The Mosaic Covenant - The Tablets of the Law Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob lived their lives finally resulting in the sons of Jacob (Israel). Jacob and his sons relocated down into Egypt to set the stage 400 years later for Moses and the Exodus. A major change took place in God’s relationship with man. This friendship and its promises were no longer with just a few named individuals. It became a relationship with a nation of peoples called the Children of Israel. This included the physical descendants of Jacob and those escaping from Egypt. The nation itself was born out of the Exodus of Egypt. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Exodus 2:24 Just because Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob died, the covenant did not go away. If you will recall, it was also made with their future generations. God had promised that the descendants of Abraham would come up out of Egypt and live in the land promised to Abraham. And I also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they sojourned. Exodus 6:4 God did what He said He would do; He brought the Children of Israel out of Egypt by the leadership of Moses. Just as He said to Moses, He brought Israel to the mountain where God commissioned Moses. It was at Mount Sinai that God offered, the people agreed, and they made a covenant. It was a marriage with God and His people. We call it the Mosaic Covenant. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you [Moses] shall speak to the sons of Israel. Exodus 19:5-6 The story has been told many times. The people agreed to obey God’s voice and keep His covenant even before they heard His voice or the commandments. God spoke the Ten Commandments, and the people were afraid. Moses was sent up the mountain to get the other instructions, ordinances, and statutes called the Torah. The people immediately forgot Moses and the Lord. Moses returned with the two tablets and broke them because of Israel’s sin with the golden calf. God did not quit the covenant, even though Israel did not keep it. People don’t quit a marriage just because there is a problem. God forgave and graciously made another set of tablets. This time Moses had to bring them up to the mountain and God once again “cut” the letters out of the stone with His finger. This is how God described the covenant He made. Then God said, “Behold, I am going to make a covenant. Before all your people I will perform miracles which have not been produced in all the earth, nor among any of the nations; and all the people among whom you live will see the working of the Lord, for it is a fearful thing that I am going to perform with you.” Exodus 34:10 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. Exodus 34:27-28 The Ten Commandments (the two tablets) today symbolize this covenant. It is the Law of Moses (the Torah) that actually established the nation of Israel. Moses wrote down the commandments of the Lord along with the Ten Commandments. This is a simple fact of life. A nation can not survive without the rule of law. There is no freedom or safety in a community without the rule of law. When believers say that we no longer need the Torah or God’s rules for life as a community, they literally destroy themselves. Israel did this repeatedly throughout their history. Churchmen who hold to “Covenant Theology” understand the need for the rule of law. They know there must be rules for a corporate body of believers. However, they want to use their own set of rules, which are constantly being revised. Fundamentalist Christians resist the rule changes, but they hold to the changes made by the early Church Fathers. All of them agree that the Old Covenant rules used by the Jews must be changed. Justin Martyr, in the very earliest years of the church, debated a Jew name Trypho on this very point. He said, “For the law promulgated on Horeb is now old, and belongs to yourselves alone; but the [New Covenant] is for all universally. Now, law placed against law has abrogated that which is before it, and a covenant which comes after in like manner has put an end to the previous one; and an eternal and final law – namely, Christ – has been given to us, and the covenant is trustworthy, after which there shall be no law, no commandment, no ordinance … As I stated before, it was by reason of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observance of the Sabbath as a mark.” As absurd as Justin Martyr’s anti-Jewish statement is, Churchmen believe it. Justin Martyr equated the commandments of God to man’s law, which are subject to revision and correction by additional laws. He clearly erred by saying that the “New Covenant” was given to all universally. That is the meaning behind the word “Catholic.” Catholic means “universal.” Justin Martyr was saying the New Covenant was given to the “Catholic Church.” When we address the New Covenant specifically, you will see who the covenant was given to – and it wasn’t the Catholic Church.” Throughout the past centuries, Churchmen have built on Justin Martyr’s error. The Augsburg Confession of Faith, article 28, written by Melanchthon, approved by Martin Luther in 1530 said this about the Church conflict of Sunday versus Sabbath worship. “Great, say they, is the power of the Church since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments.” There are two types of Christians today: Catholics and protesting Catholics. Protestant Christians are still under the authority of the Catholic Church Fathers for their decision to dispense with the Ten Commandments and the Mosaic Covenant. Christians, for the most part, have no idea about their history. Evangelical Christians are particularly unaware of how they came to be. They actually think that they are the spiritual remnant dating back to the original disciples of Jesus. Their traditions are only a few hundred years old, and their Bibles are a product of the Catholic and Protestant Church Fathers. Moses reiterated the covenant made by God for the nation of Israel elsewhere in the Torah. So He declared to you His covenant which He commanded you to perform, that is, the Ten Commandments; and He wrote them on two tablets of stone. Deuteronomy 4:13 And it came about at the end of forty days and nights that the Lord gave me the two tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant. Deuteronomy 9:11 Do you remember Justin Martyr’s reference to the Sabbath as a “mark” for Israel? The connotation of the word “mark” sounds like something bad, like the “mark” of Cain. God called the keeping of the weekly Sabbath a sign, connecting the covenant made with Adam to the Children of Israel. It is referred to as a everlasting covenant just like the perpetual cycle of the days, the weeks, the months, and years. A wedding ring is the same kind of never ending sign for a marriage covenant. So the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to celebrate the Sabbath throughout their generations as a perpetual covenant.Exodus 31:16 Every Sabbath day he shall set it in order before the Lord continually; it is an everlasting covenant for the sons of Israel. Leviticus 24:8 Previously, we talked about the Salt Covenant as the Everlasting Covenant. The Law of Moses requires every sacrifice on the altar to have that salt. The Children of Israel did receive the promised land. After Moses, Joshua led the people across the Jordan and into the land, but Israel struggled with many instances of not obeying nor keeping the commandments of the Lord. Moses knew this would happen to them. He even understood that the Lord would eventually kick them out of the promised land, and scatter them throughout the nations. Did that mean the covenant would be ended and done away with as Churchmen teach? Not at all. Moses prophesied all of these things. Here is what God said He would do with us and the Mosaic Covenant in the latter days. So I will turn toward you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and I will confirm My covenant with you. Leviticus 26:9 Then I will remember My covenant with Jacob, and I will remember also My covenant with Isaac, and My covenant with Abraham as well, and I will remember the land. Yet in spite of this [Israel’s unfaithfulness], when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God. But I will remember for them the covenant with their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God. I am the Lord. Leviticus 26:42,44-45 In the time of the Judges, Israel was reminded about the Everlasting Covenant and God emphatically said that He would never break the covenant. Now the angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim. And he said, “I brought you up out of Egypt and led you into the land which I have sworn to your fathers; and I said, ‘I will never break My covenant with you, and as for you, you shall make no covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their altars.’ But you have not obeyed Me; what is this you have done?” Judges 2:1-2 Never is a pretty strong word to be used by God. According to these prophecies of Moses and the book of Judges, Justin Martyr and other Church Fathers do not understand the covenant God made with Israel, nor the New Covenant for that matter. Sadly, many brethren today are in the same position because they follow the teaching of these past Church leaders. Jeremiah the prophet has also weighed in on the everlasting part of the covenants. He has reminded Israel that from the beginning of creation to their day these covenants remain in place and have not gone away. The same words are true for us today. Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: “If this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares the Lord, “Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever.” Thus says the Lord, “If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done,” declares the Lord. Jeremiah 31:35-37 The fixed order of the sun and the moon are still with us. Israel is still with us. Sabbath is still with us. The Lord is still faithful to His word. No one can measure the Universe, nor search out the foundations of the Earth. God has not cast off the descendants of Abraham. Regardless of what any Churchman says, God’s word still stands. Ezekiel reminded us of the same. Nevertheless, I will remember My covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you. Ezekiel 16:60 The covenant made with Moses did not replace the covenants made with Adam, Noah, or Abraham; it was added to them.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 20:00:00 +0000