What is the Old Covenant?

If you have been around Church for a while then it is likely you have heard the terms Old Covenant and New Covenant before. 

These phrases appear everywhere, Church doctrinal statements (ex: “we are no longer under the old covenant but under grace”), Bible studies, Christian books, sermons, and casual conversations. 

But recently, I considered: What does the Bible actually mean by Old Covenant?

I asked several people I know to provide their best Biblical definition. And nearly everyone defined it as the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai, or more broadly, the law. 

I have historically held the same perspective and even went into great detail in my last post to explain that the Old and New Covenants are not opposing systems of law and grace. Because the general assumption was that the Old Covenant was a temporary, works based agreement made at Sinai that is now irrelevant, and replaced by Christ. After all, that is why we call it “old”, isn’t it?

Despite how pervasive this phrase is in Christian teaching, I was shocked to discover that the term Old Covenant appears only once in the entire Bible.¹ 

Once. That is it!

Across 66 books of our Bible, it is used a single time by Paul in 2 Corinthians 3. That alone should make us pause. If this phrase is foundational to the framework many Christians have been given to think, teach and understand the Bible, why does Scripture almost never use it?

In fact, Scripture’s use of the term directly challenges the paradigm many Christians assume it supports. The idea that the Old Covenant is the Mosaic Covenant is just not Biblical. 

In 2 Corinthians 3, Paul retold the story of Moses, who veiled his face after encountering the radiant glory of God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 34:29-35). Paul then used that imagery and turned it into a metaphor. The metaphor illustrated that when people read the Hebrew Scriptures without the Spirit, it’s as if a veil remains over their hearts. They cannot see the full glory of God revealed in Christ through the Scriptures.

This is the context for Paul’s famous line: “The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Corinthians 3:6).

I had always been taught that this was Paul teaching the dangers of the law and how the Mosaic law could only produce death. But Paul did not actually condemn the covenant at Sinai. He explained that if the Corinthians (or anyone for that matter) reads Scripture without the Spirit, then God’s words would remain only letters. And letters are lifeless when detached from the life giving reality of the Spirit.

The Old Covenant, then, is shorthand for a veiled, Spiritless, and Christless reading of the entire Hebrew Scriptures.

Why does this matter?

Because the vast majority of Christians have inherited an interpretive framework of Old Covenant and New Covenant that isn’t Scriptural. 

And the result is that many believe the Old Covenant is outdated or disconnected from Jesus. Law and grace. Old and new. Irrelevant and relevant. 

But this division is precisely what Paul warned against in 2 Corinthians. When we read the Hebrew Bible with a veil over our hearts we misunderstand and even neglect the glory of God in Christ that is found on every page of our Bibles. 

Christians have been taught that the New Covenant replaces the law of Moses, but there is no verse anywhere in Scripture that teaches the law has been replaced or revoked.² The opposite is true. Instead of dividing the covenants, Scripture teaches that we are supposed to see covenants as a unfied revelation. Every covenant in the Bible is described in lasting and eternal terms. None are abolished (Matthew 5:18). Each one advances God's purposes. 

The Biblical covenants are a progressive layer of a single unfolding plan of redemption. And, rather than discarding the earlier layers, each new layer includes and deepens what came before.³

For example, Paul taught in Galatians that when Israel received the law at Sinai it did not negate the covenant with Abraham. 

The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. 

Galatians 3:17

Moses wrote in Deuteronomy when renewing the covenant at Sinai that it included future generations, implying its perpetual validity.

I am making this covenant, with its oath, not only with you who are standing here… but also with those who are not here today.

Deuteronomy 29:14-15

The Psalmist affirmed that the law is an eternal feature of God’s covenants.

Long ago I learned from your statutes that you established them to last forever.

Psalm 119:152

God’s promise to David was to establish his throne forever.

Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever. 

2 Samuel 7:16

The New Covenant is described in eternal language as well, not just inaugurated at the cross, but established in God’s eternal plan.

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will set them in their land and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in their midst forevermore.

Ezekiel 37:26

A new promise from God never cancels the former ones, they affirm and expand the same purpose.

So, if the older covenants are not replaced or irrelevant, what then is “new” about the New Covenant?

In Jeremiah 31 the prophet explained the features of the New Covenant, many of which are strikingly familiar and not entirely “new”.⁴

• God’s law on our hearts – (Already present: Deut 6:6; Ps 119:11)

• Covenant relationship with God – (Already Established: Ex 29:45; Lev 26:12)

• Forgiveness of sin – (Central to the sacrifical system Ex 34:6–7; Lev 4:20)

• A unified, faithful nation – (Promised through the prophets, not yet fulfilled)
  

All of these promises existed in some form prior to the New Covenant. What is new is not the content but the scope. Jeremiah foresaw a day when God’s law would be written on every heart, when all would know Him, and when forgiveness of sin would define the identity of an entire nation.

That day has not yet come, but the promise has been secured through the blood of Christ. Jesus said at the last supper:

This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Luke 22:20

The covenant is sealed, but its national fulfillment is something we are waiting for with hopeful expectancy. Paul taught this in Romans 11 when he spoke of a time when all of Israel would be saved (Romans 11:25-26). What once applied to a faithful remnant, Abraham, David, Caleb, the prophets, and others (Gen 26:5; Num 14:4) will one day apply to the entire nation.

The New Covenant does not erase Abraham, Sinai or David. The story of redemption has been on the same trajectory throughout all of history and if we can see the covenants in this way, I’m confident that the whole Bible will open up and we can see Jesus more clearly in every book.

We must shift our thinking from what is “old” and “new” to reading all of Scripture as God-breathed, Christ-centered, and with a belief that it is still speaking to us today.

Reflection Questions: 

• What assumptions have I made about the “Old Covenant” and do those align with how Scripture actually uses the phrase?

• Do I believe that all of Scripture bears witness to Jesus? How does this belief (or lack thereof) affect how I read my Bible?

• If God’s covenants are eternal and progressive, what role does the Mosaic covenant play today?

• In what ways does recognizing Jesus as the fulfillment, rather than the replacement, of every covenant deepen my trust in God's faithfulness and His redemption plan?

Footnotes:

1. Depending on the version of the Bible you read, it is likely that the phrase Old Covenant appears a few times in the book of Hebrews, but this is an interpretation that is supplied by the translators. The phrase does not exist anywhere else in the Greek manuscripts of our New Testament.

2. Daniel I. Block, Covenant: The Framework of God’s Grand Plan of Redemption (Baker Academic: Grand Rapids, 2021), 2-3.

3. Ibid, 10.

4. Ibid, 284.