#covenant

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

“Soon the Great Journey shall begin. But when it does, the weight of your heresy will stay your feet. And you shall be left behind.”

-Prophet of Truth, “Halo 2”

Think the Old Testament (OT) is boring? Irrelevant? WRONG. The OT is a beautiful picture of God’s love for his people, and his promise to provide a savior. I wouldn’t be able to fit all the imagery of the OT that points to the gospel in 10,000 million books, but I can try to hit some high points in a few hundred words. 

Like we already established, God is holy and cannot tolerate sin, yet wants to be in relationship with us, a sinful people. In our day and age, we have the righteousness of Christ and the seal of the Holy Spirit bridging the way to communication and interaction with our God. However, for most of the Bible, God’s people didn’t have this covering for sin and promise of eternal life. In Exodus, when the Israelites (the chosen nation of God in the OT) were brought out of Egypt on the way to the promised land, God gave them the law they were to follow in obedience to him. He also gave them instructions to build a tabernacle where God himself would dwell among them (think pre-Holy Spirit). 

In our eyes today, these laws seem strange, and at times, even unnecessary. We understand the 10 commandments, but staying away from dead bodies? Sacrificing animals? Not eating certain foods? They may seem strange now, but at that time, God was protecting, guiding, and shepherding his people. He was keeping them healthy through laws about their bodies, instructing them about being holy as he is holy through his moral laws, and providing ways for their guilt to be covered through sacrifices. 

The Old Testament law showed the character of God, and his promise to provide a savior for his people. But something reaaallllyyyy cool about the OT law? It was NOT a burden on the people, it was God’s miraculous GRACE! In other places in the Ancient Near East, they had ideas about inconsistent and selfish gods. They worshiped all different gods for all different things, and no one was ever clear on what they should do or who was in charge. Secondly, the Israelites had legit just been slaves for a good minute. When they left Egypt, they had NO IDEA how to be a free nation of people who followed the Lord. With the OT law given at Mount Sinai in Exodus/Leviticus, God graced the people with clear guidelines on how to live. The law was a major blessing. 

So let’s think about this gracious law for a second (Look at Exodus 24-end and Leviticus): 

1.The OT law is a part of a bigger picture - The COVENANT! Yay covenant! The law is part of the agreement that Israel and God follow: king and his nation in relationship with each other through covenantal promises. If Israel promises to keep the law, God gives them the land of Canaan, many children to create a large nation, and blesses the world through them. Spoiler alert: Israel definitely fails, and God is definitely faithful anyway. Spoiler Alert #2: We get to be under a new covenant! A covenant created with the blood of Christ that give us life. 

2. Why the sacrifices? Well, the wages of sin is death. We all pretty much got that one, right? Sacrifices TAKE THE PLACE of the sinner for the sin and cover them in eyes of the Lord so they can continue to be in relationship with a holy God, despite still being sinful as humans in a fallen world. In the OT, they sacrificed animals for unintentional sins and guilt, but more was required- we needed a sacrifice for sin itself, even when intentional. In short, we needed a lamb of God to atone for us. We needed a savior to die. 

So how do those things relate to the gospel? Well look at words from Hebrews 9- it explains everything a lot better than I ever could. 

^“13For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, ¹⁴how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.

¹⁵Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. ¹⁶For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established.¹⁷Fora will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. ¹⁸Therefore not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood. ¹⁹For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people,²⁰saying,“This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you.” ²¹And in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. ²²Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

…. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.²⁷And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment,²⁸so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.” 

-31Women (Beth) 

References - Verses taken from biblegateway.com, most of the thoughts stolen from my OT prof (S/O to Professor Smith). 

The Red Hammer of the Banished

gay-rat-wedding:

the arbiter watching reach get glassed from orbit in his gucci cloak

This may or may not be a reddit repost