Overflow Daily...ish: No Take Two


For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 
Hebrews. 8:7 (ESV) 

Growing up as a child the kids in my area lived by a set of codes. And everyone knew that you must obey this code and never break it. You may be wondering what that code is, well here are a couple of the codes we lived by. If someone dared you to do something, you better do it. If you spoke at the same time as someone else, and they called ‘Jinx’ on you before you did, you weren’t allowed to speak until someone said your name. If someone tagged you as ‘It’, you were it. No whining about it, just start chasing. Of course, I no longer follow this code… unless I really want to. Why? Because it was silly and just something you did as a child. I outgrew and it had no bearing on my life any more.

The covenants, however, that the author of Hebrews highlights is not similar to my childish code set. Why? Well for one, this is a covenant that is made between God and man! And already that is an amazing thing! It is amazing that the God of the universe has made a covenant with His creation allowing for a way in which mankind may approach Him! And neither the old, nor the new were with fault. God did not make a mistake or create a silly code that needed revision. It was perfect, but perfect for its intended purpose.

John Owen, commenting on the Old Covenant stated that “the discussion is not about whether the first covenant was in itself holy, just, good, and in every way perfect as far as its own goals were concerned. If nothing more were required of the old covenant and it could have completely sanctified the church, it would have been perfect. But it was not, as it had never been designed for this purpose.”

Essentially what he was saying is that the old covenant achieved its goal. It was not meant to provide us with a means for salvation, but to make us understand that we are not perfect. That on our own efforts we can never uphold the perfect standard set by a holy and good God. What it does is point us to the perfect one who fulfilled the Old Covenant. It points us to Christ as being the one who fulfills perfectly the standard which we all fail to keep. Paul understood that as well when he wrote in the Romans how he “found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death.”

The beauty of this is that we can now live as adopted sons and daughters of God, because of the second covenant. The second covenant which is entirely better because in it we find life. In it we find purpose. It is through Christ that we are able to live Coram Deo, in the presence of God. Not just in eternity, but here and now. May we all lead our lives on earth as we would in Heaven. Pleasing and honoring to our God.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alex

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