p. 150 | The Old and New Covenants

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Tuesday, March 10, 1885.

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 62, No. 10. Whole No. 1605.

The Old and New Covenants.

The Bible plainly brings to view two covenants and two dispensations. The Old Testament pertains chiefly to the old covenant and dispensation; the New Testament, to the new covenant and dispensation. The old covenant and dispensation passed away with Christ, and we are living under the new. So far all are agreed; but many draw unwarrantable conclusions from these premises, assuming that because the old covenant has passed away, therefore the Old Testament is no longer of value or force, and because the moral law, the ten commandments, are in the Old Testament, they are no longer binding. They thus make the New Testament to be contrary to the Old, and declare the work of Christ to be opposed to the law of God. In so doing, they forget that both the old and the new covenants were made with the same people, the house of Israel, and concerning the same law, the law under the new covenant occupying a more sacred position than under the old, being written upon the hearts of God’s people. See Jer. 31: 31–34. They also utterly misapprehend the relation existing between the law and the gospel, seeming to regard the law as an unfortunate, arbitrary, and withal very severe ordinance, which had been inflicted by Jehovah through mistake or malignity upon poor mortals, but which, repenting of his mistake in giving it, he now proposes to abolish so far as those repenting sinners are concerned who have fortunately secured his Son to plead their cause. In other words, they seem to regard the gospel as a scheme for getting rid of the law and their duty to obey it. What an insult to Jehovah! and what defiance to his authority and government!

On the other hand, how beautiful and harmonious are the teachings of Scripture upon this subject; namely, that the Old Testament is not contrary to the New, but through them both runs a golden thread of harmony; that the law and the gospel, so far from being opposed to each other, are “binary stars that commingle and combine their beams to dispel the darkness of the moral world;” that Christ came not to destroy the law, but to magnify and make it honorable,—not to relax the claims of the law, and allow men to break it with impunity, but to secure the forgiveness of God for their past transgressions of his holy law, and bring their lives into conformity with its precepts.

It will give the reader pleasure to read, in harmony with the foregoing thoughts, the following extract from an article in the Old Testament Student for February. The article was written by James Scott, D. D., LL. D., of Scotland, and is entitled, “The Correlation of the Old and New Covenants.” He affirms of the two Testaments that “they are not merely united mechanically, as two halves of one whole, but also organically, like the root, trunk, and branches of a tree, which is pervaded by a common system of tissues and fibers, sap-veins and circulating fluids,” and maintains his position by a series of propositions, the third, fourth, and fifth of which are given below:—

“They are identified morally and spiritually.

“The same moral principle of benevolence, truth, and justice prevails throughout the Scriptures. The moral code of both covenants is the same. The Decalogue is the moral law for all men and for all ages. It consists of two grand principles, supreme love to God and sincere love to man, on which hang not only the law and the prophets but also the apostles, like all the branches of a tree on the trunk. The ground of all obedience is the revealed character of God, and especially his love as the Lord our God and Redeemer; and the motive or mainspring in the human soul is felt love. The righteousness of this law the Son of God, as the Son of man, has not only fulfilled but magnified and made honorable. Consequently, obedience under the law is enjoined on the same grounds and from the same motives,—love to God for his revelation of himself in the person and work of Christ. The new commandment of the gospel is certainly not that we love God supremely or one another with fervent heart, but that we love each other as Christ hath loved us. It is a new yet an old commandment,—old as Adam in its principle, and as new in its formal basis, and new merely in its motive, the gracious work of Christ; which is a new thing in the earth, a new form of the love.”

“Besides, all the spiritual or gracious privileges required and exercised under the law and gospel are the same. The form of worship is different, but the spirit is the same. The former, accordingly, is changed, but the latter remains unchangeable. The same faith and the same hope and the same joy, the same love and the same holiness, run like a perennial stream throughout both economies. The principles of subjective religion are the same throughout. A complete moral and spiritual unity prevails.”

“They are doctrinally identified.

“Their doctrinal oneness is as conspicuous as the harmony of the solar system, as the earth itself, or the unbroken unity of heaven. Not only is the grand method of revelation doctrinally the same, there is also a clear and constant agreement in the minor details of the development of doctrine, expressed in different languages and in different forms of phraseology. The great Teacher and the authors of the New Testament constantly quote and expound the facts and words of the Old Testament, as teaching the law which they merely developed and declared, and indeed, their text-book and book of reference on occasions. They regard the doctrine of the two Testaments as the same as their own, both in its source and in its substance. A grand succession of writers of different ages and countries, some of whom, even ignorant of each other’s writings at the time they wrote themselves, have concurred in teaching the very same truths to us, on whom the ends of the age are come. The Scriptures, like a coat, are of many colors; and like Christ’s seamless coat, woven from the top throughout.”

“They are related exegetically.

“The two Testaments are mutually interdependent. The New Testament expounds the Old, and in turn illustrates the New. Both are to be exegeted on substantially the same principles. They are like a double lock with double keys, either of which opens both compartments. Mutually dependent and singly unintelligible, the one unlocks the other. We read the Old in the clearer light of the New, and the New in the light of the language and literature of the Old. The philological and religious uses of the Old Testament are invaluable. The human race was furnished by the sacrificial and sensible signs of the law with the high ideal of satisfaction, and salvation, realized in the new. We must now read the dispensations in the light of one another. The epistle to the Hebrews in particular is a key to the symbolism of the law. The rich life of Jesus Christ, the end of all, is the clear light in which we read those sacrifices which threw their shadows forward, now shed down their light upon the Cross. The law and the gospel are not merely the lesser and the greater lights that rule respectively the night and day, but binary stars that commingle and combine their beams to dispel the darkness of the world.”