It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 1 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved.

The Two Covenants Program No. 1272 SPEAKER: JOHN BRADSHAW GUEST SPEAKER: SKIP MACCARTY Thanks for joining me today. This is It Is I’m John Bradshaw. If you read very far at all into the Bible, you come across something very interesting—something which today, throughout Christianity, generates a fair amount of conversation. You’ll read about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. What in the world were these two covenants or are these two covenants? How can they best be understood today and what role, if any, do they play in our lives? My very special guest is a man who has spent more than four decades in Christian ministry as a pastor, teacher and published author. We are going to discuss the covenants today. Pastor Skip MacCarty, thanks for joining me. SKIP MACCARTY: Thank you, John. JOHN BRADSHAW: I’m grateful that you have taken some time to join us, and we are going to use it as well as we can. The Old and the New Covenants. Let’s talk about the New Covenant first. I’d like for you to define for us what—biblically—a covenant is, and then what the New Covenant is. SM: Great place to start. Covenants are something we don’t talk much about. We don’t use that language very much today. Anybody who has a mortgage is in a covenant. They are in a contractual relationship. Even if someone has a credit card, they are in a covenant, a contractual relationship. We are involved in covenants even though we don’t talk about covenants. Now, when you come to the Bible, and the Old and New Covenants, those terms start showing up, particularly in the New Testament. The New Covenant is defined very clearly by God himself. What’s interesting is that in much of the literature written on the covenants and on the New Covenant specifically, the definitions are all over the map as to what the New Covenant is. JB: Why is that? Can’t we just go to the definition we find in the Bible, or are there good reasons for these varied viewpoints? SM: The Bible is very clear as to what the New Covenant is. In Jeremiah 31 and in Hebrews 8, God says, “This is the New Covenant I will make with the house of Israel

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 2 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. and the House of Judah.” The only places where the New Covenant is defined—Jeremiah 31 and Hebrews 8. And Hebrew 8 actually quotes Jeremiah 31. JB: Well let’s read that together, Hebrews 8. SM: And the definition itself begins in verse 10. JB: Here’s Hebrews 8:10-12: “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.” There’s the New Covenant defined in the New Testament. SM: He is just quoting the Old Testament here. JB: You said the New Covenant is defined in Hebrews and in Jeremiah. Now, hold on a minute. Jeremiah is the Old Testament. Why is the New Covenant being explained way back there in the book of Jeremiah? It wasn’t even the book of Malachi, which is almost over in New Testament times…it’s way back with one of the major prophets. Please explain. SM: God had made numerous covenants with his people before that, with the last one—the last major one—being the covenant at Sinai and then, because they broke His covenant, as part of the covenant stipulations, they went into exile. They continued to break his covenants after all His appeals to them. So they go into exile. They have been in exile now for 70 years and they are wondering, “Well, what does that mean now? Are we still in the covenantal relationship with God? Are we not in a covenant relationship with God anymore?” And God says, “I’m making a New Covenant with you,” and so He says, “here is the covenant I am making with you.” And then He identifies that—as we’ve just read here—and it could not be clearer, John. It couldn’t be clearer than what you have just read. God says, “Here is the New Covenant I am making with you,” and then He explicitly states what that covenant is. Four promises. JB: Now, we just read it. Can you break it down and put it in laymen’s terms for us? SM: Four promises, very clearly from God. “I am going to write my law in your heart.”

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 3 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. JB: One. SM: “I’ll be your God; you’ll be my people.” JB: Two. SM: “The time is going to come when you are not going to need to teach anybody about Me anymore. Everybody is going to know Me.” JB: Three. SM: “I’ll forgive your sins.” JB: Four. SM: That’s it. That’s the New Covenant. And when you look at it carefully, that’s the Gospel. The whole Gospel is included there. “I’ll write my law in your hearts.” That’s sanctification. “I’ll be your God; you’ll be My people.” That’s reconciliation. “Everyone is going to know Me.” That’s revelation. And in fact, that’s the mission that was given to the church and given to Israel to teach people about God. Then finally justification. “I’ll forgive your sins.” The whole Gospel is there, in the New Covenant. JB: So the New Covenant is found here in Hebrews 8. And it’s found back in Jeremiah 31. SM: Right. JB: What’s the big deal about the New Covenant? Why did we need it? Why did God have to come along and say, “All right, here it is. Here is the contractual agreement that we are going to have”? SM: This covenant here is not a contractual agreement in the same sense of a mortgage or a credit card—like when you buy a car, and you’re negotiating. You want to get the least investment that you have to make for the most benefit you get back in return. This is more like a will, and in fact, the Greeks had two different words for these kinds of covenants. Suntheke was a negotiated covenant, like a mortgage or a car loan. But diatheke was a will, and that’s the term that’s used here. That’s a term that is used consistently throughout God’s covenants with us. So the big deal is, God is saying, “In order for you to be saved, you need what I can do for you.” JB: So this is non-negotiable. This is an essential part of our salvation experience.

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 4 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. SM: Absolutely. For any human being who has ever lived, God must write His law in their hearts. God must forgive them. They must be reconciled to God again, and they must participate in His mission here on this earth. JB: I am going to ask you a question, then I think we are going to have to back off and get some explanation here, because you have mentioned this two or three times, and God mentioned it right here: “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts.” Now I am going to ask you for a one-word answer. God writing His laws in people’s hearts. That’s essential—yes, or no? SM: Absolutely. JB: Okay. Which laws? SM: The law that is given the most prominence in the Old Testament is the Ten Commandments. The only place in the Bible where God actually writes something Himself and spoke audibly to the people. It’s very clear from the Old Testament. So they stand out, and in fact, most theologians would acknowledge that the Ten Commandments were written on the hearts of Adam and Eve at their creation. The principles of the Ten Commandments…the moral principles there are timeless; they are eternal. They are cross-generational. And that is the law that God is writing here in their hearts, because in fact, in just the very next chapter of Hebrews—in chapter 9:4—God talks about the temple furniture of the Old Testament. And He refers to the Ark of the Covenant that had the Tables of the Covenant—which was the Ten Commandments—inside of it. Here he is linking His law to the Ten Commandments. JB: Now, I know we’ve got some people pretty excited, because you said that in the New Covenant, God wants to put his Ten-Commandment law in people’s hearts, but many people believe and are being taught very genuinely that the Ten Commandments are the Old Covenant, and that the New Covenant is something else. Let’s pick that up in a moment. We’ll be back with more, straight ahead. EVERY WORD JB: In 2 Thessalonians 2:10, the Apostle Paul wrote about a certain group of people who he said received not the love of the truth that they might be saved. Based on what Paul is saying, only those who love the truth will receive eternal life. He didn’t say salvation is for those who know the truth—but only those who love the truth. I’m sure churches are crowded with people who know the truth, but it’s only when Jesus touches your heart that that truth starts to make any real difference.

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 5 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. While you study the Bible and do whatever else you do for spiritual growth, keep in mind that salvation isn’t only about theory. You can be right and still be wrong. It is when you love the Savior—whom you find in the midst of the truth of God’s Word—that things really come alive. RETURN TO PROGRAM JB: This is It Is Written and I’m John Bradshaw. My guest today is Skip MacCarty, and today our discussion is centering on the question of the covenants—the Old Covenant and the New Covenant—and just a few moments ago, we discovered that the Bible plainly says that in the New Covenant, God would write His laws in peoples’ hearts and minds. Now Skip, that alarms some people because some people equate the Ten Commandments with the Old Covenant, and the New Covenant as being without the Ten Commandments. Now let’s explain, if we can, why the Ten Commandments are a valid part of the New Covenant when so many people thought they went out of style when the Old Covenant went out of style. SM: God himself said the first promise of the New Covenant is, “I will write my law in your heart.” Now, Jeremiah was the first one to give us that. In Jeremiah’s time, everyone primarily thought of the law as the Ten Commandments—what God had written with His own finger and spoke, and what was inside of the Ark of the Covenant. And the Ten Commandments, in fact, are identified as the Covenant of Sinai. Now there was more to it than that. In Deuteronomy 4:13, it actually identifies the Ten Commandments as the Covenant. JB: So, therefore, because people understand that the Sinai Covenant perhaps isn’t in effect anymore, they also think that maybe the Ten Commandments are gone. You can see how this could be confusing in some minds. SM: I can. Here’s one fascinating thing about the study of the covenants in the Bible…once you identify what the New Covenant is, there are four premises: “I write my law in your hearts,” “I’ll be your God and you’ll be my people,” “everyone is going to eventually know me” (that’s when Jesus comes again), and the New Covenant is looking forward to the future, ultimately, for its final fulfillment—“I’ll forgive your sins.” These promises show up big time in the Sinai Covenant. In fact, one of the major results of this study is that these four New Covenant promises are saturated—the Old Testament is saturated with them. They show up individually but they also show up in clusters in major places—every covenant God made with his people in the Old

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 6 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. Testament had these promises embedded in them. It has the Gospel. It has the four promises in it. It is a Gospel-bearing covenant just like the other covenants. JB: Very interesting. The New Covenant talks about what God is going to do in a person’s life, so it seems here that the New Covenant emphasizes surrender to God, and allowing God to go ahead and be God in our lives. SM: Yes. JB: The New Covenant doesn’t emphasize, “OK, here’s what you have got to do in order to be saved.” SM: That’s right. JB: Did the Old Covenant emphasize that? Because I have heard it explained that under the Old Covenant, it’s all about “do this and you live; don’t do this and you die.” In other words, and a lot of people right now are going to agree with me, they’ve heard it said that the Old Covenant is “obey the commandments of God and be saved,” whereas the New Covenant says “trust in Jesus and be saved.” Perhaps we should talk about what the Old Covenant was. SM: Just as the New Testament is “trust in Jesus to be saved,” the Old Testament was “trust in Yaweh to be saved. Trust in God to be saved.” JB: Was there ever a time when people were saved by their works? SM: Never. It’s impossible to be saved by works—from Adam’s children until this very day—and the Bible never teaches that anyone was saved by works. JB: So under the Old Covenant it wasn’t, “Well, if you obey these things, then you can be saved.” SM: It was salvation by grace through faith. JB: How did that work in Old Covenant times? By grace through faith? Because many people today don’t associate grace with the Old Covenant. It’s like that was the covenant of works, and the New Covenant is a covenant of grace. That is not true? SM: Where grace first shows up in the Old Testament is where Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. And just after the giving of the Ten Commandments, Moses says, “Lord, show me your glory,” and God says, “I am a God who is gracious and compassionate.”

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 7 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. He actually reveals himself as a God of grace there. He reveals himself for the first time in the Bible as a forgiving God. It was at Sinai. Sinai is a powerful grace covenant all the way through. It emphasizes love because the formula in the Sinai covenant was “love God and keep His Commandments.” We can’t love Him unless He circumcises our hearts. God acknowledges that and says, “I will do this for you.” He says in Deuteronomy 30, “I put my Commandments—my Word—in your heart,” and the Psalmist said, “Your Word is in my heart.” It was always God’s initiative—all the way through by grace through faith. JB: Salvation has always been a matter of grace. SM: Always. JB: I believe that, and I teach that, but I am fascinated to hear you emphasize that all the way back, the Old Covenant was not works and New Covenant grace. That’s a misunderstanding. SM: Oh, terribly so. JB: Okay. Explain to me. Let’s drill down on this just a little bit. Explain how the Old Covenant was a covenant of grace. This is a revelation for lots of people. How was the Old Covenant a Covenant of Grace? I know you’ve touched on it, but let’s zero-in. SM: Let’s start back with Adam. When Adam fell, the first promise given was what? JB: “I will put enmity between you,” and so forth. SM: Exactly. Spoken to the serpent but meant for Adam and Eve. I’ll put enmity between you and the woman and between her seed and your seed. He, the seed of the woman, will crush the head of the serpent. The serpent will bruise the heel of the seed. Theologians refer to that as the Protoevangelion, which simply means the first pronouncement of the Gospel. So the Gospel shows up there in a little kernel, right there. It has to be that way, because once Adam fell, he was giving to his children sinful natures, and we could not pull ourselves out of the pit. God has to take the initiative and he announces that right to Adam. He actually announces it to the serpent, but it was for Adams’s sake and for humanity’s sake. Every covenant God gave his people from then on just amplified it. It showed a little bit more of the gracious character of God and the terms of the covenant and so forth, all the way through. So when you come to the New Testament and you have these statements like “we’ve saved by grace through faith” and so forth, in Paul’s writings,

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 8 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. he’s simply continuing to progressively reveal what has always been true all the way through. Every covenant God made with his people incorporated the truths revealed in the previous covenants, and added a little bit more information—added a little bit more of our understanding to it—all the way through to the New Testament. When Jesus said, “You must be born again to enter the Kingdom of God,” that didn’t start when Jesus made those words. That was true for Abel. That was true for every single believer in the Old Testament. Period. They had to be born again. Otherwise, they were lost. JB: How were you born again back then…before Jesus had come along? SM: Well, how could you be saved if you weren’t born again? We are born with sinful natures. When Paul writes about the war between the flesh and the spirit in Romans 8, that was going on inside of Abel, and it was going on inside of Cain. Every single human being has had that spiritual war going on inside their hearts. JB: How was that reconciled back then? Today we recognize the spiritual war. We go to the Cross; we go to God in Heaven. We accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. We ask him to change our hearts. Jesus hadn’t come back there when Cain and Abel and Methuselah were living. So how did that work practically? SM: Well, right from the very start, they had sacrifices. Abel had a lamb sacrificed that was indicating that some innocent sufferer would die for his sins, that salvation would come through that one. That becomes clearer then as you go throughout the Old Testament and into the New Testament, and it just becomes clearer and clearer until finally they find out it is Jesus. He’s the One. He’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. So it was by putting their faith in the provision God had made symbolically through the sacrifices of the Old Testament that they were saved by faith through grace. JB: Magnificent. We’ve got a lot to talk about and I think this is going to take us a little while. Wait right there. We’ll be back with more in just a moment. BACK TO PROGRAM This is It Is Written. Thanks for joining me today. My good fortune is to have with me Dr. Skip MacCarty. We’re discussing the covenants: the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Skip, a few moments ago, you mentioned a term that was very interesting. You talked about progressive revelation. You said that the covenant was really revealed in a kernel form back in Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed…”

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 9 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. And you said that as the Bible went on, the covenant was revealed progressively. Would explain, please, this progressive revelation? SM: Let me give you an illustration. When did God begin to forgive people? JB: Now, there’s a good question. It seems to me that God began to forgive people as soon as they were sinners. As soon as there was something to forgive. SM: It would have to, wouldn’t it? As soon as His Spirit was able to draw repentance out of their hearts, He would be a forgiving God. But it doesn’t mention that He is a forgiving God until the second of the Ten Commandments. Before the second commandment, the Bible never says God loves anybody. It first shows up there. But then you read back and say, “Oh, well, that’s been true from the beginning.” Of course it was true from the beginning. And so when some of the New Testament language shows up, such as new birth and so forth, that we talked about before, it’s talking about things that have always been true, but with God just revealing a little bit more, give us more language, give us more depth of understanding, of what has always been happening. The New Covenant did not start over. It incorporated the truths that had been revealed previously and it incorporated God’s law—His moral law—which is eternal. He reiterates what had been true in the Old Testament, too. He wants to put that on our hearts. JB: Let’s talk about the New Covenant here in the time we have left. I want to ask you two questions. I think they are both fundamental and important. One is: how does participating in the New Covenant actually look in my life? What is that going to do? And the other question I really believe we need to address is: are we promoting legalism when we say part of the New Covenant is keeping the commandments of God? Have we just put people under a burden that they should not be put under? So you can take those in any order you like. SM: Okay. The New Covenant lifts whatever burden may be there—completely lifts it off—because in the New Covenant, God is not saying, “You must do this.” God is saying, “I will do this for you.” JB: Do you think that is a problem some people have…those who are afraid of legalism? They say, “Well, once you start talking about the Ten Commandments, if I’ve got to do this, then you are putting me under a burden.” Perhaps what we really need is to do a better job of teaching people that when it comes to obedience, this is really the work of God in our lives.

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 10 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. SM: It is the work of God in our lives. We can’t make God be our God. God says, “I will be your God. You’ll be my people.” We can’t make any of these things happen. God says, “I will put my law in your hearts. I will do this for you.” The New Covenant is God’s embrace of a sinner who cannot dig himself out of the hole he is born into. Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. The deeper the hole, the longer the rope. And Jesus himself is on the end of that rope to grab ahold of you and bring you up out of that. This is New Covenant. The New Covenant is the grace of God. The New Covenant is saying, “Everything you cannot do for yourself—which is everything in terms of salvation—I will do for you.” And what is interesting about the Ten Commandments is that the actual Hebrew is not “commandments,” it’s “words.” That’s why scholars talk about the “ten words” because the Hebrew term davar is “word.” Translators come to that. They have to decide, should we translate that as “word”? Do we translate it “command”? Do we translate it as “promise”? JB: So instead of talking about the Ten Commandments, we could be talking about the Ten Promises. SM: Exactly. Once conversion comes, it’s Ten Promises. That’s the whole point of the New Covenant. It’s God saying, “I’m going to write this on your heart and I promise you’ll be this kind of person.” It lifts the burden off of a believer. The way we become New Covenant is to throw ourselves wholly upon God and His grace, because there are going to be many times…in the best, in the most devout spiritual life on this earth, there are going to be times of spiritual discouragement. And we wonder, “Am I doing right? Am I on the right track? Am I really sincere in what I am doing?” God says, “Forget all that. Trust me. Just keep coming back to me.” He says, “Spend time with my Word. Open your heart to me in prayer and I will do everything for you. I’ll write my law in your hearts. You’ll be my people. I’ll be your God. I will forgive you and I am going to invite you into sharing who I am until the day when we are not going to need to do this anymore.” That is what the New Covenant is. JB: Interesting, isn’t it, how over time, the covenants have been explained as “works and grace,” or “do vs. believe”? SM: Total misunderstanding. Total misunderstanding. Total misunderstanding. The Bible teaches that nowhere. JB: How hopeful, then, isn’t it, that when someone says, “What’s the New Covenant?” and we go to Hebrews and read that passage (Hebrews 8:10):

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 11 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” Isn’t this a matter of infinite possibilities opening up—what God wants to do in the heart and mind of someone who comes to him by faith? SM: Precisely. God is saying “everything that is necessary for your salvation and for you to have a fulfilled life on this planet, I’m going to do for you.” JB: “I will even turn you into the type of person who loves to do the sorts of things I want you to do.” SM: Precisely. JB: The Ten Commandments become Ten Promises, and we walk in the footsteps of Jesus. SM: That is the New Covenant. JB: Skip MacCarty, thank you. Thank you for taking the time today. I have been blessed, as have others. I appreciate you being here. SM: Thank you for the opportunity. I’ve got just a couple of final minutes with our guest for today, Skip MacCarty. Skip, as we look over what we have talked about, the New Covenant experience, what’s the impact of that in the life of someone who is your average administrator or gardener or bus driver? How does this help that person? SM: First of all, John, I think it has to say to them, “You’re not just the gardener; you’re not just the business executive; you’re not just a waitress. You are a child of God.” Before I was a minister, I did other odd jobs working my way through school, different kinds of work. But when I went to the factory, I did not just think of myself as a just a factory worker. I thought of myself as a child of God. There was somebody that day in the factory who, just by me doing good work, or maybe my countenance, or something I said to them, could make a difference in their life for the Kingdom of God. That transforms life. That is all part of New Covenant. And so God wants to take the everyday life and transform it. That’s all part of New Covenant. That’s God’s commitment. “I will do this for you here and now, as well provide for you in the eternal future.” JB: So the New Covenant vs. the Old Covenant is not a series of rules, or rules of engagement.

It Is Written Script 1272 - The Two Covenants Page 12 ©2014 It Is Written International Television. All Rights Reserved. SM: No. JB: It’s an experience we enter into with God. SM: It is. JB: And thank God for that experience. SM: Precisely. JB: Let’s pray together and ask that we can have the experience that God wants us to have. PRAYER Our Father in Heaven, how thankful we are that you have made provision for us to be true Christians, connected to you, rejoicing, healthy, happy and holy, because you have said you would be our God. You have said you will accept us. You have said you will write your law in our minds and in our hearts. You will do everything needed for us to be saved and to be your children eternally. Lord, I thank you for that and I pray that the experience would be ours. My friend, as we pray together and you are wanting that experience, will you lift up your heart to God now and say in your mind or say out loud, “Lord, I want that experience where you are my God and I am your person, and”—as Skip has said—“I can just trust in you and focus on you and let you be my God. Let whatever be have be all yours so that you can be all ours.” We pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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