Daily Meditations from John N N Ng'ang'a: Week of 28thth march to 3rd April 2011... How does the mosaic covenant relate to Abrahamic covenant and us ?
Day 1
Gen 3:15
15 And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,
and between your offspring[a] and hers;
he will crush[b] your head,
and you will strike his heel.”
How does the mosaic covenant relate to Abrahamic covenant?
God made a covenant with Abraham promising him primarily two things: a seed and a land. The Abrahamic Covenant was also ratified with Isaac, Jacob (name changed to Israel), and his sons who comprised the nation of Israel. 430 years later, God made a covenant of Law with the nation of Israel. Moses was the mediator of that next covenant. God spoke to Moses who in turn spoke to the people.
The essence of the Abrahamic covenant was :
- Abraham to go forth from your country & relatives to the land He would show him
- On his part God would make him a great nation
- God would bless him
- Would make his name great
- Would make Abram a blessing
- Bless those who bless you and Curse those who curse you
- In you all the families of the earth shall be blessed
This could be summarized as seen above: Abraham would have 1) The seed ( Jesus Christ that would save the world –Gal 3:16),2) The land of Israel would belong to his descendants ,3) Jehovah would be his and his children’s God .
This promise is still relevant today as Israel still on the same land as promised. News about Israel should be ignored by nay bible believers
Day 2
Gen 15:1
1 After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,[a] your very great reward.[b]”
When we now look at the Mosaic covenant we realize it was a part fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant . In fact in exodus, God is said to have remembered His promise to Abraham( Ge 15:13, 14, 15, 16).Jehovah would judge the Egyptians who had afflicted Israel for 400 years and bring Israel back to Canaan in the 4th generation. This happened as promised.
This demonstrates that he is a covenant keeping God. He also re -introduces Himself as the God of Abraham (Ex 6:2,3).The Lord stated that He had appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, EL Shaddai, but had not made Himself known to them as Jehovah. Now God would reveal Himself through His redemption and deliverance of the sons of Israel from Egyptian bondage. (Ex 6:6, 7, 8)
Here God is clearly associating His Name Jehovah with His covenant promises to Abraham. Thus Jehovah is His precious Name that links Him irrevocably through the Abrahamic covenant with Israel. It is the Name so sacred to the Jews that they will not pronounce it in the Synagogue, instead substituting "Adonai" (Master) or simply saying "the Name".
Abrahamic Covenant was unconditional and totally dependent on God's faithfulness but the mosaic one is is conditional ( if they obey then they could enjoy the promises was unconditional)
Day 3
Galatians 3:19
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made
How was personal salvation experienced by those living under the mosaic covenant?
The law convicted people of sin..In Christ we finally got power over sin . The temporary nature of the Mosaic Law can also be seen in Galatians and Romans -
Galatians 3:23-26
Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.
Romans 6:14-15
For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
People were never “saved” by keeping Mosaic law- itself , although faith-motivated obedience to the Law was required of those who lived under that covenant just as faith-motivated obedience to Apostolic teaching is required of those living under the New covenant[1].
Are you obedient to god’s word or do you claim you are saved by grace and hence no obedience is necessary?
Day 4
Hebrews 10
Christ’s Sacrifice Once for All
1 The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2 Otherwise, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3 But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins. 4 It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
But how were people “forgiven of sin” prior to and after the Cross?
The book of Leviticus tells us how Israelites living under the Law by offering certain animal sacrifices were “forgiven” (Lev. 4:20,26,31,35; 5:10,13,16,18; 6:7; 19:22).
Yet Hebrews 10:1-4 declares that animal blood cannot take away sins just like 1Peter 3:21 tells us that baptism does not save by washing dirt off of our body. But the bible makes it clear that there is some sense in which these outward ceremonial things are closely associated with the forgiveness of sin.
God associates spiritual redemption with the Messiah that was promised to come. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus stated that His blood (to be shed the next day) was covenant-initiating blood and also atonement/forgiveness blood (Matthew 26:28). It is commonly believed (and correctly so) that Christ’s death provided forgiveness for those who lived in His time and afterwards, but Galatians 4:4-5 and Hebrews 9:15 teach that Jesus’ death also provided the actual forgiveness for those who lived prior to that time under the Mosaic Law.
Thus Jesus’ death is the death and the blood that provides the real atonement for all human sin (Hebrews 10:10,12,14). We can live with a free conscience despite our past sin aware that all our sins have been atoned for .
Day 5
Heb 9: 15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
But how do individuals living under different covenants appropriate the atoning blood of Christ?
It is by obedient faith to God and the divinely-given covenant in force. Levitical “forgiveness” sacrifices although before Christ is the divinely-appointed “meeting place” where obedient faith meets God’s promise of forgiveness.
Those animal deaths were not meaningless, for they provided the divinely-appointed time/place where believers could tangibly understand that their sin was forgiven, with the sacrificial animal’s blood providing a mystical link. Neither animal sacrifice nor water baptism are “magical acts” that grant spiritual blessing in and of themselves, but if God makes these the tangible “meeting places" where Christ’s blood is applied to the submissive believers, then they become the objective time/place for human understanding of when/where the forgiving blood of Christ is applied[2].
So your baptism does not prove you born again for it was supposed to indicate that something had happened within your heart. If nothing had happened if you did not admit your sinfulness and by faith accept his forgiveness …then the baptism was just a bath
Day 6
Matthew 11:13
For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John,
Having looked at both mosaic and abrahamic covenants in the old testament ,how then does the law relates to a Christian today ?
The law is very well discussed in the new testament showing how a new testament believer relates with it, as the following verses show:
Matthew 5:17-18
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
Luke 16:16-17
The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void.
John 1:17
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Thus the old testament is relevant to the Christian but we must look at its fulfilmnt rtaher than its repeat
Day 7
Acts 13:38-39
Let it be known to you therefore, brothers, that through this man forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, and by him everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
Here the apostles show that Mosaic Law was limited and what we have in Jesus is much more advanced.
Acts 15:5
But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them and to order them to keep the law of Moses."
But we normally want to make complicated even what God has made simple < we do not see why God would make so simple.
Even gentiles want to live today by the law of Moses despite its requirements having been fulfilled by Christ on the cross.
What is it that you are complicating in your private life or in your church that was made simple by the cross ?
[1] http://chuck.severnchristian.org/Bible/Journey/JTB-00A-introduction_to_the_Bible.htm
[2] ibid