Whatever difficulties the inclusion of Abel might create the overwhelming evidence from 2 Corinthians 3 and from Hebrews chapters 7–10 is that the NT identifies the “old covenant” with Moses and with Sinai. The figure of Abraham and the promises of the new covenant, expressed in the old covenant in typological terms and quoted in the NT, function rather differently. Abraham is the paradigm of the new covenant Christian.

In part 1 we began this series by defining the expression “new covenant” by looking at the promise of the new covenant as expressed in Jeremiah 31. We saw that the essence of the promise is, in fact, nothing new at all: “I will be your God and you will be my people.”

We saw that, in Jeremiah, the new covenant is contrasted not with everything that occurred prior to Christ’s incarnation but rather the new covenant is contrasted with the Mosaic, Sinaitic covenant. The new covenant is said to be new relative to Moses not Abraham or Noah.

The great features of the new covenant, according to Jeremiah 31, are the interiority, as it were, of God’s revelation (written on the heart), its relative spirituality (they shall all know the Lord), and its immutability (not like the one that national Israel broke). All of these features, however, were part and parcel of the covenant of grace God promised to Abraham and they are promised throughout the history of redemption to those who believe.

Further, we observed that, this passage must be understood in its literary context. In other words, that it is a restatement, in prophetic idiom, of the essential benefits of the covenant of grace made with Abraham. One finds these benefits promised in Ezekiel (36:28; 39:29) and perhaps most notably in Joel 2:28.

The expressions “old covenant” (παλαιος διαθηκη; 2 Cor 3:14) and “new covenant” (καινη διαθηκη) occur just a few times in the NT but often enough and with sufficient context for us to be able to determine the intended sense. The NT writers pick up the expression “new covenant” from Jeremiah 31, which, in the LXX (Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew and Aramaic Scriptures) is expressed as a καινη διαθηκη.

Our Lord uses the expression “new covenant” as part of the institution of holy communion (Luke 22:20). The Apostle Paul re-states the connection between Christ’s death, the holy Supper, and the new covenant in 1 Corinthians 11:25 invoking the same essential elements. There he certainly means to invoke the Ancient Near Eastern covenant-treaty making pattern.

The new covenant is not in the blood of bulls and goats but in his own blood. He is to become, for us, the ritual sacrifice, God’s pledge of fidelity, and more than that he will suffer the wrath of our covenant breaking even as he keeps covenant and fulfills God’s covenant promise to be our God. The new covenant is the realization of the promises that had hitherto been expressed typologically and prophetically but the new covenant is not utterly new insofar as it is made through death and the shedding of blood and the propitiation of wrath. These are ancient biblical themes that antedate the “new covenant” by thousands of years.

The NT view of the “new covenant” becomes clearer in 2 Corinthians 3 when, as part of his self-defense (v. 1), Paul appeals to the nature of the new covenant in order to vindicate his fidelity to his office and to the Corinthians. The Corinthian congregation itself is Paul’s “letter of recommendation” (v. 2). That letter is “written on our hearts.” As he invokes the imagery from Jeremiah 31 he creates an analogy that he completes through the passage. The congregation is a letter written by the Holy Spirit (v. 3) not on tablets of stone, but on fleshy tablets.

One should not miss the significance of the contrast here between “tablets of stone” (Moses, the Sinaitic covenant) and “tablets of flesh.” The contrast established is not between Abraham (or Noah) and the new covenant, but between Moses and the new covenant. This is the conceptual background in place when Paul finally uses the expression “new covenant” (καινη διαθηκη) in vs. 6. The old covenant was such that it could be broken, but the new covenant cannot be broken. Paul is a minister of an immutable covenant and he connects his trustworthiness to the nature of the covenant. This is the conceptual framework within which one must read the contrast between “Spirit” (the Holy Spirit) and “letter.”

The letter is the Mosaic law, the old covenant. The Mosaic law was intended to drive sinners to the knowledge of their sin and to cause them to seek a Savior outside of themselves. The Spirit gives (new) life. He sovereignly regenerates and now, in the new covenant, we live in light of the fulfillment of the promises embedded in the typological revelation generally and in the Mosaic (old) covenant specifically.

Again, this sort of contrast is not utterly new. The promise of “tablets of flesh” and the contrast between them and “tablets of stone” come from Ezekiel 11:9 and 36:26. In the old, Mosaic covenant itself Yahweh called the Israelites to “circumcise the foreskin of your hearts” (Deut 10:16) and promised that he himself would “circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live” (Deut 30:6). Thus, the promises and the realities, for those who believe, are not utterly new.

The writer to the Hebrews, facing the possibility of the defection of Jewish Christians back to the Mosaic system and to Judaism, argues that the Mosaic law, “a former commandment,” has been “set aside because of its weakness and uselessness” (Heb 7:19). Indeed, the argument of this section of the epistle to the Hebrew Christians is an extended case for the superiority of the new covenant to the old and thus it’s important to note how he thinks of the “old covenant” (to use Paul’s language).

According to Hebrews, Jesus is the “surety (εγγυος) of a better covenant” (κρειιττονος διαθηκης). He argues from the inferiority of the old covenant priesthood and for the superiority of Christ’s priesthood (Heb 7:27–8:5).

In 8:6 the writer argues “Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.” Here we see Hebrews equating the old promises to the old covenant. The new covenant has better promises and is, to the same degree the promises are superior, a better covenant. The old covenant here refers not to Abraham or to Noah but to Moses.

Failure to observe this distinction will result is significant confusion about the message of the writer to the Hebrews. Remember, he is writing to Jewish Christians who are being tempted to become Judaizers, to place themselves back under the Mosaic law, to forget that the Mosaic law/covenant/priesthood was intentionally temporary and, having been fulfilled by Christ, has expired. Indeed, the Ebionite movement in the early church testifies to the fact that not a few Hebrew Christians succumbed to the temptation to go back to Moses.

We don’t have to wonder about the true meaning of Jeremiah 31:31 since the writer to the Hebrews gives us a divinely inspired interpretation of the passage. In vv. 8-12 he quotes Jeremiah. In v. 7 he says that if the “first [covenant]” had been “faultless” there would have been no need for a second covenant. It is clear in context that the “first covenant” here refers to the covenant described in v. 6.

The only covenant under consideration here, apart from the new, better covenant, is the Mosaic, old, obsolete, inferior covenant. These are the sorts of adjectives Hebrews uses in 8:13. The old covenant is “worn out” and “old.” Here the writer to the Hebrews uses the same distinction as Paul but intensifies it.

We can be sure that Hebrews has Moses in mind because in chapter 9 he begins to illustrate the old, worn out, inferior covenant by describing the tabernacle. The tent of meeting and subsequent developments were part of the Mosaic cultus (worship) not the Abrahamic or Noahic. He calls this the regulations for worship belonging to the “first” [covenant]. It’s so obvious to the writer that he simply uses the adjective because the noun to be qualified, covenant, is implied.

In 9:4 he speaks of the “tablets of the covenant” and the “ark of the covenant.” He pursues this line of argumentation in 9:15. This is a difficult passage to be sure but for our purposes we need only observe that the contrast here is between the “new covenant” and “the first covenant.”

In 10:16 he closes this major section of the letter (sermon?) by going back to the passage with which he began, Jeremiah 31:31. Throughout the entire section the contrast has been between the “new covenant” (which is made with blood) and the “first covenant” which is “old,” “worn out,” and “inferior.” None of these adjectives are used to describe the promise given to Abraham.

The problem is not inherent to the Abrahamic (or Noahic) promises but the Mosaic covenant can be described thus because it was (Gal 3) never intended to be anything but temporary.

The fundamental contrast here is between typology (illustration of something to come) and reality or fulfillment. This is why Hebrews 12:26 contrasts the blood of Christ, the blood of the new covenant with the blood of Abel (a pre-Mosaic character) since, Abel was a martyr looking forward to the reality, to Christ by faith. Unlike Abel, we have the reality. The point here is to contrast even righteous Abel with the even more holy, more righteous, and ultimately efficacious death of Jesus the Mediator.

One might argue that, inclusion of Abel in the “old covenant” is implied by the use of the expression “new covenant” but that would miss the point of his inclusion. It comes at the end of an explicit contrast between Sinai (which is, strictly speaking “the old covenant” throughout Hebrews and elsewhere in the NT) and Zion.

In v. 23 he associates the “assembly of the firstborn” in heaven with the “spirits of the righteous made perfect” with Jesus “the mediator of the new covenant.” The invocation of Jesus as the covenant mediator (opposite Moses) leads him to “sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” By the end of v. 24 his attention has arguably moved beyond the contrast between Moses and Sinai to a broader contrast between all typological elements and the reality in Christ. The invocation of Abel here does not change the essential identification of the “old covenant” with Moses and Sinai.

Whatever difficulties the inclusion of Abel might create the overwhelming evidence from 2 Corinthians 3 and from Hebrews chapters 7–10 is that the NT identifies the “old covenant” with Moses and with Sinai. The figure of Abraham and the promises of the new covenant, expressed in the old covenant in typological terms and quoted in the NT, function rather differently. Abraham is the paradigm of the new covenant Christian.

Paul uses him so explicitly in Romans 4. Abraham is the father of Gentile Christians, because he believed before he was circumcised, and he is the father of Jewish Christians because he believed after he was circumcised. Abraham is Paul’s proof that circumcision is immaterial to justification (acceptance with God). What matters if faith and Abraham is the father all Christians, of all believers.

Abraham fulfills the same function in Galatians 3. We’ll look at that passage in our next part.

(to be Continued in Part 3)

R. Scott Clark is Professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Westminster Seminary in California (see his full bio here). This article first appeared at Scott’s Heidleblog

and is used with permission.