See the Q above.

If so how?

If not, what's the difference?

__________________
Richard
communicant member, FCoS
Perth, Scotland UK

His Name forever shall endure;
last like the sun it shall:
Men shall be blessed in Him,
and blessed all nations shall Him call (Ps. 72:17)

No. God is gracious, period, whether in the OT or NT, He's the same God.

__________________
Toni Cunningham, Wife of Bill (Theognome)
Parkwoods OPC, Overland Park KS

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face, We first endure, then pity, then embrace." ~ Alexander Pope

I would say that the New Covenant is more gracious in the revelation and understanding of God's grace, but the grace of God can't be improved upon, so to speak from one administration to the next.

God's warm embrace of His friend Abraham, His personal meetings with Moses, His gracious choice of the slaves in Egypt, His enlightening their minds, consciences, court-rooms, families, and worship with the light of His Law; nothing other than the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit could accomplish this. Further, they had the gospel preached to them, and were followed in the wilderness by Christ, and the list could go on and on.

Cheers,

__________________
Adam B., Wine Country, California, PCA

"I fear not to hold with Junius, de Politia Mosis cap. 6, that he who was punishable by death under that Judicial law, is punishable by death still; and he who was not punished by death then, is not to be punished by death now."

Isn't the old covenant a reference to the mosaic covenant whereby nationally elected Israel got to enjoy the prototype of heaven if they obeyed the law to the extent that God's symbolic message wasn't totally obliterated? Israel got to enjoy this prototypical land until they followed other gods. This meritorious prototypical covenantal arrangement was ultimately severely lacking as it was only a prototype and was meant to pass away and even within this covenantal relationship we have the signs showing is weakness such as Jeremiah 31:31-33 Thus if the old covenant does refer to the covenant that God made with nationally elected Israel as he led them out of Egypt, I think I would say that the new covenant whereby Christ works and confers upon us through grace the blessings of his works when we have forfeited the blessing, is more gracious than the jist of the old covenant whereby Israel works and merits their continued enjoyment of a prototypical piece of land.

But that being said, I think their still was the same covenant of salvation by grace through faith in the promised Jesus Christ running underneath the national election of Israel which governed individual election. Because their was a temporary stacking of two covenants, it makes the waters a little murky since at no postlapsarian moment has their been a period of time without either looking forward to the realization of the covenant of salvation by grace through the works of christ or looking back on the realization of that covenant.

__________________
Matt
Lay
Reformed
Wisconsin

Israel never "worked" or "merited" the promised land. They only inherited it by faith (witness Joshua and Caleb). Works flow from faith, not the other way around (read James). The entire sacrificial system presupposed that Israel would sin, just as David did, yet David died in the land. God told Israelite children through Moses that if they would obey their parents they would live long in the land, he tells Christian children the same thing today through the Apostle Paul. As has already been said, there are obvious differences in administration between the old and the new (such that the new can be called "better"), but not more gracious. It might seem that John intends to communicate that the new is more gracious (John 1:17), but the meaning is redemptive-historical -- when Moses came the law was given and when Christ comes grace comes, but Moses spoke of the same Christ and the same grace, and Christ is the substance. If we Christians abandon the Lord for other gods we will likewise be thrown off the land, thereby manifesting we were never truly Christian. It was no different for the Israelites (Rom. 2:28-29).

__________________
Casey, Chicagoland, OPC

I'm glad to see this Q has been re-opened.

No, God gave His covenant of grace in the Garden of Eden after they failed the covenant of works. Even the the Law which was brought in 430 yrs later to show man's sin did not annul the covenant of grace.

Gal 3:15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, "And to offsprings," referring to many, but referring to one, "And to your offspring," who is Christ. 17This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
19Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

21Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

__________________
sarah
WI
OPC
My Pastor's Sermons: Mark Jenkins...he's awesome!!!

I didn't mean to imply that the sinaitic covenant annulled the covenant of grace but rather that the covenant of grace was always running along at the bottom level of individual election and that God covenanted with national ethnic Israel in such a way as their obedience was requisite to their remaining in the promise land. Obviously they were not chosen as a result of anything they had done but their remaining in the promise land did require their obedience to the sinaitic covenant. Thus we see that they would leave the true God and whore after other gods and god would send a messenger of the covenant to warn them and they would kill the messenger and God would remove them from the land because of their breaking the sianitic covenant. Then God would graciously return them to the land (not because he was covenentally obligated) and they would renew the sinaitic covenant, which the stipulations were 1.) love the lord your God 2.) make no idols 3.) honor the great kings name etc. It seems to me that God always had the right to remove Israel from the land because he was not covenantally obligated to keep them their when they were breakers of the covenant. Thus the sianitic covenant with nationally ethnic Israel was a covenant based on works that did not annul the covenant of grace running underneath the whole thing whereby he still saved individuals based on faith in the promised messiah.

It seems to me that this is what Christ is getting at in the parable about sending all the prophets to Israel and they killed the prophets so he sent his son and they killed his son and because the continued possession of the land was subject to not breaking the sinaitic covenant, God was perfectly just at removing their divine right to that land forever in 70AD

Is it not the case that with the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, New Covenant saints have more of the Spirit than Old Covenant saints?

What did Peter mean by this, when he was addressing the general assembly in Jerusalem? It sounds like he found the Old Covenant legal burden, quite a burden, and was quite relieved to be moving into the New Covenant ?

Is it not more gracious that we are no longer slaves (or sons under age) but full sons and daughters?

Is the Old Covenant in its essence as gracious as the New Covenant, but in its accidentals less gracious?

I'm not taking sides on this Q. I'm just "exploring" it. Should we be glad - everything else being equal - that we're in the New Covenant rather than the Old Covenant?

I like your reference to Peters saying of the Old Covenant that it was a burden and yoke that could not be born even by the Jews. Covenants of grace aren't burdensome. I wouldn't say that we have more of the holy spirit than did the OT saints just because the spirit was poured out in a certain way during a certain time. The Holy Spirits most miraculous work in a person is salvation and all his other works (tongues, prophesy, etc) all are as dust compared to the great work of salvation and the Holy Spirit did the same work for OT saints as NT.

Now I think to answer the question of "in its essence more gracious..." we need to differentiate amongst God's different covenantal dealings prior to christ. We have the covenant of works whereby mankind would merit eternal life upon obedience (adamic covenant of works), the covenant of promise with Abraham which was administered through grace, the sinaitic covenant involving stipulations whereby Israel could merit continued enjoyment of the prototypical land upon obedience to the covenantal stipulations, and underneath all things and in all generations we have the covenant of grace whereby people are regenerated and their sins are imputed to christ and christ's works are imputed to them. Although I may be incorrect, I think that Old Covenant is a reference to the sainitic covenant of works and thus its essence was "obey the stipulations and remain in the promise land, break the covenant and the great king will impose the covenant curses (sending nations to thump on Israel and put them in bondage and destroying the temple ultimately.) Hope the distinctions are helpful if they are correct.

The Mosaic covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace. If it was a covenant of works they never would have made it into Canaan in the first place -- actually, most didn't make it, but because they had not faith -- and even if they had, they would have been expunged immediately. If you honestly believe it was a covenant of works, why were they allowed to stay in Canaan for hundreds of years, constantly and continually sinning during that entire time? How come they were allowed to stay through the period of the judges, if not for grace? What you are suggesting is similar to God allowing Adam to stay in Eden for a time even after he had sinned. That sure is a gracious covenant of works you're proposing.

My position is that God is slow to anger and even sent his representatives to deal with this unruly participant of the covenant to remind them of their covenant and when they killed his emissaries he removed them from the land. Therefore I think that God only enacted the covenant curses when the image of the thing he is trying to represent prototypically is so distorted as to be recognizable. Don't you think that God's enacting the covenant curses is evidence enough that Israel was working on some sort of merit based relationship with the land? If Israel's relationship with the land was not based on merit than how do we synthesize God's justice was unjustly giving Israel what they could not have merited? I guess I just don't understand upon what covenantal right could God have removed their land if their possessing it was not based on their upholding the covenant. I'm not saying that God didn't act graciously toward Israel as a nation during this period but rather suggesting that the principle of the ratified covenant was meritorious and any forbearance by God toward covenant breaking Israel was gracious but was not the covenant.

By way of analogy, imagine the Hitites had aided a nation being conquered and subsequently instituted a covenant with that nation whereby the saved nation had to abide by a set of covenantal stipulations. That covenant would be a covenant requiring works to merit continued protection of the Hitites and the nation could also merit a beating by the Hitites if they didn't follow the covenantal stipulations (say taxes, worship of their god, etc). Now if the nation stopped following the stipulations one by one and the Hitites finally got sick of the nation breaking more and more of the stipulations and finally sent an army to enforce the curses of the covenant, one would not say that the covenant was a covenant of grace just because the Hitites were very forebearing of covenant breaking up until the point of enacting the curse of the covenant.

at least that his what I think at this point

Exodus 20:12. Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you.

Ephesians 6:1-3. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. "Honor your father and mother," which is the first commandment with promise: "that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth."

If Exodus 20:12 is a statement that proves the Mosaic covenant was a covenant of works, then it appears Paul has made the new covenant a covenant of works as well. This is the point I was attempting to make earlier, and it's directly related to the possession of the land.

Paul gives a command and a command does not a covenant make. Paul's is definitely not using covenant making language that moses uses when he begins with the preamble "I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." followed by the extravagant covenant making process where the books of the covenant are read and the people agree and sacrifices are made signifying the curses of the covenant. Paul just gives a command and does not instantiate a new covenant with these commands as the stipulations of the covenant.

I think I can add some clarity - or complexity here? - by saying that I think that you Matthew are a "Republicationist" of sorts.

There has already been some debate on this board about whether the Sinaitic/Old/Mosaic Covenant was a republication of the Covenant of Works. The position has been held in various forms by Covenant Theologians of the past and present.

I haven't finished reading a book that defends Republicationism called "The Law is not of Faith" (PandR). Some on this board have drawn attention to the fact that they believe that Republicationism does not square with the WCF, although some (many?) sound men have held to it.

I can see that the WCF doesn't seem to give much basis for Republicationism, and that there may be simpler ways by which the Scriptural data can be looked at.

The WCF teaches that the moral law was republished at Sinai, but does not seem to teach that the Covenant of Works was republished at Sinai. In a sense it could not be republished at Sinai, because it would require perfect obedience to something (the moral law?/all the law?) to earn a reward. After Man having sinned was Israel capable of perfect obedience to anything? If someone says that Israel only had to obey a lower standard than Adam to stay in the Land, then "Republication of the Covenant of Works" is a most confusing use of language.

It would be better to say that there was a moral standard below which Israel couldn't fall without being cast out of the Land. Is there a doctrinal and moral standard to which congregations and denominations must adhere before going defunct? The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia is an example of a New Testament passage which is (more than?) suggestive of this.

God may have had a moral standard by which He held that He would cast the Israelites out of Canaan if they did not live up to it, but we have to remember that it was firstly because such a large proportion of the Israelites did not have faith in God as Lord and Saviour, by grace, that they became so immoral. It would have been of God's grace if a large enough proportion of the Israelites had exercised faith in God as Lord and Saviour and ergo obeyed His laws and ergo stayed in the Land.

Here are some threads on Republication, Matt

Re-publication: Covenant of Works Question

In Defense of Moses: A Confessional Critique of Kline and Karlberg

There are no doubt more.

I think he is mentioning the covenant and the relationship between them. Obviously the God of the covenants is gracious.

__________________
Julio Martinez Jr.
Member of Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA)
My Blog
"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge;
because you have rejected knowledge,
I reject you from being a priest to me.
And since you have forgotten the law of your God,
I also will forget your children." Hosea 4:6, ESV

It may be that we can say that the Old Covenant and New Covenant are equally gracious because the Old Covenant was suitable to the Israelites from Moses to Christ, and because the New Covenant is suitable for believers and their children from Christ to the Second Advent (?)

But when we compare ourselves with the Israelites, we may be glad for the (added?) benefits we enjoy under the New covenant (?)

Great post. I didn't realize there were categories for the distinctions. I definitely lean toward Republicationism. One of the links was dead BTW in the linked thread. I tried to update it with the document my google search turned up but it is closed. Oh well. Anyway, thanks for the good conversation.

-----Added 10/3/2009 at 06:00:14 EST-----

Actually I have one more question (even though I realize that I risk it turning into multiple posts) do you think that God's removing Israel from the land multiple times and ultimately forever taking away their divinely sanctioned possession of the land is equally as gracious as his confirming us in righteousness forever upon regeneration without possibility of revocation of the inheritance?

But there are some/many who are outwardly in the New Covenant that are not going to Heaven, because they are not believers.

It's also true that any Israelite who believed was guaranteed the real inheritance like us but had to suffer the loss of the typical inheritance, e.g. Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel, but the loss of the typical inheritance caused these godly men great distress, viz. Lamentations.

An interesting and multi-faceted subject! Maybe we'll discuss it more again.

I'll have to get round to reading and analysing "The Law is not of Faith"

The New Covenant is far better. What was/is the stumbling block for the OT Jews? It was that Gentiles could be saved. I find that much better.

__________________
Alan Hughes
PCA
Lake Zurich, Illinois

If you think I'm a Hyper-Calvinist, God planned that thought before the foundation of the Earth. If you try to tell me that God only planned some things and not all things, then your problem is with God not me.

Well Gentiles could be saved under the Old Covenant, of course, but the Old Covenant never reached e.g. Scotland or the USA as far as I'm aware, whereas the New Covenant may have reached Scotland with the Roman invasions or slightly later.

For these providences and God's grace in the New Covenant I'm eternally grateful. It's not just that we can now eat bacon sandwiches, although that is nice, too.

I do appreciate the Old Covenant Scriptures also, of course, and believe that there is much more there yet to be unpacked by the Spirit's illumination, to God's glory and our ethical good.

Perhaps there's an additional facet here that we can examine apart from the discussion of the Mosaic Covenant? Namely how we benefit from living in the new covenant, which I think is pertinent the original question.

First, the gospel is offered more globally in the new covenant -- not that Jews only were shown grace in the older administration (note Ruth), but the gospel is now sent into all the earth. Secondly, we can see more clearly now that Christ has become the final and perfect sacrifice -- the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And the third relates to the second, we have the complete revelation of God's word.

__________________
JWithnell
Member Bethel OPC
Virginia
http://learningyesican.blogspot.com/

This is such a great site about the Similarities and Differences Between the

Old And New Covenants.

Here you can read from the works of

Zwingli, Bullinger, Vermigli, Musculus, Ursinus, Wollebius, Beza, Calvin, etc

on the unity and discontinuities of both administrations of the Covenant of Grace:


Of the Similarities and Differences Between the Old And New Covenants (The Mosaic Covenant)

__________________
César Proença

there is no will nor running by which we can prepare the way for our salvation, it is wholly of the Divine Mercy Jean Calvin Institutes II . V. 17

Reformed Churches in The Netherlands (liberated) http://www.gkv.nl/main.asp?intTreeviewID=954

Igreja Reformada em Massamá Portugal http://www.igrejareformada.pt

Aye. That was an interesting read and a very interesting website, Discipulo.

Whether or not the New Covenant is more gracious than the Old, God has not changed and remains equally gracious. Maybe the solution is as above, that the OC was appropriate/equitable for that time, while the NC is appropriate for now.

We can and should thank God we're in the NC rather than the OC:

E.g.

In light of these statements:

and

How does Leviticus 18:26-30 fit into the discussion?

"26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), 28 lest the land vomit you out when you make it unclean, as it vomited out the nation that was before you. 29 For everyone who does any of these abominations, the persons who do them shall be cut off from among their people. 30 So keep my charge never to practice any of these abominable customs that were practiced before you, and never to make yourselves unclean by them: I am the LORD your God."

__________________
Joshua Parker
Christ the King (PCA)
Foedus Theologus - My Blog
MDiv. Student at Whitefield
Cambridge, MA
"Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! The second death has no power over these, but they will be priests of God and the Messiah, and they will reign with Him for 1,000 years." - Revelation 20:6

I assume this is a defence of the Republicationist position on the Old/Sinaitic/Mosaic Covenant.

I haven't finished the book "The Law is not of Faith" but it seems from that book that this whole subject is complicated/confused by the fact that there were and are multiple republicationist positions/ideas.

If we assume for the sake of argument that the Mosaic Covenant was thoroughly gracious, surely one solution to the throwing of the Jews off the land for their wickedness is the fact that such treatment is consistent with a gracious covenant.

It was because the people/not enough of the people had saving faith that they became so wicked that God dealt with them by putting them out of the Land. Saving faith even under the Old covenant was by God's grace.

In the New Covenant the church also suffers trouble when more and more of those who are outwardly in a covenant relation with God do not have saving faith by grace and hence do not obey God's commands/attempt to obey them.

The New Covenant Church doesn't have a Land to be thrown out of, because the whole Earth is now the Holy land of Israel. But because of not living up to God's standards by faith through grace, churches (congregations and denominations) can be removed (see e.g. the Letters to the Seven Churches); unbelievers who are outwardly in the Covenant can be cast off "the Land"/Kingdom of God into Hell by death, and even true believers can experience chastisement, sometimes even unto death (see I Corinthians 10), and lack of progress in evangelism (The "Holy War" of taking "The Land" i.e. possessing the Earth through people being saved).

Does all this mean that the New Covenant has an outward cast as a Covenant of Works also, along with the Old Covenant?

Nope, that is not my position at all.

I'm not quite sure what your Q is youthevang

Well, there seem to be conditions for both the gracious Old Covenant and the gracious New Covenant e.g. believers under both Covenants can suffer sanctions if they go astray beyond a certain point:-

Under the Old Covenant

(i) Believers could experience chastisement from God if they sinned.

(ii) "Cutting-off" i.e. church discipline and partially shunning, even for believers within the Covenant.

(iii) "Cutting-off" with also a threat of judgement from God, even for believers within the Covenant.

(iv) "Cutting-off" by execution for some offences, even for believers within the Covenant who fell.

(v) The whole nation could be "cut-off" from the Holy Land of promise which pointed to God's Heavenly Kingdom.

Under the New Covenant

(i) Believers can experience chastisement from God if they sin.

(ii) Those outwardly in the New Covenant are subject to church discipline, even if they are true believers.

(iii) They may be subject to church discipline along with God's judgement if they sin see e.g. I Corinthians 11.

(iv) If they have done anything worthy of death (the "theonomy" debate touches on what should be worthy of the death penalty under modern New Covenant states) those in the New Covenant may also be executed by the state, even if they are believers and subject to other civil sanctions. Modern states aren't part of Christ's mediatorial kingdom as was Israel, but modern rulers have a duty to follow the general equity of God's Word respecting crime and punishment.

(v) The New Covenant church as a whole cannot be cast out of the Land as was Israel, because the whole world is our Israel. But individuals who are in the New Covenant but not of it, may be taken from this Earth, which will one day become the Heavenly Kingdom, and cast into Hell by death.

(vi) Churches and denominations can be put out of business (cut-off) if they are nothing more than dead wood on the Abrahamic Olive Tree.

So although both the Old and New Covenants are gracious covenants whereby true believers are saved for heaven by grace through faith alone, that doesn't mean that everything is or was a bed of roses.

Acts 14:16
16 In past generations He [God] allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways.

Acts 17:30
30 The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent.

In a way this makes it sound like the New Covenant is more gracious, because now the nations all over the world can repent and He now no longer lets the nations walk in their own way (which I believe to be more gracious). I don't know for sure though. Am I way off on this?

__________________
Nathan Riese
Under Care, PCA
Trinity Presbyterian Church, Aledo, Illinois
Current student at MBBC
Future student of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
www.gpts.edu

Well this is one way that we might view the New Covenant as more gracious than the Old.

Of couse people outwith Israel could be and were saved in the Mosaic period. Either by believing on Israel's God and becoming Jews themselves, or by becoming God-fearers, as the Book of Acts calls them. The God-fearers were Gentiles who believed in Israel's God but didn't become full Jews i.e. they didn't get circumcised or keep some of the ceremonials e.g. kosher food. These could be saved also but didn't have the spiritual privileges of Gentiles who had become full Jews.

Also if the Jews had been more godly and zealous for spreading their faith to the surrounding nations they could have incorporated many more Gentile individuals and nations into the Commonwealth of Israel, but they weren't highly successful at this largely because a lot of the time many Jews weren't living as they should , and there was resistance from prophets like Jonah.


Moses told Israel on the Plains of Moab:-
The implication of this and other similar passages is that Israel by its godly example would encourage other Gentile nations and individuals to follow the Lord.

But the work of incoporating individuals, families and nations into the Commonwealth of True Israel has opened up in a new way since Pentecost and the establishment of the New Covenant.

"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ"

St. John the Evangelist

__________________
Adam J. Myer
Slated for the Jan. 10th Chaplains Basic Officer Leadership Course
Estacada Christian Church
Sandy, Oregon

Soli Deo Gloria