The Old Covenant and The New Covenant

Study the letter titled: ‘In a Beginning’.

The Lord is creating The Family of God.

The Lord created the Angels and then the earth. He makes Lucifer god of this world. Lucifer rebels against God becoming Satan and taking many of the angels with him.

Because of his rebellion, Lucifer, now Satan must be replaced as god of this world.

This rebellion brings about Spiritual warfare and causes the destruction of the Heaven and the earth. The Lord reconstructs the Heaven and earth in the six days of creation.

The Lord sends Adam to replace Satan. Adam, without God’s Holy Spirit, is overcome by Satan and brings the death penalty upon all mankind. The Lord later sends Jesus, the last Adam, to replace Satan as god of this world.

The Lord’s plan is to save all mankind from the death penalty inherited from Adam. He chooses Abraham and his descendants through Isaac and Jacob to use in His plan of Salvation. These people are called the Israelites.

There was a famine in the land and the Israelites go into Egypt to escape the famine. In Egypt they became enslaved for many years and take up the sinful ways of their captors.

The Egyptians treat the Israelites harshly. The Lord hears the cries of the Israelites and uses Moses to bring them out of captivity.

Because of their sinful ways the Lord makes a Covenant (contract) with the Israelites. If they keep His commandments, He will make them a peculiar treasure unto Him above all people. He will make the whole nation of Israel a kingdom of Priests and a Holy nation.

Exodus 19:5-6

5 “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:”

6 “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”

The Lord made The Ten Commandments for mankind to live by. He uses these laws, The Ten Commandments, in making the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant is often called ‘The Law’.

Israel accepts The Covenant collectively.

Exodus 19:8: “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.”

The Covenant divides the people into Israelites and Gentiles.

The Old Covenant was a physical covenant and did not offer eternal life. The Old Covenant was a schoolmaster unto the Israelites to separate them from the Gentiles and to discipline them until Jesus came.

After Jesus came the Israelites were no longer under ‘The Law’ but are children of God by their faith in Jesus Christ.

Galatians 3:23-26

23 “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.”

24 “Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”

25 “But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”

26 “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.”

The object of both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant was to create Priests of God.

The Old Covenant:

Exodus 19:5-6

5 “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:”

6 “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.”

The New Covenant:

Under the New Covenant Christians would be kings and priests of God.

Revelation 1:6: “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

Revelation 5:10: “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 20:6: “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.”

The Old Covenant made Israel the wife of the Lord.

Jeremiah 3:14: “Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord; for I am married unto you: and I will take you one of a city, and two of a family, and I will bring you to Zion:”

Jeremiah 31:31-32

31 “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:”

32 “Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:”

Israel, married to the Lord and without God’s Holy Spirit, commits adultery with other nations and the Lord divorces Israel.

Jeremiah 3:8: “And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.”

The Lord’s plan is to offer Salvation to all mankind, not just to Israel. In order to do this, He has to do away with the Old Covenant which divided the people into Israelites and Gentiles (Jews and Gentiles in the New Testament).

Jesus’ death does away with the Old Covenant and now the people are one people again.

Now there are neither Jews nor Gentiles. All are one people.

Ephesians 2:15-16

15 “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;”

16 “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:”

Under the New Covenant the Lord is picking out a bride-to-be for Jesus Christ, The Church, which cannot commit adultery.

Romans 7:4: “Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.”

Revelation 21:9-10

9 “And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife.”

10 “And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God,”

Each person has to accept the New Covenant individually and endure to the end. The Lord will grant this person eternal life as a king and priest.

Revelation 1:6: “And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.”

The Weekly Sabbath Day and the Old Covenant and the New Covenant:

You have physical man without God’s Holy Spirit, and you have Spiritual man with God’s Holy Spirit in him.

The Sabbath day was made for physical man, those who do not have God’s Holy Spirit in them. God did not make it for Himself, Jesus Christ, or His sons and daughters who have His Holy Spirit. Physical man had to physically observe the Sabbath Day from sundown to sundown to keep it Holy.

Mark 2:27: “And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.”

The human family compares to The Family of God. When a woman is pregnant the unborn child belongs to the physical father. It is his unborn child. When a person has God’s Holy Spirit in him, he is the unborn child of God. Your life on earth with God’s Holy Spirit in you is like the pregnancy of a physical woman. If you endure to the end and die with God’s Holy Spirit in you, then the pregnancy is complete, and the Resurrection is your birth. You are then a permanent son or daughter of God.

Under the New Covenant, as a husband and wife become one flesh, God’s Spirit combines with your spirit, and you become one Spirit. You are now an extension of God Himself just as Jesus Christ is.

I Corinthians 6:17, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.”

God, Jesus Christ, and God’s children with His Holy Spirit in them do not have to keep the Sabbath Day from sundown to sundown. With God’s Holy Spirit in you, you are Holy, and all your time is Holy.

The Law and the Old Covenant:

God has always had laws. His word is ‘The Law’.

For there to be sin there has to be Law: for sin is transgression of the Law.

I John 3:4, “Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”

Lucifer sinned becoming Satan. Adam sinned bringing the death penalty upon all mankind.

Cain sinned before he killed Abel.

In the time of Noah men were evil, wicked, violent, and corrupt.

For men to be evil, wicked, violent, and corrupt, there had to be Law.

Moses sinned when he killed the Egyptian man and he fled to keep from being punished.

The Law was already here before the Lord made the Old Covenant with Israel.

The Ten Commandments is the Old Covenant.

Exodus 34:28, “And he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.”

The Israelites had been in captivity for many years and had forgotten The Law which the Lord had given them. The Lord gave them the Old Covenant because of their transgressions. The laws the Lord used in making the Old Covenant were already here and in force

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Galatians 3:19: “Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator.”

‘The Law’ or Old Covenant was for Israel only and lasted until Jesus came. Jesus’ death brought in the New Covenant.

The Old Covenant is often called ‘The Law’. Doing away with the Old Covenant or ‘The Law’, has nothing to do with removing or abolishing God’s laws. God’s laws will endure forever; however, the Old Covenant, often called ‘The Law’ was done away with when Jesus was crucified.

The Lord used the laws that were already here in making the Old Covenant with Israel. Christ’s crucifixion did away with the Old Covenant but not God’s laws.

All Israel was under the Old Covenant. They accepted The Covenant collectively and therefore all their descendants were born into the Old Covenant.

Exodus 19:7-8

7 “And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him.”

8 “And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do. And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord.”

Luke 2:23, “(As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord;)”

The Old Covenant ended with the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:14-16

14 “For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;”

15 “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;”

16 “And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:”

The end of the Old Covenant brings in the New Covenant.

Hebrews 8:13: “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”

The New Covenant is freely offered to everyone, but you have to accept it individually. You are not born into the New Covenant as the Israelites were born into the Old Covenant.

The New Covenant which you are baptized into will be with you throughout your Eternal life. The New Covenant is a never-ending covenant.