Gal 3:15-18 Two Covenants

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Two Covenants

Gal 3:15-18

Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.

Notice how Paul's interpretation concerning "seed" depends upon a grammatical detail. This is the extent to which we can rely on the accuracy of the scriptures, where details matter. The singularity of the "seed" implies a singular category - namely those who are in Christ. For those Jews and Gentiles who are not in Christ, this covenant does not apply. "Commencing with Gen 3:15, the word "seed" is regularly used as a collective noun in the singular (never plural). This technical term is an important aspect of the promise doctrine, for Hebrew never uses the plural of this root to refer to "posterity" or "offspring." ... Thus the word designates the whole line of descendants as a unit, yet it is deliberately flexible enough to denote either one person who epitomizes the whole group (i.e. the man of promise and ultimately Christ), or the many persons in that whole line of natural and/or spiritual descendants." Theological Wordbook of the Old Testment, Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1980.

When did the Abrahamic covenant end? It never did. It was the covenant of grace applied to all believers up to the present day. Consider for example King David committed murder and adultery. Under the Law of Moses he was to be put to death. So under what agreement was he forgiven? While being under the curse of the Law, he was also under the covenant of grace. What is called "The New Covenant" is actually a fulfillment of the promise spoken to Abraham, and in this sense the New Covenant precedes the Old.

Thirdly note the concept of "precedent", a concept which is commonly used both by Jesus and the New Testament authors and is even applied in courts of law today. In this case with regards to salvation the precedent of the covenant of grace could not be overridden by the covenant of the law. That is, it was the promise of the imputation of  righteousness being  a function of faith was prior to the idea of salvation by works.

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources

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