From the beginning of man’s existence, God has been putting into place His great plan for humanity’s salvation. Crucial to that plan was the birth and mission of the Messiah—the promised descendant of David and Abraham. To assure us of the irrevocability of that plan, God confirmed it with a series of covenants.
Through covenants made with Noah (Genesis 9:8-11), Abraham (Genesis 17:1-2) Moses and David God began to reveal important details of His plan to bring about a holy people (Leviticus 26:12; Hebrews 8:10). Noah is the first person mentioned specifically in the Bible as entering into a covenant relationship with God. The second individual recorded in the Bible with whom God made a personal covenant was Abraham, to whom God promised: “I will make you a great nation; I will…make your name great… I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:2-3). Here God declares His intention to offer salvation not only to the physical descendants of Abraham but also to “all the families of the earth.”
In God’s covenant with King David He promises David’s dynasty will last forever and that the Messiah— David’s descendant—is to be the everlasting King of that dynasty. “I have made a covenant with My chosen, I have sworn to My servant David: ‘Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations'” (Psalm 89:3-4). The covenants with these men contain the basic promises related to God’s plan to offer salvation to all mankind through Jesus Christ.
The Sinai Covenant
The covenant God made with ancient Israel at Mt. Sinai became, in effect, Israel’s national constitution, making it a theocratic state with God as its King. Amid thunder and lightning atop Mt. Sinai, God gave the Ten Commandments to the entire nation (Exodus 20:1-18), but no promise of eternal life is included in the Sinai covenant (Leviticus 26:3-45, Deuteronomy 28:1-14}
Except for Israel’s prophets and a few other servants of God, Israel’s history describes a people who had righteous laws, but lacked righteous hearts. Like most people today, they did not have the ability to live by the full spiritual intent of God’s instructions. Something was missing.
Therefore, “God found fault with the people [notice the fault was not with the laws He gave them] and said: ‘The time is coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers….I will put My laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be My people'” (Hebrews 8:8-10, NIV).
The impact of this promise was only hinted at—through symbolic ceremonies—under the Sinai Covenant. Temple worship anticipated Christ’s sacrifice with rituals and ceremonies, but did not provide a solution to humanity’s spiritual inadequacies. Only by the forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of Christ and receiving the spiritual power provided by the gift of the Holy Spirit is that possible.
Jesus made the Kingdom of God, and the repentance required for us to participate in it, the central feature of His Gospel (Mark 1:14-15). He alone is the heir of the promises made to Abraham, and only through Him can we share in that promised inheritance, as Peter explained: “There is no salvation through anyone else; in all the world no other name has been granted to mankind by which we can be saved” (Acts 4:12, Revised English Bible).God knew a change of heart was required through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that it would only become possible for the vast majority after the Messiah had paid the penalty for sin.
Exceptions were made for those servants and prophets of God who were given the Holy Spirit. The prophets became God’s spokesmen (Isaiah 38:4; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Ezekiel 6:1-3), with this same authority later being given to Christ’s apostles (Acts 4:29-31). Today the entire Bible claims authority as the written Word of God, with God promising to bless those who obey it as His Word.
The Sinai or Old Covenant and the New Covenant (mediated by Jesus Christ) are both based on God’s earlier covenant with Abraham that promises the inheritance of a global kingdom to Abraham’s special “seed” or descendant—Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:16). The covenant made at Mount Sinai established the ancient national kingdom of Israel. The New Covenant promises the Messiah, Jesus Christ, will establish the much more inclusive Kingdom of God that will rule over the whole earth (Isaiah 9:7; Matthew 25:34; Luke 22:29-30; Revelation 11:15).
God announced through His prophets that with this “better covenant” He would put His laws in the minds of humanity and He would write them on their hearts (Hebrews 8:10-13). Eventually all nations are destined to comprehend why sin is so terrible and why so much more than human effort is required to erase it from the heart through the gift of the Holy Spirit. To receive God’s Spirit, one first must be called of God (John 6:44-65) and genuinely repent of, or turn from, sin (Acts 2:38).
Only a few decades after Jesus Christ was crucified, the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in A.D. 70 and the entire ceremonial and sacrificial system attached to it came to an end. Once the sacrifice of Christ was in place, the temple ceremonies and rituals were no longer needed. With the Spirit of God now available, the principles of love that the law expresses can finally be written in the hearts of all who repent of breaking God’s holy commandments.
