Greg and Amy unpack how the Old Covenant functioned as a preparation for Christ by revealing the seriousness of sin and our need for a once-for-all atonement. God’s plan of salvation has always been rooted in grace through faith, culminating in Christ.
Transcript
Amy: This one comes from Katie. “What was the point of the old covenant if God made a new covenant? Was it to show us the cost of our sin so that we would see Christ’s work on the cross accurately?”
Greg: Yeah. Well, the Mosaic system was a kind of preparation. And as you mentioned from Hebrews 10, the blood of bulls and goats—it’s impossible for those to take away sin. And that sacrifice, the writer of Hebrews points out, was a continual reminder of how terrible sin was and the price of that sin—the sacrifice for sin—needs to be paid. I didn’t say that very well, but there is a picture there. Okay? But it was not efficacious. It wasn’t in itself efficacious. If it was, then the writer of Hebrews argues that they wouldn’t have to keep sacrificing. You give one sacrifice for all time, and it’s done. But that didn’t happen with the blood of bulls and goats, because animals can’t pay for human sin.
With Jesus, we have one sacrifice for all time, which is exactly what the author of Hebrews writes in Hebrews chapter 10. It was a way of carrying them over to teach them some important things—to prefigure a sacrifice to come. And what’s pretty incredible to me is the exclamation point on the book of Hebrews, especially on this particular point that we see, I think, at a crescendo in chapter 10 of Hebrews 7, 8, 9 building up to it, and there it is all laid out. “A body how thou hast prepared for me. Behold, I have come to do thy will, O God.” It’s not long after that book was written that the temple was destroyed by the providence of God. I mean, there are a lot of political details involved, but by the providence of God it became impossible for the Jews to continue in the Old Testament sacrificial system, which, the writer of Hebrews makes very clear, is no longer efficacious.
“If we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth”—this is Hebrews 10, and I take that to mean willful sinning that is continuing in this sacrificial system that he has just acknowledged is no longer efficacious, effective to forgive. It doesn’t do anything anymore. Jesus has come. That’s old hat. If we go on in that system, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin, only a certain terrifying expectation of judgment.
Now, people read verse 26 of Hebrews 10, and they get all confused. They think that’s talking about the sacrifice of Jesus, and therefore, if you sin after you become a Christian, you lose your salvation. This is nonsense. It makes no sense in the context.
Amy: If you reject Jesus and you go back to the old system, there’s no sacrifice that’s going to pay for your sins.
Greg: That’s the point that he’s talking about. The sacrifice in view there is the sacrifice that the author has been talking about all along. And so, it is meant to emphasize the security that’s in Jesus and the lack of security anymore in a system of blood of bulls and goats that ultimately could never take away sin anyway. It prefigured the one who would come—Jesus—and that old system is defunct. You want to keep pursuing that? It’s not going to do you any good. It’s not a legitimate object of faith for salvation anymore, is what the writer of Hebrews is saying.
Amy: And the covenant made with Abraham was by faith. So, when Katie is talking about “What is the point of the old covenant if God made the new covenant? Was it to show us the cost of our sin?” you have to ask—what I think she’s thinking of is the Mosaic Covenant. Now, the Mosaic Covenant was a covenant of law that had other purposes other than the covenant God made with Abraham, although it was part of it, and it was part of what they were required to do. But if you want to understand how that fits in with the covenant of grace that God made with Abraham, all you have to do is go to Galatians 3. And I’m tempted just to read straight through the whole thing because it answers this question so perfectly, but I just want to read little parts of it.
He’s talking about how God made this covenant with Abraham by grace, and he says, “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, ‘And to seeds,’ as referring to many, but rather to one, ‘And to your seed,’ that is, Christ.” So, he’s saying he’s making this covenant of faith with Abraham, and it was going to result in Christ receiving these promises.
He says, “What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.” So, the Old Covenant promise to Abraham was not affected by the Law. The Law was added 430 years later, and it did not affect this promise that God made by grace with Abraham.
Then Paul says, “Why the Law then?” Paul’s great in that he always anticipates exactly how people will object. So, if you have an objection, chances are Paul has addressed it already. He says, “It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.”
Then he says, “Is the Law then contrary to the promises of God? May it never be!” And he says there was never a law given that could make us righteous. So, the Law had other purposes. And it says, “But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” And then he talks about how we were kept in custody under the Law until the faith in Christ was revealed. But now that faith has come, we’re no longer under this tutor, and we’ve become one of Abraham’s descendants in Christ.
Greg: So, there’s the whole chapter.
Amy: I didn’t read the whole thing word for word, but the point is, first of all, God’s covenant of salvation was always by faith, as you mentioned in the first question. The Law was added until Jesus came, and there were various reasons. We already discussed some of them. It shut up everyone under sin. It did help us to see our sin, as Katie mentioned. It was a tutor to bring us to Christ by showing us our sin, by teaching us our need for a sacrifice, and by shaping our expectations for what would come, and so that we would recognize Jesus when he came.
So, all of this is explained in there, and hopefully you have a better grasp of how the two parts of the Bible fit together, which is really just one long story.
Greg: That’s right.
So, this is where I’m going to recommend, I think, one of our most important training tools available through Stand to Reason that is an unsung product. We don’t talk about it very much, but it lays the foundation for all of these things and explains them clearly. And this is The Bible Fast Forward. So, this is eight sessions that I taught—50 minutes a session—and if you think of The Story of Reality—God, man, Jesus, cross, resurrection—that’s kind of the big picture. This goes down a little deeper and fills in all the spaces, especially the space between man and Jesus. So, you have God—that’s Genesis 1. Man—Genesis 2 and 3, the fall. And then you have Jesus in the Gospels, which is the solution to the fall. That’s a huge lacuna. That’s a huge hole between the fall of man and Jesus coming on the cross to pay that debt. And what I do in The Bible Fast Forward is I look at the details that we’re talking about now that fall in between man and Jesus and how all of this unfolds theologically and historically to help you understand how it all fits together.
So, that’s available at STR.org. The Bible Fast Forward.
Amy: Well, this is what so many people miss. They miss the big picture, and this is why that’s helpful—The Story of Reality is helpful. The Bible is one complete story. It all fits together, which is, in itself, amazing, considering how much time it took to write it and by so many people. It’s just another indication that this came from God.
And if you want to read more about this particular thing, here are the chapters I recommend. Romans 4 talks a lot about Abraham’s faith. So, Romans 4–8 discusses faith. It discusses our justification by faith, and then it talks about, then, why do we not sin?
Greg: It anticipates a problem, an objection. Romans chapter 6.
Amy: It explains our relationship to the Law and our new life with the Spirit. So, Romans 4–8, Galatians 3, which is what I just read, and Hebrews 7–10. And I think between those chapters, you get a good grasp of how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament and how all the covenants relate to each other.
Greg: And these chapters all underscore and magnify the grace of God. And I am so thankful that, very early in my Christian life, I received superb teaching on the grace of God and, also, the notion that the grace of God is teaching us to deny ungodliness. You know, it’s not licentiousness, and that’s what Paul addresses in Romans 6. And consequently, I have not had to wrestle with issues that many, many Christians wrestle with because they don’t understand the grace of God. They don’t understand what Jesus has purchased for them and their security because of Christ and all kinds of other problems for us to wrestle with. That’s one you shouldn’t have to wrestle with. And that’s why it’s so important to get a solid foundation in our understanding of the grace of God. And those chapters will do that for you.