Covenants: Moses and the New Covenant
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Intro:
What person (other than a parent) has had a significant influence on the way you live your life? (habits, values, morals, lifestyle)
What about them had an influence on you?
Recap:
Recap:
What is a covenant?
“Oath-bound commitment” with the intent to establish relationship between the people involved.
Covenant with Adam:
God creates mankind in His image to rule over creation and fill the earth with His worshippers. Faithfulness in this relationship results in God’s blessing.
Covenant with Noah:
Even though mankind broke the relationship with God in sin, God did not turn back on His faithfulness to humanity. He starts over with Noah, re-establishing His promise to Adam and re-issuing His original command to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 9:1).
Covenant with Abraham:
Mankind again breaks the covenant relationship with God at Babel, so God starts over again in His call of Abram. He promises to make Abraham into a great nation (descendants) and to give him land to possess.
Got affirms this covenant through the ceremony in which He alone passes between the pieces of the animals cut in half by Abraham and in essence saying, “May I become like these dead animals if I do not keep my promise(s) to you.”
Quickly looking back to Genesis 15, there’s some additional details that God includes in this promise that we mentioned only briefly last week. What else does God say will happen to Abraham’s descendants (Gen. 15:13-16)?
When/how does this happen? What was God referring to?
The Exodus: Who can give me a summary of what leads up to the Exodus, and what God does during the Exodus?
Abraham has a son, who has sons, who has 12 sons
To preserve Abraham’s lineage amidst famine in Canaan, God sends Jacob (renamed Israel) and his 12 sons to live in Egypt
Once only 70 people (Ex. 1:5) the people of Israel grew in Egypt to a nation of over a million people (Ex. 12:37) during their captivity that lasted for 430 years (Ex. 12:40)
God then delivers Israel from their slavery in Egypt and begins to lead them to the land He originally promised to Abraham… and this is where we will find the next covenant God makes with His people.
Exodus 19-24
Exodus 19-24
We often focus on the commands God gives Moses here, and while they are of huge importance, I want to spend more time in discussion about why God gives these commands, and specifically why He only gives them to Israel.
Let’s read first, and then let’s talk about it.
The Purpose of God’s Law: Ex. 19:1-8
The Purpose of God’s Law: Ex. 19:1-8
What jumps out to you in these verses after reading them the first time?
According to verse 4, what is the basis for God establishing this covenant with Israel?
As Israel keeps their side of the covenant, how does God describe who they will be in relation to Him and relation to the world? (v. 5-6; 3 different titles)
God’s own possession
What does it mean to possess something? What do you think it means to be called God’s own possession? How is God’s possession of Israel different from His possession of the rest of the world (like He mentions in v. 5)?
Hebrew word for “possession” here is used elsewhere in Scripture to describe a king’s personal treasure (1 Chron. 29:3; Eccl. 2:8)
8 I also amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I gathered male and female singers for myself, and many concubines, the delights of men.
3 Moreover, because of my delight in the house of my God, I now give my personal treasures of gold and silver for the house of my God over and above all that I’ve provided for the holy house:
God’s people are His treasure
The whole world is like a ring on God’s hand, and his chosen people are the jewel in that ring.
- Gentry & Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 145.
God’s Kingdom of Priests
What does a priest do (in general)? What did priests in Israel do?
Intermediary (or go-between) of God and man. He functions to bring others into God’s presence by offering sacrifices on their behalf.
What allows a priest to do this on behalf of others? What is different between a priest and “regular” people?
Consecrated. What does it mean to consecrate something?
Prepared for total devotion. What kinds of things would priests need to do in order to display their devotion to the Lord before offering a sacrifice?
A Holy Nation
What does it mean to be holy?
A holy nation, then, is one prepared and consecrated for fellowship with God and one completely devoted to him
- Gentry & Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 149.
What purpose would one nation utterly devoted to the Lord serve at the global level? Witness.
How does Israel display their devotion to the Lord to the watching world? Living in obedience to His commands.
Briefly, let’s look at the commands that we commonly refer to as, The Ten Commandments.
Ex. 20:1-17
Ex. 20:1-17
What do these commands tell you about the things that God values? How His intent in these commands compare to God’s original command to Adam and Eve?
What do you notice about how these commands are given (in every translation except the CSB)? Why do you think these commands are given in the negative (“you shall not/do not”) instead of in the positive (“you shall/do”)?
Gentry and Wellum note that these laws could be stated positively to highlight the inalienable rights of all people as commanded by God Himself:
- the right of every person to their own life, home, property, family
- the right of God to be worshipped, have no other gods placed above Him
“Why not express them positively as inalienable rights? Why not indicate by a second person plural (“you all”) that they are addressed to all? The reason for this is simple. God wants each and every individual person to think first of the inalienable rights of the others and not about their own inalienable rights.
So in giving this law, God is working intentionally to continue building and expanding His Kingdom through His people. In the Mosaic Covenant in particular,
the nations of the world will see displayed a right relationship to God, social justice in human interaction, and good stewardship of the earth’s resources.
- Gentry & Wellum, God’s Kingdom through God’s Covenants, 146.
How does this covenant reflect God’s nature? What do the requirements of this law tell us about God? How do we measure up to His standard?
What does God do when His people show over and over again that they are unable to remain faithful to this covenant?
“Look, the days are coming”—this is the Lord’s declaration—“when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. This one will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors on the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt—my covenant that they broke even though I am their master”—the Lord’s declaration. “Instead, this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days”—the Lord’s declaration. “I will put my teaching within them and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will one teach his neighbor or his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know me, from the least to the greatest of them”—this is the Lord’s declaration. “For I will forgive their iniquity and never again remember their sin.
How/when does God bring about this New Covenant that He mentions in Jeremiah?
“Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.
By saying a new covenant, he has declared that the first is obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old is about to pass away.
The question then remains, what do we do with the law today? Is it totally useless?
What we can say to represent accurately the teaching of Scripture is that the righteousness of God codified, enshrined, and encapsulated in the old covenant has not changed, and that this same righteousness is now codified and enshrined in the new.
The glory and perfection of God is laid out for us in the old covenant and Old Testament, and it points forward to the glory that we see fully revealed in Jesus.
