anything was to demonstrate a
lack of faith, a lack of trust in God to complete what He promised. It is a
failure to understand that the covenant is fulfilled not by what we bring to
it, but by what God brings.
Abraham demonstrated that, yes, he could produce
offspring in his old age, but he could not do God’s will in fathering Ishmael.
God’s will does not originate from the human heart. It can blossom there, but
only if we can “be still.” It is not based on what we do, but what we don’t do.
Some have called this “cheap grace.” Nothing could be
farther from the truth. Most of us can remember a time when we have watched
someone doing a task that we were intimately familiar with. When they did
something differently from how we would have done it, it was all we could do to
keep from interfering and re-directing their efforts aright. It is not easy to
set aside those feelings and let things take their course. We know that can be
a risk when dealing with other people, and we are often afraid to take that risk.
But when we apply those feelings to our relationship with God, we run a greater
risk.
While we may get away with telling other people how to
do things, we cannot do this with God. We cannot expect God to live by checklists,
even if we think they originated with Him. We cannot apply those checklists to
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, or Bathsheba. According to the checklists, Tamar played the
prostitute and should be stoned. Rahab was not only a prostitute but a
Canaanite, a people condemned to destruction. She was forbidden to marry an
Israelite according to the checklist. She not only was allowed to live but
married Salmon. Ruth was a Moabitess. Moabites were excluded from the congregation
of Israel for ten generations, yet she was King David’s grandmother. Bathsheba
participated in adultery with King David and the checklist says she should have
been stoned. Instead, she was mother to King Solomon.
Had any one of these been handled according to the checklist,
the line of descent would have been broken. Why would that matter? It was this
line that God chose to bring Jesus into the world. He obviously did not base
this decision on the self-righteousness of these individuals. The Bible tells
us why He did it. In John 3:16, we are told that it was for one reason – His love.
You see the problem with the checklists of Hagar’s covenant is that they get in
the way of the love of Sarah’s covenant. God simply wants to love us, but we want
to feel worthy of that love, and we tell ourselves that there is something we
can do to win God’s love. We already have that love.
The Bible tells us “…God demonstrates his own love for
us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8,
NIV God extended His love toward us in
our disobedience. His love is not dependent on our obedience. It cannot be. The
Bible tells us “…God is love.” 1 John 4:8, NIV If we condition that love on our obedience
then we attempt to assert control over God’s love. We imagine we can turn it on
or off by our obedience or disobedience. But we cannot so cavalierly dismiss
God’s love by our disobedience. This universe is God’s creation, not ours. It
beats to his heart of love. It does not march to our control no matter how holy
or righteous we feel our purpose to be.
God invites each of us to abandon the enslaving, hard
work of attempting to control our faith through the checklists of the covenant
of Hagar. Instead, He asks us “only to be still” and live in the covenant of
Sarah. We can lay all the burdens of Hagar at the foot of the cross. There in
the stillness of our surrender, Jesus will enter our hearts replacing our
struggle with the greatest peace and joy we have ever known. Wouldn’t you like
to have that for your life? I would.
This Commentary is a Service of Still
Waters Ministry
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