What do you think of the Mosaic Covenant?
Correctly understood, the covenant God spoke of with Moses and those Hebrews was predicated solely open the covenant God had made with Abraham and Jesus and all the promises God poke of therein. God repeatedly states He is doing (or saying) what He is doing because of the promises He made to Abraham (and the patriarchs). In the New Testament we find the NT writers speaking of Jeremiah's "new covenant" but that covenant is simply an extension of what Paul explains was a set of covenant promises spoken to Abraham
and Jesus.
Galatians 3:16-18
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ. What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. 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.
The promises were spoken to Abraham
and Jesus. Jesus, not Israel, is the
promised seed of Abraham. Abraham had many seeds, but Jesus is the one; the one seed that was promised Abe. None of the other seeds are the seed of promise. Moses (along with all the other prophets) and the Law, testify to Christ.
That's what scripture teaches about the so called "
Mosaic Covenant".
Were the Israelites not asked to cooperate?
What do you mean by "
Israelites"?
Get out your eBible right now and do a quick word search for that word. You will find the word is used only eight times in the entire Bible and its first mention does not occur until Exodus 35. Furthermore, if you do a further search of commonly used terms like "Israel," and "Jews," then you will find 1) the geo-political nation-state of Israel is not mentioned of in the "Mosaic Covenant" until long after the Hebrews reach the promise land, clear it out, and resettle it, and 2) Jews do not exist until 2 Kings!
People use these terms as if they are interchangeable, but scripture does not do that.
According to the New Testament, God's covenant was made with those who live by faith. Abraham was a Hebrew,
a Babylonian, not an Israelite, and not a Jew. The word "Israel" is first used in reference to Abraham's grandson, Jacob. The word means "
God prevails" or "
God perseveres." Jacob's name was changed from "grifter," or "heel grabber" to "
God perseveres." The covenant descendants of Abraham, Isaac (the son of promise), and Jacob were called the "
sons of Israel," or the "
sons of God perseveres." That is what they were called when the left Egypt. They were not called Jews. There were no Jews when the Hebrews were freed from Egypt.
The covenant participants are, therefore, those in whom God perseveres.
I am not digressing. There is a point to all of the above and I encourage you to get out your Bible and verify every word I just posted. The answer to your question is that the Israelites were asked to cooperate only
after God had initiated His covenant, after God chose who would participate, after God called the participants, and after He called them as covenant participants and with an expectation of obedience.
Only after all of that is accomplished does the covenant relationship become bi-directional and the responses of the human participants are predicated entirely on the work of God in that covenant relationship. The covenant participant cannot do anything salvifically relevant outside of the constituent elements listed above.
It was a BILATERAL Covenant and had CONDITIONS.
It was not bilateral until long after the covenant was established. And, btw, all conditions are conditional. The salvific covenant in Christ just happens to have all its initial conditions accomplished by God.
Genesis 15:1-18 (excerpted for the sake of space)
After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great." Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Then behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said to him, "So shall your descendants be." Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. And He said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess it." He said, "O Lord GOD, how may I know that I will possess it?" So He said to him, "Bring Me a three year old heifer, and a three year old female goat, and a three year old ram, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon." Then he brought all these to Him and cut them in two, and laid each half opposite the other; but he did not cut the birds. The birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, and Abram drove them away. Now when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and behold, terror and great darkness fell upon him. God said to Abram, "Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years...... It came about when the sun had set, that it was very dark, and behold, there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, "To your descendants I have given this land....."
Abraham, in his own fleshly thinking, set up what was in those days called a "suzerain ritual," or the workings of a suzerain covenant. For those lurkers who do not already know, a "
suzerain" is a king or ruler that possesses sovereignty over another lesser king or kingdom. The conquered ruler, the lesser ruler, pledge fealty to the greater monarch. The ritual entail dividing sacrificial animals in two and placing the halves across from one another, thereby creating a pathway or aisle down which the lesser king would walk. At the end of that pathway the lesser king would kneel and pledge strict obedience and loyalty as a vassal of the sovereign ruler......
and if he ever violated that pledge then he would be cut in two like the animals through which he just walked.
The problem was God never showed up for Abraham to perform the ritual. He spent the rest of the day chasing the scavengers away until he was exhausted and fell asleep. That is when something remarkable happened.
In Abraham's vision he saw symbols for God (the smoldering oven and flaming torch) performing the pledge of fealty. God pledged fealty to God on the penalty of His own death should He ever betray the Sovereign LORD. In other words,
God took on both sides of the covenant. On that day God asked nothing of Abraham, but it was on that day the covenant was made (it had been initiated many decades earlier, but it was on that day the scripture state the making of the covenant.
It was not bidirectional between God and Abraham. It was bidirectional with God and God.
Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ. Christ died because we could not meet the standards of fealty, of obedience and loyalty. God kept His pledge. He kept the pledge He revealed to Abraham that night in Genesis 15.
It is not until long after this that God asks Abe if Abe wants to participate, and He asks Abe to do something to testify to that effect
(circumcision). It is exactly the same way with the sons of Israel. They had already been freed of slavery and led to the promise land before they were asked to choose life or death
(and although they said they were choosing life, the subsequent testimony of scripture is that most of them lied).
Sadly, there are certain portions within Christianity that do not teach this
.
