Law and covenant

The God who binds himself

The Bible's long story is held together by covenants. The Hebrew word berit (בְּרִית) means a solemn, binding commitment between two parties. Astonishingly, God makes the first move and binds himself to his people. At the heart of every covenant lies the same promise: I will be your God, and you will be my people.

After the flood God made a covenant with Noah and every living creature, and set his rainbow in the clouds as "a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth" (Genesis 9:13). Matthew Henry remarks: "A bow speaks terror, but this has neither string nor arrow" Matthew Henry. God called Abraham and promised that "all the families of the earth will be blessed through you" (Genesis 12:3), and made an everlasting covenant with him, "to be your God and the God of your descendants after you" (Genesis 17:7). Abraham trusted the promise, and "it was credited to him as righteousness" (Genesis 15:6).

At Sinai, too, grace came before law.

You have seen for yourselves what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations — for the whole earth is Mine.

Exodus 19:4-5

The Ten Commandments open not with a command but with a reminder of rescue: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery" (Exodus 20:2). God gave the law to a people he had already saved, as the shape of their life with him. To David he promised a son whose "throne will be established forever" (2 Samuel 7:16).

Israel broke the covenant again and again. But God promised something new.

But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.

Jeremiah 31:33

Not a new law, Matthew Henry explains, "but the law shall be written in their hearts by the finger of the Spirit, as formerly written in the tables of stone" Matthew Henry. At the Last Supper Jesus took the cup and said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20). Hebrews quotes Jeremiah's promise in full and calls Jesus the mediator of a covenant that "is better and is founded on better promises" (Hebrews 8:6).

What the law is for

Where does that leave the law? Paul is emphatic: "the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good" (Romans 7:12). The trouble is not the law but the attempt to be made right by it, for "the law merely brings awareness of sin" (Romans 3:20). It became "our guardian to lead us to Christ" (Galatians 3:24), because "by works of the law no one will be justified" (Galatians 2:16).

Jesus came not to abolish the Law and the Prophets "but to fulfill them" (Matthew 5:17). He summed up the whole law as love for God and love for neighbour, and said, "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" (Matthew 22:40). Rabanus, in the Catena, sees the two tables of the Ten Commandments here: "the commandments of the first table to the love of God, those of the second to the love of our neighbour" Rabanus. Paul agrees that "love is the fulfillment of the law" (Romans 13:10).

The Reformers described the uses of the law. Calvin spoke of it as a mirror that shows us our sin, a curb that restrains evil, and a guide that teaches believers God's will, and he called the third its principal use Calvin, Institutes 2.7. Lutherans speak of similar uses, but they put first the right distinction between law and gospel: the law tells us what we must do and exposes our sin; the gospel gives us freely what Christ has done Luther, Lectures on Galatians. So the catechisms teach the Ten Commandments. Luther's Small Catechism explains the first with "We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things" Luther, Small Catechism, and the Heidelberg Catechism places the commandments in its part on gratitude, as the life of those already saved Heidelberg Catechism.

How do the covenants fit together?

Christians relate the covenants to one another in different ways. Covenant theology, the classic view of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, distinguishes a covenant of works made with Adam before the fall from the one covenant of grace that followed it. That covenant of grace was administered in one way under the law, through promises, prophecies, sacrifices and circumcision, and in another under the gospel, through the word and the sacraments. In the Westminster Confession's words, "There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensations" Westminster Confession, ch. 7. Israel and the church are one people of God across both Testaments.

Dispensationalism began with John Nelson Darby in the nineteenth century and spread widely through the Scofield Reference Bible of 1909. It sees God governing history through a series of distinct ages, or dispensations, and keeps Israel and the church distinct as two peoples, so that the promises of land and throne made to Israel will yet be fulfilled to Israel, as they read Paul's hope for Israel (Romans 11:25-29) Scofield Reference Bible. Dispensationalists today generally insist that in every age salvation has been by grace through faith. New covenant theology, which arose among some Baptists and other evangelicals in the late twentieth century, stresses that the old covenant with its law has been fulfilled as a whole in Christ, so that believers now live under "the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:2).

Which commands still bind?

A related question is which commands of the law of Moses still bind Christians. A long tradition, set out systematically by Thomas Aquinas and taken up in Reformed and Anglican confessions, divides the law into moral, ceremonial and civil. The ceremonial law of sacrifice and purity was fulfilled in Christ; the civil law of Israel's nation expired with that nation, leaving its general equity to teach us; the moral law, summed up in the Ten Commandments, binds everyone always Westminster Confession, ch. 19. The Church of England's Articles say that the law of Moses, as touching ceremonies and rites, does "not bind Christian men", and yet "no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral" Thirty-Nine Articles, Art. 7.

Others point out that Scripture itself does not divide the law this way, and that Israel received it as one whole. Those who hold new covenant theology see the law of Moses fulfilled as a whole in Christ, and take their guidance from the law of Christ and the command of love as the New Testament teaches them. The results are closer than they look: both find most of the moral teaching of the Ten Commandments repeated in the New Testament. Where differences remain, as over the Sabbath, the lesson on worship and prayer takes them up.

For all these differences, Christians agree that the law is holy and good and that in every age salvation has been by grace. "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness" (Romans 4:3). David speaks of "the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works" (Romans 4:6). And "those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith" (Galatians 3:9). The law exposes our sin, but the God of the covenant holds us fast by the blood of his Son. For how Christians read the Old Testament law today, see Do Christians have to keep the Old Testament law?, and on the one God of both covenants, Is the God of the Old Testament different from the God of the New?.

Practice