The essence of the Sinai covenant, referred to by many as the old covenant, is expressed in the Ten Commandments. Hence Moses's statement to Israel, "He declared to you his covenant, the Ten Commandments" (literally, "the Ten Words"; Hebrew, aseret haddebarim, Deut. 4:13). This included God's reminder that He delivered them from slavery and bondage, and then His fatherly instruction regarding "the Ten Principles of covenant relationship"[1] (Exod. 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21). The additional laws, judgments, and regulations recorded in Exodus 20:22-23:33 "may be interpreted as elaborations and practical explications of the Decalogue"[2] and were referred to by Moses as "the book of the Covenant" (Exod. 24:7). Regulations regarding the sanctuary ritual, the numerous calls to holiness, coupled with assurances that God would make them holy, qualify the book of Leviticus as a further "exposition of the nature of Israel's covenant relationship with Yahweh."[3] Many scholars also refer to Deuteronomy as the Covenant Book of Israel, as it contains Moses's reiteration of God's covenant with Israel. The structure of Deuteronomy parallels that of Near Eastern treaties of Moses's day.[4]
The old and new covenants have been pitted against one another by some Bible students who describe the new covenant as grace-based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing and mission-directed in apparent contrast to the Mosaic (Sinai) covenant, which they describe as legalistic in orientation, bondage-producing, and exclusive in intention. While others avoid such explicit accusations and characterizations, they make statements that seem carefully calculated to lead their readers toward a similar conclusion. Two such statements are examined here.
"Because of the minutiae of detail contained in the old covenant the sons of Israel stumbled as they applied the specifics of these laws to their real-life experiences."[5] This statement implies that God gave Israel a covenant at Sinai that was so encumbered with minutiae that anyone who attempted to apply it to daily life was destined to stumble.
"Paul's argument in Romans 8 is that 'the requirement of the law' can be fulfilled only within the arrangements of the new covenant."[6] This statement does not acknowledge the clear distinction between the grace-based, gospel-bearing historical old covenant given by God and the old covenant experience testified to in Galatians 4 and elsewhere as a perversion of the pure covenant which God gave (the contrast between old covenant and new covenant experiences will be examined in chapters 6 and 7). Failing to take this distinction into account, the statement that "'the requirement of the law' can be fulfilled only within the arrangements of the new covenant" suggests that the unfortunate citizens of the Old Testament period who attempted to live according to the Sinai covenant, under which they served God for 1500 years, were destined to never have the requirement of the law fulfilled in their lives.
The book these quotations were drawn from contains many similar statements. The author never directly accuses God of imposing a legalistic system on His Old Testament people, but the cumulative weight of his statements makes the accusation, despite his occasional statement to the contrary. He establishes a straw old covenant, then sets it on fire, something the New Testament does not do.
In contrast, since we have identified the DNA markers that God imprinted in the new covenant, we can now examine the Sinai covenant to see whether it contains the DNA markers of the new covenant/everlasting gospel. It should come as no surprise that we will find that all four markers are indeed embedded in the Sinai covenant.
New Covenant DNA Marker 1--Sanctification
Evidence in the Sinaitic covenant for Promise/Provision 1 of the new covenant: "'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts'" (Heb. 8:10)--Sanctification. When Peter admonished Christians to the highest level of sanctification, he quoted from the Sinai covenant and appealed to it as his authoritative source: "Just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy'" (1 Pet. 1:15-16; quoting Lev. 11:45; 19:2).
God's call for obedience was premised on His promise to empower people in every way necessary for them to comply. God's appeal in the Sinaitic covenant that Israel "be holy...keep my decrees and follow them" was immediately accompanied with His enabling promise, "I am the Lord, who makes you holy" (Lev. 20:7-8). His biddings were His enablings. God invested the weekly Sabbath with that very meaning. As He "blessed the seventh day and made it holy," so He instructed His covenant people to "observe my Sabbaths" each week as "a sign between me and you for the generations to come, so you may know that I am the Lord who makes you holy"[7] (Gen. 2:3; Exod. 31:12-13). The Sabbath was a symbol and constant reminder to God's people of His promise to sanctify them, to write His laws in their hearts, to restore His image within them-"I am the Lord, who makes you holy."
Lest we be accused of putting words in God's mouth that He would inscribe His laws on the hearts of His covenant people who put their trust in Him, Moses himself proclaimed it in his reiteration of the Sinaitic covenant in Deuteronomy:[8] "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. ... Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. ... No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so that you may obey it ... to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws" (Deut. 30:6, 11-16).
In Romans 10:6-10 the apostle Paul quoted from this passage in Deuteronomy 30 to support his own teaching of righteousness by faith and introduced it with these words: "But the righteousness that is by faith says." Thus we see that Deuteronomy 30 is a classic Sinai covenant statement of "the righteousness that is by faith" through which the gospel was preached to Israel (Rom. 10:5-13). Sadly, Paul had to lament concerning Israel, "but they have not all obeyed the gospel" that was preached to them (Rom. 10:16).
So strong is the argument from Deuteronomy 30:11-14 and Romans 10:5-16 that the Sinai covenant was a grace-based, righteousness-by-faith-encoded, gospel-bearing covenant that dispensationalist Wayne Strickland labors to make this Deuteronomic passage prophetic of a future time beyond the scope of the Sinai covenant. He does this to support his claim that "The righteousness of the law was operable during Moses' life, but that a future time would see righteousness based on faith."[9] But O. Palmer Robertson rightly states, "the setting of Deuteronomy 30 requires that it be understood as reporting nothing other than a renewal of the Mosaic covenant of law" proving that "grace clearly may be found in the Mosaic covenant of law" even as "law clearly may be found in the Abrahamic covenant of promise."[10] McComiskey concurs: "[Christ] may be seen by Paul in the Old Testament word just as vividly as he is in the new Testament. Paul could see Christ in Deuteronomy 30. ... In that passage [Deut. 30:11-14] Christ became the facilitating principle of obedience."[11]
Thus the psalmist, who lived during the era of the Sinai covenant and had accepted the everlasting gospel message communicated through that covenant, could testify, "I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart" (Ps. 40:8). And God addressed His trusting children of that historical old covenant era who had a similar experience with God: "Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts" (Isa. 51:7).
Clearly, God's call for an obedient, sanctified life, a life of holiness that bore the divine image, was accompanied by God's own promise/provision, embedded within the Sinai covenant itself, that enabled His holy law to be ingrained in the hearts of His people, not just inscribed in granite. Such a sanctified experience is only possible for those who have responded in faith to the everlasting gospel appeal and whose hearts have been converted and transformed by the Holy Spirit (John 3:3-6; Rom. 8:4,7-9).
New Covenant DNA Marker 2--Reconciliation
Evidence in the Sinaitic covenant for Promise/Provision 2 of the new covenant: "I will be their God and they will be my people" (Heb. 8:10)--Reconciliation. Leviticus 26 is a key chapter that outlines protective stipulations as part of "the decrees, the laws and the regulations that the Lord established on Mount Sinai between himself and the Israelites through Moses," specifying rewards for obedience and a series of gradually intensifying punishments for repeated disobedience (Lev. 26:46). Just as a parent will punish children for dangerous behavior to protect them, so every punishment listed in Leviticus 26 was designed to lead habitual sinners back to God.[12] This chapter is one of the many Bible passages that reveal that the various covenants are all part of one unified, developing covenant. Here God puts forth His disciplinary intervention in the lives of the Israelites as evidence that He hasn't forgotten the covenants He made with their fathers. "I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac and my covenant with Abraham...For their sake I will remember the covenant with their ancestors whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations to be their God. I am the Lord" (Lev. 26:42,45).
God's covenant promise to Abraham and his descendants, including Moses, that He would do everything possible to save their nation and to empower them as His missionary nation to take the gospel to the world, included His disciplinary intervention in their lives. And right in the middle of this revelation in Leviticus 26 God reiterates the bottom-line goal of His covenant(s) with them: "I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people" (Lev. 26:12). God's greatest desire is to be reconciled to His lost children and to draw them back into the kind of close, covenant relationship with Himself that Adam and Eve had in Eden. As the ultimate fulfillment of this desire, He will one day return for them and take them to be with Him forever.[13]
New Covenant DNA Marker 3--Mission
Evidence in the Sinaitic covenant for Promise/Provision 3 of the new covenant: "No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest" (Heb. 8:11)--Mission. The Sinaitic covenant called the entire nation to become a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exod. 19:5-6). Since this Israelite "kingdom of priests" had a Levitical priesthood of its own who ministered to their nation, who was the nation of Israel itself, as a kingdom of priests, to minister to? And what was the nature of their mission to those they were called to serve?
It was understood that the nation as a whole was commissioned by God as priestly bearers of the everlasting gospel of salvation to the ends of the earth. This mission statement was divinely encoded into their history as a people. To Jacob, their father, God had said: "All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. ... Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring" (Gen. 12:3; 28:14).
Devout Israelites prayed, "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations" (Ps. 67:1-2). Israel's failure to fulfill their evangelistic mission led Isaiah to the national confession: "We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world" (Isa. 26:18).
When Peter wanted to assert the missionary purpose of God's new covenant people, he relied on the most authoritative source he knew- God's own word established in Scripture and encoded in His covenant(s) of old: "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ... Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us" (1 Pet. 2:9,12; cf. Exod. 19:5-6).
Their proclamation was not to be limited to declaring the laws of God. They were also to reveal His plan for the salvation of the world as depicted in the sanctuary. And their most important mission was to reveal His loving character in their actions: "'The nations will know that I am the Lord,' declares the Sovereign Lord, 'when I show myself holy through you before their eyes'" (Exod. 19:5-6; Ezek. 36:23).
Through the prophets, themselves members of the Sinai covenant, God appealed for His covenant people to first know Him themselves that they might better make Him known: "For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings" (Hos. 6:6). Commenting on this divine appeal through Hosea, Geerhardus Vos comments: "All the demands made of the people are summed up in this one thing, that there should be the knowledge of God among them, and that not as a theoretical perception of what is Jehovah's nature, but as a practical acquaintance, the intimacy of love. ... This knowledge is intended to make Israel like unto Jehovah, it has a character-forming influence."[14]
Isaiah, who also lived under the covenant of Sinai and was a prophetic voice for that covenant, wrote: "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor [NKJV: in whom I will be glorified]. ... It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:3,6). While this divinely mandated mission statement to be a "light for the Gentiles" ultimately had the Messiah in mind, it was first directed to "my servant, Israel." As such, it has been called "the great commission of the Old Testament."[15]
Paul and Barnabas authenticated their own mission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles by quoting from this very passage in Isaiah, showing that they were simply obeying the mission statement of God to His covenant people through the ages (Acts 13:46-47).[16]
God's covenant people at Sinai were His ambassadors through whom He had chosen to spread the knowledge of God and His glory universally, with the ultimate end in mind that one glorious day "they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest." Through them the world was to hear the passionate appeal of the One who would give His life for their salvation: "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth" (Isa. 45:22).
New Covenant DNA Marker 4--Justification
Evidence in the Sinaitic covenant for Promise/Provision 4 of the new covenant: "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more" (Heb. 8:12)--Justification. Surprisingly, the first time the Bible refers to God as a forgiver of sins, or even announces that forgiveness is available, is on the occasion of the second giving of the Ten Commandments.
The Lord said to Moses, "Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke....So Moses chiseled out two stone tablets like the first ones and went up to Mount Sinai early in the morning, as the Lord had commanded him; and he carried the two stone tablets in his hands. Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the Lord. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty [unrepentant and unbelieving] unpunished." (Exod. 34:1-7)
Davidson comments on the terms God used in this passage to identify Himself at the giving of His law on Sinai:
• "Merciful" [compassionate]...from the verb hanan, to be "full of mercy, grace, and favor."
• "Slow to anger"-literally "long of nose!" God's anger fuse is very long! Incredible patience.
• "Abounding in hesed"-this is the covenant term par excellence; hesed is steadfast covenant love, best summarized in the hymn: "O Love That Will Not Let Me Go!" That's God's hesed.
• "Abounding in emet"-this implies stability, reliability, faithfulness, trustworthiness, sureness, truth.
• "Keeping hesed for thousands"-here he returns to the ultimate covenant word, God's lovingkindness, his covenant love, is steadfast unto thousands-and not just thousands, but what is implied here in the Hebrew is the thousandth generation! God's hesed is to the thousandth generation! (NRSV; NJPS[17])
• "Forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin"-all kinds of sin! Even awon (perverse iniquity), and pesha' (rebellion-there is no sacrifice in the sanctuary service for this kind of sin); but God can forgive even the worst and apparently most hopeless sinner![18]
Once God's compassionate, forgiving, empowering grace had been formally revealed in the Law, the prophets adopted the theme. Dybdahl comments: "[The Exodus 34:6-7] classic description of God is recalled repeatedly in the rest of the Old Testament-more than any other passage. Major repetitions with similar wording include Numbers 14:18; Nehemiah 9:17; Psalm 86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Jeremiah 32:18; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2; and Nahum 1:3. In most cases, the passages form either the basis of an appeal for God's forgiveness or an explanation of why God was gracious to His people."[19]
It is important to remember that God chose the law as the vehicle in which to reveal Himself as a forgiver. Through the law God revealed that forgiveness would be mediated through animal sacrifice (Leviticus 4-5). Such sacrifices served as the visible type of the yet-to-come atoning sacrifice that was first promised to Adam through the seed of the woman, and later to Abraham through whose seed all nations of the world would be blessed. Through the giving of the law, God depicted more clearly than ever His way of salvation in the types and symbols of the sanctuary (Ps. 77:13). In the sanctuary imagery it was not only the way of His gospel that God revealed more clearly, but Himself: "I have seen you in the sanctuary and beheld your power and your glory. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you" (Ps. 63:2-3). On the basis of God's revelation and promise in the Sinai covenant, historical old covenant believers could experience the reality and assurance that God had forgiven their sins.
On this foundation of God's forgiving grace revealed in the law and reiterated throughout the Old Testament, the New Testament grounded its own gospel message of salvation by grace. When Paul quoted Scripture to authenticate and explain his own preaching on justification by faith, he quoted from Psalm 32, David's testimony on forgiveness. This is highly significant when one bears in mind that, in Rayburn's words, "David's religion was the religion of Moses."[20] "However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works: 'Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord will never count against him'" (Rom. 4:5-7, quoting Ps. 32:1-2).
The prophet Isaiah's message was a further step in God's progressive covenantal revelation, more clearly identifying God's Messiah as the suffering servant whose own sacrifice would bear the sins of the world: "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" and "by his wounds we are healed" (Isa. 53:6,5).
Throughout the 1500 years between the giving of the law on Sinai and the advent of Christ, God continued through varied imagery to assure His covenant people that their sins were forgiven: "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (Isa. 1:18). "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy. You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea" (Mic. 7:19).
Sinai Covenant a Covenant of Grace and Pure Gospel
After reviewing numerous evidences that the law God gave His covenant people at Sinai was grace-based, Davidson concludes that the covenant at Sinai bore "all the elements of the valid covenant of grace. It was based upon an experience and statement of prior redemption preceding the Ten Words [Exod. 20:1-2], and upon the blood of the sacrifice which ratified the covenant [Exodus 24], pointing to the atoning work of their Substitute and Surety. The covenant on Mt Sinai, on God's part, was totally a covenant of grace, a phase of the one everlasting covenant presented throughout the Bible."[21]
With the four DNA markers of God's everlasting gospel/new covenant with humankind embedded so deeply and explicitly in the Sinai covenant, it is not surprising to find the author of Hebrews writing, "We [in the New Testament era] also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they [in the Old Testament era, and more specifically during the period immediately following the giving of the law on Sinai, Israel's sojourn in the desert] also did" (Heb. 4:2).[22] In His covenant with them at Sinai, God gave His people a thoroughly grace-based, gospel-bearing, mission-directed covenant.
God's gospel-bearing promise to humanity at Adam's fall (Gen. 3:15) constituted the core component of each succeeding and expanded expression of His covenant for humankind's benefit-given to and through Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, etc.
• "Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness" (Gen. 15:6).
• "Through the righteousness that comes by faith" "Abraham and his offspring [including his descendants at Sinai] received the promise that he [and they] would be heir of the world" (Rom. 4:13).
• "The law [God's covenant with Israel at Sinai], introduced 430 years later [than God's covenant with Abraham], does not set aside the covenant previously established by God [with humankind in Genesis 3:15 and later reiterated and expanded to Abraham and his descendants] and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law [alone-i.e., on obedience divorced from faith], then it no longer depends on a promise [the core component of every expression of God's covenant(s) with humankind, including His covenant at Sinai], but God in his grace gave it to Abraham [and his descendants, including Israel at and subsequent to Sinai] through a promise" (Gal. 3:17-18).
The gospel God embedded in the Sinai covenant-that covenant most often referred to by biblical scholars as the old covenant-was the pure gospel, not "a different gospel" that Paul warned "pervert[s] the gospel of Christ" and leads anyone who promotes it to be "eternally condemned" (Gal. 1:6-9). For "we [in the New Testament era] also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they [the recipients of God's covenant with Israel at Sinai] also did" (Heb. 4:2).[23] Thus Stephen could testify, "On Mount Sinai...[Moses] received living words to pass on to us" (Acts 7:38).
Had Israel, under the supervision of the Holy Spirit, been faithful to this pure gospel covenant, faithfully teaching and modeling its essential message to their children, the Spirit could have used it to instill within their successive generations a saving "trust in God" and a heart inclined to "keep his commands," His "living words": "He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children...and they in turn would tell their children. Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands" (Ps. 78:5-7). Jesus later identified "faith"[24] as one of the weightier matters of the law (Matt. 23:23, NKJV, NRSV). God's covenant with Israel was fully grace-based, gospel-bearing, and faith-inducing.
Law Given Through Moses/Grace and Truth Came Through Jesus
Some commentators interpret John 1:17 ("For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ") to mean that God's purportedly "law-based" historical old covenant given through Moses at Sinai was replaced by His grace-based new covenant which came when Jesus came. This interpretation carries the implicit, if not explicit, message that the covenant God gave at Sinai was not based on grace but on something other than grace.
But if God did not ground the Sinai covenant in grace, on what grounds did He give it to His people--works? As we have seen, the biblical record clearly establishes the historical old covenant in its entirety as a grace-based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing, and mission-directed covenant throughout.
Apparently part of the problem comes in how one verse is translated. The New King James Version translates John 1:17, "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." The word "but" isn't in the original Greek text. The New International Version more accurately renders the text, "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." Along with most modern translations, the NIV doesn't insert the conjunction that seems to set up a conflict between the old and new covenants.
John never intended that his reference to "the law ... through Moses" should be pitted against "grace and truth ... through Jesus Christ." In fact, the context reveals that his intention was exactly the opposite. An extended look at this context will make this point clear.
John opens his gospel with the shocking affirmation to the people of his day that Jesus, the one who lived among us in the flesh, was none other than the eternal God, the Creator, the source of all light and truth (John 1:1-3,14). Then follows the passage in question, John 1:15-18: "John [the Baptist] testifies concerning him. He [John the Baptist] cries out, saying, 'This was he of whom I said, "He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me."' From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side ["close to the Father's heart," NRSV], has made him known."
Note first that John the Baptist pointed to Jesus's pre-existence and divine identity as evidence of Jesus's superiority to himself and all other prophets (1:15). The prophets were bearers of truth, but Jesus was the source of truth. The prophets testified to God's grace, but Jesus, being Himself God, was the source of that grace. Jesus was the source of the divine grace first announced in God's grace-based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing, mission-directed covenant promise to fallen Adam (Gen. 3:15). God progressively revealed this same grace more fully to the human race through His successive covenants with Noah, Abraham, and Moses. Thus John could write, "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another," or, as the New Revised Standard Version translates it more literally from the Greek, "From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace"[25] (1:16).
In other words, every revelation of divine grace given through the previous covenants came from Jesus Himself in His pre-existent state, for He was one with God from the very beginning. The divine grace revealed in the covenants was His own grace, representing the disposition and commitment of the heavenly council--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The covenants revealed His everlasting love for His entire creation, including all humankind, especially the people He had elected to represent and proclaim to the world the revelation of His grace and salvation. "The law ... given through Moses" amplified and expanded on through the prophets, represented the culmination of that revelation that had been given to the world prior to the advent of Christ. It contained "the fullness of his grace" revealed to humankind up to that time.[26]
The message of John 1:17 follows naturally. It further establishes Jesus as the source of both the continuity and continuing progression of the revelation of God's grace given through the ages: "For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ."
The verse begins with the word "for,"[27] showing that John intended for this verse to follow the thought he had developed in the previous verses, namely, that the divine revelations given through the ages, constituting "one blessing after another [literally 'grace upon grace']," were in fact progressive revelations of the grace of the pre-existent Christ. In verse 17 John declares the divine revelation through Jesus to be the ultimate revelation of that very grace expressed in all previous divine covenants, and expressed most fully up to that point in the revelation of His grace made in "the law." When Jesus was among us, His teachings expounded on and magnified the grace and truth He had progressively revealed to the prophets through the ages. His life, death, and resurrection on our behalf was a demonstration to the entire universe of the divine grace and truth that is eternal in origin and duration and truly universal in its embrace. He who from the beginning was one with God and always "close to the Father's heart" came to earth to reveal the depth of grace that fills God's heart.
From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing [the historical old covenant] after another [the historical new covenant]. For the law [the first administration of grace, "the law" being used here as the chief representative of God's revelation through the entire Old Testament era] was given through Moses [not "came through Moses" but "was given through Moses," for Moses was only the intermediary informing the people of that grace that was given to him by Jesus, the source of grace]; grace and truth [revealed progressively to humankind from the time of Adam, and reaching its fullest revelation in the historic new covenant with the revelation of Christ in the flesh] came through [not "was given through" in this instance, but "came through," for the Source and Originator is now in view, not merely an intermediary] Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side ["close to the Father's heart," NRSV], has made him known. (John 1:16-18)
Thus, understood in context, John 1:17 affirms that Jesus's revelation of grace in His life on earth continued His progressive revelation, exponentially so, of the grace He had revealed in the law that came through Moses.
Summary
The same theological DNA identity markers that characterize the new covenant--sanctification, reconciliation, mission, and justification--were divinely imprinted in the old covenant as well. In His covenants with humans, God progressively revealed His nature as a God of grace, compassion, love, justice, righteousness, truth, and forgiveness. In the process, He increasingly clarified the details of His plan of salvation. His covenant with His people at Sinai constituted a vital link in the chain of revelations running from humanity's fall in Eden to the restoration of all things in the earth made new. The divine grace and truth proclaimed in God's word to His people at Sinai became flesh at the incarnation of Christ and dwelled among us.
The old and new covenants are not opposed to each other, but the new covenant is presented in Scripture as being different from the old. How so? And if both covenants proclaim the same gospel, what should be made of the differences? We'll address these questions in our next chapter.
Notes: