God made many covenants with man. The obvious ones are those He made with Noah, with Abraham, with Israel at Horeb after they left Egypt, with Israel at other times (Deut. 29:1), and with David. However, besides these covenants, there is the one God made with us through the Lord Jesus Christ, which is often referred to as the new covenant. Although there are many covenants, the most important are the one which God made with Abraham and the one called the new covenant. The others cover a smaller area and are of less importance.
The new covenant is a continuation and development of the covenant God made with Abraham. Galatians 3 shows us that the new covenant and the covenant made with Abraham are of the same line. Between Abraham’s covenant and the new covenant there is the covenant of law made with Israel (Gal. 3:15-17). However, the law was added because of transgression; it is basically an addition (Gal. 3:19; Rom. 5:20). Only the covenant made with Abraham and the new covenant are of faith and promise (Gal. 3:7, 9, 16, 17; Heb. 8:6). For this reason, they are of the same line.
Between the covenant with Abraham and the new covenant is the covenant of law which God made with Israel. This is what is referred to in Hebrews 8:7 as the “first covenant.” This is also what we call the old covenant. This old covenant does not really mean the thirty-nine books from Genesis to Malachi which we commonly call the Old Testament. Strictly speaking, the old covenant began from Exodus 19 and continued until the time of the death of the Lord Jesus. The conditions in the old covenant were bilateral. This is why there were two tables of the covenant in the ark (Exo. 31:18). If the children of Israel would keep the law, God would bless them; if they broke the law, God would punish them. This is the old covenant. Before this old covenant there was an earlier one, the covenant God made with Abraham. The new covenant continues, not the old covenant, but Abraham’s covenant.
Hebrews 8:7 says, “For if that first covenant was faultless, no place would have been sought for a second.” This tells us that the first covenant has faults. As far as the nature of the first covenant is concerned, “the law is holy” (Rom. 7:12), “the law is spiritual” (Rom. 7:14), and “the law is good” (1 Tim. 1:8). But as far as the function of the first covenant is concerned, “by law is knowledge of sin” (Rom. 3:20), “And the law is not of faith, but he who does them shall live by them” (Gal. 3:12). This means that the law requires man to do good, but it does not give man the life and power to do good: “For what is impossible to the law, in that it was weak through the flesh...” (Rom. 8:3). Therefore, “by the works of law no flesh shall be justified before Him...” (Rom. 3:20). In summary, “the law perfected nothing” (Heb. 7:19). Therefore, the first covenant has faults.
We need to see that Exodus 19 through 24 are the words of God’s covenant. Three months after the children of Israel left Egypt, they came to the wilderness of Sinai. There they pitched their tents beneath the mountain, and Moses went to God. God wanted him to speak to the children of Israel: “Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be mine own possession from among all peoples: for all the earth is mine....And all the people answered together, and said, All that Jehovah hath spoken we will do” (Exo. 19:1-8). After Moses declared the whole covenant to the congregation, he “took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which Jehovah hath made with you concerning all these words” (Exo. 24:8).
In this covenant there are words such as, “Thou shalt have no other gods besides (lit.) me. Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor any likeness of any thing...thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them” (Exo. 20:3-5). Could the children of Israel do this? We know that even before Moses brought the tables of the covenant down from the mountain, they were already making the golden calf and worshipping it (Exo. 32:1-8). In other words, even before the tables of the covenant were brought down from the mountain, the children of Israel had become unfaithful to the covenant. This was the fault of the first covenant.
After this, the children of Israel continued to fail in keeping God’s covenant. They provoked God in the wilderness. They tried Him by testing Him and saw His works forty years. Nevertheless, they always went astray in heart; and they had not known God’s ways (Heb. 3:8-10). They saw God’s “works,” but they did not know God’s “ways.” Again, this was the fault of the first covenant.
“For finding fault with them He says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, and I will consummate a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord” (Heb. 8:8-9). This means that God wanted them to continue to be faithful to the covenant, but they could not. At one time they were determined to follow the Lord, yet they could not faithfully follow Him daily. Although at one time they were revived, they could not maintain their revived condition day by day. This was the fault of the first covenant.
Paul said, “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am fleshly, sold under sin....For I know that in me, that is in my flesh, nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but to do the good is not” (Rom. 7:14, 18). Paul’s experience also tells us that the law itself is spiritual, but the law could not perform, in that it was weak through the flesh (Rom. 8:3). This, too, was the fault of the first covenant.