4. Relating Heirship under the Three Covenants
From
the perspective of time, the Abrahamic Covenant is the source covenant of both
the Mosaic and New Covenants. These two later covenants relate to the separate
dimensions of the Abrahamic Covenant—natural and eternal. As the two dimensions
of the Abrahamic covenant are of different
force and effect so are the two covenants that relate to each of them. (In
view of the conflict with Messianic Judaism, this section will prove to be most
difficult to accept.)
- Relating Abrahamic and Mosaic
Covenant Heirship
One
dimension of the Abrahamic Covenant spoke only to the natural seed of Israel.
This seed was prophesied where God told Abraham his seed would be uncountable
as the sand of the sea. Sand relates to dust, which is a prophetic type of man
in the flesh. God established the Mosaic covenant strictly with this “dust
seed,” dwelt among this seed and has accomplished various acts on its behalf. As a “mirror” covenant for the “mirror” seed,
the Mosaic Covenant related only to the natural dimension of the Abrahamic
Covenant.
The
crucial concept about the natural seed and its covenant is the concept of perishability. The people could die, and
so could this later covenant keyed to their mortality. As the Lord spoke of the
dust in the beginning, “from dust you
were made and to dust you shall return,” so was this natural seed and their
unique but still fleshly empowered covenant.
The
Mosaic covenant’s durability was entirely dependent on natural Israel’s performance
with regard to it. If Israel failed the covenant, like a mirror, the covenant
could be broken and subject to discarding. Thus the Covenant itself was both perishable and replaceable. That
perishability and replaceability was sown
into the covenant’s very establishment.
Prophetically
pictured by its original smashing and replacing on the mount, the Mosaic
covenant was made under the foregone
conclusion that it would be broken. Numerous references to the covenant’s
breaking occur throughout its record. It always was the “Broken Covenant.”
While God continued to dwell with natural Israel in the desert and beyond, His
presence and acts among this perishable seed with its unique covenant did not
change their or its perishable nature.
Confined
to perishability, the Mosaic Covenant could do nothing to bring Israel to
realize fulfillment of the everlasting dimension of the Abrahamic promise, nor
was it intended to. It mirrored and so
pointed the way to the eternal righteousness and immortality to be revealed
through Christ (Messiah), but couldn’t produce the everlasting life by which
the Eternal seed could be realized from within the natural seed.
- Relating Abrahamic and New
Covenant Heirship
The
other dimension of the Abrahamic Covenant spoke to the Eternal seed, the imperishable lineage still to be
manifest beyond this life. This seed was prophesied where God told Abraham his
seed would be uncountable as the stars of the sky. Stars are a prophetic type
of the glorified immortal saints (Dan 12:3; Mt. 13:43). God established the New
Covenant through Christ strictly with this seed. By this covenant He not only
dwells with this seed now just as he did with the fleshly seed under Moses, but
He also dwells in this seed by
His Holy Spirit.
The
direct heir of Abraham through the eternal dimension of his covenant is not
Isaac, but the immortal Christ Himself (Gal. 3:16), through Whom all Eternal
Israel receives its life, and of Whom Isaac was only a type. As an imperishable
seed, the Eternal Israel through Christ is the Israel that lives forever,
bringing to fruition all that was promised to Abraham on an everlasting basis. It is an imperishable
Covenant conducted through the power of endless spiritual life, witnessed to
now through the invisibility of faith.
The
faith by which Abraham believed God and the faith by which the New Covenant is
transmitted into hearts of all time is of one lineage and substance. This gives
the New Covenant its direct unmediated
connection to the Abrahamic Covenant. Because faith in a Person comprised the
substance of his relationship with God, Abraham is called the “father of
faith,” and so the father of all who are under the covenant of faith. Through
this living faith connection, the New Covenant is seen to be the true
ratification of the Abrahamic Covenant.
In contrast to the Mosaic covenant whose durability rested on an entire nation’s fleshly performance under the Law, the New Covenant’s durability rested on the performance of the One Eternal Christ’s obedience to His Father’s Will through the Spirit, whose impeccable righteousness transmits by faith to His Spirit Seed, the Eternal Israel. Because Christ, the Son of Abraham did not fail in His obedience to the Father, the covenant made through Him, empowered by the Spirit and conveyed through faith cannot be broken 7
nor subject to discarding or transfer (Heb. 7:24). Thus the New Covenant is both imperishable and irreplaceable.As
an eternal covenant, the New Covenant actually predates the Abrahamic Covenant though in time it appears to spring
from the Abrahamic Covenant (see chart under point 1). The “beforeness” of
Christ and of His Eternal seed is an important New Covenant concept. While in
time it appears Christ was descended from Abraham and David, it is in fact
Abraham and David who are “descended” from Christ. Christ is the eternal “root of David” and He is the eternal I
AM “before Abraham was,” appearing to
Abraham as Melchizedek. (Abraham in fact owes his life beyond the grave to the
Lamb who was slain before time. The Abrahamic Covenant was only possible
because of the certainty that the New Covenant would come to pass in time.)
What
is true of Christ from before earth’s foundation is also true of Eternal Israel
from before earth’s foundation. All who are of Eternal Israel actually predate their own fleshly lineage by
which they humanly come to be born in the earth (Eph. 1:4). This is hard to
fathom, but necessary for further distinguishing the two Israels and the
applications of the Abrahamic Covenant to them.
- Relating Old and New
Covenant Heirship
Where
the Mosaic Covenant serviced Abraham’s perishable human seed only, the New
Covenant services Abraham’s imperishable seed. Because Abraham’s fleshly seed
was a preparatory mirror seed (though of course many of His physical seed were
also of his spiritual seed), the Mosaic Covenant was set up only until the imperishable seed was ready to
be self-standingly revealed through Christ and His New Covenant.
The
word until is important. The later
New covenant not only fulfils all that was promised to Abraham on an everlasting basis, but also fulfils all the types and shadows set forth in the weak perishable Mosaic
Covenant. By fulfilling the meanings of the time-bound Mosaic Covenant, the
Eternal New Covenant renders the Mosaic covenant obsolete, effectively terminating
it. (Heb. 8:6-13)
The
New Covenant claims to specifically replace
the Mosaic Covenant—not by destroying the Law, but by replacing our relationship to its
mirror with a relationship to the actual indwelling righteous Life of Christ Himself, the fulfiller of
the Law—for the perfect purpose of “doing
the will of the Father” through the power of love. This replacement is in force
for all men for all time. It is not just for Gentiles. (The Book of Hebrews
which specifically cites this replacement is written to Jews.)
Under the New Covenant, being Himself “the end of the Law to all who believe,” and being the pre-existent “Logos” from before time, Christ is “The Law” that was but typified by the Mosaic Law. Because Christ was The Law from eternity, He easily fulfilled the Mosaic Law in time,8
doing so by fulfilling the more precise will of the Father. Today then, Christ is The Law written on the heart, to which Law alone every member of Eternal Israel is accountable, regardless of origin—bringing to fulfillment in each member the perfect will of the Father by the indwelling Spirit.Because
the Mosaic Covenant did not relate to the eternal dimension of the Abrahamic
Covenant, not only could it not last, it also could not be made to connect to the eternal New Covenant to follow—any
more than flesh can give birth to spirit. As Christ Himself makes clear, the
concepts of flesh and spirit with their
lineages (hence their covenants) are mutually exclusive (Jn 3:6).
Prophesying
of the New Covenant to come, Jeremiah (31:32) declares “It will not be like” the Old Covenant (See also Heb. 8:9 which requotes
Jeremiah). In other words, there will be no connection between these covenants
in nature or form, hence not of descent. (The word used in Heb. 9:8 for “like” [kata] also means “down from.”
That is to say, the new will not “be down
from” (descended) from the old.
Paul
specifically emphasizes the non-connectivity of heirship between these two
covenants, describing one as “casting out”
the other (Gal. 4:21-31.) So there is no integral connection between the New
Covenant and Mosaic Covenant, as if the New Covenant “sprang from” the Mosaic Covenant.
It did not. (In the treatise to follow, I will comment further in this regard
on the Messianic concept of Torah restoration.)
To
sum, the strongest contrast between the Mosaic and New Covenants is in their
relationship to the Eternal. The Mosaic Covenant was tied to one mortal nation
and stood or fell with the fortunes of that nation. But the New Covenant in
Christ is of one spiritual nation formed out of many origins (including
natural Israel), all of whom now labor to forsake their ancestral allegiances to be revealed in Christ as the
Father’s chosen from before time: His Eternal Israel.
Because of death, the Mosaic
covenant has no everlasting
relationship to anyone, specifically, the Jews. All men are either freed from
the Mosaic covenant now through Christ, or they were/are freed from it when
they otherwise die and descend to Hades. But the New Covenant together with
those under it will never die (though their bodies “sleep” in the ground until
the resurrection).
7 When I say “cannot be broken,” I mean that those truly born
again of the Spirit under this covenant are unable to dwell in a state of
habitual sin against it and can never be cut off from it. Many falsely enter
into the covenant who are never reborn under its power. These do “break the
everlasting covenant,” but it has no effect on the covenant itself.
8 As a covenant of “types and shadows,” the Mosaic Covenant mirrored pre-existing realities. God showed Moses heavenly patterns that already existed but which were yet to be revealed. So though we say that in time the New Covenant “replaces” the Mosaic Covenant, in eternal reality, the New Covenant was simply inserting its pre-existent seniority into time.