I want to turn quickly to consider the picture of the Messiah in the story as we have it in the first five Books of Moses. If one hesitates to bring to the Pentateuch what one already knows from the rest of Scripture, the picture of the Promised One is diminished but still of real interest.[1] The main passages are in Genesis 3:15; 22:18; 49:8-10; Numbers 24:8-9, 17-19, and Deuteronomy 18:15-19. These are the clearest scriptures. Other passages, such as …
Category: Uncategorized
Bridging the portentous chapter 28 and the hopeful chapter 30, Deuteronomy 29 contains what is often referred to, especially in Dispensational literature, as ‘the Palestinian covenant.’[1] Clearly the way the chapter begins must be taken seriously: These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He made with them in Horeb. – Deuteronomy 29:1 This “other” covenant is explicitly said to be “besides” …
The Mosaic Covenant as a Historical Placeholder for Other Covenants If the commandments in the ‘Ten Words’ on Sinai (Exod. 20) and all those that followed in their train were too stringent for a fallen people to keep, at least the covenant God made with Israel, and which they voluntarily entered into (in Exod. 24), distinguished them among the other nations of the world. It did this to the extent that they were preserved as a distinct people in continuity …
Part One Relationship The covenant Lord comes to establish a relationship. This relationship is not yet predicated upon the finished work of Christ at Calvary, so the judicial element demands law. Still, it also entails the fact that the God of the Law is the God also of grace. If He were not, there would be no hope of relationship and the covenantal purposes of God would be reduced to futility. The laws found in Exodus through to Deuteronomy are …
Part Two “Israel” There has been quite a build up to the appearance of the word “Israel” in the first book of the Pentateuch. When it appears in chapter 32 we get an immediate ethnic link between Jacob/Israel and the sons of Israel (32:32). This is everywhere the understanding of the name in the Old Testament, and, we shall argue, in the New Testament also.[1] Genesis 37 and 38 detail two inauspicious moments in the history of nascent Israel; the …
Part One The sequel has Isaac making a pact with Abimelech after which the God of Providence gave him water. Since there had been quarreling over water sources the conflict was resolved by covenant (cf. Heb. 6:16), Isaac named the new place “Beersheba,” meaning “well of the oath.” God’s blessing came in conjunction with an oath which was clearly understood by both sides. The chapter ends by noticing Esau’s marriage to two pagan wives and the grief it caused to …
Two Abrahamic Covenants? To make things a little more tricky, some scholars claim to see not one but two covenants made with Abraham by the Lord. This is the position of Paul Williamson as set out in his fine book Sealed with an Oath. Williamson believes that the thirteen year time lapse between Genesis 15 and 17, plus what he calls “significant differences…in terms of their covenantal framework and their promissory emphases” argue for two covenants.[1] But the time gap …
Part Two The seventeenth chapter of the Book of Genesis affords us an occasion to distinguish between a covenant and a promise. This difference is seldom noticed in the literature, but it deserves our attention since it shows up a tendency to take things for granted which we ought perhaps to be more discerning about. There is no problem with the idea that a covenant includes promise. All covenants are about what one will do or refrain from doing at …
Although he never held any official position or led any army or wrote any books, by any measure Abraham is one of the most important human beings in history. Jews, Christians and Muslims trace their roots in him in one way or another. This man who lived approximately two thousand years before Christ is a central figure to the biblical storyline in both Testaments. Now this book deals with covenants. And the covenant with Abraham is one of the most …
The movement from Noah in his post-diluvial world to the next great judgment; the division of human language at the plain of Shinar (Gen. 11:2) is the history of the decline of memory. Declension in the remembrance of God and His ways (i.e. God as He is) gradually dehumanizes us. Suitably enough, the movement ends with the impediments to joint remembrance which the disparate languages inevitably brought about. The first part of Genesis must be joined comfortably and naturally with …
