6. Old testament promises.

The promises were meant exclusively for the Israelites and the covenant itself was temporary ‘until the Seed (Christ) to whom the promise (made to Abraham) referred had come’. (Galatians 3:9) With the death of Christ, the covenant has been cancelled and nailed to the cross.(Colossians 2:14) and therefore now obsolete ( Hebrews 8:13).

God had promised the Israelites:

1. Freedom from slavery: The Israelites were promised freedom from slavery in Egypt but not freedom from the slavery to sin. ‘The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out and their cry for help because of their slavery, went up to God. God heard their groaning and remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Issac and with Jacob.’ ( Exodus 2:23-24) Therefore, the Lord said to Moses, “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians …” (Exodus 3:8) The Israelites observed the Passover ‘and on that very day the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt’ ( 12:51). They were free from slavery but they perished in the desert because of their sinful cravings and rebellion against God. ( Numbers 14:26-35)

2. A land flowing with milk and honey: The Israelites were promised an earthly inheritance in Cannan and not a heavenly inheritance. “I have come down to … bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” (Exodus 3:8) They took possession of the land but only to be exiled to Assyria and Babylon because their descendants defiled the land with their vile sins.

3. Conditional healing: The Israelites were promised conditional healing. ‘If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.” (Exodus 15:26) They had a covenant of healing but Israel was full of sickness and disease when Jesus the Messiah came because they couldn’t meet the requirements of the law.

‘For if there has been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant … it will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers … I will put my laws in their minds and write then on their hearts … I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” ( Hebrews 8:7-12/ Jeremiah 31:31-34) Amen