Exodus 19:5 Now therefore, if you will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then you shall be a peculiar treasure to me above all people… It may be proper at this stage to indicate briefly the nature of the constitution under which Israel was placed at Sinai, directing attention to some of the resemblances and contrasts between it and the new and better covenant which has since superseded it. The nature of the old covenant, though set in a very clear light in the writings of St. Paul, does not seem to be well understood. Sometimes it is too much assimilated to the New Testament covenant: sometimes it is viewed as totally diverse from it. The truth is, the covenant may be looked at from a number of very different points of view, and according as it is thus regarded, it will present itself under very different aspects. It was a covenant of law; yet under it Israel enjoyed many privileges which more properly belong to a state of grace. We should, e.g., greatly misconceive its nature, if, looking only to the tender, almost caressing words of this text, we did not also take into account the manifestations of terror amidst which the law was given from Sinai (verses 16-20), with such other facts as the planting of the stones on Mount Ebal (Deuteronomy 27:1-9; Joshua 8:30-35), and the recital of the blessings and curses (Deuteronomy 27:11-26). But we should do the covenant equal injustice if we looked only to the latter class of facts, and did not observe the former. That Israel's standing under the law was modified by grace is shown: 1. From the fact of grace preceding law; 2. From the employment of a mediator; 3. From the "blood of sprinkling" at the ratification of the covenant (ch. 24.); 4. From the propitiatory arrangements subsequently introduced; 5. From the revealed scope and design of the economy; 6. From the actual facts of Israel's history. Keeping in view this double aspect of the covenant of Sinai - that on its inner side it was one of grace, on its outer side one of law - we have to consider its relations to the covenant of the Gospel. I. THE COVENANTS ARE, IN CERTAIN OBVIOUS RESPECTS, STRIKINGLY CONTRASTED. The contrasts in question arise from the particularistic character, the defective spirituality, and the paedagogic design, of the older covenant. That which has succeeded it is more inward and spiritual in its nature; is universal in its scope; and is made primarily with individuals. Special contrasts are these: 1. The older covenant is more preceptive in its character than the later one. "Tutors and governors" (Galatians 4:2). 2. It is more concerned with outward rites and ceremonies (Hebrews 9:10). 3. It relies more on penalty and reward as motives. 4. The blessings promised are largely temporal. In the new covenant, temporal promises hold a very subordinate place. They are overshadowed by spiritual ones. II. THERE ARE ELEMENTS OF CONTRAST EVEN IN THE RESEMBLANCES BETWEEN THE TWO COVENANTS. The covenants of the law and of the Gospel are alike - 1. In requiring that the people of God shall be "an holy people." But the holiness of Israel was made to consist largely in the observance of outward distinctions. It was largely ceremonial. The holiness of the new covenant is purely spiritual. 2. In requiring obedience as the condition of fulfilment of promise. But (1) under the law, life and blessing were attached to obedience in the way of legal reward. The rubric was: "Do this, and thou shalt live" (Romans 10:5). Under the Gospel, this element is wholly eliminated. The law having done its work in showing that "by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in (God's) sight" (Romans 3:20), the bestowal of reward is taken from this ground, and placed explicitly on that of grace. All we receive is for the sake of Christ - a fruit of his righteousness. (2) The law, while requiring obedience, did not raise the point of man's ability to render that obedience. But power to render obedience is itself one of the blessings of the new covenant, which thus goes deeper, and includes vastly more than the older one. (3) In general, the Gospel, while agreeing with the law in aiming at forming a people unto righteousness, takes up the individual at a riper stage in his religious development. It assumes that the taw has done its work in him - has convinced him of sin, and of his inability to attain to life through legal efforts. It supposes him to he aware of his guilt and danger as a sinner. In this condition - broken and humbled by the action of the law upon his conscience - it meets him with the tidings of redemption, and of life and blessing (including spiritual renewal) coming to him on the ground of "the righteousness of faith" (cf. Acts 13:38, 39); 3. The privileges of the older covenant foreshadowed those of the new (1 Peter 2:9). But the contrast is great here also. See above. III. THESE CONTRASTS ALL DEPEND UPON A FUNDAMENTAL CONTRAST. The deepest contrast between the two covenants is to be sought for in the view which each takes of the direction in which the individual (formerly the nation) is to look for acceptance and happiness - for "life." 1. The law. The law appears in the covenant with Sinai in its original, unqualified severity, as, on the one hand, awarding life to the obedient, and on the other, denouncing penalties against the breakers of even the least of its commandments (Galatians 3:10-13). Doubtless, but for daily pardon of daily offences, the Israelite, under so strict a constitution, would have been totally unable to maintain his footing. These offences, however, appear as so many breaches of the covenant bond, which, in strictness, was the keeping of the whole law. A right apprehension of God's design in placing Israel under this constitution will do away with any appearance of harshness in the arrangement, as if God were purposely mocking the weakness of the people by setting them to work out a problem - the attainment of righteousness - in that way incapable of solution. The moral task given to Israel among the nations was, indeed, to aim at the realisation of righteousness, of righteousness as prescribed by the law. But God's design in this was not, certainly, to make the salvation of any Israelite depend on the fulfilment of impossible conditions, but, primarily, to conduct the seeker after righteousness by the path of honest moral endeavour, to a consciousness of his inability to keep the law, and so to awaken in him the feeling of the need of a better righteousness than the law could give him - to drive him back, in short, from law to faith, from a state of satisfaction with himself to a feeling of his need of redemption - of redemption at once from the guilt of past transgressions, and from the discord in his own nature. The law had thus an end beyond itself. It was a schoolmaster to lead to Christ. The later Jews totally misconceived its nature when they clung to it with unbending tenacity as the sole instrument of justification (Romans 10:1-4). 2. The Gospel. In this is revealed "the righteousness of faith" - the righteousness which is "unto all and upon all them that believe." This is the only righteousness which can make the sinner truly just before God" (Romans 3:21-27). But the law is not thereby made void. It remains, as before, the standard of duty - the norm of holy practice. The design of the Gospel is not to abolish it, but to establish it more firmly than ever (Romans 3:31). Faith includes the obedient will. The end of redemption is holiness. IV. THE ISRAELITE, WHILE BOUND TO GOD BY A COVENANT OF LAW, YET ENJOYED MANY BENEFITS OF THE STATE OF GRACE. The better part of the Israelites were perfectly aware that had God been strict to mark iniquities, they could not stand before him (Psalm 130:3); that their own law would have condemned them. But they knew, too, that there was forgiveness with God, that he might be feared (ver. 4). Piously availing himself of the expiatory rites provided for the covering of his sin, the godly Jew had confidence towards God. Many in the nation grasped the truth that an obedient will is, in God's sight, the matter of chief importance, and that, where this is found, much else will be forgiven - that he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him (Acts 10:35), notwithstanding the special imperfections which may mark his daily life. This was practically to rise from the standpoint of the law, to that of the righteousness of faith. It enabled those who had attained to it, though under the law, to cherish a delight in spiritual righteousness, and even to find joy in the law itself, as the outward expression of that righteousness. It was not, however, the complete joy of salvation. The law still hovered above the consciousness of the Israelite with its unfulfilled demand; and he had not the means of perfectly pacifying his conscience in relation to it. While in those in whom the law had wrought its work most effectually, there was a deep feeling of sin, a painful conscious-hess of frustration in efforts after the highest goodness, which day by day wrung from them such cries as that of St. Paul - "O wretched man," etc. (Romans 7:24). Here, again, the Gospel reveals itself as the termination of the law of Moses (Romans 10:4). - J.O. Parallel Verses KJV: Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: |
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