The Seven Covenants, a Review

Recently, I had occasion to address the subject of the Seven Covenants God made in a blog posting at OnePeterFive, and I place it here for anyone interesting in the basic engine of salvation, how "salvation works" as understood in the Historical (East and West, pre-Protestant) Church.

The original comment was to the effect that the "Old Covenant" was cancelled with Christ's Death and the "New Covenant" was established. That "set me off". (The following is a bit fuller and slightly altered from the original.)

The essay:

Dear ______, the "Old Covenant" is actually FIVE Covenants God made in Salvation History. (Well, a perfect Seven altogether, including the first, the Covenant with Creation and the last, the New Covenant He made with Himself.) The Church has historically taught that the Fourth of these, the Covenant with Moses, was cancelled or superseded. Well, none of them can be cancelled but each one is "superseded" in the sense of not being removed, but rather transformed and fulfilled as the foundation of the Covenant built on top of it. Please let me explain.

Of all the traditional Church teachings I've ever studied, this is the one that is "misguided" slightly, or that needs clarified a bit. ALL the Seven Covenants are of a piece, from the very first one, the one God made when He created the world and "rested" or made holy on the Seventh Day, the Covenant with Creation, to the final Covenant, the one He made with Himself in the New Covenant (the Eucharist IS that Covenant, the means by which we are transformed in our nature (something Protestantism has always denied: i.e., Luther's "Simul Justus et Peccator.")1 wherein we "take on Christ" and "become new men in Christ", they all fit together in one structure, the tower of salvation, each one fulfilled and transformed by the one above it.

The other Covenants post-Creation could NOT be "cancelled" any more than the original Creation one (or the created world would cease): we are STILL working out the Covenant made with Adam and Eve, (though Our Lord fulfilled it in the sense that He did, indeed, crush the serpent's head, and the serpent bit His heel, i.e., crucified Him) and no one expects the world to perish in a flood (the Covenant with Noah) and of course Abraham must always be "our father in faith" because we need to be Jews, i.e., inheritors by blood of the promises made to Abraham that all the world would be blessed through his descendants, descendants who would come via Sarah, his true wife. This is why St. Paul writes throughout his copious volumes about "taking on Christ" and "becoming new men" and being grafted onto the true vine, and so on, and why he calls the Church the new Israel or synagogue of God: because through the Most Holy Eucharist, we receive not only Our Lord Christ's divine nature, beginning what the Orthodox call Theosis, the Divinization of us, our "transformation in Christ" ("We have received the spirit of Sonship to cry 'Abba', Father!" in Romans 8), but also Jesus' human blood too (because the Dual Nature of Christ cannot be separated; the Blessed Mother is not the mother of a nature, but of a Person) which He inherited through His Mother (who, thus, through the Most Holy Eucharist, becomes OUR Mother too, quite literally). 2

We ARE Jews, spiritual Jews, but also by blood via the Holy Eucharist, grafted on to the vine. THAT'S the New Covenant, the fulfillment of ALL the "Old" Covenants (even the First, because via Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, we begin to restore nature as God made it in the beginning). As noted, each Covenant is like a layer of bricks, fulfilled and expanded by the new Covenant brick layer built on top. For example, the Fifth (post-Creation) Covenant was the one God made with David, that the kingship of Israel would never pass from David's descendants. Jesus Christ IS that Descendant and He is King Forever. No Churchman in 2000 years would dream of saying THAT Covenant was cancelled. But cancel the Fourth Mosaic Covenant and the Fifth has to fall, just as a tower would if you would took out one layer of bricks. (Which of course couldn't be done anyway, not without knocking the whole to thing to pieces).




So, Covenants are never cancelled or even "superseded" but transformed, elevated, and given their true natures, just as our human nature is, through Christ, transformed, elevated, and give our eternal and true natures.

An Préachán

PS: It is my understanding the JPII knew this very well and wrote about it but I've not the references at hand. The Modernist Church has well and truly buried him, but at least it waited till he died; it has buried Josef Ratzinger alive.

1. C.S. Lewis, somewhere in his Letter to Malcolm, Chiefly on Prayer, says of this basic Protestant idea: that we are not "transformed" in our nature but are like manure piles covered with the pure snow of God's saving grace (Luther's image), that it would be like coming in from the fields, or from the garage, all dirty, sweaty, soil or grease covered, etc., and finding a big party was going on in the house. And the people there immediately tried to put a rich, glorious, sumptuous, robe on you — before you had a chance to clean up. Wouldn't it be quite natural, "Jack" wrote, to want to say, "Here, wait a minute, let me wash up! Get the dirt off! Put on some clean undergarments!" Of course it would. Everyone has experienced being very sweaty in one's undergarments and definitely NOT wanting to put on clean outer garments. Why would you? It would feel awful, and MOST uncomfortable, sticky, and miserable. How in creation could you possibly enjoy the party?

2. With this idea, the foundational idea of Historical Christianity, one can see the essence of the fight between Christians and Jews. Jews quite naturally claim to be the "True" Jews, inheriting the status by blood via their mothers because all Jews are Jews from their mothers, as it was from Sarah that Isaac is bestowed with the Abrahamic Covenant (Abraham was also the father of Ishmael, of course, who didn't inherit that Covenant, a teaching Islam exists, in part, to forcefully deny); with of course exceptions for conversions in general and those whose fathers were Jews and whose mothers were not). But in any event, it is quite insulting for Jews to have someone not remotely related to them physically or interested in any way in following the kosher laws, etc., to come up and say, "I'm just as Jewish as you are, because I actually have the blood of Abraham in my veins through the Holy Eucharist!". Now, clearly, sacramental Christians cannot give up their basic teaching, and clearly, Jews cannot (readily) accept it (w/o converting themselves, something quite contentious and a cause to start fighting). So, charity and circumspection are required when Christians discuss the Sacramental Faith with our "Elder Brothers".

There's no easy way around it though. And prayer is definitely required.