First Quarter 2003
Adult Sabbath School Lessons: "The Promise"
Special
Insights #2
Lesson
1: The Covenants Defined
December
28, 2002-January 3, 2003
(Produced
by the Editorial Board of the 1888 Message Study Committee)
The
Quarterly title rightly defines God's "covenant" as His
"promise." Thank God for that positive definition. The entire 13
weeks of study before us will become clear if we will remember that the
New Covenant is God's unilateral promise to save His people completely-if
they will let Him. The Old Covenant is the people's promise at Mount Sinai
to keep His law, and thus help save themselves.
The
promise (or "covenant") of the people 430 years after God's
promise to Abraham adds nothing and makes no change whatever to God's
original Covenant. The reason is that He swore His promise to Abraham.
Once He stakes His life and His throne on that New Covenant promise,
nothing happening at Sinai can change it. All efforts to add legalism to
the New Covenant are therefore useless.
It's
impossible to overestimate the importance of understanding what God
promised Abraham. If we carefully re-read Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17—the
entire story of Abraham—we will see that God did not ask him to make any
promise in return. God was not trying to strike a bargain or work out a
transaction. All He wanted Abraham to do was to BELIEVE the promises God
made to him.
Ancient
Israel's many centuries of backslidings, defeats, and rebellions were the
result of fastening themselves under the Old Covenant at Mount Sinai. And
we're not ourselves completely out of the woods, yet. We still need a
better understanding. God never asked Israel to make those promises to
Him; all He wanted was for them to exercise the faith of their father
Abraham.
Paul
was probably the first to discern correctly the meaning of those millennia
of history: "the law [from Sinai] was our schoolmaster" to drive
us like a disciplinarian, back to where Abraham our father was, that we
might "be justified by faith" as he was (Gal. 3:24).
The
Old Covenant produces "bondage" (Gal. 4:24). It's the
"Hagar" pattern of thinking rather than "Sarah" (vss.
25-31). It's one big spiritual reason why we lose so many youth. It's the
root source of our lukewarmness (Rev. 3:14-17). Nothing could be more
important for the health of the world church than to understand clearly
the New Covenant truths of "freedom in Christ."
Did
God's character change in any way when sin began? Did He learn
something new or invent a "new dispensation"? Waggoner offers a
helpful thought:
"Christ's work as
'intermediary' is not limited in either time or extent. To be mediator
means more than to be intercessor. Christ was mediator before sin came
into the world, and will be mediator when no sin is in the universe, and
no need remains for forgiveness. 'In Him all things hold together.' He
is the very impress of the Father's being. He is the life. Only in and
through Him does the life of God flow to all creation. He is then the
means, medium, mediator, the way by which the light of life pervades the
universe. He did not first become mediator at the fall of man, but was
such from eternity. No one, not simply no man, but no created being,
comes to the Father but by Christ. No angel can stand in the divine
presence except in Christ. No new power was developed, no new machinery,
so to speak, was required to be set in motion by the entering of sin
into the world. The power that had created all things only continued in
God's infinite mercy to work for the restoration of that which was lost.
In Christ were all things created; and therefore, in Him we have
redemption through His blood. See Colossians 1:14-17. The power that
pervades and upholds the universe is the same power that saves us"
("The Glad Tidings," p. 76).
Next
week, some serious problems: does God's New Covenant involve a contract or
transaction that He stipulates? Does He make a "bargain" with
His people? Is God's New Covenant an "arrangement" or
"mutual agreement," or is it an out-and-out promise on His part?
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