New law, New Covenant

As I said last week, the battle between Sabbatarian and Sunday worshipper is really about how to understand the Bible, and we will never be able to achieve any consensus until we can agree about how scripture is to be interpreted.

Fundamentalists believe that all the words in the Bible are literally and historically true, and that all the texts are consistent and cannot disagree with each other because God is the author of all the words in the Bible. Modern scripture scholars take a historical-critical approach, which fundamentally holds that the Bible is the Word of God, but written by the hand of man; which means that the Bible is really a history of God's dealings with his people, and reflects theological growth and development throughout the ages, which means that newer texts can (and do) disagree with older ones.

Last week, I gave examples of profound theological shifts in three thematic areas. This week, I want to address the biggest theological shift which is at the heart of the Sabbath-Sunday debate.

For Christians, the Bible is divided into two testaments. The word 'testament' here is a term of art, deriving from the Latin word testamentum, which means 'covenant'. The first part of the Bible is about the first covenant, or Old Covenant (for Jews, it is still the only covenant), and the second section is about the New Covenant.

God signed the first covenant with Abraham and Moses, which included the Jewish law with the Ten Commandments; that covenant was signed in the blood of bullocks and rams, and its outward sign was circumcision.

But then God's people broke that covenant, requiring a new one; not an amendment of the old one - not a renewal of the old one with some new clauses - but a New Covenant, requiring a New Testament. The New Covenant was signed in the blood of God's son, Jesus Christ; its outward sign is baptism.

New replaces Old

Limitation of space does not allow numerous examples of how the New Testament carefully explains that the New Covenant is to replace the Old. Only a few will have to suffice.

Moses went up to the mountain and received the Old Law - the Ten Commandments - from God. Jesus, the new Moses, delivered his new law in the Sermon on the Mount.

Under the Old Covenant, the Passover meal was to be repeated every year as a memorial (zikkaron) of God's actions in Egypt, where he saved the Hebrew people from slavery and the angel of death by the blood of the lamb. At the Last Supper, Jesus, the Lamb of God, declares that from now on, the Eucharist is to be repeated as his memorial (anamnesis), remembering how he saved the human race from slavery to sin and the power of death with the blood of the New Covenant.

The first confrontation recorded in the Acts of the Apostles (Chapter 15) was between those who believed that Gentiles who became Christians first had to be circumcised, "according to the Law of Moses". The fundamental question here is, 'Does the Old Covenant still apply?' We know the verdict of the Council of Jerusalem: It does not, and Christians do not have to be circumcised; under the New Covenant, they are required to be baptised.

Peter, the leader of the apostles, had been a supporter of circumcision for the Gentiles, until he had a strange vision of a sheet descending from heaven with all kinds of animals and birds (Acts 10). A voice told him, "Rise, kill and eat," but Peter baulked, for that would mean breaking the strict Jewish dietary laws. "Certainly not, Lord; I have never yet eaten anything profane or unclean." The voice spoke a second time: "What God has made clean, you have no right to call unclean." And so, Jews must mix with Gentiles, just as there is no longer food that is profane or unclean.

Jesus had dealt with the Jewish dietary laws earlier (Mark 7:14-23): "It is not what goes into a man that makes him unclean, but what comes out." Verse 19 adds: "Thus he declares all foods clean." (Jerk pork lovers, rejoice!)

Paul argued relentlessly (see Romans 4-5) that we are "justified by faith, not by the works of the law". The Jewish law has been replaced by the law of Christ. Sabbatarians are Judaisers who want to call themselves Christians, but follow the Old Covenant.

Jesus deliberately broke the Jewish laws concerning the Sabbath to show that his law is a higher one. More next week.

The Rev Peter Espeut is a sociologist and a Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.

See Martin Henry's rebuttal of Peter Espeut's column, '400 years of the KJV', published on April 19.