The Old Testament and the New Testament, are they lists of commandments, or records of covenants?
The Old and the New Testaments are Contracts between God and man. While they contain the lists of God’s commandments, they should be regarded more appropriately as records of the promises that the parties to the Covenants, you and God, are under obligation to do. In them are the promises of God, and the required equivalent is your promise.
These are the core promises of the Covenants.
- God shall become your God and,
- You shall become God’s people
“God shall become your God”, is an obligation you commit to take, that it is only God you shall obey, no longer yourself; that He alone shall rule your life as King, no longer you; and that His will alone shall prevail, no longer yours (Heb 4:10; Ro 6:18). If you can carry these out, you shall prove that God, indeed, is your God (Jer 31:33). Otherwise, you remain a slave to your own desires, so you are still your own god (Ro 6:16), and no different from the hypocrites (Mat 15:8). You must realize that is not enough that you receive Him or believe that He is the true God, for the hypocrites and the demons do the same. What God expects from you is to be true to your word (Mat 5:37), ready to obey, just as if when God’s will is planted in your mind and His commandments, written in your heart (Heb 8:10).
On the other hand, “You shall become God’s people”, is an obligation God commits, to take you as His special treasure, to adopt you as His son, and to fulfill His Covenant promises, if you shall fulfill yours. Testimonies of men who have trusted their lives to God have been included in the Holy Scriptures to assure you of God’s faithfulness to His promises.
The promises of the Covenant have not changed. What had changed was the people whom God concludes the Covenant with. In the Old Covenant, God had covenanted with the physical Israel, those who are Israel outwardly, whose circumcision was of the flesh (Ro 2:28). But these had not been faithful to their promises in the Covenant, that is why God had made a New Covenant (Heb 8:8-9). This time, God is concluding a Covenant with the spiritual Israel, those who are Israel inwardly, whose circumcision is of the heart by the spirit (Ro 2:29).
By the bringing in of the New Covenant through Christ, the door to the kingdom of God, has been opened, not to all men, but only to those who will put faith (Ro 1:17, 3:30) and obey (1Joh 2:17, 5:2-3; Mt 7:21) the will of God. It is to them that the right to become children of God are given (Joh 1:12; Ga 3:26).
In an illustrative way, the signatures are what validate contracts between men. Between God and man, the promises you make with God are the SIGNATURES that shall authenticate your Covenant. God had already stamped His “signature,” He is just waiting for you to stamp yours.
Blessed are those who have been given wisdom to discern between truth and lie.
THE NEW COVENANT
- I shall become your God
- I shall put my laws in your mind, and in your heart, I shall write them. You shall become My people.
Signed: Signed:
God _______________