Covenant – People of God

The People of the Covenant, Israel

We have seen the greater party of the covenant, God. Now we will look at the lesser party, man. By remembering the beginning of God’s relationship with man, it is realized that grace is given to build up a nation that knows God. We have talked about Genesis’ theme of preserving the seed so the curse and the devil can be defeated (Genesis 3:15). But not until the book of Exodus, does the nation of Israel play a prominent role.

Now, the reader sees real fruit to the promise God gave Abraham claiming that his descendants would become a great nation (Genesis 12:2). Even in the midst of slavery, the nation of Israel was kept in tact and grew to a large number under the oppression of Egypt (Exodus 1:7). But God did not leave his children as slaves; instead, he allowed them to experience this suffering to demonstrate He is the God of deliverance as Moses, one of the preserved seed in Genesis (Exodus 6:14-20) was raised up to lead Israel out of Captivity. God showed his great power to save by not only delivering from the power of sin to create a people but delivered from the power of the great nation of Egypt to create a people as He claims, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God (Exodus 6:7).”

Remember from earlier, in every covenant each party has their responsibility to uphold the covenant. After God demonstrates his grace and power by delivering Israel out of Egypt, God gives Israel their responsibility to the covenant and end of the bargain. Exodus 20-23 tells Israel how they should act as God’s people. Everything from their responsibility of loving God to loving each other is summarized throughout these chapters. In the later books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy God explains how the nation is to live righteously and deal with sin through the sacrificial system so that they may forever be the people of God.

One unfortunate cycle we see in Scripture is that man is always unfaithful to the covenant while God is faithful. Literally as God was giving Moses law for Israel to keep, Israel proved their unfaithfulness by building another god they could worship in place of the loving, true God that brought them out of Egypt (Exodus 32). This began a vicious cycle that Israel could never escape. God raised up types of saviors constantly in Israel’s history like judges, leaders, prophets, priests, and kings to deliver his people back to the covenant he made with Abraham and Moses, and Israel would repent for a while only to go back to their unfaithfulness of breaking the law of the covenant and worshiping other gods.

Because of their unfaithfulness, God constantly named Israel as rebellious. He called them a stiff necked people (Exodus 32:9) people who did right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25) an adulterous wife (Ezekiel 16:32) a people with a whoring heart (Ezekiel 6:9) a spoiled loincloth and a broken flask (Jeremiah 16:7-9 and 19:10-11). These are not flattering words anyone aspires to have written at their graveside, but it is exactly how God chooses to describe the people to whom he showed grace so many times. Israel was to be a “people, a name, a praise, and a glory (Jeremiah 16:9)” for the Lord, but they ruined their existence by their unfaithfulness.

Israel never turned from their unfaithfulness. Until the end of the Old Testament, God called them to return to the covenant through prophets. But sadly, Israel never had an ear to hear.

 The Fulfillment- People of the Covenant

Not only is Jesus the God of the Covenant, but he is the People of the Covenant. Jesus being both God and man is one of the great mysteries of Christianity, but yet it is taught that Jesus fulfilled the requirement of an Israelite under the covenant to gain the inheritance of God. Matthew constantly portrays Jesus as true Israel as he shows Jesus’ life walks through the history of Israel. Jesus was the offspring of Abraham and David like Israel (1:1) Jesus was rescued from Egypt like Israel (2:13) Jesus experienced temptation in the wilderness like Israel (ch. 4) Jesus gave the Law from the Mountain as did Moses to Israel (ch. 5-7). The reader can see that in every major milestone in Israel’s formation, Jesus experienced the same life. But when Israel was formed they failed to fulfill the law, Jesus said on the other hand, “I do not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfill them (Mt. 5:17)”

Any reading of the Old or New Testament that sees fulfillment in the People of God outside of Jesus is inadequate.