In our prior lessons, we noted that:

1. The Old Covenant was given by Moses, but the New Covenant is given by Christ.
2. The Old Covenant was given to Israel only, but the New Covenant is given to all mankind.
3. The Old Covenant was written on stone, but the New Covenant is written on one's heart.
4. God found fault with the Old Covenant, but the New Covenant is a better covenant.
5. The Old Covenant was established on the blood of animals, but the New Covenant is established on the blood of Jesus the Christ.
6. The Old Covenant detailed a copy of the true tabernacle, but the New Covenant reveals the true tabernacle.
7. The Old Covenant did not provide a clear conscience, but the New Covenant makes one perfect.
8. The Old Covenant focused on fleshly ordinances, but the New Covenant focuses on spiritual sacrifices.
9. The Old Covenant purified the flesh only, but the New Covenant purifies our souls.
10. High priests sinned under the Old Covenant, but the New Covenant has a sinless High Priest.

Let's now consider:

11. The Old Covenant was to pass away,

• II Corinthians 3:11 - "For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious."
• But the New Covenant remains.
• Listen again to II Corinthians 3:11 - "For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious."
• Matthew 24:35 - "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away."

12. The Old Covenant provided temporal heirs,

• Psalm 105:11 - "Saying, 'To you I will give the land of Canaan as the allotment of your inheritance.'"
• But the New Covenant an eternal inheritance.
• I Peter 1:3,4 - "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you."
• II Corinthians 5:1 - "For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Friends, may we all understand that the Old Testament is not a book that we live by today. It was given by Moses specifically to the nation of Israel only about 3500 years ago. God had intended all along to replace the Old Covenant with something better, consider Jeremiah 31:31-34 on this point:

"'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah--not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them,' says the Lord. 'But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,' says the Lord: 'I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,' says the Lord. 'For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.'"

Paul taught in Galatians 3:19 that the law "was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come." The law's purpose would be fulfilled once Christ had come. He is even clearer about this truth in 3:23-29:

"But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

Hear him again: The Old Covenant was a tutor to bring the Jews to Christ, but once Christ came they were no longer under the tutor (i.e., the Old Covenant).

The New Covenant is superior in every way, being founded on the blood of Christ, in revealing the true tabernacle of God, in making those who submit to it mature, & in providing an eternal inheritance. I am thankful that we today don't keep the Sabbath; we don't offer animal sacrifices; we don't abstain from eating pork; we don't use mechanical instruments in worship (even though David did); we don't practice polygamy; we live by the New Testament! It is what we will be judged by eventually. As our Lord stated in John 12:48 - "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him--the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day."We will be judged on the final day by the New Covenant, not the Old. The Old Testament is still useful as a book to learn many things about the nature of God and the history of mankind, but we must not use it as the guide or authority for our actions today.