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The Berean Inquirer

[Editors note: While I am quite uncomfortable with Mr.Fuqua's assessment of those who cannot see in the Scriptures the same things he sees, over all I feel he makes a compelling case with respect to the main thrust of his subject. Even still, let us use the truth to bring one another's hearts into conformity with He who is THE TRUTH, and not for the purpose of nurturing the weeds of division in the body of Christ.]

Sabbatarians [professing Christians who believe we are to observe one day in seven as a day of rest from physical labor and mundane pursuits] attempt to evade the doctrine of two covenants (Gen. 4:24), by arguing that several covenants are mentioned in the Bible. But that is of no aid to their cause, so long as Abraham had but two wives, and these two women typified the two covenants of which Paul wrote in Galatians, 2 Corinthians, and Hebrews.

No matter how many inferior "covenants" the Bible records, all that Paul was concerned with, or that concerns us, were the "two covenants" which he so conclusively contrasted in the epistles just named, and which he repeatedly styles the "first" and the "second," or the "old" and the "new" covenants (Heb. 8:7,13). And in his exposition of the two wives of Abraham, he makes one the type or pattern, and the other the antitype or substance. This alone reduces the "covenant" issue to only two covenants.

Now "the covenant" of the Old Testament is, fundamentally, the Ten Commandments (Ex. 34:28; Deut. 9:9-11, 15). This is the first or old covenant that Paul subjects to the stinging contrast with Christianity. Not only is the Ten Commandments covenant obsolete, but being a ministration of death, it is a "condemnation" system (2 Cor. 3:6-10) that the mercy of the New Covenant had to remove that men might be saved. No unbiased mind can read the contrast drawn by Paul and fail to see the necessity of abrogating [i.e. ending] the Ten Commandment system, the Old Covenant, in order to bring life and salvation to men through Christ. Had the Old Covenant stood, no human being could ever have been saved.

On account of their blindness (Rom. 11:7-12) the Jews had to be convinced of the necessity of changing the law (Heb. 7:12); hence the extensive arguments of Paul, and for the reason the Sabbatarians of the present day are so slow to receive the same truth. But if God's own contrast, drawn through Paul, cannot convince present-day Sabbatarians, they must be numbered with the unbelieving Jews. Paul's contrast follows; Read it seriously!

Under the Old Covenant the priesthood was of the tribe of Levi exclusively (Heb. 7:11-17). No man of another tribe could be a priest while the Covenant stood. While it stood, Christ could not be our Priest, for He was of the tribe of Judah (Heb. 7:14). Before Christ could make His offering for our sins (which was done when He entered the into heaven with His own blood -- Heb. 9:12, 24), the priesthood must be changed from the tribe of Levi to the tribe of Judah, and this change necessitated a change of the entire Law. Hence we read this: "For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law" (Heb. 7:12).

The Law was changed, therefore, that Christ might become man's Priest. Consequently, any attempt to require obedience to the Old or First Covenant is an attempt to rob the saints of their salvation. "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosover of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace" (Gal. 5:4). If the Law is still God's law [that is, if it is still the law God intends for His people to be subject to], then it is unchanged from what it was prior to the offering of the blood of Christ; and if that is true, then Christ, who was of the tribe of Judah, did not make a lawful Priestly offering for our sins. To charge that is to reject Christ as our Savior -- is to fall from grace. This all Sabbatarians do.

To attempt to separate the Ten Commandments from the "ceremonial" or rest of the Law, preserving the Ten Commandments as God's permanent Law and abrogating the rest of the Law is to lay violent hands on a divine system . . . We are not to separate what God has "joined together." Moreover, Christ positively said that "not one jot or tittle" of the Law should be changed "till all be fulfilled" (Matt. 5:18). There was not to be the least abrogation of the Law "till all" should be abrogated or changed to admit a Priest from the tribe of Judah. The change that was required involved the utter crucifixion of the entire Law: it was nailed to the cross and expired with the human part or fleshly body of Christ (Col. 2:14; Eph.2:15). In its stead, God gave His people the New Covenant, a "better covenant" which is based on "better promises" (Heb. 8:6-9). Consider then, a contrast of these two covenants.

Will you please keep this for further reference and study?

The above article is slightly adapted from an unknown source (late 1970s?), presumably a magazine or newsletter. If you know the year and source of the publication, please send me the information. If you have a fully legible copy of the original article, please send me a copy of it.

— The Editor

Elsewhere in The Berean Inquirer:

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