And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul.
God’s covenants with men
A covenant is an agreement or contract, in which the parties to it solemnly bind themselves to the fulfilment of certain conditions. When we speak of a covenant as entered into by God, we understand that He, who has no rule of action but His own will, has been pleased to bind Himself, in His dealings with men, to the observance of certain specified conditions; whilst those with whom the covenant is made are hound to fulfil the obligations imposed upon them, under pain of forfeiting the promised blessings, and incurring the attendant penalties.
1. The covenant under which all men are born is that of works; in other words, the moral law, the law of Adam’s nature, written in his heart, and afterwards republished from Mount Sinai, The terms of this covenant are, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, and thy neighbour as thyself.” The sanctions by which it is enforced are, on the one hand, “This do, and thou shalt live,” and on the other, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” This covenant is one by which an unfallen being, continuing in his obedience to it, might merit life; but to creatures such as we are, it can only be a dispensation of death. Of mercy to transgressors it knows nothing. It is law for man, as God made man--perfect--and to man in that condition, and in that only, is it a law that can give life. We ask, therefore, is there any other covenant whereby (letting go the first, and laying hold on this) we may have that eternal life which we have forfeited by the covenant of works?
2. The Scriptures reveal to us the covenant of grace, so called, inasmuch as it is grace which especially distinguishes it from the former covenant of works. The terms of this covenant are contained in the gospel of Jesus Christ: by it God is graciously pleased to bind Himself to bestow all spiritual blessings upon those who give up entirely their hope of life by the works of the first covenant, and, embracing this, plead the gracious provisions of it as the ground of their acceptance with God. But besides these two covenants, which form the groundwork of all God’s dealings with men, there is a third--that, viz., which was entered into with Israel at Sinai.
3. The Sinaitic Covenant was
(1) national, as made only with one people, the Jews;
(2) temporary, as designed to fulfil certain special ends, and to cease when those ends were accomplished;
(3) mixed, as partaking in part of the covenant of works, while containing certain provisions which had in them an echo, and something more than an echo, of the covenant of grace. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
The Abrahamic covenant
I. The Abrahamic covenant viewed in itself (Genesis 13:15; Genesis 17:7). The prominent feature in it is grace, and it clearly looks forward to Christ. Its chief blessings are--
(1) Divine forgiveness;
(2) Divine reward;
(3) Divine adoption;
(4) Divine illumination.
II. The Abrahamic covenant viewed in its relation to the Covenant of Sinai. The covenant of grace was announced to Abraham in the promise made to him and his seed, Christ, long before the giving of the covenant of Sinai; its conditions were fulfilled by Christ during the Incarnation, at a period long subsequent to the giving of that covenant, it was therefore independent of and superior to it; it was designed for the benefit of the whole human race, whereas the Sinaitic covenant was confined to a single nation, was limited in its application, imperfect in its provisions, and, as far as the Jews were concerned, a failure in its results. We may conceive of the covenant of grace as stretching through time like some vast geological formation, having its beginning in the ages that are past, and reaching onward to the ages that are to come. As such formation, however, displays itself upon the surface of the earth, there is at one point a depression, a sinking of its outline, and that depression or valley is filled up by a formation of more recent growth, an overlying stratum which conceals the older formation from view, but does not destroy it. Such older formation crops up on the one side, and on the other of the later one, and in fact underlies it in all its parts; the one being limited and partial as contrasted with the other, which is comparatively unlimited and universal. Thus the covenant of grace stretches through the entire period of man’s history; but at one point in its course it becomes overlaid by a covenant of recent growth, the national covenant of Sinai. But the older covenant is neither lost nor superseded; it recedes for a while from view; it gives place in the history of man to an intermediate covenant; but it does not vanish from our history. It had shown itself in Abrahamic times; it was to display itself yet more gloriously at the coming of Christ; but yet even during the period of its seeming obscuration, its operation was not suspended: the pious Jew looked through his own covenant to the covenant of grace--he dug, as it were, through the mixed and local deposit of his own economy, to the rock beneath him. (Emilius Bayley, B. D.)
The everlasting covenant
I. God made a covenant of grace with Abraham long before the law was given on Sinai.
II. Abraham was not present on Sinai, and therefore there could have been no alteration in the covenant made there by his consent.
III. Abraham’s consent was never asked as to any alteration in the covenant, without which the covenant could not have been set aside.
IV. The covenant stands firm, seeing that it was made to Abraham’s seed as well as to Abraham himself. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The supremacy of faith
I. To be the true seed of Abraham the gentiles are to seek justification, not by the law but by faith.
II. Faith has precedence of the law, and consequently is not disannulled by it. It rests on promises given to Abraham.
III. The purposes of the law are subservient to conviction and preparation (V. 19), and, therefore, were not designed to disannul it.
IV. The inferiority of the law is marked by its being in the hands of a mediator, and not personal, as was the promise to Abraham.
V. Nevertheless faith and law do not clash. There is harmony between the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic law. (Canon Vernon Hutton.)
The immutability of the covenant
I. Time cannot disannul it: neither the time before the law nor the time which has elapsed since.
1. Some covenants run out in the course of time, or are annulled through non-fulfilment within a given time, or are abrogated in the very fact of their fulfilment.
2. The Christian covenant is independent of time.
(1) No time was specified.
(2) In a sense its fulfilment began at once.
(3) It cannot pass away till the last of Abraham’s seed has enjoyed its provisions.
II. The unfaithfulness of one of the contracting parties did not disannul it.
1. During the four hundred and thirty years.
(1) The obliquities of Jacob.
(2) The evil conduct of his sons.
(3) The religious apathy of the Egyptian sojourn.
(4) The perversities of the wilderness wandering.
2. During the following years till the advent.
(1) In spite of Divine revelation.
(2) Notwithstanding repeated chastisements, Israel grieviously sinned; yet the covenant was not withdrawn.
III. The intermediary dispensation did not disannul it.
1. The law itself did not.
(1) It was intended to help on its fulfilment.
(2) It was one part of God’s remedial plan of which the covenant was another part.
2. The infraction of the law did not.
(1) Sin led men to yearn for its fulfilment.
(2) Where sin abounded grace did much more abound.
III. It rests on the immutability of God.
1. Of His wisdom. He saw when the time would be ripe.
2. Of His mercy: He knew when it would be best to work in the interests of mankind.
The covenant, then, was not disannulled by the law.
1. Because then the blessing promised by the covenant would not have depended upon that promise.
2. Because then in vain is any mention made of the seed of Abraham, that is, of Christ.
3. Because those who died before the law was given on Sinai, amongst others, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, would have no claim to partake of the Divine blessing, no share in the promised inheritance. (W. Denton, M. A.)
The covenant in Christ
I. Its nature--a covenant of promise--of mercy:
II. Its antiquity--older than the law--old as the first promise.
III. Its Immutability--confirmed to (Galatians 3:16) and in Christ--cannot be disannulled. (J. Lyth.)