The Covenant of Sinai

 

George Martin Ophoff

 

 

[Source: The Standard Bearer, vol. 28, no. 10 (February 15, 1952), pp. 234-235]

 

 

1. The covenant at Sinai was the covenant of grace.  It was thus the very covenant that the Lord established with our first parents right after the fall when He said, “I will set enmity ...,” the very covenant that He established with Noah and later with Abraham as the father of all believers. The truth of this statement is born out by the fact that the promise by which the Lord bound Himself to the people of Israel first in Egypt, later at Sinai, was in the final instance the promise not of things symbolical-typical—typical salvation and the typical rest of Canaan—but the realities signified by these typical things—Christ and His redemption and the true rest of the new earth where God’s tabernacle will be with men.

 

Let us now show that the covenant at Sinai was the true covenant of grace be it with a typical form and ministration.

 

The proof of this is that the promise by which the Lord bound Himself to Abraham and his seed and again to Abraham’s seed at Sinai was in the final in­stance the promise, not of things typical—typical salvation and the typical rest of the earthy Canaan—but of the realities signified by those typical things—Christ and His redemption and the true rest of the new earth where God’s tabernacle will be with men.

 

Let us show how true this is of God’s promise to Abraham. The land that the Lord promised him was in the first instance the earthy land of Canaan. Fact is that this is the only land that the Lord ever spake to him about directly. Let us quote the Scriptures here.

 

Now the Lord said unto Abraham, Get thee out of thy country … unto a land that I will show thee (Gen. 12:1).

 

And the Lord said unto Abraham after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward and southward and eastward and west­ward (Gen. 13:14).

 

In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river ... (Gen. 15:18).

 

I will give unto thee and to thy seed after thee the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession (Gen. 17:8).

 

In all these Scripture passages the good thing promised directly and in the first instance is the earthy Canaan. Yet the Scriptures at Hebrews 11:16 assert that Abraham desired and sought and thus embraced the promise of a country that was heavenly. The passage reads, “And now they desire a better, that is, an heavenly country …” It can mean but one thing, namely, that the earthy Canaan as peopled by Abraham’s seed was a prophetic type of the new and heavenly earth, so that on this account the Lord in promising Abraham and His seed the earthy was at once and in the final instance promising him the heavenly.

 

And so it was and must have been with the promises by which God bound Himself to Abraham’s seed at Sinai, when He said to this seed: “I am the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage.” This likewise is a typical promise holding forth things that were typi­cal, namely, a typical deliverance and a typical rest in a land—the earthy Canaan—that was typical, so that in promising this seed—Abraham’s seed—these good things, the Lord was at once promising it the realities of which these things were the prophetic type, to wit: Christ and all the heavenly benefits of His cross—the true redemption from sin and life with God and the new earth.

 

Thus, what the Lord was saying to His people there at Sinai in the final instance is verily this: I am the Lord thy God, the God of thy salvation in Christ Jesus. As in my love of thee I delivered thee from the bondage of Egypt and will enter with thee into the rest of a typical Canaan, so will I in Christ and for His sake and on the ground of His atonement de­liver thee from all thy sins and enter with thee into My rest—the rest of the new Earth and that remaineth for thee, my people.

 

How true it is, therefore, that the covenant at Sinai was the true covenant of grace indeed, be it with a symbolical-typical form and ministration. And how clear it is again that this covenant included, could in­clude, only the Israel, the seed of Abraham, according to the election. For how could the Lord be saying also to the Israel according to reprobation: “I am the Lord thy God, the God of thy salvation in Christ. For Christ's sake and on the ground of His atonement I delivered thee from all thy sins and give thee all things in Christ.” This is impossible. How could the Lord not be guilty of being unfaithful to His promise with regard to the reprobated seed of Abraham, if it were true that He bound Himself also to this seed by such a promise. But the Lord was not unfaithful to His promise. For the promise was given only to the children of the promise in the sense that only to these children did the promise actually promise salvation. For according to the Scriptures at Rom. 9:8, “they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted for the seed.” At verse 11 these children of the promise are identified with the elect. The verse reads: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth.”

 

That in the final instance the Lord at Sinai was binding Himself to Abraham and to his elect seed also of the old dispensation by the promise of Christ and His heavenly salvation is also clear from Gal. 3:16, a passage which reads: “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, and seeds, as to many: but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ.”

 

Thus, the promises were made to Abraham and, let us take notice, to Christ; and certainly they were the same promises. Now what did these promises hold forth to Christ? And the answer: Victory over sin and death and hell and the world, and heavenly glory. This same good the promises therefore must have held forth also to Abraham. For they were the same promises common both to Abraham and to Christ.  This again proves that in saying to Abraham, “I will give thee this land”—the earthy land of Canaan as occupied by his seed 400 years thereafter, the Lord thereby was indeed promising the patriarch the new earth. Thus Abraham did also very actually receive that land (of Canaan) which during his lifetime he dwelt in tents—received that land as an eternal pos­session, that land, not however in its earthy but in its glorified state.

 

The apostle continues (next verse): “And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after did not disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.”

 

Indeed, this promise abode—this promise of the Christ and of all the spiritual benefits of his cross— the promise given to Abraham and to Christ and, to be sure, in the first instance to Christ and not to Abra­ham. It abode, did this promise, to be bestowed anew on Abraham’s elect and spiritual seed at Mt. Sinai, and to this seed only. For certainly the promise can only be given to Christ and only to all such includ­ed in Christ by God’s sovereign and eternal election.

 

In fine, the covenant of Sinai was certainly the covenant of grace, and second it included, could in­clude, only the elect, the spiritual seed of Abraham.