Covenants: From shadow to 3-D

Most of us have had the experience of repeatedly wrestling with the biblical covenant theme and still being left with an itch that recurrently rouses our need to scratch for further clarity and a deeper understanding of this great theme.

The issue of biblical covenants is important for many reasons, not the least of which is the foundational and pervasive presence of the covenants throughout the Bible and the fact that struggles to understand this theme have pervaded the history of the Christian church from its earliest years.

There still seems to be a significant haze resting on the theological land scape of Adventist covenant theology, and thus upon our personal faith experience in these things.

Near the heart of our Adventist covenant concerns is the supposed threat that some believe covenant the ology presents to the identity and reason for existence of the Seventh-day Adventist movement.

In the last few years a number of ex- Adventist ministers have raised this issue again, but this time with a more explicit focus on Seventh-day Adventist positions such as the seventh-day Sabbath, that they believe should be jettisoned in the light of the new covenant. While their views of the biblical covenants are animated by theological stances opposed to the Adventist perspective, I believe a similar haziness haunts their outlook, even as it does the views of a critical mass of evangelicals, particularly those with dispensationalist leanings.

The haziness of their approach to the covenant question makes itself evident when to all intents and purposes, and even in the terms of their latest arguments, the seventh-day Sabbath is separated out from the other nine commandments of the Sinai covenant. This presents major difficulties because, according to the biblical record, the seventh-day Sabbath existed before there was sin, a Hebrew nation, a formalized covenant of any kind, or a formal expression of law, ceremonial or moral.

Their stand is also problematic because, despite the fact that the Moral Law was indeed climactically expressed in Jesus Christ (see below), the Sabbath itself was placed by God's own person al initiative in the heart of the other nine moral principles that seem to get little attention when these issues are dis cussed in the context of the new covenant. This divine design of the Decalogue and God's act of placing the fourth commandment in the company of the other nine by all means implies the seventh day's constitutional nature.

So if there is haziness in both traditional Adventism, and in the theology of a significant number of evangelicals and other Christians, what is at the heart of the confusion? When it comes to this question, this article attempts to look at the big picture.

Framing the question productively

The center of the question as Seventh-day Adventists have historically grappled with it may simply be worded as follows: "What, if anything, continues on from the old covenant into the new, or what, if anything, ends with the old, so that it is no longer obligatory under the new?"

Because of the fear of losing the seventh-day Sabbath, and indeed the moral imperatives resident in the Ten Commandments, Seventh-day Adventists have been afraid to admit that any thing but the "ceremonial law" ended when Jesus came (some have even had trouble granting the end of the ceremonial system in Christ). This has led some Adventists to rather half-heartedly embrace the magnificent understandings and the enriched experience that were introduced with the coming of the Jesus.

We Adventists must not be afraid of saying that there was an end to some thing when Jesus came, along with the beginning of something else, and that there was not only that which continued with the coming of the Messiah, but that which was terminated. But again, what continues and what terminates?

As is so often the case, the thrust of the way such a far-reaching question is worded (at least the way in which 1 have chosen to word it) may not be ultimately helpful and can lead to confusing, labyrinthian answers, and thus to the haziness we have acknowledged when it comes to this question.

The question should rather be posed in terms of the actual descriptions given in the New Testament of what impact the Messianic arrival of Christ had on the covenant arrangements between God and His people.

While the first coming of Christ by all means precipitated serious conflict in the minds of first-century Christian Jews when it came to covenant-related questions like circumcision, feast days, sabbaths, unclean foods, and "sexual immorality" (Acts 15, etc.), the main New Testament concentration was obviously upon the magnificently constituted covenantal terms and relationships that came into play in Christ under what has come to be known as the new covenant.

As the New Testament writers make their momentous, epochal announcement that Jesus of Nazareth is indeed the promised Messiah, they immediately begin to wrestle with the implications of that arrival. As we know, at the heart of those implications is the fact that all that came before the Messianic arrival, through prophets, sacrificial symbols, worship systems, or promises, pointed to the full maturity of the covenant that would come with the arrival of the Messiah. The New Testament declares that in Jesus of Nazareth, this maturity and fullness is now present.

In dealing with this announcement, the book of Hebrews is not only fundamental but is the New Testament source dealing with these issues.

Hebrews and the big picture

Hebrews 1:1-4 summarizes the essence of the theme of the book of Hebrews and its discussion of the covenant shift from old to new covenant. It was written in an effort to dissuade some Jewish Christians from returning to aspects of their previous Jewish ways of faith and worship.

At its heart, the theme of Hebrews is encapsulated in the first four verses of the book. Thus it discusses the transition from the incompleteness of how things once were to the maturity of how things now are, since the arrival of Jesus Christ as the expected Messiah. It exposes a crucial move or development from skeleton to living body, from framework to completed structure, from shadow to reality, from silhouette to 3-D, while viewing that which has gone before as critical to the great, overarching, on going, monolithic covenantal organism that finds its climactic expression in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews 1:1-4 also reviews how Cod spoke "in the past" through prophets, such as Moses, and in "various [other] ways,"1 such as the sacrificial and sanctuary system and in what we now know as the old covenant, which would definitely include the Ten Commandments given on Sinai through Moses. (It is important to thoughtfully review Hebrews 12:18-24 to note this Sinai and thus Moral Law connection.)

With unsurpassable significance, the opening verses of Hebrews announce that in "these last days," in contrast to simply having spoken through prophets and the various other means just enumerated, God has now spoken to us with crowning ultimacy through His Son.

The emphasis in these verses and in the whole book of Hebrews is not so much upon what has been lost from the past, but upon the obvious superiority of what has now been gained through the perfect revelation of God in His Son, Jesus Christ. Indeed, contrary to the imperfection of previous means of communication, the Son is declared to be "the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being" (verse 3). This is clearly not something that could be claimed even for the Ten Commandments, despite the fact that they were written with God's own finger.

The writer of Hebrews goes on to show how inferior are angels, Moses, the high priests of the first system, the blood of bulls and goats, and the whole tabernacle/temple system, including the climactic Day of Atonement. All this is incomplete and monodimensional when compared with what has been ushered in through Jesus Christ; Him to Whom it was all to "lead us" (Gal. 3:24) anyway.

This superiority and newness in Christ includes an infinitely more effective and satisfying access that believers now all have into the very presence of God, by the "new and living way" (Heb. 10:19, 20) opened up for us by Christ into the heavenly sanctuary, versus the once-a-year access only the High Priest had under the first stage of the system (Heb. 10:19-25). The experiential implications of this, which we cannot get into in detail here, are truly magnificent.

All this has been introduced by the vastly superior blood of Jesus which has now been shed, versus the inferior blood of the lambs, bulls, and goats of the former system. Jesus' blood cleanses the conscience and etches the law on our hearts through the indwelling Christ and through the magnificent ministry of the Holy Spirit (John 14-16).

It is critical that Seventh-day Adventists fearlessly face passages such as Hebrews 8:13-9:29, especially pas sages such as 8:7-13, which for example declares that "If there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said: 'The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel . . .' By calling this covenant [the one ratified in the blood of Christ] 'new/ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear."

It is when we insist that we ourselves come face to face with the clear reading of such seemingly threatening pas sages, wrestling with them and the related biblical testimony, that the meaning the inspired writer meant to convey begins to emerge in a most rewarding way.

An important, but at first disquieting, concern is to understand that the Moral Law is part and parcel of what was brought to full maturity with the arrival of Jesus (not abolished in any way at all; see below). The Sinaitic written expression of the Moral Law is identified as having had, in and of itself, a temporary, fading role to play, a role that had to give way to the full and ultimate expression that came with the fullness and perfection of the Messiah Himself (see 2 Cor. 3:7-11).

Antinomianism?

But the Adventist heart reflexively cries out against such a suggestion. Many an Adventist would say, "This sounds like the same old cheap antinomianism we've resisted so forthrightly for so long; a resistance that is at the heart of our reason for existence!"

Neither the book of Hebrews (see 12:22-27) nor such passages as Romans 7:7 and its context, or Galatians 4:21- 25 (with their clear allusions to the Moral Law by their mention of the old covenant made at Mount Sinai), and other passages are implying that the standards of right and good, which are the transcript of God's very character, were somehow abrogated in Jesus Christ. Far from it.

But again, Hebrews is saying that the partial, shadowy expressions of God's character that came through the prophets, the sacrificial, priestly, and tabernacle services, and even through the handwriting of Cod on Sinai rock when He gave the Moral Law to Moses were partial and incomplete when compared to the perfect communication that came in the living-Son-of-God expressions of Jesus Christ Himself as He exposed them in His life and teaching; He Himself being the Architect and Author of the covenant and the Law to begin with.

Hebrews is saying that when Jesus Christ came, a much better, in fact a perfect expression of God (Heb. 1:3) was placed before humanity. Jesus as a man was, of course, God. How then could His living as a human among us be any more perfectly revelatory of God and of God's will than it was? Indeed, what could be any more complete than such a manifestation? Certainly not even the written version of the Ten Commandments could claim such completeness. Thus it must be said that the law of Cod and its moral precepts as they are lived out and expressed in the person of Jesus Christ are the ultimate antithesis of any kind of antinomianism.

Indeed, the new covenant is simply the old covenant personified. And it is personified by Cod in human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, Who was very Cod. This is not just a transcript of God's character, as was the Ten Commandments, but this is the Living God Himself.

This is what Jesus went to such lengths to clarify in His sermon on the mount, when He said such things as "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished" (Matt. 5:17, 18). And more pointedly: "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery [seventh command of the Decalogue].' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lust fully has already committed adultery with her in his heart .. ." (verse 27).

Contradictions?

But there are Paul's well known, apparently contradictory statements: "Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid, we establish it," and "Christ is the end of the law ...," and "Now that faith [or Christ] has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." How can we (or Paul) have it both ways: that the law ended in Christ and that it was at the same time established in Him?

How can such an apparent contradiction be? Here again the wonder of what God accomplished in Christ comes out clear ly, revealing to us that the arrival of the new in Christ elevates the old to such completeness and maturity that we are naturally constrained, even obliged, to let the old fade and to gladly embrace the new; to let the old legal supervision of our souls go even as we embrace the supervision of the living Christ Himself.

There is the passing of the old, but only in the light of the coming of the new. There is never an ethical or moral vacuum, but instead the ushering in of a higher standard than ever; this time not written, but instead one that is alive with the ultimate quality of life. Thus the New Testament emphasis is not that "we are no longer under the supervision of the law [ceremonial and/or moral]" (Gal. 3:25) but that we are now under the superior supervision of Christ Himself through the Holy Spirit (see Gal. 3:21-25).

This, and not the abrogation of the seventh-day Sabbath and other moral principles, is what the New Testament is concentrating on as it elucidates the effects of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the installation of the "new covenant."

This is what Paul is saying in pas sages such as 2 Corinthians 3:7-11. It is what the Messianic arrival was all about at its heart. In Jesus the truth about God and moral rectitude are not abrogated, but instead they gloriously transcend even God's written, Siniatic, covenantal expression.

Distinctions between Moral and Ceremonial laws

Yet the distinction between the Moral and Ceremonial Laws must by all means be noted, even as it clearly is in the Bible.

The Moral Law rather obviously contains that which no society can do with out and still survive for any length of time. It addresses that which is "genetically" infrastructural to human life on this earth, and thus by its nature it is impossible to dismiss without mortally wounding the human experience. By their nature the ten principles of the Decalogue and again, God intention ally includes the fourth in this setting are by their nature indispensable to the life of humanity as it has been created by God and constituted on the earth.

None of this can truthfully be said of the Mosaic Code or the Ceremonial Law. The Mosaic Code is that which by its nature is prophetic of a new and greater revelation yet to come. This is clearly seen in the Hebrew tabernacle temple services, the sacrificial requirements, and the priestly ministry of the Hebrew-Jewish system. These are all promisory and anticipatory, iconic and symbolic. The Mosaic Code may also be seen to be specifically definitive for the particular social, cultural, and political life of Israel, rather than obviously universal as in the case of the Moral Law.

In the way Jesus acted and behaved, in all that He was, and in all that He taught and stood for, He fully expressed the Moral Law to climactic perfection (see John 14:6-9), thus superceding its written expression.

In this, Jesus obviously did not remove the Moral Law in any way, but instead resoundingly confirmed it. When it came to the Mosaic Code, He was the fulfillment of all. It had pointed forward to Him, so that there was no need for it to continue once He arrived. From start to finish, this is what the book of Hebrews elucidates.

In illustration

In all this it is helpful to ask the fol lowing illustrative questions:

• In the end, which is a more authoritative and complete expression of a certain way of thinking or living: How that thinking is expressed in writ ten form in a book, or the arrival of the author himself, coming in person to magnify before us what he formerly wrote in his book?

• Does the arrival of the author annul what the book has said? Absolutely not. The arrival of the author is entirely consistent with the book, and His arrival resoundingly establishes and elucidates the book's contents more comprehensively and thoroughly than ever.

• What gives us a better sense of what someone looks like or of what sort of person they are, a photograph or even a video of them, or the living ongoing presence of the person in our midst, so that we can in fact actually handle and touch and observe them (1 John 1:1-4 and John 16:5-15)?

• What is of more value, a person's skeleton or the living presence of that person among us in an actual conscious flesh and blood body?

• What's the best expression of a mother's requirements for her young daughter as she asks her to do the cleaning of the house: the card the mother writes out in her own handwriting outlining her ten-point cleaning procedure, or the act of that mother dropping what she is doing in the kitchen and going out to become "incarnate" with her daughter, taking the broom and the dust cloth herself and doing the cleaning while her daughter looks on and participates, so that the girl can see what the handwritten note meant to begin with?

• Does the mother's active cleaning do away with what remains in writing, or does it in fact confirm more than ever the written requirement, even while the written expression fades in the presence of the much clearer revelation that comes with the mother's arrival on the scene of the sweeping and the dusting?

Conclusion

In Jesus, not only did the covenant shift from shadow to 3-D, but so did we.

What's at the heart of the covenant shift that occurred with the Messianic arrival of Jesus? Again, not the removal of any part of what is obviously abiding, holy, just, and good such as the seventh-day Sabbath, but instead the climactic, perfect, all-encompassing covenantal communication of God's love in the living being of the Lord Jesus Christ, now ratified not in the blood of lambs, but in the blood of the Lamb of God Himself.