Notes: Sect. 5. — The Covenant of Grace, under the Mosaic Dispensation.
Notes: Sect. 5. — The Covenant of Grace, under the Mosaic Dispensation.
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The church was in her minority under the law, Gal. 4.1-3.
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From the death he had deserved by his sin.
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That is, the penalty for his sin under the Law.
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Typically.
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“The mystical signification of the sacrifices, and especially this rite, some think the apostle means by the doctrine of ‘laying on of hands,’ Heb. 6.2, which typified evangelical faith.” Henry on Lev. 1.4. It is evident that the offerer, by laying his hand on the head of the sacrifice, legally united with it; he laid his sin, or transferred his guilt upon it, in a typical or ceremonial way, Lev. 16.21; the substance and truth of which ceremonial action plainly appears to be faith, or believing on Jesus Christ, which for its own part, is the soul’s assenting to, and acquiescing in, the glorious device of “the Lord’s laying on him the iniquities of us all,” Isa. 53.6.
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That is, they saw themselves, as condemned in themselves by the holy law.
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2Cor 5:21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
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That is, as an absolute God apart from Christ, but always as a God in Christ.
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To Christ, by faith.
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It stood, at first, on man’s own obedience: which ground quickly failed: then it came to Christ, where it stood firm, Gen. 3.15. It (namely, ‘‘the seed of the woman”) “shall bruise your head,” namely: the serpent’s head.
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“Faith presenting to his view at all times the great angel of the covenant, God the Son, the Redeemer of him and Israel.” Suppl. Poole’s Annot. on the Text.
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“Christ — being put to death in the flesh,” 1Pet. 3.18.
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1Cor 11.26.
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Chiefly; in so far as, in that dispensation of the Covenant of Grace, the promises of earthly blessings were chiefly insisted on; and the promises of spiritual blessings and salvation more sparingly.
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“There are not, therefore, two covenants of grace, differing in substance; but one and the same under various dispensations.” Westm. Confess., chap. 7, art. 6. And their Covenant of Grace, confirmed by the sprinkling of blood, Exo. 24; Heb. 9.19, 20 (which covenant they broke, by their unbelief frustrating the manner in which it was administered to them) was given to them when the Lord had led them out of Egypt, and at Sinai too, as well as the Ten Commandments delivered to them as the Covenant of Works. This is evident from Exo. 20.1-17, compared with Deu. 5.2-22, and Exo. 20.20, 21, compared with chap, 24.3-8. See page 68, note.
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Not in a strict and proper sense, as that, upon the performance of which the right and title to the benefits of the covenant are founded and pleaded; as perfect obedience was the condition of the Covenant of Works. Christ’s fulfilling of the law, by his obedience and death, is the only condition of the Covenant of Grace in that sense. But in a large and improper sense, as that whereby one accepts and embraces the covenant and the proper condition of it, and is savingly interested in Jesus Christ, the head of the covenant. “The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provides and offers to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by him; and requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him,” etc. Larg. Cat. quest. 32.
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That is a type, he being to them a typical Mediator.
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The obedience of the believing Jews.
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That is, in the sense of our author, not as the Covenant of Works, but of the twofold notion or consideration under which the Ten Commandments were delivered from Mount Sinai. See page 55, note.
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From an atoned God in Christ, binding them to obedience with the strongest ties, arising from their creation and redemption jointly; but not with the bond of the curse, binding them over to eternal death in case of transgression, as the law or Covenant of Works does with those who are under it, Gal. 3.10. The mercy-seat was the cover of the ark, and both the one and the other types of Christ. Within the ark, under the cover of it, were the tablets of the law laid up. Thus was the throne of grace, which could not have stood on mere mercy, firmly established in Jesus Christ; according to Psalm 89.14, “Justice and judgment are the habitation [marg. “establishment”] of your throne.” The word properly signifies a base, supporter, stay, or foundation, on which a thing stands firm, Ezra 2.68, and 3.3; Psalm 104.5. ‘The sense is, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 89.19, justice satisfied, and judgment fully executed in the person of the Mediator, are the foundation and base which your throne of grace stands upon.
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Namely, the promissory and penal sanction of eternal life and death, in which God’s truth was engaged.
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Man’s part was his consenting to the terms set before him by his Creator.
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That Is, to bring us to Christ, as we read it with the supplement.
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As the Covenant of Works; so the author uses that term here, as it is used, Larg. Cat. quest. 93, above cited.
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Broken under the sense of guilt, the curse of the law, and their utter inability to help themselves by doing or suffering.
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Christ’s satisfying the law for sinners by his obedience and death, being the great lesson taught by the ceremonial law, which was the gospel written in plain characters to those whose eyes were opened.
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Appropriating and applying to themselves by faith Christ’s satisfaction held forth and exhibited to them in these divine ordinances.
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Both in time and eternity.
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Which were of that nation, according to Gen. 21.12, “In Isaac shall your seed be called.” And chap, 28.13, “I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; I will give to you the land on which you lie, and to your seed.”
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The author does not make the covenant at Horeb distinct from that at Sinai; for he takes Horeb and Sinai for one and the same mountain, according to the Holy Scriptures, Exo. 19.20, compared with Deu. 5.2; and therefore, because the text speaks of this covenant in the land of Moab as another covenant beside that in Horeb, he infers that it was not the same; not the Covenant of Works delivered on Mount Sinai, otherwise called Horeb. And howbeit there are but two covenants containing the only two ways to happiness, the author cannot, on that account, be justly blamed for distinguishing this covenant from them both, unless temporal blessings do make men happy — which blessings, with curses of the same kind, he takes to be the form of this covenant.
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Deu. 27.26, “Cursed be he that does not confirm all the words of this law, to do them.” Compare Gal. 3.10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse;” for it is written, “Cursed is every one that does not continue in all things written in the book of the law, to do them.”
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See Deu. 28 throughout. Chap. 29.9, “Keep, therefore, the words of this covenant, and do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.” And here ends a great section of the law.
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Dehortation: dissuasion; an exhortation against a course of action.
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Not a saving interest in the Lord Jesus Christ by faith.
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Not considering the great sin of unbelief; and that the wrath of God, due to them for disobedience, may be averted by their fleeing to Christ for refuge.
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For the more eminent saints in the Old Testament times are to be excepted, such as David and others.
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Having but a small measure of knowledge of the celestial paradise, the eternal inheritance, and of the Covenant of Grace (the divine disposition containing their right to it) they could not yield obedience freely, in the measure that sons do who have come of age, and know well their own privileges; but only as little children who, in some measure, yield obedience freely, namely, in proportion to the knowledge of these things; but (that measure being very small) they must also be drawn to obedience by motives of a lower kind. And the apostle plainly teaches this in Gal. 4.1-5. Compare Westm. Confess., chap. 20, art 1, “The liberty of Christians is further enlarged, in fuller communications of the free Spirit of God, than believers under the law ordinarily partook of.”
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Promises and threatenings concerning things temporal.
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By fear of punishment and hope of reward.
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That is, God’s fatherly anger, whereby temporal judgments fall on his own people.
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By virtue of the Covenant of Grace which they were under.
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By virtue of the Covenant of Works which they were under.
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The author does not say of believers under the Old Testament, simply and without any qualification, that they “yield obedience to the law, without fear of punishment or hope of reward,” as if he minded to assert that they were not at all moved to their obedience by these; the scope of these words is to teach just the contrary. Compare page 78. But on good grounds he affirms that “accountable to their faith, their obedience was yielded freely, without fear of punishment or hope of reward.” And thus, the freeness of their obedience always bearing proportion to the measure of their faith, the greater measure of faith any Old Testament saint had attained, his obedience was less influenced by fear of punishment or hope of reward; and the smaller his measure of faith was, his obedience was accordingly more influenced by these; those who had no saving faith at all, were moved to obedience only by fear of punishment or hope of reward; and the meanest saint’s faith, once perfected by the beatific vision in heaven, these altogether ceased to be motives for obedience to him, though he does not cease to obey from the strongest and most powerful motives. And thus the apostle John teaches concerning love which flows from faith, 1John 4.18, “Perfect love casts out fear, because fear has torment; he that fears is not made perfect in love.” The more there is of the one, still less there is of the other. In the meantime, according to our author, the measure of faith in most believers under the Old Testament was very small (and the strongest faith was imperfect); and the servile and childish disposition which moves to obedience from fear of punishment and hope of reward, was very strong in them. Gal. 4.1-5; therefore, as they stood in need of such inducement and constraint, there could not fail to be a great mixture of the influence of fear of punishment and hope of reward in their obedience.
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Mechilta: (Aramaic, lit. “the Compendium”); a text of exegesis on the Book of Exodus compiled in the era of the Mishnah, during the third century.
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That is, according to their own exposition.
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To do any work of the Moral Law rightly.
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Namely, of the Jews in general.
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That is, having in himself a fulness of righteousness, answering the law to the utmost extent of its demands; as the sun has a fulness of light.
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Therefore, they are called by the apostle, the “ministration of death, written and engraven on stones,” 2Cor. 3.7. Now, it is evident that the Ten Commandments are not the ministration of death, but the Covenant of Works. And, as such, they were given to Moses to be laid up in the ark, to signify the fulfilling of them by Jesus Christ alone, and the removing of that covenant-form from them, as to believers; and so they served to drive sinners out of themselves to Christ.
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That is, this is the mystery of that typical event.
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When they should be driven out of themselves to Jesus Christ by it.
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As the Covenant of Works.
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And so they completely perverted the great end of the giving of the law to them.
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2Cor 3.14. or “remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament.”
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The history of the veil on Moses’ face, is famous in the Old Testament, and the mystery of it in the New. The former, as I gather from the words of the inspired penman, Exo. 34 stands thus briefly. There was a shining glory on the face of Moses in the Mount; but he himself did not know it while God spoke with him there, ver. 29, and that was by reason of the excelling divine glory, 2Cor. 3.10; Gr. even as the light of a candle is darkened before the shining sun: but when “Moses, having come forth from the excelling glory, was coming down from the Mount, with the tablets in his hand, his face shone so as to send forth rays like horns,” Exo. 34.29, 30, so that he could not help but be conscious of it. “Aaron and all the people perceiving Moses returning to them, went to meet him; but seeing an astonishing glory in his countenance, which they were not able to look at, they were afraid, and retired,” ver. 30, 31. But Moses called to them to return, and he goes into the tabernacle whereupon the multitude not daring to return for all this, Aaron and the princes alone return to him, being now in the tabernacle, ver. 31, the middle part of which, I think, is to be read thus, “And Aaron and all the princes returned to him in the testimony,” i.e., in the tabernacle of the testimony as it is called in chap 38.21; Rev. 15.5. From out of the tabernacle Moses speaks to them, ordering (it would seem) the people to be gathered together to that place, ver. 31, 32. The people being convened at the tabernacle, he preached to them all that he had received from the Lord on the Mount, ver. 32. But in the meantime, none of them saw his face because the tabernacle which he was in, served as a veil to it. Having finished speaking, he puts a veil over his face, and comes out to them, ver. 33. Marg. Heb. “And Moses ceased from speaking with them, and put a veil on his face.” Compare ver. 34, “But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with them, he took the veil off until he came out.”
The mystery of this typical event the apostle treats in 2Cor. 3. The shining glory of Moses’ face did not prefigure or signify the glory of Christ; for “the glory of the Lord Christ,” ver. 18, is evidently opposed to the glory of Moses’ countenance, ver. 7, and the open (or uncovered) face of the former, ver. 18 (as Vetablus seems to me to rightly understand it) to the veiled face of the latter, ver. 13. The glory of the one is beheld as in a mirror, ver. 18, the sight of the face itself being reserved for heaven; but the glory of the face of the other was not to be beheld at all, being veiled. But that glory signified the glory of the law given to the Israelites, as the Covenant of Works, the glory of the ministration of death, ver. 7, agreeable to what the author tells us from Tyndale, namely, that Moses’ face is the law rightly understood. This Mosaic glory, while it was most fresh, was darkened by the excelling glory of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, ver. 18, compared with Exo. 34.29, however, revealing it to sinners makes their hearts tremble; they are not able to bear it. That glorious form of the law must be hidden in Christ the true tabernacle, and from there only must the law come to them, or else they are not able to receive it; though before that revelation is made to them, they are ready to embrace the law under that form, as the people were ready to receive Moses with the tablets in his hands, till they found themselves unable to bear the shining glory of his face. The veil which Moses put on his face, keeping the Israelites from beholding the glory of it, signifies that their minds were blinded, ver. 14, not perceiving the glory of the law given to them as a Covenant of Works. And hence it was “that the children of Israel did not fasten their eyes, Luke 4.20; Acts 3.4, on [Christ] the end of that which is abolished,” 2Cor. 3.13, Gr. for had they seen the purpose of that glory, they would have fastened their eyes on him, as a malefactor at the stake would fix his eyes on the face of one bringing a remission. And that is the veil that is upon Moses’ face, and their hearts to this day, ver. 14, 15, which nevertheless, in the Lord’s appointed time, shall be taken away, ver. 16.