“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: ‘Hear the words of this covenant, and speak to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem. You shall say to them, Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man who does not hear the words of this covenant that I commanded your fathers when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the iron furnace, saying, Listen to my voice, and do all that I command you. So shall you be my people, and I will be your God, that I may confirm the oath that I swore to your fathers, to give them a land flowing with milk and honey, as at this day.’ Then I answered, ‘So be it, LORD'” (Jeremiah 11:1–5)
Covenant theologians of various stripes alike agree that there is both continuity and discontinuity as we move from the Old Covenant to the New. It’s my contention that whereas my presbyterian friends get too crazy with the glue, we reformed baptists play a bit wild with the scissors at times. Even so, I believe credobaptist covenant theologians are more mature with their scissors than their paedobaptist counterparts are with the glue.
These are important matters but they pale in significance compared to a far more deadly hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity—one of personal convenience. If you only see the stream flowing where you’re thirsty, and always damned up where you desire no flooding, I’m afraid you’ve drifted from the truth. If you only see continuity where it benefits you, and discontinuity where it could harm you, beware, because you’re probably off on both counts.
If you read a text like Jeremiah 11:1–17 and think, “Phew! I’m glad I’m not under the Old Covenant.” because this would be bad news for your idols, then you’re not grateful, but an ingrate. We should indeed be ecstatic that we live on the fulfilled side of the promises, but not that kind of happy. If you think that because you’ve heard the gospel, you need not hear the law, then I’m afraid you’ve heard neither the Old nor the New Covenant. If your concept of liberty involves liberty to sin, you’re not free. You’re still in bondage.
If you think the dark warnings and curses of the Old Testament have no application to you simply because the Son has risen, I’d advise you to listen to the New Testament and then take another listen to the Old.
“Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard…” (Hebrews 2:1–3, emphasis mine).
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, “They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.” As I swore in my wrath, “They shall not enter my rest.” ’ Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:1–6, emphasis mine).
No Other Boast 