Hebrews 8 treats of the two covenants. You may look at them as the patriarchal and the legal. The patriarchal covenant was all on the ground of promise. There were not two parties to it. When we get under law, the very form and phase of the covenant is changed. The Israelites had to act their part in the covenant just as much as God. It is no longer a covenant of promise but of works. It is no longer one undertaking to do and the other bowing the head in the dependence of faith, but one undertaking to do this, and the other undertaking to do that; that is the legal covenant. Then in the prophets we get the new covenant, which falls back on the patriarchal covenant and shows it to be simple promise. That is what the New Testament takes up and calls “the new covenant.” Hebrews 8 shows that the Lord found fault with the old covenant, and why? Because it made Him a receiver. He rests in the new covenant, because it puts Him in the place of Giver and the sinner in the place of receiver. He takes delight in it, because He has found it “more blessed to give than to receive.” Of that style of thing, Paul declares himself the minister. It is not prophetically fulfilled yet, but it will be, with the house of Israel and Judah in the day of their repentance. Paul is the minister of that which makes God a Giver and me a receiver. So there is an element in both these things that is prophetic. We must wait for His millennial manifestation and wait for the accomplishment of the new covenant in the day of Israel’s repentance.
Cast Out the Bondwoman
Isaac was the son of the free woman, even of Sarah, according to the promise. Galatians 4 lets us know that God allowed the circumstances of these two sons in order to give us a picture of the two covenants. Ishmael was the son of a bondslave and represents Israel under the law, while Isaac came in as the son of the free woman, without knowing bondage, and represents those under grace and promise. Christendom has sought to mix law and grace, but “what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman” (Gal. 4:3030Nevertheless what saith the scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman. (Galatians 4:30)). The two principles cannot mix.
The Covenant in the Land
of Moab
Let the reader note, particularly, these words. They speak of two covenants, one at Horeb and one in Moab, and the latter is far from being a mere repetition of the former. It is as distinct from it as any two things can be. Of this we shall have the fullest and clearest evidence. It is true, the Greek title of the book Deuteronomy, signifying the law a second time, might seem to give rise to the idea of its being a mere recapitulation of what has gone before, but we may rest assured it is not so. The book has its own specific place. Its scope and object are as distinct as possible. The grand lesson, which it inculcates from first to last, is obedience, and that, too, not in the mere letter, but in the spirit of love and fear —an obedience grounded upon a known and enjoyed relationship —an obedience quickened by the sense of moral obligations of the weightiest and most influential character.
The Covenants Are Perfectly Distinct
Under the law, God, as it were, stood still to see what man could do, but in the gospel, God is seen acting, and as for man, he has but to “stand still and see the salvation of God.” This being so, the inspired Apostle does not hesitate to say to the Galatians, “Christ is become of no effect unto you; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.” If man has anything to do in the matter, God is shut out, and if God is shut out, there can be no salvation, for it is impossible that man can work out a salvation by that which proves him a lost creature, and then if it be a question of grace, it must be all grace. It cannot be half grace, half law. The two covenants are perfectly distinct. It cannot be half Sarah and half Hagar. It must be either the one or the other. If it be Hagar, God has nothing to do with it, and if it be Sarah, man has nothing to do with it. Thus it stands throughout. The law addresses man, tests him, sees what he is really worth, proves him a ruin, and puts him under the curse, and not only puts him under it, but keeps him there, so long as he is occupied with it — so long as he is alive. “The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth,” but when he is dead, its dominion necessarily ceases, so far as he is concerned, though it still remains in full force to curse every living man.
The gospel, on the contrary, assuming man to be lost, ruined and dead, reveals God as He is — the Saviour of the lost — the Pardoner of the guilty — the Quickener of the dead. It reveals Him, not as exacting anything from man, but as exhibiting His own independent grace in redemption. This makes a material difference and will account for the extraordinary strength of the language employed in the Epistle to the Galatians: “I marvel.” “Who hath bewitched you?” “I am afraid of you.” “I stand in doubt of you.” “I would they were even cut off which trouble you.” This is the language of the Holy Spirit, who knows the value of a full Christ, and a full salvation, and who also knows how essential the knowledge of both is to a lost sinner. We have no such language as this in any other epistle, not even in that to the Corinthians, although there were some of the grossest disorders to be corrected among them. All human failure and error can be corrected by bringing in God’s grace, but the Galatians, like Abraham in this chapter, were going away from God and returning to the flesh. What remedy could be devised for this? How can you correct an error which consists in departing from the only remedy? To fall from grace is to get back under the law, from which nothing can ever be reaped but “the curse.” May the Lord establish our hearts in His own most excellent grace.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted