AD POSTS:
If the feasts brought the Old and New together for you wait till you study the covenants.
End of quote
Absolutely, this is what I'm thinking too.
KFC POSTS:
l wouldn't exactly say they brought it together for me from out of nowhwere but that it really enhanced my belief that the two parts of our bible are not at all separate but all one complimenting each other quite nicely.
End of quote
It seems to me that since the theology of covenants is integral to Christian identity as given by the Old and New Testaments, they should definitely be taken into consideration in understanding these various subjects that have been on the discussion table, eg Hebrew feasts, the Torah, as well as the New Testament perfecting the Old.
The following on the Covenants is reprint from Ignatious Press from the writings of a Catholic theologian, Mr. Stephen Pimentel. I'm wondering on how much we can agree?
In the biblical conception, a covenant is not a contract or mutual agreement between God and man, but an unsought gift of God to man. The covenant then is not a pact built on reciprocity, but rather a gift, a creative act of God's love. In their concrete historical realizations, the covenants of God take multiple forms. St. Paul uses "covenants" in the plural to describe God's dealings with Israel Rom. 9:4. The Old Testament distinguishes the Noahite, Abrahamic, Mosaic and Davidic covenants.
For St.Paul, the most important of these covenants are the Abrahamic and the Mosaic, which relate to the New Covenant in different ways. While all the covenants enter into human history, the Abrahamic and new covenants share in a divinely guaranteed permanence, in contrast to the "transitory" and "provisional" nature of the Mosaic covenant. Whereas the Abrahamic covenant is "fundamental and enduring," the Mosaic covenant is "intervening" Rom. 5:20. The Mosaic Law was a form of divine pedagogy designed to "fall away once the pedagogical goal has been achieved, and the goal of the Law is none other than Christ Himself Rom. 10:4. Therefore, the Mosaic covenant is a transitory "stage in the decrees of God, which has its own time. All this St. Paul has brought out clearly, and no Christian can revoke it.
The New Covenant-----
The establishment of the New Covenant is described by the words of institution spoken by Christ over the cup during the Last Supper. In the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Matthew, Christ says, "This is my blood of the covenant", which echoes the institution of the Mosaic covenant in Exodus 24:8. A covenantal ritual of this kind establishes a blood-union or kinship between its participants. Through the covenant, God establishes a "mysterious consanguinity" between himself and man.
By declaring the cup to be the "blood of the covenant," Christ is stating that His Blood, poured out in His Passion and made really present in the Eucharist, will reestablish the bond of kinship between God and man. In this way, "the words of Sinai are intensified to an overwhelming realism." The Last Supper was fundamentally the sealing of the covenant, and to Catholics, the Eucharist is now an ongoing reenactment of this covenant renewal. The Letter to the Hebrews describes the institution of the Eucharist, in which the blood of Jesus is really offered to the Father, as "a cosmic Day of Atonement" Heb. 9:11-14, 24-26. In sacramental communion, the disciple is united both physically and spiritually with Christ 1 Cor. 6:16.
The broken covenant --------
St.Paul and St.Luke give a somewhat different version of the words that Christ spoke over the cup. Instead of the "blood of the covenant," the cup is described as the "new covenant in my blood" (1 Cor. 11:25). This passage alludes to Jeremias's prophecy of the New Covenant Jer. 31:31-34. In this prophecy, the New Covenant, never to be broken, is expressly contrasted with the Mosaic "covenant they have broken" Jer. 31:32. The history of Israel repeatedly appears in the Old Testament as a history of the broken covenant. In contrast, the covenant with the patriarchs is considered eternally valid. It is the Mosaic Law that renders the covenant conditional and subject to being broken. Moreover, the tablets of the Law, which symbolized the Mosaic covenant, have been "lost forever" with the destruction of the Temple meaning it hasn't been possible to live in accordance with the Mosaic covenant, as formulated in Deuteronomy, since that destruction. By the preaching of the prophets, "Israel knew that even though it celebrated again and again the renewal of the covenant, it could not regain the lost tablets, which God alone had the power to give and to inscribe."
It isn't the New Testament, much less later Christian theology, that first declared the Mosaic covenant to have been broken. It was the prophets of the Old Testament. Thus, the neo-Deuteronomic program advanced by the Pharisees and later adopted by the rabbis is not in accordance with Scripture, even if attention is restricted to the Old Testament. Rather, the way forward lies with the New Covenant given by God "in the flesh and blood of the Risen Christ."
In the final analysis, the Mosaic Law points from within itself to beyond itself, for Moses himself is a prophet and can be understood correctly only if understood prophetically. This is a particular application of St. Augustine's principle, reaffirmed by the CC, that the New Testament lies hidden in the Old and the Old is unveiled in the New.
The Deuteronomic curses ------
By gravely violating the Mosaic Law, Israel had incurred the curses of the Deuteronomic covenant Deut.28:15-68;30:1. In order to perfectly fulfill the Law, Christ had to take upon Himself those curses. "Jesus fulfills the Law to the point of taking upon himself the 'curse of the Law' incurred by those who do not 'abide by the things written in the book of the Law, and do them.'" In Gal 3:10, St. Paul quotes Deut. 27:26, the summary curse of the Deuteronomic covenant, which encapsulates the longer list of conditional curses ritually imposed on Israel when the covenant was instituted Deut. 27:14-26. Because Christ took these curses upon Himself on the Cross Gal. 3:13, His death served as "the perfect realization" of the Day of Atonement.
The transitory nature of the Mosaic Law does not imply that the New Covenant lacks a law of its own, for St. Paul also speaks of "
the Torah of Christ" Gal. 6:2, namely, "the dual commandment of love." So, therefore, the New Covenant calls all who accept it to "their own faithful conduct" Heb. 3:13, for Christ "imposes duties upon us and challenges us to obedience."
The children of Abraham -----
For St.Paul, "the promise of Abraham guarantees from the beginning the inner continuity of salvation history, from the patriarchs of Israel to the coming of Christ and the Church of Jews and Gentiles."
Scripture presents salvation history not as a dichotomy between the New Covenant and those of the Old Testament but rather as a "dynamic unity of the entire history." Indeed, from the perspective of eternity, there is only "one covenant," the "eternally valid" covenant of Abraham now perfectly fulfilled in Christ.
The Abrahamic covenant was structured from the beginning to be fulfilled by Christ. In the very ritual establishing the Abrahamic covenant Gen. 15:12-21, God enacted "symbolically a conditional curse" upon Himself, offering His own life as a surety. This ritual was a "sign of the Cross of Christ, in which God vouches for the indestructibility of the covenant with the death of His Son." Thus, the full meaning of the Abrahamic covenant is revealed only when God binds his own existence to the creature, man, by taking human nature upon Himself.
For St. Paul, the children of Abraham are those in covenant with God by faith Gal.3:6-7. God's promise to Abraham of blessing for the Gentiles Gen. 12:3 is the foundation of the gospel Gal. 3:8-9. In fact, the gospel can be described as the proclamation that the blessing for the Gentiles is now coming to pass through Christ Eph. 3:6. Within covenantal history, the promise of blessing was given to Abraham and fulfilled by Jesus, who "opens up and fulfills the wholeness of the Law and gives it thus to the pagans, who can now accept it . . ., thereby becoming children of Abraham."
The CC teaches the "'full number of the nations' now takes its 'place in the family of the patriarchs.'" Christ is "the promised shoot of Judah, who unites Israel and the nations in the kingdom of God." Therefore, members of all nations enter the "People of God with Israel through adherence to the will of God and through acceptance of the Davidic Kingdom," understood not merely as a temporal political entity, but as God's rule on earth extended from heaven Isa. 52:7. In consequence, there is only one People of God, the Body of Christ, in which both Jews and Gentiles are welcome. The mission of Christ is to unite Jews and pagans into a single People of God.
St. Paul's understanding of the Body of Christ as an organic "grafting" of the Gentiles into Israel is understood by the Church as "draws nourishment from that good olive tree onto which the wild olive branches of the Gentiles have been grafted Rom. 11:1724." God prunes from this tree only those branches that refuse belief in Christ Rom. 11:20. Therefore, the Old Testament remains central to faith in Christ. "There is no access to Jesus and thereby can be no entrance of the nations into the People of God without acceptance in faith of . . . the Old Testament."
Christ must be seen not as a barrier but as the only doorway to the desired unity, for through Jesus, "the God of Israel has become the God of the nations." As St. Paul described, Jesus has united Jew and Gentile in one Body:
"For he is our peace, who has made us both one, and has broken down the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law of commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby bringing the hostility to an end." Eph. 2:14-16.
This communion in Christ is not empty theological rhetoric, but an empirical state of affairs, visible wherever the Church is present.
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