Reclaiming Our Forgotten Heritage: How Understanding the Jewish Roots of Christianity Can Transform Your Faith by Curt Landry

Author:Curt Landry [Landry, Curt]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781400209408
Google: WczMswEACAAJ
Publisher: Thomas Nelson Incorporated
Published: 2019-07-15T22:16:39.885840+00:00

And I said: “I pray, LORD God of heaven, O great and awesome God, You who keep Your covenant and mercy with those who love You and observe Your commandments, please let Your ear be attentive and Your eyes open, that You may hear the prayer of Your servant.” (Nehemiah 1:5–6)

I prayed to the LORD my God, and made confession, and said, “O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments . . . hear the prayer of Your servant, and his supplications.” (Daniel 9:4, 17)

I saw that the Bible is a history of covenants God established with human beings and that each specific covenant had its own place and significance in expressing who God is. Covenant, in other words, is the spiritual foundation of everything we do as believers. All else is built upon it, and it is what attaches us to heaven. Yet very few fully understand how it began or how it works—or does not work—in our lives today.

The Bible records eight biblical covenants between God and humanity—two conditional and six unconditional. Conditional covenants require certain conditions to be met for the covenant to remain valid. Unconditional covenants are basically “no strings attached” and continue in effect whether or not both parties live up to their agreements.

The first of the two conditional covenants is the Edenic covenant, also called the creation covenant, which was based on Adam and Eve not eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (Genesis 2–3). That covenant was broken, of course, and the garden of Eden is no more upon the earth.

The second is the Mosaic covenant, or Sinaitic covenant, so named because it was made with Moses on Mt. Sinai. This covenant is based on the law of Moses, which starts with the Ten Commandments and is woven throughout the first five books of the Bible—known by Christians as the Pentateuch and by Jews as the Torah.

The conditional nature of this covenant is clear. If God’s people obeyed its laws, they would receive the blessings of Abraham1 listed in Deuteronomy 28:

Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

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