Being all-knowing is one of the many attributes ascribed to Almighty God. This attribute underscores the reality that God is constant, thus never changing.
Today, many in our culture believe that God changes with the times to reflect the changing views of society. This is simply not true, as God would not institute a moral statute which he would later contradict. Unfortunately, this prominent cultural view does not reflect constancy on the part of God, but rather inconstancy. As if God was unaware of what would happen in the future that might change his mind. And then God would not be God!
So why do you suppose God entered into the Mosaic Covenant with the Israelites knowing beforehand they would not be faithful to it? It’s reasonable to assume that by breaking this Covenant, the Israelites would be in a more precarious situation with God than had they never entered into it in the first place.
Why do you suppose God would not have just instituted the New and Eternal Covenant in the first place? Why did he take this interim step which, on its surface, appears to have ended in failure? Three reasons come to mind, as to why God would do so that are crucial to understanding his plan for our salvation.
The first is quite simple, but truly the most important and profound reason of all. Namely, to get to Mary. Simply put no Mary no Jesus! Throughout the ancient world, there was no civilization or peoples that practiced monotheism, a belief in one God, except the Israelites. Not the Greeks, nor the Romans, nor the Persians, no one!
In God’s plan for our salvation, his only begotten Son would take on human flesh and experience all that humanity experiences except sin. This included a natural birth. How then could the Mother of God believe in anything contrary to a belief in the one true God?
Imagine, for the sake of argument if the Mother of God was polytheistic, a believer in many gods. How could Jesus, who is the very embodiment of truth, reside in the vessel of a woman’s womb for nine months if she had been a believer in false gods?
In the Book of Exodus we learn that God is a jealous God and that his very first commandment warns us against placing foreign gods before him. It is absurd and thus inconceivable that the Mother of God could have worshipped the Greek god Zeus while pregnant with Jesus!
Indeed, Mary is a pure vessel created by God for a specific purpose. Namely, to be the Mother of his only Son! It is by this same reasoning that Catholics believe in Mary’s Immaculate Conception and, by extension, her Glorious Assumption! A pure vessel before and always!
So the means to get to Mary was by maintaining the existence of at least one of the twelve tribes of Israel, the tribe of Judah. For it had been foreordained by God, as referenced in various books of the Old Testament, that his only begotten Son would be born of the tribe of Judah. Jesus was destined to be a Jew.
The Mosaic Covenant earmarked the special relationship that the Israelites would have with Almighty God, and that they would be a people peculiarly his own. God would look after and protect them while they would worship him as the only true God!
Thus, preserving the Israelites, or at the very least the tribe of Judah, and enabling them to worship him in the manner he prescribed was thus crucial to his plans! The later point concerning the manner and prescription of worship will be discussed in detail in the third reason below.
The second reason for entering into the Mosaic Covenant has to do with prophecy. Contained in the 46 books of the Old Testament are 353 prophecies that reveal, with great specificity, the life, death, resurrection and ascension of the Messiah. Jesus would fulfill every one of these prophecies!
Written, in some cases, a thousand years or more before Christ’s birth, they reveal God’s premeditative plan for our salvation in the person of Jesus Christ. One need only to read these prophecies and compare their fulfillment in the person of Jesus, as contained in the four gospel accounts, to grasp their significance. These prophecies provide a road map that lead us directly to Jesus.
One way for you to experience this yourself is by reading Matthew’s Gospel. There, one finds the fulfillment of 54 of the more significant of these prophecies. Matthew frequently used the words “this was to fulfill what the prophet said” to convey this linkage of specific elements of God’s premeditative plan to its fulfillment in the person of Jesus Christ!
Now it’s important to note that virtually all of these 353 prophecies were made subsequent to the ratification of the Mosaic Covenant. Generally speaking, these prophecies were intrinsically linked to the state of affairs in ancient Israel and the manner in which the Israelites were violating that Covenant, principally by worshiping false gods.
The prophets of the Old Testament were sent by God to warn the Israelites to repent, to amend their ways, and to remain faithful to the Covenant. But they also foretold of better times to come when the Messiah would be made manifest to them.
Now if there had not been a Mosaic Covenant, it’s reasonable to assume that there would not have been the necessity for the prophets to be sent in the first place. Consequently, most of these 353 prophecies would not have been made.
Imagine if you will what our faith in Jesus Christ would be like if none of these prophecies existed. If Jesus had just appeared out of nowhere? In truth, we must acknowledge how significant to our faith is the revelation of God’s premeditative plan for our salvation, as revealed in these prophecies. And this revelation would not have been possible without the Mosaic Covenant!
To comprehend the third and final reason, one needs to have a basic understanding of the ritual that God instituted as a perpetual ordinance upon his chosen people in the celebration of this Covenant. The Israelites were to observe this ritual, commonly referred to as the Passover Seder, on each anniversary of the first Passover. This was to be done in remembrance of:
the Passover sacrifice of the Lord, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt; when he struck down the first born of the Egyptians, he spared our houses (Ex 12: 27).
What’s fascinating about this is how Jesus utilized the Passover Seder to not only institute the new ritual which would commemorate this New and Eternal Covenant, which we call the mass but also to bring about the fruition of this New Covenant. So how did he go about doing this?
What I am about to discuss comes from the book “Jesus and the Jewish Roots of the Eucharist” by Dr. Brant Pitre. This book changed my understanding of the faith in a profound way, and I wish to express my deep gratitude to Dr. Pitre for his knowledge and insights into this topic.
The Passover Seder at the time of Jesus had evolved from its origins. The word Seder means “order”. Thus, this ritual had a unique and defined structure to it, much like we experience in the mass today.
Our knowledge of this ancient ritual comes down to us from the Mishnah, a collection of rabbinic writings which served as a biblical commentary to the books of the Old Testament. The Mishnah was so revered by the Jews at the time of Jesus, that it was second in authority to the Sacred Scriptures.
This ritual had four parts to it and each part had in common: prayers, hymns, blessings, and a cup of wine mixed with a little water which was to be consumed by every participant at the conclusion of each part.
Each of the four cups had a name. The first cup was called the Cup of Sanctification; the second the Cup of Proclamation; the third the Cup of Blessing; and the fourth the Cup of Praise.
It was during the second part of the Passover Seder, the Cup of Proclamation, that the retelling of the Exodus story and the first Passover were told to the family by the father of the household.
During the Last Supper, which of course was a Passover Seder, everything went as was customary during its first two parts. But things changed dramatically during the third part, which was the Cup of Blessing. It was during this third part of the Seder that the meal was eaten.
In Luke’s Gospel account of the Last Supper (Lk 22: 14-20) there is reference to two distinct cups of wine! These two cups refer to the Cup of Proclamation and the Cup of Blessing.
We know that Jesus instituted the Eucharist during the third part of the Passover Seder because St. Paul makes specific reference to it in his first letter to the Corinthians.
The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? (1 Cor. 10: 16)
Did you catch that? A direct reference to the third cup, the Cup of Blessing of the Passover Seder! This is no mere coincidence as Paul was a disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel before his conversion. Rabbi Gamaliel was one of the most authoritative rabbis in all of ancient Israel and wrote extensively on the Passover Seder. He is also referenced in the Acts of the Apostles.
By virtue of the institution of the Eucharist, Jesus had changed the order of the third part of the Seder in a significant way. One can well imagine how his disciples must have reacted by what had taken place. For their entire lives they had never experienced such a deviation in any prior Passover Seder!
But their shock would have only intensified when “after singing a hymn they went out to the Mount of Olives.” (Mt 26: 30) The hymn that Jesus and his apostles sung would have been the Great Hallel, Psalm 118, called the Hymn of Thanksgiving. It was always sung at the commencement of the fourth cup, the Cup of Praise. But as the quote from Matthew’s Gospel suggests, the fourth cup was not consumed before they departed for the Mount of Olives. Thus, the Passover Seder remained incomplete!
So what happened when they arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives? Jesus went off, fell prostrate, and prayed alone to his heavenly Father in these words:
My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet, not as I will, but as you will.” (Mt 26: 39)
There it is an explicit reference to an unconsumed cup! Jesus would make this same plea three times in the garden and each time he made an explicit reference to a cup! Here is Jesus’ second request.
My Father, if it is not possible that this cup pass without me drinking it, your will be done!” (Mt 26: 42)
So the question that arises from this is did Jesus actually drink from the fourth cup, the Cup of Praise? And if he did so, when and how was it done? He did, in fact, consume the Cup of Praise from the cross. When and how he did so is revealed in the following passage from John’s Gospel.
After this, aware that everything was now finished, in order that scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I thirst.” There was a vessel filled with common wine. So they put a sponge soaked in wine on a sprig of hyssop and put it up to his mouth. When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he handed over the spirit (Jn 19: 28-30).
One can see by the manner in which Jesus fulfilled the New and Eternal Covenant that he did so taking special care to do it in the context of completing the Mosaic Covenant’s Passover Seder!
One last intriguing fact that further substantiates this view is found in the following quote from the Book of Exodus.
Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and procure lambs for your families, and slaughter the Passover victims. Then take a bunch of hyssop and dipping it in the blood that is in the basin, apply some of this blood to the lintel and the two doorposts (Ex 12: 21-22).
Applying the blood by use of a hyssop branch seems like a trivial detail in this quotation from the Book of Exodus. The fact that a hyssop branch is used in the culminating act in both of these Covenants is unmistakable! It almost seems as though they aren’t separate covenants at all, but rather two parts to one continuous covenant. A pre-and post-Messiah covenant!
There you have it. Three reasons why God would enter into a Covenant with the Israelites that he knew they would break. These reasons can be summarized as (1) providing a means to get to Mary as a descendant of the tribe of Judah; (2) the revelation of 353 prophecies which reveal with great specificity, God’s premeditative plan for our salvation; and (3) the intricate connection between the Mosaic Covenant and the New and Eternal Covenant as fulfilled by Jesus in the completion of the Passover Seder!
As we prepare for the holiest week of the Church year may we reflect upon the manner in which Jesus fulfilled his Father’s will and in so doing melded these two great Covenants together. As I ponder upon it, the wonder of God’s intelligent design of all things resonate within his plan for our salvation
6 thoughts on “Three Reasons God Made a Covenant He Knew the Israelites Would Break”
I was fascinated by your reference to the Passover Seder.Let me explain a bit more about how we Jews celebrate it because we have a different emphasis .
To begin with,food plays an important role.We are instructed by God to refrain from eating Chametz ,or leavening agents , for the seven days of the festival .So specially prepared food is served . The Seder table displays matzah ( unleavened bread ) ,bowls of karpas ( greens ) which are dipped into salt water to recall the bitterness of slavery ,maror ( a bitter herb ) and charoset ( a delicious paste of matzah ,nuts ,wine and spices ) to remind us of the mortar in the bricks of the buildings the Israelites were forced to erect.
And when we drink the required four cups of wine ( or grape juice ) ,we lean to the left ,in a reference to the way free people like the Romans used to do at their banquets !
The order of the Seder is listed in a special book ,the Haggadah , which we read .
at the table The emphasis of the Haggadah is on teaching children about the Exodus and the giving of the Torah at Mt. Sinai. The children and grand children delight in two particular observances .
At the very start of the Seder ,the youngest child sings the famous Four Questions , the Ma Nishtanah. Why is this night different from all other nights ? Parents and grandparents glow with pride as they listen to the ancient Hebrew words .And then the celebrant goes on to answer.
Then at one point in the Seder ,the celebrant breaks off a piece of Matzah which he or she tries to hide from the kids . This is called the Afikoman ,a Greek word for dessert. After the meal ,the kids go on a search and the one who finds the Afikoman gets a reward .According to the laws of Passover ,each participant must eat a portion of the Afikoman ,while reclining on the left .Nothing may be eaten or drunk after this except for the last two cups of wine.
The Seder then continues with hymns and much loved songs . At the very end ,everybody sings out loud, as we have done for nearly 2,000 years. ….LE SHANAH HA’ BA’AH BI’ROO SHALAYIM .
NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM !
I hope I have’nt overloaded you with details.
Jock from Melbourne ,Australia
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For all the insults heaped on the boomers – aka spirit of Vat 2 generation – I daresay we did get a few important morals right. Deacon Frank’s insistence that God is unchanging from Genesis up, is more selective memory recitation than facts. The OT God presented as wishy-washy and resentful. He made man, then in a fit of anger drowned humanity, permitted divorce and multiple wives where polygamy is now recognized by Islamic tradition. He allowed Noah to eat animals, which the boomers thought through, and now boast of a 15% reversal rate in meat consumption, not counting countries like India where the majority innately understand the wise prohibition. They also surmised reincarnation, even as Jesus indicated ( if properly understood ) in thirteen Gospels including Matt 16;28 . We marched for peace, while the OT driver dictated the slaughter of countless humans from age zero to adult. As to monotheism, The Greeks ( Zeus), Romans (Jupiter) and the Hindu’s (Krishna) all pronounce ONE God, the rest being demi-gods celebrating wine, song the hunt,; not unlike our saints. Anyone attempting to read, comprehend or reference Isaiah will go blind in confusion over this screed, who, from what I gather, didn’t even see the destruction of the 2nd Temple – and many scholars are in contention of its meanings. All in all, I have to admire Deacon Frank’s Passion points from the OT and in the end reaffirm my belief that Jesus used OT references as that’s all that was available, but is in no way critical, to show us the Way to eternal life.
Ordinary Papist,
Where to begin?!? God did not permit divorce.
(1)Jesus actually said as much. He said “it was the hardness of their (Israelites’) hearts that Moses permitted it, but it was not so from the beginning.”
That he permitted Noah to eat meat.
(2) Nomadic people do not settle in one location which is necessary for farming to be cultivated. Maybe they should have starved.
Regarding your comment on reincarnation you make reference to 13 gospels.
(3) Only four gospels are canonical Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. All the rest are spurious and that you quote from them is unfortunate and misleading.
That you reference polytheistic religions and liken them to the Catholic faith by stating they really only have one god and multiple demigods, likening demigods to the saints is absurd and just plain wrong on so many levels.
(4)True there was a hierarchy to the Greek and Roman gods but they weren’t people but were considered gods (not like the saints who are venerated not worshipped), and worshipped as such with temples and sacrifices made to their deity. When we pray to the saints we seek their intercession with God.
God is wishy washy and resentful in the OT.
(5) God is neither of those things. To save humanity from utter self-destruction God needed to ensure his only Son was born of Mary and she had to be born of the tribe of Judah. The Egyptians were practicing genocide upon the Israelites by killing their first born sons. How long would their existence lasted if that was permitted to continue!
I could go on but from reading other posts you’ve made to previous articles I’d say you are quite confused about the Catholic faith and who God is. I wish you well on your journey through life and hope that you keep an open mind to all that the Catholic Church teaches about our loving God! My blessing to you.
Thank you for the blessing.
Thank you, Frank, for an interesting and informative article. The Covenant relationship that you describe is central to the Christian Gospel. It is worth noting that Jerome translated Lk. 22.20 with the term “new testament,” rather than the more accurate term, “New Covenant.” The latter is the translation that is more usually given in modern texts. Every Early Modern English translation of Lk. 22.20 followed Jerome’s rendering, unfortunately. The Geneva Bible did give a footnote that clarified the translation as referring to the New Covenant.
The Midian priest who was Moses’ father-in-law, was named Reuel. The name means “friend of God.” Thus, Reuel was a monotheist, too. The other non-Hebrew record of monotheism in the ancient world is found in the same Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt that Moses was a product of. Akhenaten became pharaoh of Egypt (1353 B.C.) nearly 100 years after the Exodus (1446 B.C.). He closed the temples of all of the other gods, and made Egyptians worship one God. This, of course, did not go over well with the Egyptian priests, and of course did not last beyond his kingship.
There could be little doubt that this anomaly in Egyptian religion was influenced by the victory of Moses’ religion over that of Egyptian slavery.