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Old Covenant
"When Moses went and told the people all the Lord's words and
laws, they responded with one voice, "Everything the Lord has
said we will do." Moses then wrote down everything the Lord
had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar
at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars
representing the twelve tribes of Israel.
Then he sent young Israelite men, and
they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as
fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood
and put it in bowls, and the other half he sprinkled on the
altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to
the people. They responded, "We will do everything the Lord
has said; we will obey."
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and
said, "This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has
made with you in accordance with all these words.""
(Exodus 24:3-8)
cov·e·nant (kŭv'ə-nənt) n.
1. A binding agreement 2. In the Bible, God's promise to the
human race.
The book of Exodus, chapters 20-23 tells of the covenant that
God made with the Israelites. Most of that particular section
is dealing with the rules God expects the people to
follow...including the Ten Commandments. There are, however,
many other rules besides just the ten. You might be interested
in browsing through them sometime.
In return for their obedience, God's part of the bargain
includes the following:
"Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on
your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you,
and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give
you a full life span." (Ex. 23:25,26)
"I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into
confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your
enemies turn their backs and run." (Ex. 23:27)
"See, I am sending an angel ahead of you to guard you along
the way and to bring you to the place I have prepared."
(Ex. 23:20)
God has told the Israelites that if they will follow His
commandments and worship Him, He will bless their food and
water, take away sickness from among them...and not just
protect them from their enemies, but He will send His terror
ahead of them to throw nations into confusion! Can you imagine
being a victim of God's terror? How terrifying it must be!
God has offered to take care of them, protect them and provide
for them if they would simply be obedient and worship Him as
their God. Notice that God didn't force them to accept...He
simply laid His offer on the table. And, the people accepted
it. This "transaction" is generally referred to as the "old"
covenant between God and His people. And the covenant was
sealed with the blood of young bulls.
(Even though this covenant is referred to as the old covenant,
it actually came after the promise of the new
covenant...but the promise of the new covenant wasn't
fulfilled until Jesus came! See Galatians, chapter 3. Also
see the New Covenant.)
The Bible is very specific in instructing the Israelites on
sacrifices and blood...how each should be handled. And, the
sacrifice and ceremony depended on who sinned and how. For
instance:
" 'When a leader sins unintentionally and does what is
forbidden in any of the commands of the Lord his God, he is
guilty. When he is made aware of the sin he committed, he must
bring as his offering a male goat without defect. He is to lay
his hand on the goat's head and slaughter it at the place
where the burnt offering is slaughtered before the Lord. It is
a sin offering.
Then the priest shall take some of the
blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the
horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of
the blood at the base of the altar.
He shall burn all the fat on the altar as he burned the fat
of the fellowship offering. In this way the priest will make
atonement for the man's sin, and he will be forgiven.' "
(Lev. 4:22-26).
But...
" 'If the anointed priest sins, bringing guilt on the
people, he must bring to the Lord a young bull without defect
as a sin offering for the sin he has committed. He is to
present the bull at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting before
the Lord. He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it
before the Lord.
Then the anointed priest shall take some
of the bull's blood and carry it into the Tent of Meeting. He
is to dip his finger into the blood and sprinkle some of it
seven times before the Lord, in front of the curtain of the
sanctuary. The priest shall then put some of the blood on the
horns of the altar of fragrant incense that is before the Lord
in the Tent of Meeting. The rest of the bull's blood he shall
pour out at the base of the altar of burnt offering at the
entrance to the Tent of Meeting.
He shall remove all the fat from the
bull of the sin offering—the fat that covers the inner parts
or is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them
near the loins, and the covering of the liver, which he will
remove with the kidneys- just as the fat is removed from the
ox sacrificed as a fellowship offering. Then the priest shall
burn them on the altar of burnt offering.
But the hide of the bull and all its
flesh, as well as the head and legs, the inner parts and
offal- that is, all the rest of the bull—he must take outside
the camp to a place ceremonially clean, where the ashes are
thrown, and burn it in a wood fire on the ash heap." (Lev.
4:3-12). First, if you'll notice, these
instructions are for a sin offering. There is also a
fellowship offering mentioned. Secondly, one set of
instructions is for the sins of a leader of the people. The
other set is for an anointed priest. (There are other
offerings, and there are sins of other people that are
separate from the two sets of verses we're looking at now.)
Also, one sacrifice requires a bull, and the other a male
goat. The point being, that the sacrifice and the ceremony
depended on who did what. There are quite a few different
offerings, sacrifices and ceremonies written in the Old
Testament. They are all a part of the old covenant. Each one
of these sacrifices and ceremonies had a purpose. As time goes
by, we hope to take a closer look at some of them, but for
now, for illustration, these two sets of verses are
sufficient.
"In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death
of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when
somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who
made it is living. This is why even the first covenant was not
put into effect without blood.
When Moses had proclaimed every commandment of the law to
all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with
water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the
scroll and all the people. He said, "This is the blood of the
covenant, which God has commanded you to keep."
In the same way, he sprinkled with the
blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its
ceremonies. In fact, the law requires that nearly everything
be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood
there is no forgiveness." (Heb. 9:16-22).
Because...
"... the wages of sin is death..." (Rom. 6:23).
Sin brought death. It happened back when Adam ate the fruit
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil back in Genesis,
chapter 3. Death had to be "proven" through the offering of
blood in order to receive forgiveness. Thus, the sacrifices
and offerings. The blood. To "prove" death in order to receive
forgiveness. The interesting thing is that
God didn't want the blood of their sacrifices.
"The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?"
says the Lord. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of
rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in
the blood of bulls and lambs and
goats." (Isa. 1:11).
Blood was necessary but it wasn't what God wanted from His
people. What He wanted was...
"Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the
widow." (Isa. 1:16,17).
Unfortunately, the Israelites were just like us. They couldn't
behave the way God wanted them to behave. So instead of
continually covering up
their sins with the blood of their sacrifices, which, in
essence was worthless (at least as far as salvation went), God
unleashed a new plan...
The New Covenant |
