A covenant is a promise. Did God cancel His first promise?

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.

turbosixx

Active member
Sep 16, 2023
541
123
43
#41
Scripture tells us in Hebrews 8:13: By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Does this mean that God has broken his first promise?
The law didn't effect the promise.
17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 18 For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.
 

Soyeong

Active member
Oct 11, 2023
779
93
28
#42
You bring up a good point of discussion: words with multiple meanings. Such words exist in the Old and New Testaments.
Eternal is one such word. It can mean "until the end of the age" or "from age to age" or "from age to age for endless ages". It can also define the origin of another thing like saying "southern sandwich". The origin of the sandwich, or at least its character, is derived from a place in the south. "Eternal life" for example, originates in "eternity" and it also possesses the characteristics of eternity: it's a life that was eternally in God and a life that will never pass away.

World is like this. We know that we are to be like God. we are told "God so loved the world" but then we are told "Love not the world". Same word. One, we know to mean people, the other, we know to mean systems.

And here's the catch: in order to know the meaning of the these types of words one must know the One who wrote them. This requires revelation by the spirit in us from the Spirit who wrote the words. A doctorate in etymology will not help you know God. Revelation, the Holy Spirit to man's spirit, is the only way.

For example, if you found a letter written by my wife to me and you had it examined by the most prestigious language professors in the world and they concluded that my wife meant "thus and such" by her letter BUT then I read the letter and I say "No, she does not mean "thus and such", she means "this". Who will you believe? Well, you should believe the one who knows my wife the best: me. I know her idiosyncrasies, her desires, the pattern of her words and so on. No amount of education in language can help you know my
wife.


Where people go wrong with doctrine is that they only know the words and not the One who wrote them. This has cause 1000's of variations of belief to spawn from one book.

That's enough for now.
I agree that the Hebrew word used can refer to either to "eternal" or to "an extended period of time", so the easy way to tell which is which is whether we should consider God's promises in connection with the Mosaic Covenant to be eternal or temporary. The Hebrews word "yada" refers to "intimate relational knowledge gained through experience", such as in Genesis 4:1, Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know (yada) Him, so again, should be consider God's way and the way to know God to be eternal or temporary? And should followers of God walk in His way? The Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between Israel and the God of Israel, so the purpose of the Mosaic Law is to teach the nations how to know God.
 

Soyeong

Active member
Oct 11, 2023
779
93
28
#43
It’s hard to read and really hear Galatians 3 for some because of this

“and not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: but their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament;

which vail is done away in Christ.

But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.”
‭‭2 Corinthians‬ ‭3:13-15‬ ‭KJV‬‬

if I’m convinced what Moses said is Gods word spoken to me ….it’s going to be really hard for me to hear what God is really saying
The veil was preventing them from seeing that the goal of everything in Scripture is to testify about how to know Jesus, which is a veil that works both ways by preventing many Christians from seeing the same thing. In John 5:46, Jesus asked if they don't believe what Moses wrote, the how can we believe what he said?
 

Soyeong

Active member
Oct 11, 2023
779
93
28
#44
2 Corinthians 3:6 - who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

In Jeremiah 31:33, the New Covenant involves God putting God's law in our minds and writing it on our hearts. In Ezekiel 36:26-27, the Spirit has the role of leading us to obey God's law. In Deuteronomy 30:11-20, it says that God's law is not too difficult to obey and obedience to it brings life and a blessing while disobedience brings death and a curse. Moreover, there are many other verses that repeatedly say that obedience to it brings like, include Jesus saying that obedience to the greatest two commandments is the way to inherit eternal life (Luke 10:25-28), so 2 Corinthian 3:6 needs to be understood in a way that is in accordance with these other verses rather than a way that is contrary to them.
 

p_rehbein

Senior Member
Sep 4, 2013
30,411
6,647
113
#45
Scripture tells us in Hebrews 8:13: By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Does this mean that God has broken his first promise?
OLD STUFF. TRUTH DOES NOT CHANGD. JESUS FULFILLED THE 1ST, AND ESTABLISHED THE NEW. IT WAS THE UNBELIEVING JEWS WHO BROKE THE 1ST BY REJECTING JESUS AS THE MESSIAH.

THE 1ST WAS NOT FOR SALVATION, THE NEW IS.
 

studentoftheword

Well-known member
Nov 12, 2021
1,623
564
113
#46
covenant made between God the Father and God the Son. God the Father didn't covenant with God the Father.
I disagree with your thinking here -----I see it this way

You can't separate God the Father and God the Son ------why -------because Jesus is the Word ----the Word who is Jesus was always with the Father -------God the Father Spoke ----His Word ----who is His Son and Jesus who is the Word created everything -----One God 2 different Functions ------but without God The Father Speaking the Word who is His Son Jesus nothing would have been created ------

Here you see the word was alway with God ---who is God the Father ---and the Word was God --------who is Jesus ------the Son ------you can't separate the 2 -----

1705589881398.jpeg

John 5:30----says ---Jesus is speaking here ----

Amplified Bible
“I can do nothing on my own initiative or authority. Just as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just (fair, righteous, unbiased), because I do not seek My own will, but only the will of Him who sent Me.

So the New Covenant Had 1 Participant ---GOD ------God the Father spoke the Word and the Word who is Jesus obeyed -----the Word was with God the Father and when God the Father Spoke the Word obeyed --So again you cannot separate them as they works together as ONE --------
 

Cameron143

Well-known member
Mar 1, 2022
16,018
5,635
113
62
#47
I disagree with your thinking here -----I see it this way

You can't separate God the Father and God the Son ------why -------because Jesus is the Word ----the Word who is Jesus was always with the Father -------God the Father Spoke ----His Word ----who is His Son and Jesus who is the Word created everything -----One God 2 different Functions ------but without God The Father Speaking the Word who is His Son Jesus nothing would have been created ------

Here you see the word was alway with God ---who is God the Father ---and the Word was God --------who is Jesus ------the Son ------you can't separate the 2 -----

View attachment 259812

John 5:30----says ---Jesus is speaking here ----

Amplified Bible
“I can do nothing on my own initiative or authority. Just as I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just (fair, righteous, unbiased), because I do not seek My own will, but only the will of Him who sent Me.

So the New Covenant Had 1 Participant ---GOD ------God the Father spoke the Word and the Word who is Jesus obeyed -----the Word was with God the Father and when God the Father Spoke the Word obeyed --So again you cannot separate them as they works together as ONE --------
I appreciate your position. But, while they are inexorably linked, they are still distinguishable and have different roles.
 

Aaron56

Well-known member
Jul 12, 2021
2,626
1,482
113
#48
I agree that the Hebrew word used can refer to either to "eternal" or to "an extended period of time", so the easy way to tell which is which is whether we should consider God's promises in connection with the Mosaic Covenant to be eternal or temporary. The Hebrews word "yada" refers to "intimate relational knowledge gained through experience", such as in Genesis 4:1, Adam knew (yada) Eve, she conceived, and gave birth to Cain. In Exodus 33:13, Moses wanted God to be gracious to him by teaching him to walk in His way that he and Israel might know (yada) Him, so again, should be consider God's way and the way to know God to be eternal or temporary? And should followers of God walk in His way? The Mosaic Covenant is often described in terms of being a marriage between Israel and the God of Israel, so the purpose of the Mosaic Law is to teach the nations how to know God.
The covenant at Sinai is not eternal: It has a beginning that was contingent on an occurrence. AND, it has an end.

Moses said: “The LORD did not make this covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive"

Paul wrote "What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions..."

Paul continues from the sentence above ".. till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made."

The promise was given to Abraham 430 years BEFORE the Law. And this is written about it...

Paul writes "And this I say, that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later (than the promise given to Abraham) cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect."

The first covenant was between God in Christ.

But But But.. people will say ..."but the first covenant was the Law! because the Bible says that."

No, the Law was the first covenant that appeared in time and space. The covenant between Christ and God, the Son and the Father, occurred before time and space from the foundation of the world. How do we know this? Because the price was paid before the earth was made:

"All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

The Law is the opposite of marriage. The covenant of marriage is "You are bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh". This proclamation comes from the husband only because it is the husband who personifies Christ in His relationship to the church. He is responsible for the care of the wife who is the church.

This stuff is hidden from you because you only know the letter but not the Spirit.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
2,467
302
83
#49
Scripture tells us in Hebrews 8:13: By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Does this mean that God has broken his first promise?
No. His first promise was to send a child of a woman who would crush the power of satan. He did that.
 

PaulThomson

Well-known member
Oct 29, 2023
2,467
302
83
#51
If I tell yountht
Scripture tells us in Hebrews 8:13: By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Does this mean that God has broken his first promise?
If I promise to give you one million dollars, if you can jump cross tha Atlantic Ocean, and later I promise to give anyone a mllion dollars who can merely cross the Atlantic Ocean, is the first promise cancelled, or has it merely become obsolete for those who want to take the new way to receive the million dollars?
 

Komentaja

Active member
Jul 29, 2022
428
226
43
#52
Scripture tells us in Hebrews 8:13: By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear. Does this mean that God has broken his first promise?
The Bible answers this, its not that God broke the covenant, its that the people of Israel broke the covenant.