Covenant People

I. Introduction

This summary-study is interested in aspects of Judaism that affected either the earthly ministry of our Savior, or the planting and spread of the Church that bears His name. Toward that end both Palestinian and Hellenistic (Diaspora) Judaism are discussed.

The “covenant people” referred to throughout are one and the same, for they are united at the foot of our Lord’s cross; more specifically, they are Abrahamic, Mosaic, and/or Christian covenanters. 

“Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD’S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?” (Deut. 10:12-13)^[1] 

When we consider the above verses from Deuteronomy we see the spirit that Israel was intended to convey to the nations around it. In the beginning, when God^[2] initiated the Covenant ( Gen. 12:1-3, Gen. 17:1-2) with Abraham (c. 2000 BC, Nelson’s, xx), He established a revelatory-relationship with a people, itself culminating in the revelation of Himself through the second person of the Godhead, namely, Jesus Christ. These people were chosen to be God’s servants (Isa. 41:8-9); they were chosen to bring His great name, which stands for everything that He stands for, to all the people in their environs ( Fig. 1), for everyone’s manifold blessing and good (Gen. 12:3 , Ps. 40:5 ). 

“Picture the Near Eastern world in the second millennium B.C. In Egypt people worshiped the sun and Pharaoh. In Canaan the Canaanites worshiped on the high places, celebrating fertility with ritual prostitution and worship of weather gods. Peoples of Mesopotamia, including the Amorites, also a highly developed people, served many gods. Into this world God called a people. God’s purpose was to reveal the one true God, Creator of all that is, and to show a way of life compatible with God’s holiness and helpful for human wholeness” (Wilke 28). 

Through the revelation of His name to His covenant people God purposed to ultimately bring all of humankind to a state of holiness from a state of sin, to fellowship with Himself from separation, to eternal life from death—starting with these particular covenanters’ reflection of His name. That name is the name of the one true God, the only God, the God above all gods^[3], the name which He later declared to Moses to be the great I Am, or Yahweh, which is also Jehovah due to mistransliteration, Exod. 3:14, “Jehovah1”, “Jehovah2”, “Jehovah3”). To these covenant people He was and still is known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. His name embodies quintessential holiness (Lev. 11:45); this holiness is in part tangibly reflected in His Law (Exod. 20:1-17; cf.  Prov. 6:16-19, Matt. 22:35-40), seeing that His Law is itself a reflection of His standards. God revealed His standards to His servant Moses some five to six hundred years after the initiation of the Covenant with Abraham (c. fifteenth-century BC, Nelson’s, xx). Note that four of these standards are directed toward the law Giver, and may be considered “heart laws,” while six are directed toward the law receivers, one to another. These standards are the tangibles, the light that the post-Sinai covenanters were expected to radiate to the rest of the world—in confession, and in practice. But by an act of their God-given freedom of choice, these covenant people grossly and willfully misrepresented God’s name (Isa. 5:7). It is probably true today as it was in that day—though we so often miss the mark with respect to these laws, still, brazen, persistent rupture, particularly of the “heart laws,” reflects a callous, belittling disdain toward God. Perhaps in this way, more than any other, the covenant people broke covenant with Jehovah God—for these “heart laws” are a matter of the will. Though the outward symbol of covenant marked their bodies through ritual circumcision, inwardly their hearts were uncircumcised toward God ( Deut. 10:15-16, Deut. 30:6—no doubt Paul sees the Judaizers of his day the same way: Gal. 5:6, Gal. 6:15).  

“Covenant is not contract. Covenant is an agreement worked out between two parties. Covenant means a binding pact between God and God’s people. God initiates covenant and stipulates all the provisions. People have the choice of accepting it, but not of offering alternative plans of conditions. Blessing comes from trust and obedience ” (Wilke 28). 

In the years following Moses, and particularly after the time of kings David and Solomon (tenth-century, Nelson’s, xx), a curious, albeit sad abandonment of God by these covenant people led to two great forewarned judgments ( Deut. 28:58-67) which dispersed the covenant people throughout Palestine and the Near East; namely, their conquest by Assyria in 722 BC, and by Babylonia in 587 BC. Nevertheless, they remained inherently unified, more or less, as individuals and groups, in their respective locales throughout the Near East—and their faith, that is, their Judaism, was the glue. This faith was steeped in monotheism (their belief in one God, Jehovah God), in nationalism (their confused pride of “chosen,” rather than servant and steward), and in nomism (from the Greek, “hO NOMOS”= “the law,” and implying the centrality of the Torah in a Jew’s life [“Torah1”, “Torah2”]). Irrespective of prevalent local, national, and/or religious traditions throughout the Diaspora (the scattering locations of the Jews—discussed more below), Judaism continued to stand on these three legs, and all Jews, with varying degrees of intensity, identified with and were identified by them (this threefold unification thesis follows Dr. Melton). Circumcision, sundry dietary and washing rules, observance of the Sabbath laws, and synagogue worship were similarly uniquely Jewish and practiced by all Jews, with varying degrees of intensity, throughout the Diaspora.  

II. The Diversity of Judaism in Palestine

The general unity of Jews in the Near East through their belief system and customs and practices as just described was nevertheless tempered by differing schools of opinion over the interpretation and exercise of the associated particulars. That is, parties sprang up within Judaism that held opposing views concerning the interpretation and exercise of long-standing written and oral traditions. The intertestamental period (c. 336 BC-AD 100) was an especially formative period for Judaism, witnessing the birth and maturation of two such parties: both the Pharisees and the Sadducees trace their origins to a time about midway through this period (“Palestine”—intertestamental chronology). 

At the time of our Savior’s earthly ministry (c. AD 30-33/34), Judaism was in the hands of these parties. The Pharisees, known to be age-old champions of Judaism (e.g., Hasidim antecedents), and patriots (e.g., Maccabees), and tied to the working class (e.g., they were as a party comprised of day-laborers and businessmen), were the leaders of the people. Following the teaching of Ezra in the fifth-century BC, pious Jews had chosen for themselves the path of separation from the pagan culture around them (Ezra 10:11). From the time of their appearance, this became a mainstay of the Pharisees as well (as noted earlier, both Sadducees and Pharisees first appear in the written record roughly midway through the intertestamental period, that is, around the middle of the second-century BC). And while the aristocratic, priestly Sadducees were seen as collaborators with that much-disdained pagan culture, the Pharisees were not. Naturally this increased the Pharisees’ numbers, though at the time of our Savior’s earthly ministry the Sadducees and Pharisees together were a substantial minority relative to the general population in Palestine, the bulk of which was comprised of the Am ha-aretz, or people of the land (Witherington, 148). Concerning the Sadducees (first Driscoll quote just next) and Pharisees (second Driscoll quote) James F. Driscoll relates the following: 

“When Pompey captured Jerusalem (63 B.C.) he executed many of their leaders, as did also Herod the Idumean on his accession to power (37 B.C.). The Sadducees retained however, their traditional priestly functions and also a varying preponderance in the Sanhedrin, but even in this respect their influence was much diminished through the policy of Herod and later of the Roman procurators of Judea, who, arbitrarily and mainly for political reasons, appointed and removed the high-priests at will. During this period and down to the destruction of Jerusalem the Sadducees were naturally unpopular with the masses because of their marked tendency to side closely with the ruling power, while the patriotic and exclusive Pharisees became more and more the leaders of the people” (Driscoll:Sadducees). 

“Descended from the Hasidim, or “Pious Ones,” the Pharisees had since the time of Ezra (fifth-century B.C.) chosen the route of separation. Such was the state of things in the third century when the newly introduced Hellenism threatened Judaism with destruction. The more zealous among the Jews drew apart calling themselves Chasidim or “pious ones”, i.e., they dedicated themselves to the realization of the ideas inculcated by Esdras, the holy priest and doctor of the law. In the violent conditions incidental to the Machabean wars these “pious men”, sometimes called the Jewish Puritans, became a distinct class. They were called Pharisees, meaning those who separated themselves from the heathen, and from the heathenizing forces and tendencies which constantly invaded the precincts of Judaism […]

During these persecutions of Antiochus the Pharisees became the most rigid defenders of the Jewish religion and traditions. In this cause many suffered martyrdom, and so devoted were they to the prescriptions of the Law that on one occasion when attacked by the Syrians on the Sabbath they refused to defend themselves. They considered it an abomination to even eat at the same board with the heathens or have any social relations with them whatsoever. Owing to their heroic devotedness their influence over the people became great and far-reaching, and in the course of time they, instead of the priests, became the sources of authority. In the time of Our Lord such was their power and prestige that they sat and taught in “Moses’ seat”. This prestige naturally engendered arrogance and conceit, and led to a perversion in many respects of the conservative ideals of which they had been such staunch supporters. In many passages of the Gospels, Christ is quoted as warning the multitude against them in scathing terms.” (Driscoll: Pharisees).

Figure 2 is a graphical depiction of the relative burdens the Sadducees and the Pharisees placed on those entrusted to their care; the Torah– Genesis-Deuteronomy—is the sacred kernel. From the figure the Sadducees can be seen to be theologically more conservative than their counterparts; lest that sound complimentary, D.S. Russell’s comments regarding them are sobering and noteworthy: 

“Moreover they believed that it was mainly in the temple that the words of the Torah could be obeyed and that the ordinances provided by the priests on their own authority were a sufficient guide for the people in their fulfillment of it. In effect, whilst upholding the authority of the written Torah over against that of the oral tradition, the Sadducees regarded it as little more than a relic of the past. If to the Pharisees the Torah was the centre of their faith, to the Sadducees it was the circumference within which could be entertained beliefs and practices foreign to Judaism” (Russell 52). 

Imagine a well-meaning, reverent Jew that truly loved God; one who was trying to live out his or her faith in this environment—they could either follow the dictates of the profane Sadducean priests (priests?), or be crushed with Pharisaism. It is no small wonder that our Lord was indignant with and grieved by that generation. He plainly dismissed their disrespect and/or superfluities concerning the Law ( “Matthew Chapter 23 Commentary”). This was clearly part of His earthly message with respect to the shepherds/stewards of His covenant people in His day—and it would follow, by way of that example, His message to contemporary shepherds/stewards is not to follow their example, in any way. When He was invited to dine with some Pharisees and doctors of the Law, for example, He did not exercise their convoluted ritual washing traditions^[1] (Luke 11:37-40)—if He had, would that not have been in essence a nod of approval? It is impossible to metabolize the abuse our Savior must have taken at the hands of this crowd, even before the Cross (e.g., Matt. 11:19, et al.). But Jesus had His eyes on that humble and reverent Jew that loved God, and on those so-called heathen, the new covenant people, whom these Jews disdained, but who would very shortly begin to populate the eternal Jerusalem, to the probable exclusion of some of the former. Look through the lens of the New Covenant at the Old and notice just how perfect the divine timing is—at just the right time, when the only vestige of hope to knowing God was rolling off the table, the promised Savior appeared heralding that New Covenant (Mark 1:14-15).  

III. Diaspora Judaism

As the diversity of Judaism in Palestine inevitably had a bearing on the earthly ministry of our Savior, so too Diaspora Judaism (“Diaspora1”, “Diaspora2”) had a bearing on the planting of the Christian Church and its proclamation of the New Covenant. The Diaspora, or Dispersion, refers to those regions in which the Jews were either resettled, or simply settled, after the several conquests of their nation, with the major dispersions subsequent to 722 BC and the conquest by Assyria, and 587 BC and the conquest by Babylonia. This gave rise eventually to a twofold nature to Judaism in the Diaspora. In the regions of the former Babylonian empire the dispersed Jews found a familiar vernacular in the Chaldean language; this lent itself to largely uninterrupted ties with the Hebrew Scriptures there, with consequent fastidious observance of the Law; it follows that, unlike the other regions of the Diaspora in which Christianity gained a footing and quickly spread, the Babylonian regions remained a stronghold of orthodox Judaism. In the Hellenistic world—Egypt and Europe—the vernacular was Greek due to the Hellenization efforts of Alexander the Great, who had pushed Greek culture throughout Europe and Syria, as did his successors, especially the Ptolemies (in Egypt), and the Seleucids (in Syria). In time, dispersed Jews in the Hellenistic world became needful of a translated version of the Hebrew Scriptures in Greek, as they became illiterate in their native Hebrew; this need gave rise to the Septuagint. In this regard, the Torah was probably translated around the middle of the third-century BC, in Alexandria; the translation of the remaining books of the Old Testament forms a complicated history (Vander Heeren; Marcos). It is possible therefore that Hellenistic Jews “were less ardent in the punctilious observance of their Law” (Van Den Biesen); there are differing schools of thought concerning this.

After the Jewish-Roman war (AD 66-70, “Jewish Roman Wars”) and the utter demise of the Sadducees (for not only were they slain, their Pharisaic counterparts wrote them out of the record [Melton]), the Pharisees became the lone representatives of Judaism in Palestine and the Diaspora, and the synagogues became more than ever their center of worship and assemblage; from that period forward the diversity of Judaism in Palestine was contained and Rabbinical, and in a larger sense, between their Babylonian and Palestinian schools. Their reorganization efforts at Jamnia (“Jamnia, Council of”) certainly influenced the dissemination of the New Covenant message, but the Word was fluid and spread rather quickly from Palestine to the Hellenistic world, by way of Palestinian and Hellenistic Jewish converts and missionaries. It is interesting to consider the demographical predisposition of these two groups of Jews (Palestinian vs. Hellenistic) to the message of the Gospel. Richard Niswonger offers some insight concerning this: 

“There is evidence that some of the Hellenists in other lands adopted a liberal brand of Judaism. But it is inaccurate to stereotype Palestinian Jews as legalistic and Diaspora Jews as having a broader outlook. Some of the Diaspora Jews remained devoted to the literal application of the law. Although Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, found allegorical meanings in the law himself, he condemned those Jews who thought that the symbolic significance of a rite could negate the necessity for a physical ceremony” ( Niswonger 192-3).

However the balance may have been tilted here, it turned out that both the Palestinian and Hellenistic Jews largely rejected the message of the Gospel, such that Paul, the pioneer Christian missionary, ultimately turned to the Gentiles.(Acts 13:46-49). In so doing, the Jews’ vast and pervasive synagogue network served as a ready forum by which he and the early Christian missionaries preached the Gospel.^[4] On his missionary journeys Paul seems to have been able to readily find synagogues wherever he went (e.g. Asia Minor, Macedonia, Greece, and the major cities thereof). It was Paul’s style to start his ministry at a local synagogue, and then move whenever or wherever situation and circumstance required. The Jews’ synagogue network played a key role in the establishment of the Christian Church.  

From the beginning the Jews exacted punishment on their fellows who converted to Christianity, whom they considered to be traitors. It seems that excommunication from the synagogue was a surety if such a one was discovered (John 9:17-23). And this was a hard blow—because excommunication was tantamount to anathema, literally a curse upon the excommunicated by fellow Jews and family alike. It was death while still living so to speak. As Providence would have it, the Jews soon had a problem though—the Jewish-Roman war nearly eliminated them, and they were forced to refocus their attention in order to save Judaism from extinction before their immediate (c. AD 70) and next generations passed away, for all of Rabbinic Judaism, which was all that was left, was largely in the memory of the surviving generation, not codified. As Judaism lay in heaps alongside its temple, Jewish Christians became simply Christians, though at that stage, in their minds, some may have considered themselves to be “completed Jews,” more than Christians proper (Melton), that is, Jews in whom the messianic prophecies of the Old Covenant had been fulfilled—the people of Messiah Jesus. This was probably the case in the Diaspora more so than in Palestine.

As the Jewish persecutions waned, the Roman persecutions stepped to the fore however. While Christianity was deemed a sect of Judaism, which was licensed by Rome, Christians enjoyed the religious sanction incumbent to Judaism. After the war, as a separate, unique religious entity, that changed. Beginning with Nero in the mid-sixties AD, and then Domitian and his decreed empire-wide policy of emperor-worship in the eighties and nineties, and then Trajan into the early second century, our pioneer-Christian brethren suffered a great deal. For Christians, the most important century in the history of humankind ended with much sorrow and suffering. But the Word had gone forth, the seed had been sown, and as foretold by Isaiah the prophet nearly eight-hundred years prior, the fertile ground became the Hellenistic world ( Isa. 2:2, Isa. 11:10, Isa. 55:5,  Isa. 65:1—“nation” in these verses =Gentiles—e.g., Rome and Constantine!). It would not be until the Age of Constantine in the fourth-century that the Christian Church would indeed set its heels and never look back.

IV. Concluding Comments

We have discussed in this study several aspects of Judaism that affected either the earthly ministry of our Savior, or the planting and spread of the Christian Church; implicit in the latter is of course the severing of ties with Judaism. These aspects are of interest because Christianity was steeped in Judaism at its inception. The general unity of Judaism reflected in monotheism, nationalism, and nomism, together with the characteristically Jewish customs and practices, were presented to point out the means by which Jews held together in the face of dispersion and hardship from generation to generation. Though it would seem that their understanding of these was confused in some ways, Judaism nevertheless continued to stand on these three legs. This unity and consequent endurance is important because the Messiah of the New Covenant was to come through them. So, in part, we likely see in this unity an instrument in the hands of our God to accomplish His purposes.

This general unity was tempered theologically and politically by doctrinal differences which led to the appearance of parties within Judaism; the intertestamental period was an especially formative period for Judaism—among others, both the Pharisees and Sadducees trace their origins to this period. Though these parties were a substantial minority relative to the general population, their sway with Rome was sufficient to influence our Lord’s trial to His death. As our Savior was the One to be our punishment bearer, our atoning death sentence, again, we likely see in these parties an instrument in the hands of our God to accomplish His purposes.

The Judaism of the Diaspora is that Judaism which took upon itself a twofold nature. In the former Babylonian region it was legalistic, and possibly so as a consequence of the similarities between the Chaldean and Hebrew tongue, both being Semitic languages. Consequently Jews in those regions had little reason to break with their Judaism as memorized, spoken, and recorded. In the Hellenistic world, that is, those cultures influenced by Alexander’s colonialism, the Greek vernacular ultimately forced change. With time Jews in these regions forgot their native Hebrew and thus required a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, which we know as the Septuagint (translated in Egypt for Egyptian Jews). It is surmised by some that Judaism in the Hellenistic world was less legalistic than its counterparts in former Babylonia and Palestine. Still, Paul largely found Jews with closed ears whenever he tried to preach the Gospel to them. And it is very likely that he had tried to reach a great number of them, as his forum in this effort was their vast synagogue network. As foretold centuries prior, the Jews rejected the Word, and Paul, turning to the Hellenistic world, began baptizing the New Covenant Israel. From Jerusalem, to Egypt, to Africa, and Eurasia, and in time to the Americas, and hence to the remotest corners of the world, from today’s vantage point it is clear that our God purposed that all people be His covenant people. If one takes some quiet time and deliberates on the unfolding of this consistently focused work, which spans lives (including that of the incarnate God behind the work), generations, time, and space, and which continues to unfold awaiting the last precious covenant-person to come in, it hurriedly brings forth a holy fear, yea, a humbling and loving appreciation, of Jehovah God.

“Now, [New Covenant] Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the LORD’S commandments and His statutes which I am commanding you today for your good?” (Deut. 10:12-13). 

As were His earlier covenant people to convey such a spirit—motivated by love for God—so too are contemporary Christian covenanters—motivated by the same love for God. We have the same responsibility to radiate the name of our God as a beacon to the entire world, as a light that shines His grand and holy name, which name is embodied precisely in Jesus Christ (Heb. 1:3). It follows that in Jesus Christ is manifested the achievement of Deuteronomy 10:12-13. Jesus Christ makes tangible the name of God that we treasure up in our hearts; makes tangible the name of God that we should radiate to others. And we know Jesus Christ—He was here, and left a testimonial concerning Himself.

Praised be your name great Jehovah God.