Calvary at Sinai

Chapter 17

The Two Covenants

The following issues related to the two covenants have been demonstrated:

  1. Salvation comes only through Christ's promise in the everlasting covenant.
  2. No one has ever been saved under man's promises of the old covenant.
  3. The two covenants in this context are not dispensational, i.e., sequential to one another, nor are they bound by time.
  4. While the divinely-ordained expressions of faith in Christ have changed, the means of salvation in Christ have never changed.
  5. The two covenants are descriptive of two conditions of the heart which run parallel to each other throughout the course of human history.
  6. The everlasting covenant is the three angel's message.
  7. The old covenant is based on man's promises to obey. God allows this covenant of "obey and live" in order to show man the futility of working in his own power. It is a covenant of works which "gendereth to bondage."
  8. The old covenant is not to be confused with the everlasting covenant, in which God writes the law on the heart through the indwelling Christ, and by which He provides the heart-motivating power of love for obedience to His law.
Why are the old and the new covenants a mystery to many Christians? Because most have assumed that the old covenant was God's way of saving people during the Old Testament and the new covenant was God's means of saving people during the New Testament. This confusion, combined with humanity's natural disposition toward ceremonialism (making the symbol the means rather than the expression of faith), has led to the notion of a covenantal dispensationalism in which the gospel is distorted.

The everlasting covenant is the same as the new covenant. It is the good news of the gospel. Christ crucified is the sinner's representative, Substitute, and Surety. The sinner is unable in his own power to fulfill his/her obligations regarding the law. Christ, the Surety of the covenant, fulfilled the righteousness of the law on behalf of the sinner, as his representative Substitute. as his representative Substitute.

The restoration of what man lost is complete, is sure, already in Christ. Now every man, woman, and child can by faith experience Calvary at Sinai- as the great law of love, the Ten Commandments, is written on their hearts by the One who has fulfilled His everlasting covenant in and through Christ.