WERE THE OLD COVENANT AND THE TEN COMMANDMENTS THE SAME THING?

 

By Eric V. Snow

 

            Should the old covenant be seen as more or less identical to the law?  Or, are the two

 

substantially different entities altogether?[1]  One of the foundational fallacies of the teachings of

 

the Worldwide Church of God concerning abolition of the Sabbath is about how it equates the

 

old covenant and the law.

 

            Pasadena has defined "covenant" the way a dictionary would:  "We can start by defining 

 

the word covenant.  In simple terms, a covenant is a formal agreement.  It can be an agreement

 

between two people, a treaty between nations, or a relationship between God and a human

 

individual or nation."[2]  However, in the course of argumentation, a truly CRUCIAL term switch

 

(equivocation) occurs.  Pasadena then says that the law and the old covenant are the same,

 

thereby confusing what the agreement (contract) was about with the agreement itself:

 

            The Ten Commandments were the words of the covenant. . . . The Ten Commandments formed the core of the Sinaitic, or old covenant, but the covenant also included all of Exodus 20-24. . . . The old covenant, as a package of laws regulating a relationship between God and his people, is obsolete. . . . This "setting aside" is not just talking about Levitical and sacrificial laws that were added to the old covenant--it is talking about the old covenant itself.  The whole package was set aside and replaced by Christ.[3]

 

David Albert also expressed this viewpoint succinctly and clearly: 

 

            I didn=t know and nobody had ever taught me in my 35 years in the Church that the Ten Commandments were the old covenant, as is to clearly stated in Ex. 34:28 and again in Deuteronomy 4:13.  I see now that we were ignorant about such basics as how God in his Word defines the old covenant--namely, by the Ten Commandments and vice versa.  Nobody ever taught me the truth and the sweeping implications of these two vitally important verses.[4]

 

The importance of this issue can=t be stressed enough.  For it was the most important argument

 

in Mr. Tkach=s three hour sermon that first announced the Anew covenant@ changes that would

 

abolish the Sabbath, tithing, and the holy days.

 

            Here it shall be maintained that the Ten Commandments, and indeed all the laws God

 

gave to Israel, are not the same thing as the old covenant.  By itself, the old covenant was a

 

contract between God and Israel in which the latter made a generic promise of obedience in

 

return for material (not spiritual) national blessings.  (Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 describe the physical

 

promises, and won't be the focus of this analysis).  Now, the Ten Commandments are called a

 

"covenant" in Deut. 4:13; 9:9-11; I Kings 8:9,21.  But is this covenant the same covenant as the

 

old covenant?  No--instead, actually two covenants were made with Israel in Ex. 19-24, one of

 

which was the Ten Commandments, the other which is the old covenant in which God made

 

Israel His chosen people with various (material) blessings in exchange for their promise of

 

obedience.  But--how do we know they are different covenants?

 

            Evidence that these covenants are different is found in how Paul's descriptions of the Ten

 

Commandments or the law don't fit those made about the old covenant.  For example, the author

 

of Hebrews (8:6-7) said about the old covenant:  "But now He has obtained a more excellent

 

ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, WHICH HAS BEEN

 

ENACTED,[5]  on better promises.  For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have

 

been no occasion sought for a second."  Consider carefully as you read through the Ten

 

Commandments:  Can you find anything wrong or weak with their promises?  Paul quotes the

 

fifth commandment in Eph. 6:1-3, inserting the parenthetical thought "(which is the first

 

commandment with a promise)" concerning its statement, "that it may be well with you, and that

 

you may live long on the earth."  Now, what's wrong with that promise?  Don't the meek inherit

 

the earth (Matt. 5:5) for life evermore?  As Walker put it:  "It is scripturally impossible for the

 

Ten Commandments to be the old covenant, for there are no defective promises found therein."[6]

 

This text also implies Paul thought individual parts of the Ten Commandments were still

 

binding, when he so-matter-of-factly cites the fifth one.

 

            Consider--the old covenant wasn't "faultless" (Heb. 8:7).  Do the Ten Commandments

 

have any faults in them?  Would you dare call something written by the finger of God (Ex.

 

31:18) and thundered aloud by His own voice (Ex. 19:11-12, 19-20; 20:1; Deut. 5:4-5, 22-27;

 

9:10) defective or faulty? Ps. 19:7 says:  "The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul." 

 

James 1:25 says:  "But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by

 

it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man shall be blessed in what

 

he does." In Romans 7:12, Paul maintains:  "So then, the Law is holy, and the commandment is

 

holy and righteous and good."  Could such a law be faulty as well if it is "perfect," "holy,"

 

"righteous," and "good"?  Can you honestly maintain these descriptions of the Ten

 

Commandments or the law fit the old covenant?  (Remember, Paul had just quoted the tenth

 

commandment in Rom. 7:7, so this should be the "law" he has in mind in v. 12).  God found fault

 

with the people of  Israel (Heb. 8:8), not His law itself, because they tried to obey it by human

 

effort.  For the basic flaw of the old covenant lies not in the law Israel was supposed to obey in

 

its contract with God, but in them trying to do it without God's Holy Spirit to aid them in their

 

attempt. 

 

            The old covenant now no longer exists, which is what Heb. 8:13 really says:  "When He

 

said, 'A new covenant,' He had made the first obsolete.  But whatever is becoming obsolete and

 

growing old is ready to disappear."  But does God's law continue to exist?  James thinks so (2:10-

 

11):  "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of

 

all.  For He who said, 'Do not commit adultery,' also said, 'Do not commit murder.'  Now if you

 

do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." 

 

Paul also thinks so in Romans 7:7-8:  "What shall we say then?  Is the Law sin?  May it never be!

 

On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not

 

have known about coveting [i.e as a sin] if the Law had not said, 'You shall not covet.'  But sin,

 

taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart

 

from the Law sin is dead [i.e. doesn't exist]."  Hence, the law couldn't be the same thing as the

 

old covenant since one still exists and the other doesn't.  Similarly, if the law was substantially

 

identical to the old covenant, then one could insert into Romans 3:31 "old covenant" where "law"

 

appears, and it would make sense:  "Do we then nullify the (old covenant) through faith?  May it

 

never be!  On the contrary, we establish the (old covenant)."  The absurdity of saying the law and

 

the old covenant are substantially one and the same is evident.

 

            Now the giving of the law is implied to be different from the covenants in Romans 9:4: 

 

"(W)ho are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and

 

the giving of the law and the temple service and the promises."  Implicitly, the law is not made

 

identical to the covenants (plural) mentioned since it is listed separately from them.  The old

 

covenant wasn't the law itself, but it was made "concerning all these words" (Ex. 24:8, KJV) of

 

God's law in written form.  A similar distinction exists in Ex. 34:27-28 in which the covenant

 

between God and Israel is different from the Ten Commandments:  "And the Lord said to Moses,

 

'Write these words, for after the purpose and character of these words I have made a covenant

with you and with Israel'" (v. 27, Amplified).  "It was not the law itself but over the keeping of

 

the law--'the tenor of the words'--that the Old Covenant was made.@[7]  Moses called the golden

 

calf Israel worshipped "your sin, the calf which you had made," yet this wasn't the sin itself 

 

(compare I Cor. 10:19).  "In the same way the Old Covenant was not the law, but it was

 

concerning the law.  Thus it is called the covenant." Again, we have more reasons to doubt the

 

view the law and the old covenant are basically identical.

 

            Another way to look at the relationship between the old covenant and the Ten

 

Commandments is to see the latter as the basis for the former.[8]  For the failure of Israel to obey

 

God (i.e., uphold its part of the contract) doesn't make its basis cease to exist, since the contract

 

is about or concerns the basis, but isn't it itself.  The old covenant was not a law, but an

 

agreement to keep the law.  And Israel failed miserably in keeping this law, and failed to uphold

 

its part of the covenant.  For God found "fault with them" (Heb. 8:8), that is, the people, not his

 

perfect law (Ps. 19:17; James 1:25).  The basic flaw with the old covenant was on the human end

 

(trying to obey without spiritual help), not God's (concerning His law).   It=s incorrect to say the

 

law, sacrificial or moral, was the old covenant, as opposed to saying it was about, concerning, or

 

was the basis for, Israel's general promise to obey in return for material national blessings.

           

            Hence, the teaching of the Worldwide Church of God that the Ten Commandments are

 

basically the same thing as the old covenant is incorrect.  Therefore, one can=t argue that the

 

end of the old covenant abolishes the Sabbath, the Holy Days, or tithing.  For after all, if God

 

says (Heb. 8:10), AI will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them upon their hearts,@

 

how does that abolish the law, as opposed to making it more binding?  Therefore, the end of the

 

old covenant and the establishment of the new, far from abolishing these laws, allows them to be written on our hearts.



     [1]This whole line of  ultimately reasoning comes from a truly brilliant SDA book by Allen Walker called The Law and the Sabbath. Its chief value lies in how it refutes this crucial argument of Pasadena=s, which Dr. Bacchiocchi=s works don=t appear to deal with.  For this argument was at the core of the arguments Brinsmead made in his Verdict articles and Ratzlaff made in Sabbath in Crisis.  It can be ordered for $6.95 plus $2 postage from:  Amazing Facts, P.O. Box 680, Frederick, MD  21705-0680.

    [2]Joseph W. Tkach, APersonal ,@  Worldwide News,  p. 1.

    [3]Ibid., pp. 2-3.

     [4]David Albert, AHow I Came to Understand the New Covenant,@ WWN, June 20, 1995, p. 5.

 

    [5]Those who may still deny Christians are under the new covenant now, saying it begins at the second coming, should carefully ponder that past tense! 

    [6]Walker, The Law and the Sabbath, p. 185.

    [7]Joe Crews, Answers to Difficult Bible Texts, p. 9.

    [8]J.L.Tucker, Another Look At The Christian Sabbath, p. 73.