THE HOPE OF ISRAEL - The Preterist Archive

40 The Hope of Israel: What Is It?
portance, that the three wondrously glorious promises
of the covenant of Exodus XIX - XXIV were reserved
for another people, the true Israel. For to them, the
apostle Peter writes that God had made them apart
from all conditions, "a royal priesthood, an holy nation,
a peculiar people" (1 Pet. 2:9).
When the Israelites made and worshipped the golden
calf, God was minded to destroy them and to make of
Moses a great nation (Ex. 32:10). Had He done so,
He would nevertheless have fulfilled the promises He
had made "to Abraham and his seed" (Gal. 3:16);
for Moses was a direct descendant of Abraham. For
the same reason it follows that, in fulfilling those promises
to Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:7, 29), God has kept His
covenant with Abraham in letter as well as in spirit.
But Moses interceded for the people and
;
God spared
the people, and commanded Moses to lead them to the
land He had promised to Abraham, to Isaac and to
Jacob (33:1) ;
and He made with them another covenant
(34:10) ;
which covenant, in respect to what
was promised thereby, was very inferior to the covenant
they had broken; for this substituted covenant
(which was not a blood covenant) was restricted to the
terms and conditions upon which God would permit
them to continue in possession of the land of Canaan.
Those terms and conditions are set forth in detail in
the book of Deuteronomy; where, after the recital of
them, Moses writes:
"These are the words of the covenant which
the Lord commanded Moses to make with the
children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the
covenant ivhich He made ivith them in Horeb"
(Deut. 29:1).