We have now completed the study of the first four Covenants by which God revealed the basic outline of His Grand designs and purposes for this earth.  They were the expression of God’s unconditional intent for a perfect way of life for His highest order of creation, culminating in the revealing of “The Sons of God”.  Their final victory was guaranteed through the “Seed of the Woman”, and the ultimate defeat of “The seed of the Serpent”.
We also studied the process of cleansing initiated by God, through the flood of Noah’s time, which was required for the introduction to the world stage of the “chosen seed”, Israel.
The appointment of this chosen nation followed.  Their appointed duty, and indeed their entire purpose, was to be the instrument by which, and through which, the original perfection of Eden was to be restored throughout the earth.  This constituted the formation of an earthly nation, Israel, which was to become “the Kingdom of God upon the earth”, under the rulership, or Kingship, of Jehovah Himself, our Lord Jesus Christ. This in turn was guaranteed under the unconditional terms of the Abrahamic Covenant.  Thus the nation was formed.
But like any other body of people formed into a corporate institution, this nation would require laws under which it could operate.  So we have the introduction of what is known as “The Mosaic Covenant” and the “Palestinian Covenant”.  But here we find a very significant difference between the nature of the first four, and indeed, the last two, covenants and these two  which we have just mentioned.  The six covenants referred to were all “UNCONDITIONAL” covenants.  By that we mean that the fulfilment of each of them did not depend in any sense upon conditions laid upon their recipients.  For instance, God did not say that He would make of Abraham’s descendants “A Great Nation and a Company of Nations” provided that they conformed to certain conditions.  God simply stated that He was going to do this whether they agreed with it or not, or whether they liked it or not.  There were no “ifs” or “buts” about it.  It was just going to happen.
The same sentiments apply to the last two covenants, the Davidic and the New Covenants, which we will study later.

But the two covenants which we will now study had very stringent conditions attached to them.

What God promised would only come to pass on the condition that the people and the nation as a whole obeyed the instructions which the Lord was about to reveal to them.  The situation was very simple and uncomplicated.  Just do what you’re told God’s Way and receive health and blessing, or do it your own way and receive disease and cursing, or evil.  These two covenants had nothing whatsoever to do with the setting up, and continual and everlasting existence, of God’s Kingdom.  But they had everything to do with the nation’s relationship with God, being established upon their obedience to God’s requirements.
So let us commence with a study of the fifth, or
 

             The Mosaic Covenant.

We read in Exodus 24:1-8;
 

“And he said unto Moses, Come up unto the LORD, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel; and worship ye afar off.
And Moses alone shall come near the LORD: but they shall not come nigh; neither shall the people go up with him.
And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do.
And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
And he sent young men of the children of Israel, which offered burnt offerings, and sacrificed peace offerings of oxen unto the LORD.
And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins; and half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.
And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.
And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said,
Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.”

Most Bible students will instantly recognise that this is what we refer to as “The Old Covenant”.   But we need to ask the question as to what were the terms to which the people agreed?
From the above statement, they were required to obey; “all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments.”

It was on the basis of the people keeping these laws and judgments that God made specific promises of the blessings which would automatically ensue.  They are set forth in verses 20 to 33 of the preceding chapter;
 

“Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.
Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.
And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.
There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.
I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”

The condition upon which God’s blessings were based was; "But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak”!!!
The blessing were absolutely conditional upon the peoples’ obedience.  Just look for a moment at what the Lord had promised to do, and perhaps what is more important, what He requires us to do.
Is it just coincidence that the major, in fact the ONLY requirement stated in the above, is the absolute necessity for us as a nation to avoid, at all costs, mixing ourselves in with the other nations?  Look again at these commands of the Lord;
 

• “Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works:
•  but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images.”
• “ . . .  and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
• Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
• They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.”

But what do we find?  Our leaders, both in the political and religious areas, have very deliberately, and very insidiously, accepted and implemented foreign laws and requirements by which we flout the prime and most basic of God’s Laws which require us to avoid like the plague even the very principle of the present system which is destroying us.  We have been forced to accept a system which is the very antithesis of what God so strenuously demanded, and upon which His blessings depend.   It is called;

 It is this anti-God system which has been the most destructive element in our modern times which has had such devastating effects upon our national relationship with our God!
 This does not mean that people from other races and nationalities are bad, but that we should not, under any circumstance, allow our Christian Heritage to be contaminated by being mixed with the slightest trace of their religious beliefs or customs.  I’ll wager that one would be hard pressed to find another country in the entire world which would allow us the same freedom to infiltrate their national culture as we do with ours.  All this talk about ‘discrimination’ is just a smoke screen to cover up the fact that it is actually the white Anglo-Saxon Christian nations that are being discriminated against, with the deliberate intention of ultimately destroying and obliterating us.
In order to realise how incredibly stupid we have been, just look briefly at the promises which we have forfeited by our disobedience.
 

• I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries

• I will bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee.

• There shall nothing cast their young, nor be barren, in thy land: the number of thy days I will fulfil.

• I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.

• And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.

Yet, despite these wonderful promises of blessing  -  and these only constitute a small portion of the entire blessings available to us  -  we still continue to totally disregard God’s Laws, Statutes, Commandments, and judgments, and then wonder how on earth we got into the position in which we find ourselves today.
Now all the above constitutes what is known as “The Old Covenant”.   It was not a perfect covenant, in that it had conditions attached to it, and the blessings it contained were entirely dependant upon the obedience or disobedience of one of the parties to it.  It was only intended by God to last for a certain period of time, after which it was to be replaced by a “New Covenant” which remove all the restraints of the Old Covenant.  We read of this in Hebrews 8:1-13;
 

“Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on 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 pitched, and not man.
For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices: wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer.  For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law: Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.
But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:
Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”

To summarise the situation, the conditions which applied under the terms of the Old Covenant will be removed, and this original “conditional” covenant will be replaced with one which will be totally unconditional.  This subject will be considered in the final series of our studies of God’s Covenants.

But there is one other aspect of this Old Covenant which is of the greatest importance.  You will have noticed that in the original account given of this covenant, as found in Exodus 24 verse 7, that there were some very well known words, namely;
 

“And he (Moses) took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Here in fact was the equivalent of what today we refer to a wedding ceremony.  Jehovah’s bride  -  for that is what Israel was now becoming - said, “I DO”, and promised to be obedient to her husband.  The fact that Israel was Jehovah’s wife is beyond argument, as we read in Jeremiah 31:31-32, which is part of the original statement repeated in Hebrews chapter 8 which we quoted above;
 

“Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:  Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake,  although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD.”

Let it be clearly understood.  The church is the body of Christ, NOT the Bride of Christ.  Christ, or Jehovah as we know Him to be, only ever had one wife, and she was Israel.  Israel is, and always was, and always will be, the Bride of Christ.  She was divorced because of adultery, having taken to herself other gods, who were reckoned by God as other husbands.  In doing this, she had rejected Jehovah both as her God and as her husband.  As her husband, Jehovah was obliged under the terms of His own laws to give her a “Bill of Divorcement” because of her ‘uncleanness’. But in accordance with His foreknowledge, God provided the terms, under His Law, under which a divorced wife could remarry.   The law relative to this situation was that the wife could not be re-married to her former husband after the death of her latter husband. We read in Deut. 24:1-4;
 

“When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.   And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man's wife.
And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; Her former husband, which sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for that is abomination before the LORD: and thou shalt not cause the land to sin, which the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

 But on Calvary, the former husband, in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ, died, and in so doing released Israel from the terms of the original sentence, enabling her to remarry.  Thus, as recorded in Hosea 2:19-20;
 

“And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies.  I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.”

Thus we see that despite anything which we would do as a nation, God has made such provision that not one word or promise of His Word will ever be nullified.  He knew right from the beginning exactly what His people would do. And knowing this, He provided for the situation from before the very foundation of the earth.
The Old, or Mosaic covenant may be “old”, but the understanding of it is essential to our overall understanding of the greatness and certainty of God’s Divine Purposes.
 

Please for quick link to next article in this Series.