The Book of the Covenant vs. The Book of the Law? - 119 Ministries

[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to another teaching from 119 ministries our ministry believes that the whole Bible is still true and directly related to our lives today if you would like to know more about what we believe in teach please visit us and test everything net we hope that you enjoy studying and testing the following teaching [Music] [Music] if you have been following our ministry for a long you know that a major focus of ours is the validity of God's law that is the Torah we believe that God's commandments like the Sabbath feast days dietary laws and even seat seats are still meant for God's people today and many of our teachings are devoted to defending this position while our teachings address common questions and arguments from mainstream Christianity which objects to the validity of some parts of God's law recently the ability of God's law is being attacked from a different angle a fringe segment of the Messianic and Hebrew roots community teaches that we must accept our new revelation concerning God's law what is this new revelation basically according to some God's original plan was that his people were only to follow the commands that are found in what they call the book of the Covenant what do they mean by the book of the Covenant well when Israel received God's law the Torah at Mount Sinai it is taught that they were originally only to receive the commands contained in the book of the Covenant it is said that the book of the Covenant begins with the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20 and ends when the Covenant is ratified at Exodus 24 verse 8 Exodus 24 verses 7 through 8 then he Moses took the book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people and they said all that yahweh has spoken we will do and we will be obedient and moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said behold the blood of the Covenant that Yahweh has made with you in accordance with all these words it should be noted that some proponents of this theory for no exegetical or logical reason suggest that this book of the Covenant actually begins in Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and goes to Exodus 24 verses 7 through 8 but in either case the natural question upon hearing this theory is what about all the rest of the commandments in Exodus through Deuteronomy according to those who hold this particular doctrine the rest of those Commandments are part of a separate law code called the book of the law it is then taught the book of the law was added to the book of the Covenant as punishment for Israel making the golden calf in Exodus 32 one of the proof texts used to support this comes from Galatians 3:19 why then the law it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary it has asserted that Paul was referring to a specific transgression in this verse namely the building of the golden calf and Exodus 32 thus it is argued that the book of the law was not part of God's original plan it was added as punishment for the golden calf and was taken away when Yeshua died on the cross for more information on what Paul actually meant in Galatians chapter 3 verse 19 see our Pauline paradox series part 5 focusing on Galatians moving Ford proponents of this theory also suggests that the entire Levitical priests Lea system was established as a result of the Golden Calf incident in Exodus 32 and therefore not part of God's original plan it is said that Yeshua polish and Levitical priesthood and restored the MacIsaac priesthood it is taught that all followers of Yeshua are no Mekhi Zedeck priests and we are to only keep the commands contained in the book of the Covenant why because that was the original covenant to which we are called before he forfeited this calling by making the golden calf in summary it is taught that God's commandments contained in what's called the book of the law in addition to the entire Levitical priests lis system were added as a punishment they were temporary into Messiah would come and now that Yeshua came those extra commandments are abolished and the MacIsaac priesthood has replaced the Levitical priesthood so what's the logic of this new revelation why do some people seem to buy into this it seems to be an attempt at reconciling the difficult passages in the New Testament that seemed to speak against God's law any time the New Testament seems to say that the law is done away with or burdensome or temporary proponents of this theory can merely assert that those verses are talking about the book of the law which they say is distinct from the book of the Covenant and that is exactly what they do according to those who hold to this theory all the verses in the New Testament that speak positively about the law are referring to the book of the Covenant and the few verses that seem to speak negatively about the law are referring to the book of the law the implications of believe in this theory are quite serious if someone believes that the commands contained in the book of the law are done away with they might think that they really gist justification for sinning against God by rejecting some of his Commandments for example according to how God's commandments are divided by those who hold to this theory wearing seat seats and observing yom kippur or in the book of the law but not in the book of the Covenant therefore the commands to observe were in seat seat and observing Yom Kippur have been abolished according to those who hold to this theory now that we've given a summary of this particular theory here are some reasons we can safely conclude that the Bible simply doesn't support it number one the Bible never makes a clear distinction between the book of the Covenant and the book of the law in fact the opposite is true the entire basis for this theory is that there is apparently a distinction between the book of the Covenant and the book of the law again according to the proponents of this theory the book of the Covenant ends at Exodus 24 verse 8 and so the book of the law would be all of God's commandments found from Exodus 24 verse 9 till the end of Deuteronomy the problem however is that the Scriptures themselves never make this distinction the distinction is already assumed by the proponents of this theory and then read back into the scriptures this can be proven when we see that Scripture in fact uses the two title synonymously consider the passage from 2nd chronicles 34 while they were bringing out the money that had been brought into the house of Yahweh Akaya the priests found the book of the law of Yahweh given through Moses then Hal Chaya answered and said to shap and the secretary ayah found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh and he'll kaya gave the book to shap shap ham brought the book to the king and further reported to the king all that was committed to your servants they are doing they have emptied out the money that was found in the house of Yahweh and have given it into the hand of the overseers and the workman then shap and the secretary told the King al-qaida the priest has given me a book a chef and read from it before the king and when the King heard the words of the law he tore his clothes and the king commanded Hal kaya he camp the son of shaphan abdon the son of Micah Shep and the secretary Messiah the Kings servant saying go inquire of Yahweh for me and for those who are left in Israel and in Judah concerning the words of the book that has been found for great is the wrath of Yahweh that is poured out on us because our fathers have not kept a word of Yahweh to do according to all that is written in this book in this passage we see that during the time of King Josiah priests Hal kaya had found the book of the law in the house of Yahweh when the book was given to King Josiah he tore his clothes because he realized that Israel had not been keeping God's commandments so King Josiah assembled the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to read the book to them in verses 29 through 30 we see something interesting then they came sent and gathered together all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem and the king went up to the house of Yahweh with all the men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites all the people both great and small and he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the Covenant that had been found in the house of Yahweh here we see that the same book of the law that was found in the house of the Lord by Hal kaya the priest is later referred to as the book of the Covenant in response to this point proponents of this theory have typically said that the passage is referring to two different books but there is nothing in the text that would indicate that two different books were found it's clear from the passage that only one book is being referred to furthermore why would Josiah read one book Tara's closed because Israel had not been keeping God's commandments as recorded in the book that he read and then assembled the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to read them a completely different book it just doesn't make any sense but that's what this theory would have you believe this point alone is sufficient to demonstrate that this theory is utterly unbiblical but this is just the beginning number two the priesthood was given to Aaron and his sons before the sin of the golden calf since the crux of this theory rests on the idea that the book of the law including the Levitical priesthood was added as punishment for the sin of the golden calf if we can prove that these Commandments were given before the Golden Calf incident then the entire theory falls apart what do we see in the scriptures according to Exodus 28 we see that it was God's intention to give the priesthood to Aaron and his sons even before the sin of the golden calf in Exodus 32 Exodus 28 then bring near to you Aaron your brother and his sons with him from among the people of Israel to serve me as priests Aaron and Aaron's sons native and Abihu Eleazar and Ithamar this verse alone proves that the establishment of the Levitical priesthood was not added as a punishment for the Golden Calf incident but was in fact part of God's original plan before we go further it might be helpful to determine the origin of this idea that the Levitical priesthood was added as a result of the Golden Calf incident proponents of this theory will often point to Exodus 32 verses 25 through 29 as proof of their claims this passage is right after Moses comes back down from the mountain and confronts Aaron about the golden calf and when Moses saw that the people had broken loose for Aaron had let them break loose to the derision of their enemies then Moses stood and the gate of the camp and said who is on Yahweh's side come to me and all the sons of Levi gathered around him and he said to them thus says Yahweh God of Israel put your sword on your side each of you and go to and fro from gate to gate throughout the camp and each of you kill his brother and his companion and his neighbor and the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and that day about three thousand men of the people fell and Moses said today you have been ordained for the service of Yahweh each one at the cost of his son and his brother so that he might bestow a blessing upon you this day this passage is used as a proof text to support the claim that God established a Levitical priesthood after the sin of the golden calf because it says that the sons of Levi were ordained that day but to clear up some confusion is helpful to keep in mind that all priests are Levites that is from the tribe of Levi but not all Levites are priests priests are only the sons of Aaron the Levite served as helpers to the priests but they were not priests themselves it could perhaps be said that the Levites were a deigned for this service after the sin of the golden calf but that wouldn't have been the official establishment of the Levitical priesthood if anything it would only be the establishment of the priestly helpers to the sons of Aaron and again Aaron and his sons were established as priests before the sin of the golden calf proponents of this theory often respond to this point by simply asserting that some parts of the Torah weren't written in chronological order in other words it has taught that Exodus 20:8 happened after Exodus 32 if so God's calling of Aaron and his sons as priests took place after the Golden Calf incident the promise that this assertion is never backed up and when we read the transition between the end of exodus 31 18 which is right after God gives Moses many Commandments concerning that tabernacle and priesthood and the beginning of Exodus 32 it's clear that the entire section is logical first let's look at Exodus 31 18 right before we get into the story of the golden calf and he gave to Moses when he had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai the two tablets of the testimony tablets of stone written with the finger of God this verse tells us that Moses is still on top of the mountain as God gives him Commandments concerning that tabernacle and priesthood which included Exodus 20:8 the coin of Aaron and his sons as Levitical priests and we also see that Moses is given the two stone tablets the very next verse tells us that Moses is still on the mountain as the Golden Calf incident occurs Exodus 32 when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him up make us gods who shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him when we skip down to verse 15 of Exodus 32 we see Moses coming down from the mountain with the stone tablets the Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand tablets that were written on both sides on the front and on the back they were written as we can see the entire section here is chronological since this entire theory rest on these Commandments being given as a result of the sin of the golden calf this must be addressed the only possible argument that could be made is that the commands given throughout X's 25 through 31 are now what Moses received when he was on the mountain but this argument is flawed because the narrative picks up in Exodus 32 with Moses coming down from the mountain what was he doing on the mountain if not receiving the commandments given in Exodus 25 through 31 why would the tour be written in such a confusing way every indication from the text is that the entire section is chronological there is much more we could say on this topic but these two points are the pillars holding this entire theory together and as we've seen these pillars have crumbled when tested again scripture and simple logic in conclusion if proponents of this theory want to convince us that their claims are valid they must first be able to clearly demonstrate a biblical distinction between what they call the book of the Covenant and the book of the law not just in theory but through actual biblical exegesis secondly they must be able to biblically demonstrate a causal relationship between the sin of the golden calf and God's commandments given throughout the rest of Exodus through the end of Deuteronomy until they make an actual biblical case for these claims there is no reason to take this theory seriously we pray that you have been blessed by this teaching and remember continue to test everything Shalom [Music] it is because of you our generous supporters who make it possible to offer these high-quality teachings completely free of charge if you feel led to support 119 ministries so that we can continue this effort please visit test everything dotnet and click on the support 119 tab learn how you can partner with us to take the whole Word of God to the nation's [Music] you [Music]

Channel: 119Ministries

Views: 23,877

Rating: 4.7133956 out of 5

Keywords: BoC vs BoL, Galatians 3:19, Exodus 24:7-8, Exodus 31, Exodus 32, 2 Chronicles 24, Exodus 28, The book of the covenant, book of the law, covenant, law, torah, moses, the law of moses, hebraic, hebrew roots, messianic

Id: 18lIl4PZFqU

Length: 17min 59sec (1079 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018