The Covenants (The old: conscience dominated, rigid and legal - the new: a loving relationship.)
The Bible talks about two covenants, the old covenant of law and the new covenant
of grace. They are two ways of relating to God regarding our performance or works.
We often brush the covenants aside with simplistic thinking; viewing the old covenant as legalism, doing good to earn God’s favor, and the new covenant simply as God’s unmerited gift of forgiveness and acceptance. However, there is more to the covenants than that. They fundamentally impact the way we deal with right and wrong and are critical in defining the nature of our relationship with God.
The old covenant mirrors our fallen moral nature, relating to moral issues, through reward and punishment (Lev 26). This covenant was most clearly defined at Mount Sinai (Ex 19&20). It has to do with the way we deal with right and wrong apart from grace. It was, however, first established when Adam and Eve ate of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. This conscience-DOMINATED morality constrains bad behavior through moral authority and rules (I Tim 1:9, Gal 3:23). It is the default covenant. It is activated when we are disconnected from a trusting relationship with God. It also creates problems in the way we see God.
We enter the new covenant when we establish a personal relationship with God based
on grace, God’s unmerited favor. It now supersedes the old covenant. It is relational rather than legal in nature. That means it doesn’t deal with us from a right and wrong focus but from a place of acceptance and understanding. It gives us the room we need to work through the issues of right and wrong on our own, without the prodding of the old covenant. God, instead, offers us a safe, accepting and understanding atmosphere where we can be ourselves while we look at God’s alternatives to our
dysfunctional perspective.
If we will focus on the nature of God’s relationship to us with respect to right and wrong, rather than relating to right and wrong from the legal perspective of our conscience, our hearts will be won to God. The nature of His love will become our focus. We will no longer be coerced into a phony performance driven by guilt and
moral authority. We will be free to become the person we were meant to be.
This is simply common sense. Say you have a pair of relatively good parents, who have two boys. One boy is selfish and rebellious. He doesn’t feel the rules apply to him. He will need some form of restraint, an old covenant, to keep him from hurting himself and others. I don’t mean to say that you abuse him, but that there will be a need for tough love. Then there is the other boy. He trusts in his parents. He believes that they have his best interests at heart. A completely different situation applies here. He can be given freedom in the context of a healthy relationship and appropriate structure. The difference is trust.
Copyright, Patrick Fagenstrom, 2011
The Bible talks about two covenants, the old covenant of law and the new covenant
of grace. They are two ways of relating to God regarding our performance or works.
We often brush the covenants aside with simplistic thinking; viewing the old covenant as legalism, doing good to earn God’s favor, and the new covenant simply as God’s unmerited gift of forgiveness and acceptance. However, there is more to the covenants than that. They fundamentally impact the way we deal with right and wrong and are critical in defining the nature of our relationship with God.
The old covenant mirrors our fallen moral nature, relating to moral issues, through reward and punishment (Lev 26). This covenant was most clearly defined at Mount Sinai (Ex 19&20). It has to do with the way we deal with right and wrong apart from grace. It was, however, first established when Adam and Eve ate of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. This conscience-DOMINATED morality constrains bad behavior through moral authority and rules (I Tim 1:9, Gal 3:23). It is the default covenant. It is activated when we are disconnected from a trusting relationship with God. It also creates problems in the way we see God.
We enter the new covenant when we establish a personal relationship with God based
on grace, God’s unmerited favor. It now supersedes the old covenant. It is relational rather than legal in nature. That means it doesn’t deal with us from a right and wrong focus but from a place of acceptance and understanding. It gives us the room we need to work through the issues of right and wrong on our own, without the prodding of the old covenant. God, instead, offers us a safe, accepting and understanding atmosphere where we can be ourselves while we look at God’s alternatives to our
dysfunctional perspective.
If we will focus on the nature of God’s relationship to us with respect to right and wrong, rather than relating to right and wrong from the legal perspective of our conscience, our hearts will be won to God. The nature of His love will become our focus. We will no longer be coerced into a phony performance driven by guilt and
moral authority. We will be free to become the person we were meant to be.
This is simply common sense. Say you have a pair of relatively good parents, who have two boys. One boy is selfish and rebellious. He doesn’t feel the rules apply to him. He will need some form of restraint, an old covenant, to keep him from hurting himself and others. I don’t mean to say that you abuse him, but that there will be a need for tough love. Then there is the other boy. He trusts in his parents. He believes that they have his best interests at heart. A completely different situation applies here. He can be given freedom in the context of a healthy relationship and appropriate structure. The difference is trust.
Copyright, Patrick Fagenstrom, 2011