About Covenant
So many are saying " Don't you realise that we are living under the New Covenant now and shouldn't be keeping the sabbath?"
No one can deny that there are Old Testament statements which refer to the Ten Commandments as a covenant; however, it will be our purpose here to show that the Ten-Commandment law was not the Old Covenant which was abolished.
What is a covenant?
There are many types and forms, but basically a covenant is an agreement between two parties based upon mutual promises. All through the centuries God has dealt with His people on the basis of covenants. He is a reasonable God, and he invites, "Come now, and let us reason together." Isaiah 1:18.
One covenant between the Father and the Son has not changed. Jesus offered Himself there in the vast eternity of the past as the "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8. He agreed to become the atoning sacrifice to redeem man, should Adam and Eve choose to sin.
The terms of that eternal covenant have never been changed or superseded. Although many other covenants have been established through the years, the simple provision of salvation through faith has remained in effect through all ages, for all mankind.
The covenant which has caused the most misunderstanding, though, is designated as "the Old Covenant" by the writer of Hebrews. He also describes the institution of a new covenant which has some very important advantages over the old. Here is how he describes the two:
Heb 8:6 "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: ... 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." Hebrews 8:6-13.
From what you have read so far how do you justify that the 10 commandments are not part of the new or are gone altogether?
