Yet, there seems to be TWO concepts when the term "old covenant" is used.
Yes. The people said,
Exodus 19:8 And all the people answered together, and said,
All that the LORD has spoken we will do. This was the promises of the people. What was offered to them? The same as was offered to Abraham. The promise in the covenant with Abraham, which God's people were to keep, was that the law should be put into the heart. The children of Israel got it on tables of stone. Instead of by faith receiving "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus," (
Romans 8:2 ) that is, upon "the living stone" (
1 Peter 2:4) in the midst of the throne of God which would impart life to them, making them also living stones, they received the law only on cold, lifeless stones, which could give them nothing but death.
2 Corinthians 4:3-4 But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:
4 In whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them.
Unbelief blinds the mind. It acts as a veil, to shut out the light. That veil over the face of the children of Israel was the unbelief that was in their hearts. So the veil was really over their hearts. "Their minds were blinded;" and "even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart." This is true not of the Jewish people, but of all who do not see Christ set forth in all the writings of Moses. A veil interposed between people and the light, leaves them in the shadow. So when the children of Israel spread out the veil of unbelief between themselves and "the light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ," they only the shadow of it. They received only the shadow of the good things promised them, instead of the very substance.
God had said, "If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests." But they never became a kingdom of priests. Only one tribe, the tribe of Levi, could have anything whatever to do with the sanctuary, and of that tribe only one family, that of Aaron, could be priests. It was certain death for any one not of the family of Aaron to presume to serve as priest in any way. Yet all who are really the children of God through faith in Christ Jesus, are "a royal priesthood," even "an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." (1 Poter 2:5) This was what God promised to the nation of the Jews, at Sinai; but they never attained to it, because they did not keep His covenant of faith, but trusted in their own strength. Instead of being brought to the heavenly sanctuary which God's hands established, and being planted in it, they had a worldly sanctuary made by man, and were not allowed to go into even that. Instead of the ministration of the righteousness of God in Christ, they got only the ministration of death; for the very same thing which is a savour of life to them that believe, is a savour of death to them that do not believe.
But see the kindness and mercy of God even in this. He offered them the bright shining of His glorious Gospel, and they interposed a veil of unbelief, so that they could receive only the shadow. Yet that very shadow was an ever-present reminder of the substance. When a thick, passing cloud casts a shadow on the earth, we know, if we are not too dull to think, that it could not cast a shadow if it were not for the sun; so that even the cloud proclaims the presence of the sun. If therefore people nowadays, even professed Christians, were not as blind as the children of Israel ever were, they would be always rejoicing in the light of God's countenance, since even a cloud always proves the light to be present, and faith always causes the cloud to disappear, or else sees in it the bow of promise.
It was better for the Jews to have the law even as a witness against them, than not to have it at all. It was a great advantage to them in every way, to have committed unto them the oracles of God. (
Romans 3:2) It is better to have the law present to upbraid us for our sins, and to point out the way of righteousness, than to be left entirely without it. So the Jews, even in their unbelief, had an advantage over the heathen, because the Jews had "the form of righteousness and of the truth in the law." (
Romans 2:20) While that form could not save them, and only made their condemnation the greater if they rejected the instruction designed to be conveyed by it, yet it was an advantage in that it was a constant witness to them of God. God did not leave the heathen without witness, in that He spoke to them of Himself through the things that He had made, preaching the Gospel to them in creation; but the witness which He gave to the Jews, besides the other, was the very image of His own eternal realities.
Understand that as the Gospel was in full glory at Sinai, even so the law just as given at Sinai, is always present in the Gospel. If the law on the lifeless tables of stone was but a shadow, it was nevertheless
an exact shadow, of the living law on the living stone, Christ Jesus. God would have all men know, wherever His voice is heard, that the righteousness which Christ's obedience imparts to the believer is the righteousness that is described in the law spoken from Sinai. Not one letter can be altered. It is an exact photograph of the character of God in Christ. A photograph is but a shadow, it is true; but if the light is clear it is an exact representation of some substance. In this case the light was "the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God," (
2 Corinthians 4:4) so that we may know the ten commandments to be the literal and exact form of God's righteousness. They describe to us just what the Holy Spirit will print in living letters of light upon the fleshy tables of our hearts if they are but sensitised by living faith.
(excerpts from EJW)