Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 2
THE ‘EVANGELICAL COVENANT’ OF MOSES
T
HIS article will sweep through Deuteronomy 29 – 30 to demonstrate that it records
how Moses presented an ‘evangelical covenant’ which was set beside and distinct from the covenant of Sinai, the latter being a ‘works’ covenant that could only condemn. (This is how Paul expounds it in Romans 10.)
CHAPTER 29
VERSE 1: ‘These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord command- ed Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.’ The Hebrew for ‘beside’ means apart from Sinai, not by way of repetition or confirmation. Here is a distinct, contrasting, different cov- enant. Did the people wait 38 years after they entered the wilderness be- fore salvation by grace was revealed to them? No, because as Moses virtu- ally says in this chapter – ‘Have I not been preaching this to you for years?’ The demands of the law and the mercy of grace ran side by side. They were distinctive systems, and it was clear that God was saying to the peo- ple: ‘If you will not have grace and mercy, you are left with the perfect fulfilment of my law – Do this and live. And you cannot do it.’
– by the Editor
Romans 10 shows that Moses presented a second, contrasting covenant in Deuteronomy 29 – 30. Here is that famous ‘evangelical covenant’.
VERSES 2-3: ‘And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that the Lord did be- fore your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his serv- ants, and unto all his land; the great temptations [trials] which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great miracles.’ If you were reasonable people, God seems to say, you would have listened to Moses and repented years ago. You have had the record of mighty things. Most of you did not taste them yourself, for you are a subsequent generation, but you knew of them. However, you are an unreasonable people, and have never been stirred to desire the Lord or his forgiveness.
VERSE 4: In what is surely en- tirely evangelical language Moses declares – ‘Yet the Lord hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.’ ‘It takes a work of grace,’ he effectively says. ‘It takes a work of the Holy Spirit to open the blind eyes, illuminate the spirit, melt the
The ‘Evangelical Covenant’ of Moses page 19
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