Jared Longshore's Blog, page 11

Seven Reasons the Mosaic Covenant Is the Covenant of Grace

I have noted before that covenant theology is not a particular kind of study for particular kind of people. Yes, there are covenant theologians out there with their covenant theologies and for all of that, we are grateful. Nevertheless, it is my habit to make covenant thinking a layman’s game, the regular old Bereans among us who pay attention to the words of Scripture. The word covenant appears nearly three hundred times in the old testament and over thirty times in the new. And what quickly appears by a survey of Scripture is that when God covenants with man, He does so with different key figures at the helm. 

God makes His covenant of grace first with Adam immediately after the fall, then this covenant is reestablished with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and eventually Christ in the new covenant. With each reestablishment, the covenant of grace takes on more clarity, more color, more specific laws and the like. Now I take every one of these various reestablishments to be the covenant of grace for substance, the covenant in which God swears blessing and eternal life to His people. Thus, none of them are merely temporal, physical, or earthly. They all, of course, contain temporal, physical, and earthly blessings, these kinds of blessings not being stripped from the eternal, spiritual, and heavenly ones. 

Historically, there has been a good deal of debate over the Mosaic administration of the covenant of grace. The majority Paedobaptist position has been that the Mosaic Covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace like the Abrahamic and the post-fall Adamic covenant in Genesis 3. But there have been other views, the most popular being John Owen’s take that the Mosaic Covenant was not the covenant of grace but a different covenant entirely, one that served the covenant of grace, but itself was not a covenant in which God swore eternal life to His people. According to Owen no one was ever saved or damned by the Mosaic Covenant. It differed in substance from the covenant of grace, not only in accidents or administration. In short, Owen’s view is that it was sub-salvific.

A third view that has been held at least from the seventeenth century is that the Mosaic Covenant is a sort of republication of the Covenant of Life originally made with prelapsarian Adam. All of the “Do this and live” in the Mosaic Covenant, according to this position, smells of God’s covenant of Life or Works in the Garden of Eden.

So there are three basic views on the Mosaic Covenant: First, it is a republication of the covenant of Life. Second, it is not the covenant of life or the covenant of grace but a sub-salvific covenant, Owen’s view. And third, the position I will contend for, that the Mosaic Covenant is the covenant of grace.

Here are seven reasons that the Mosaic Covenant is the Coveant of Grace, and I’m tracking with John Ball’s A Treatise on the Covenant of Grace here:

First, The Mosaic Covenant was one in which the covenant people were made a kingdom of priest, a holy nation, and a peculiar treasure unto the Lord. The key text is Exodus 19:5-6, where God speaks to Israel just before giving them the Ten Words, saying, “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all people: for all the earth is mine: And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation. These are the words which thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel.” 

The first thing to note is that the blessings listed here, being a peculiar treasure unto the Lord, a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation, are covenantal blessings. They will come to fruition conditioned upon Israel keeping covenant with God and obeying His Word. These are not random, abstract, or non-covenantal promises that God made to peculiar individuals in the Old Testament. 

It follows that, in order to maintain the Mosaic Covenant is sub-salvific, one must claim that these covenantal blessings of the Mosaic Covenant are sub-salvific. Thus, Israel would be a mere physical or temporal treasure unto the Lord. They would be a sub-salvific kingdom of priests, priests who themselves were not reconciled to God savingly. They must be a holy nation, but only in the sense that they bear certain markers that set them apart in an earthly way, not as the bearers of God’s salvation.

Second, in the Mosaic Covenant, God proclaims Himself to be the God of Israel. He does so In Exodus 20 right before delivering the Ten Words to Israel, ” And God spake all these words, saying, I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage” (Exodus 20:1-2). This is the same promise that He delivered in the Abrahamic Covenant, “I will be God to you and your offspring after you in their generations” (Genesis 17:7). It also brings to mind the great hall of faith in Hebrews 11:16, where we hear that God was not ashamed to be called their God. It would be peculiar to reduce God’s Mosaic Covenant, in which He announces that He is Israel’s God, to a sub-salvific covenant.

Third, the first commandment within the Mosaic Covenant was to worship God alone. The first commandment was not simply “act right” or “keep your nose clean.” The requirement to worship God alone within the Mosaic Covenant indicates that on God’s end, He promises salvation. In the seventeenth century English of John Ball, “Christ our Saviour thus reciteth the first commandment . . . and it can hardly be questioned, whether that Covenant wherin we are bound to take God to be our Father, King and Saviour be the Coveannt of grace or no?”

Fourth, the Mosaic Covenant could be renewed and was so by godly kings and the people of Israel. We hear this provision in Deuteronomy 4:30, ” When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto his voice; (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) he will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which he sware unto them.” This point particularly addresses the claim that the Mosaic Covenant was the Covenant of Life republished. Forgiveness and covenant renewal were not offered in the Covenant of Life as they are in the Covenant of Grace. It follows that if the Mosaic Covenant is renewed, it cannot be the Covenant of Life.

Fifth, the Mosaic Covenant was the same in substance with the Abrahamic Covenant. We see this as God covenanted to the people both in Abraham and Moses’ day: land, a great name, a holy nation, and the continuance of these promises to their seed. Moreover, faith and obedience were conditions of the covenant in both instances. Such obedience is well attested in the Mosaic, but it is also present in Abraham, “And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly” (Genesis 17:1-2).

Sixth, in the Mosaic Covenant, God vows marriage to Israel. This marriage is evidenced in Jeremiah 2:2, ” Moreover the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the Lord; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.” This marriage between God and His people in the Mosaic Covenant appears also in Ezekiel 16:8, “Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness: yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into a covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine.” It is hard to claim that the covenant wherein God takes Israel to be His bride is a sub-salvific covenant. Again in the words of John Ball, “when God gave his law unto Israel upon Mount Sinai, he troth-plighted that people unto himselfe, and him selfe unto them, and that of his mere love, not of any merit in them.”

Seventh, the Mosaic Covenant requires faith. The law indeed came through Moses and grace and truth through Jesus Christ. We are right to mark discontinuities and the betterness of the new covenant. But it is foolish to speak of law as opposed to faith. 1 Timothy 1:5, “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.” The law cannot be kept apart from faith and faith is the instrument of our salvation. This very instrument was required in the Mosaic Covenant.

The blessings of the Mosaic Covenant, along with the conditions required, are very hard to square with a sub-salvific covenant whereby no one was ever saved or damned. It is all the more difficult to square the blessings of the Mosaic Covenant with the notion that it is the Covenant of Life republished. The nature of those blessings demonstrate that the Mosaic Covenant, was indeed an administration of the Covenant of Grace, albeit the old administration, which had plenty of shortcomings.

The claim that the Mosaic Covenant was the Covenant of Grace does raise questions about what Paul means in the book of Galatians, particularly chapters three and four. I hope to write something about that down the line.

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And This Through Faith

Modern notions of faith have twisted the word beyond all recognition. Faith is not a leap into the void. Faith corresponds to Word. Without a Word, faith is incomprehensible. The question then is, “What has God said of this child?” The answer is plain, God has said that His Word and Spirit would not depart from this one (Isaiah 59:21). God has said, “This one is a seed of the blessed of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:9). Baptism is a sign that this child is a recipient of God’s saving, covenant love. That is God’s Word and it is received by faith.

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Worship: The Soil of Normal Town

With the recent elections in our land, we are right to rejoice in a bit of sanity. Many people have grown weary of living in a house of convoluted mirrors and you get the sense that conservatives have begun to unfurl banners on main streets across our land that read, “Welcome to Normal Town.” Normal Town involves a new Boarder Official who thinks that foreigners should come into our nation the legal way. A Secretary of Defense that believes women shouldn’t be running in the bayonet charge against Hamas. And a couple of aficionados of effecieny asking the members of our bloated and administrative state what it is exactly that they do around here. As Christians, we are delighted with these developments and must reject a false dichotomy that naturally arises during times like these.

That dichotomy is that on the one hand, you can rejoice in normal town while leaving off your Christian faith, or, on the other hand, you must retreat of any gratitude over our civil improvements and keep the faith once for all delivered to the saints. We, however, can do both. We can thank God for the sanity while holding fast to the Christian faith which is the soil in which that sanity grows.

But there will be dangers in doing so. Some will want to make this a Secular Normal Town and we not only reject that project outright, but we do so in a very particular way: worship.

Worship is the beating heart of our life. There is no greater tangible good you good do for yourself, your family, your town, your enemies, or your nation. You will face any number of tangles in life be they financial, relational, medical, business, educational, marital. And the worship of our Triune God is the chief untangler. Would you see your problems resolved? Would you see your land blessed? Would you see more of the kingdom of God running throughout this earth? Then offer yourselves to God now as living and holy sacrifices.

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Beethoven Laxatives

Pitirim Sorokin lamenting that art had become a commercial amusement commodity in the 1940s—

“Any day one may hear a selection from Beethoven or Bach as an appendage to the eloquent advertising of such commodities as oil, banking facilies, automobiles, cereals and laxatives.”

Sorokin, The Crisis of Our Age

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Miracle Bread

When God brought Israel through the waters of the Red Sea, they rejoiced on the other side. This joy was perfectly fitting as is our own as we remember our salvation in Christ. But consider what life is like on this side of the water. The horse and his rider have been thrown into the sea. But what will you do now? Those riders might have made your life miserable. But they also made your life stable. Their leader fed you. Those swords, now buried beneath the waters, were the swords that protected you. What are you going to eat now? And who will guard your wives and children seeing that those Egyptian spears lie at the bottom of the sea?

The truth is our God feeds us in the same way He fed our fathers after their deliverance. He fed them with miracle bread from heaven. He guarded them with the angel of the Lord, with a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud, and water flowing from a Rock. Never make the mistake of thinking that they survived by the supernatural and we survive by the natural. Do not make the mistake of thinking that they lived by faith and we live by sight, they lived by the Spirit and we by the flesh.

You are surrounded by enemies just like they were in the wilderness. Some of these enemies you know about. And who knows how many more there are who are after you that aren’t even on your radar. Thanks be to God. If you saw them, there’s no telling what you would do. But our Lord guards us with the same strong arm that He used in their day. He feeds us with the same spiritual meat and drink. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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How Many Kids Should We Have?

Every couple comes to the realization, at some point down the line, that they are finite and limited creatures. It is a difficult pill to swallow, this revelation that we are not the Most High, but comes it does. This truth descends upon us particularly when there are a couple few kids in tow and dad and mom realize that the little tots take up a fair amount of time and resources. Then the question arises, “How many of these little arrows should we have?” As the meme above shows, those Postmill Saints really do give it a go. But even they realize we’re looking at a generational endeavor.

I have been asked this question several times over the course of my ministry and find the question itself more insightful than the answer. I do have some recommendations. But first a little analysis so that we can understand ourselves and develop a framework from which we can attempt a wise answer.

The question is interesting because many ask it from within the modern zeitgeist. That is they think of children as the byproduct of the will of dad and mom. Many think the same way about marriage itself, reducing it to the product of the will of the parties involved, this being reinforced by the fact that each party took vows, meant them, and a marriage resulted. But more was going on in your marriage than simple vows. Vows, indeed, are not enough to create a marriage. God has given us the opportunity to stare that truth in the face with the rise of so called same-sex marriage codified in Obergefell v. Hodges.

When Bill and Bob declare that they will do their thing untill death parts them, just as Jack and Jill did, nothing happens. No union exists. No marriage has materialized, which is abundant evidence that marriage itself involves something more than the will of the parties involved.

Applied to childbearing, we should see that children really are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb being the divine’s reward (Psalm 127:3). This scrambles the modern noggin. We have reduced childbearing to grocery shopping, pondering how many plumbs to plop into that tender plastic bag in the produce aisle. We are products of our age and have been conditioned to think this way. On the marriage front, one of the main culprits was no fault divorce, which has trained us for a handful of decades now that we can depart with the one flesh union at will, without any cause whatever. We should not be surprised then that we have the same instinct when it comes to our part in bringing undying souls into the world.

This commodification of children has run amuck with the rise of IVF and Artificial Reproductive Technologies. We now have embryos in the freezer. We now flip through sperm donor booklets to ensure that the product we are soon to purchase from a stranger is up to our liking. Given this context, we should have our eyes open when we ask the question about how many children. We should make sure that there is nothing earthly in us.

“So,” you ask, “what are we to do? Just have a zillion children without thinking about they best number or manner?” Well, no. We have a part to play. But we do need something of a cleansing from the modern framework in order to approach the question well. Children are not products meant to please you, as if you’re determining how many pieces of chocolate will make you just the right amount of happy. They are arrows in the hand of a mighty warrior. And your sheath is only so big. You want your arrows to be straight and sharp and you want to fire off as many as possible, which requires a good dose of humility stemming from faith, not fear. Along these lines, you have to have children by faith and not by sight. The sight-alone model removes the Almighty from the equation. The presumption model, which at times masquerades as faith, refuses to acknowledge that its garden really is growing wild and the arrows in the quiver couldn’t fly straight if they were loosed by the Persians themselves.

So the framework is: The Lord opens and closes the womb, man does not. And children are the Lord’s reward, not products for your satisfaction. The details are that parents have the ministry of health, education, and wellfare. Indeed these were laid out in the common law tradition. Fathers and mothers are tasked with feeding the little ones, clothing them, sheltering them, caring for their health and seeing to their education. Every parent knows that these duties require energy, time, and resources.

So as you look to a bit of family planning, take an honest assessment of how this ministry of parenthood is going. Take a look at how mom’s health is going, how dad’s wallet is going, and how sanity is fairing for both parties. Don’t assess these items by mere sight. The standard for having another child is not that everything in your life is tidy and perfectly under control. That never happens. But there is a way to out punt your coverage. Children are a blessing from the Lord if you raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and they will be a curse if you fail to do so.

In the main, aim for a bit of normalcy and a great amount of faith. Have as many as you can with a dose of honesty about how many that really is. And don’t go comparing, given you simply do not know the variables operating in other families. There are several reasons that families might have more or less children. So counseling with other wise saints is great, but don’t do the, “But what about the Joneses down the street, Lord?” You will likely get a reply from the Lord close to that of Peter, “If I want the Joneses to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me” (John 21:22).

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Yes and Amen in Him

Baptism is a sign and seal of the covenant of grace. In this covenant, God has promised us eternal life and guaranteed that promise in the blood of His Son. On our part, He requires faith and obedience. These conditions are most necessary if we are to keep covenant with God and even these conditions He graciously supplies. As baptism is the sign and seal of God’s covenant, it is also a sign and seal of new life in Christ Jesus. So God turns our attention to His Son in baptism because all of God’s promises are yes and amen in Him.

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More Than Reasonably Priced Leeks

There is an old phrase that says, “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.” This is quite true and you can flip it around for a related truth, “Everybody wants to escape hell, but nobody wants to live.” Now, you might be inclined to think that everybody wants to live. But, don’t forget that the abundant life is more than a little adventurous. You may be thrown into a fiery furnace. You might have to fake insanity before your enemy, spit running down the beard and all. Or, if you’re one of the lucky ones, you might wake up as a fish vomits you out onto a beach where you have to fulfill the same difficult orders you recently chose to disobey. Resurrection is a messy business.

So everybody wants to be set free but very few want to live free. Everybody wants to be forgiven, but only a remnant wants to live forgiven. The life of a freeman is terrifying. Men who live under tyranny are fed their leeks and onions. Men who live free storm the gates of hell.  

These things are true regardless of our recent elections. But they do have a specific application to our new civil circumstances. Here are two:

First, thank God for sparing us from getting heavier doses of the civil tyranny that we deserved. Gratitude to God really is in order and that gratitude is not a sign that you are putting your trust in man. Ingratitude, however, may be such a sign.

Second, remember God’s deliverances always have a what for, and His what for is always bigger and more glorious than reasonably priced leeks and onions in the absence of our enemies. Our Father’s method is much more like unreasonably sized fruit in the presence of unreasonably sized adversaries. So the exhortation is to live as free men: Out of Pharaoh’s Egypt to cleanse the land of giants. Out of Babylonian captivity to rebuild the temple and the city of our God.

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Aunt Dahlia’s Eye

Aunt Dahlia’s eye, while not in the same class as that of my Aunt Agatha, who is known to devour her young and conduct human sacrifices at the time of the full moon, has lots of authority.

P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing

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Discerning the Body

It is sobering that Annanias and Sapphira died laying a gift down at the apostle’s feet. A natural man might wonder why this was so. Isn’t it enough that they were participating with the people of God? Well, no, it was not enough. It was not enough that Cain offered a sacrifice. It was not enough when the men of Judah, who had forsaken their covenant brides, put an offering on the altar. The LORD did not acknowledge these offerings.

Something similar to this happened in Corinth as some of the Christians in that town began to disregard other Christians and push and shove at the table of the Lord. Some would take their fill before others. Some pushed and shoved to be filled and drunk, while others went hungry. Those who were grabby ate and drank well enough. But they did so unworthily and in so doing ate and drank damnation on themselves. 

Their problem was that they did not discern the Lord’s body. And this error is quite easy to fall into. You have your trials. You need help from the Lord. And it is natural to think that you have burdens enough to carry without looking to the needs of others. But it is that very selfish sentiment that leads people to Sheol. It is that selfish sentiment that marks those who fail to discern the Lord’s body.

As you come to this table then, consider your fellow members of the body of Christ. Consider not only what God in Christ has done for you. But what He has done for your people. Rejoice in the blessings they have received from the Lord. And suffer with them in their trials. Given that this bread we brake was an incarnate bread, do not discern the Lord’s body in the abstract. Discern the Lord’s body into which you have been place, the Lord’s body surrounding you. Come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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