What kind of Covenant was being broken by the Israelites?

[Peairtach]

So when individuals (whether saved or unsaved) under Moses' law were "cut-off" (i.e. excommunicated) simply by temporary shunning or partial shunning, and/or internal or external exile; by God Himself bringing a Curse on them by disease or death; by execution by the congregation of Israel; or when the nation as a whole was excommunicated by death, disease, famine, wild beast, the sword and exile, were they being they being thus dealt with for breaching (i) the/a Covenant of Works, or (ii) for breaching the Old Covenant Administration of the Covenant of Grace, or (iii) a combination of the two?

 

[Casey]

(ii) for breaching the Old Covenant Administration of the Covenant of Grace. This is what the Confession teaches:

WCF 19:6. Although true believers be not under the law, as a covenant of works, to be thereby justified, or condemned; yet is it of great use to them, as well as to others; in that, as a rule of life informing them of the will of God, and their duty, it directs and binds them to walk accordingly; discovering also the sinful pollutions of their nature, hearts, and lives; so as, examining themselves thereby, they may come to further conviction of, humiliation for, and hatred against sin, together with a clearer sight of the need they have of Christ, and the perfection of his obedience. It is likewise of use to the regenerate, to restrain their corruptions, in that it forbids sin: and the threatenings of it serve to show what even their sins deserve; and what afflictions, in this life, they may expect for them, although freed from the curse thereof threatened in the law. The promises of it, in like manner, show them God's approbation of obedience, and what blessings they may expect upon the performance thereof: although not as due to them by the law as a covenant of works. So as, a man's doing good, and refraining from evil, because the law encourageth to the one, and deterreth from the other, is no evidence of his being under the law; and, not under grace.

 

[MW]

Ananias and Sapphira, Jezebel and her lovers, indicate that physical cutting off is not confined to the old administration of the covenant of grace.

 

[Peairtach]

This is it:

Non-believers and believers who are in the New Covenant - the administrators of the Covenant, the elders, can get quite adept at discerning who those are, but are never infallible in this - can be:-

(a) Subject to chastisements of various kinds, up to and including death. Another example of this is the case of the Corinthian Christians.

For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.(I Corinthians 11:29-30).

(b) Subject to the preaching of Hell, the Old Covenant types of God's excommunicating someone permanently from the Land of Promise by execution, having benn stripped away.

(c) Subject to Church discipline, and also sanctions for gross, willful, presumptious and flagrant breaches of the 10C (e.g. Matthew 18).

Whether the individual is a true believer or not, where this is done properly by the Kirk Session, he/she is put outside God's visible kingdom and into Satan's realm, in the hope that he/she will come to repentance, and that the measure will be only temporary. The powers of Heaven i.e. the Holy Spirit, get behind the work of the elders (and sometimes the conmgregation also) where the elders make a correct call and do this properly.

E.g.
And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 16:19)

Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. (Matthew 18:18-20)

So why is the New Covenant not being claimed by the Republicationists as a Republication of the Covenant of Works, when there are all these conditions and sanctions attatched to it, which conditions and sanctions are related to the words and behaviour (i.e. works) of those within the New Covenant (whether they are of the Covenant is another Q)?

Both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are administrations of the Bond of Love that is the Covenant of Grace.