The 2 CovenantsThe Genesis Explanation

God destroyed the world with a Flood and Noah and his family lived but

they were told to… Genesis 9:1 “So God blessed Noah and his sons,

and said to them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.”

Yet they ended up staying together and building a City to the heavens?????

Why did the people stay together?

What did God do when they failed to fill the earth?

Genesis 11:8-9

So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

There are amazing stories in different cultures, including native american culture, as to people travels. The natives came to America and they even had stories of how they killed wholly mammoths up until the 1600s.

It is assumed God was unhappy with

mankind when they built the City and sent them around

the world. Noah got to see this occur. How would his

family be reconciled together again?

Genesis 12:2-3

“ I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,  And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

God promises through Abrahm that he would bless all the families of the earth.

Yet this blessing changes and is redefined over time.

Abrahm and Sarai aged and believed God would not give them a child so…

Genesis 16:1-3 Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. And she had an Egyptian maidservant whose name was Hagar. 2So Sarai said to Abram, “See now, the Lord has restrained me from bearing children. Please, go in to my maid; perhaps I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram heeded the voice of Sarai. 3Then Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife, after Abram had dwelt ten years in the land of Canaan.

The Promise Changes… Gen 17 1When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to

him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. 2And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” 3Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: 4“As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. 5No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations. 6I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you. 7And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you. 8Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”9And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations. 10This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; 11and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. 12He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant. 13He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. 14And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

The New Promise is to Abraham & Sarah’s

son – Isaac A Greater Promise

15Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. 16And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.”17Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” 18And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”19Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.

Ishmael still receives a Great Nation promise

And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. 21But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” 22Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.23So Abraham took Ishmael his son, all who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very same day, as God had said to him.

Recap Abrahm’s son going to be a blessing to all the

families of the Earth.

Abrahm believes he needs to make the promise come true and intercedes with Hagar.

Ishmael, the first son, the one that Abrahm sought to inherit the promise, is promised to become a great nation of 12 princes.

The son of promise that comes later, Isaac, inherits a greater blessing on greater promises.

This son of blessing is then to be offered as a sacrifice.

Note ALL sons of Abraham do not

have a birthrite or receive the blessing. Genesis 25: 31But Jacob said, “Sell me your

birthright as of this day.”

Then Jacob came to get the blessing – it wasn’t for both of them.

Genesis 27:35But he said, “Your brother came with deceit and has taken away your blessing.”36And Esau said, “Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times. He took away my birthright, and now look, he has taken away my blessing!” A

Esau in remembrance

Hebrews 12:16-17 16lest there be any fornicator or profane person like Esau, who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. 17For you know that afterward, when he wanted to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

The Son of Promise passes on the

Blessing to the one God Calls Israel

Genesis 32:28 And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”

Israel meaning “Prince of God” or “Child of God”

The son of promise fathers Israel.

The Story Continues with His Children

until Joseph receives the

BlessingJoseph was separate and greater then His

brother

Joseph was second in line above all else

Joseph was given up for dead so that All Peoples could be saved.

The promise wasn’t passed on through all the children of Jacob but Joseph alone.

The Promise to Joseph

2So Joseph brought them from beside his knees, and he bowed down with his face to the earth. 13And Joseph took them both, Ephraim with his right hand toward Israel’s left hand, and Manasseh with his left hand toward Israel’s right hand, and brought them near him. 14Then Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. 15And he blessed Joseph, and said:      “God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked,      The God who has fed me all my life long to this day,16      The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil,      Bless the lads;      Let my name be named upon them,      And the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac;      And let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” Genesis 48:12-16

Joseph’s Concern

Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him; so he took hold of his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head. 18And Joseph said to his father, “Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn; put your right hand on his head.”19But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.” Genesis 48:17-19

The Biblical Explanation on These Promises

Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman, the other by a freewoman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh, and he of the freewoman through promise, which things are symbolic. For these are the two covenants: the one from Mount Sinai which gives birth to bondage, which is Hagar— for this Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and corresponds to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children—but the Jerusalem above is free, which is the mother of us all. Galatians 4:21-26

Why didn’t God make only the New Covenant

and forget the Old covenant altogether? The promise changed when Abraham tried

to take things in his own hands and make God’s promises come true.

The same was true of Israel as a nation. They weren’t comfortable waiting on God and acting responsibly they wanted to be able to take things into their own hands.

1 Samuel 8 Verses 7-8 And the Lord said to Samuel, “Heed the voice

of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day—with which they have forsaken Me and served other gods—so they are doing to you also.

Verses 18-20 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, “No, but we will have a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

It was God who was to fight their battles and reign over them. Man keeps thinking he can take care of himself and control his destiny.

What about today?

Don’t churches feel they have to make things happen?

The Catholics believe they need to create the kingdom on Earth as do many mainstream protestants.

The World Council of Churches seems to feel that way – blending Christ with paganism and humanism.

All churches tend to have elders take over the rolls of Christ, especially over time. ie Tradition becomes the Word of God, judgment on items they aren’t given to judge on. The members often choosing churches to “judge us and go out before us and fight our battles.”

How should we think?

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are children of promise. But, as he who was born according to the flesh then persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the freewoman.” So then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free. Galatians 4:28-31

We are of the new covenant, the later one given to Ephraim through Joseph. We are supposed to act as children that will receive an inheritance. That trust and belief is in receiving an inheritance from God the father, not from man, a nation or a church organization.

What about Jeremiah?

31“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. 33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” Jeremiah 31

God makes a New Covenant with Israel –

the Children of God Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. Ephesians 2:11-13

“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God” Ephesians 2:19

But his father refused and said, “I know, my son, I know. He also shall become a people, and he also shall be great; but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become a multitude of nations.” Genesis 48:19

“My law in their minds”

John 16:13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

“Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Acts 2:36-39

“Remember their sins no more”

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Jeremiah 33

17“For thus says the Lord: ‘David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel; 18nor shall the priests, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before Me, to kindle grain offerings, and to sacrifice continually.’”19And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah, saying, 20“Thus says the Lord: ‘If you can break My covenant with the day and My covenant with the night, so that there will not be day and night in their season, 21then My covenant may also be broken with David My servant, so that he shall not have a son to reign on his throne, and with the Levites, the priests, My ministers.

Compare his Contemporary’s

Words “Because it is a testing, And what if the sword

despises even the scepter? The scepter shall be no more,”says the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 21:13

‘Now to you, O profane, wicked prince of Israel, whose day has come, whose iniquity shall end, thus says the Lord GOD:  “Remove the turban, and take off the crown; Nothing shall remain the same. Exalt the humble, and humble the exalted. Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, Until He comes whose right it is,  And I will give it to Him.”’ Ezekiel 21:25-27

What was Jeremiah’s promise

about? It was about never being again without a

sacrifice, a priest or a king.

What is the New Covenant telling us the Promises were about?

Jesus as King of Kings, Our High Priest, and our ONE sacrifice for sin. Giving us opportunity to forever come to the temple in Heaven – God’s throne room.

Hebrews 8

V1-2 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

V6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

V13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Hebrews 9 V11-15 But Christ came as High Priest of the good

things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

The Bible Layout

Genesis – God’s Creation and Plan for Mankind

Exodus – Malachi: the Story of the Old Covenant promise, the promise shown in the blessing to the bond son Ishmael and once again in Manasseh. The blessing that was to come first.

Matthew – Revelation: the Story of the New Covenant through the son of promise – Jesus the Christ.

Replacement Theology?

The new covenant promise made the old one obsolete.

However, even in the old covenant IF you rejected the God of Israel you were to be removed. If you accepted the God of Israel you were to be as a native child.

God wants Israel to be reflective of his children – the name Prince of God is to be meaningful.

God always intended that the blessing through Jesus to the world would always replace the nation of Israel and the earthly practice of sacrifice and priesthood.

What changes?

The priesthood, the king, the sacrifice, the application of tithes and offerings (all local – not just the third year). The process of entering the covenant – baptism and laying on of hands as opposed to circumcision. The Passover symbols: bread and wine as opposed to the Pashal meal.

What doesn’t change? What God says was a good standard to live by? The moral code remains the same.

Judgment? Forgiveness? Mercy?

Personal Judgment For none of us lives to himself, and no one dies to

himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and rose and lived again, that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living. But why do you judge your brother? Or why do you show contempt for your brother? For we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. For it is written:  “As I live, says the Lord, Every knee shall bow to Me, And every tongue shall confess to God.” So then each of us shall give account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather resolve this, not to put a stumbling block or a cause to fall in our brother’s way. Romans 14:7-13

Advocate My little children, these things I write to you, so

that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world. Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.

1John 2:1-6

No Old Covenant Desired

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law. You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. Galatians 5:1-4

Reason for Confusion

Jesus grew up under the Old Covenant but instituted the New Covenant.

When Jesus died He became the sacrifice for sin, the King, and the High Priest for the New Covenant. The curtain into the Holy of Holies was torn.

The temple remained for decades and the old covenant slowly became obsolete in the first century.

The Jews fell out of favour after the New Covenant was completed. Out of fear of persecution churches accepted non-biblical practices to seem more different then Jews.

The Simplicity of Christ

He is the New Covenant.

He is the King, High Priest, Sacrifice and Master.

We are to live morally in accordance with the Law but it is not just about not sinning it is about putting on the fruit of the spirit. It is about God’s spirit being at work in us. It is about considering Him as our judge and seeking his approval.

It is also about knowing in our shortfalls that He seeks to lift us up if we would but sincerely seek Him.

It is about Jesus leading us into His Kingdom through God’s Holy Spirit and about us helping each other acknowledging that He called us to do just that.

May Christ flow in you in what you do, say and think.