1S20-10: The New Covenant Did NOT Do Away With The Old – It Builds Upon It!!!

Let’s kick things off today by taking a look at verse 12.

“Y’honatan said to David, “Adonai, the God of Israel [is witness]: after I have sounded out my father, about this time tomorrow, or the third day, then, if things look good for David, I will send and let you know.”

The situation is Jonathan and David are establishing a new covenant with each other.

We know this because of the familiar vow formula being employed:

“Y’honatan said to David, “ADONAI, the God of Israel [is witness]:

The fact that a vow is being used to seal a covenant here tells us something important.

A vow is NOT a covenant…

And a covenant is NOT a vow.

These are two different things.

Think of a basic contract in our modern society.

The terms and conditions or the promise portion of the contract is the covenant.

The signature portion of the contract that finalizes the deal is the vow.

Are you with me here?

In addition, in Hebrew what Jonathan really said was:

“YHWH elohim Yisra’el”

This means “YAHWEH the Deity of Israel”.

This is serious!

Why?

Because the Almighty Himself is the guarantor of this covenant.

And by the way, I feel compelled to remind you that 99.9% of the time when you see the words “Adonai”, “God”, and “Lord” in the Hebrew Bible…

The original Hebrew is יהוה or YHVH!

Onward.

There’s something else interesting about the terms of this agreement.

Jonathan begins with “Adonai the God of Israel is witness”…

And he ends with “Adonai is between me and you forever”.

As believers, this is how we should open and close our prayers.

They should be done invoking God’s Holy Name.

The next thing I want you to catch is how this covenant is different from the first one Jonathan and David made with each other.

The first covenant was a one-to-one agreement of friendship between Jonathan and David.

It only involved two parties.

However, here in verses 12 to 23, the bond of loyalty has now been extended to cover not just Jonathan and David but their future descendants.

This covenant establishes the pattern for that other new covenant Jeremiah spoke of:

“‘Here, the days are coming,”
says Adonai, ‘when I will make
a new covenant with the house of
Isra’el and with the house of Y’hudah .’ ^”
-Jeremiah 31:31

That’s right homies.

This new covenant between David and Jonathan foreshadows the covenant Yeshua will seal in his blood.

The gentile church has erred greatly by thinking the New Covenant did away with the covenants God made with Noah, Abraham, and Moses.

They hold to this unscriptural theology that the New Covenant replaced the Old Covenant.

That is NOT what the Bible says at all.

Each successive covenant builds on and expands on the covenant that came before it…

Just like the second covenant involving Jonathan and David’s future families builds and expands on the first covenant they made with each other.  

And just like Yeshua’s New Covenant builds on the Mosaic covenants to now also include gentile believers who are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel through their faith in the Jewish Messiah.

Are you feeling me here homies?

The New Covenant didn’t do away with the Old Covenant.

It builds upon it!

Got it?

CONNECTING THIS TEACHING TO THE NEW TESTAMENT

“Do not think that I have come
to abolish the Law or the Prophets;
I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear,
not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen,
will by any means disappear from the Law
until everything is accomplished.
Therefore anyone who sets aside one of
the least of these commands and teaches others
accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven,
but whoever practices and teaches these commands
will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
-Matthew 5:17-19