What Kind of Obedience Did the Old Covenant Require?
The 1689 Federalist position on the Old Covenant is that it was a covenant of works for life in the land of Canaan, with temporal blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. It was not the Covenant of Grace, but was subservient to it. It helped to point to, teach about, and bring about the Covenant of Grace (i.e., the New Covenant).
Those who were saved under the Old Covenant were not saved by virtue of it, but by virtue of the New Covenant. Similarly, those who were eternally condemned under it were not condemned by it, but by the original covenant of works made with Adam (see Owen on Heb. 8:6–13).
Much more could be said about that, but the purpose of this post is to focus on the type of obedience that was required in the Old Covenant.
The general consensus among Particular Baptists is that it was a national covenant of works for temporal blessings, conditioned upon external obedience. That’s not to say God, as Creator, ceased to require perfect heartfelt obedience from His creatures, but in the context of the Old Covenant, He chose to require outward obedience for temporal blessings in the land. However, I think it’s more nuanced than that.
Surely, the Old Covenant had a noticeable external orientation. For example, circumcision was a physical marker signifying covenant membership, and it could be performed apart from faith. Sacrifices had real ceremonial efficacy—they purified the flesh (Heb. 9:13)—even when offered apart from saving faith. Participation in feast days—such as Passover and Day of Atonement—was integral to remaining ritually clean and part of the covenant congregation (Num. 9:13; Lev. 23:29, respectively).
These all played a key role in one’s standing in the Old Covenant, and they could be done apart from faith. But does that mean God didn’t still require, even within the context of the covenant, obedience from the heart? I believe He did (see Deut. 10:12-13 cf. Deut. 11:13-15; Deut. 11:18, 21-23; Deut 26:16-19; Deut. 30:15-18). Notice that these verses don’t merely speak of the requirement to love and/or serve God from the heart, but to do so in order to receive covenant blessings in the land. Thus, I would argue that, at least in some sense, God required obedience from the heart for Old Covenant blessings.
In response to the above, a beloved brother pointed out that while he grants that heart obedience was a condition for blessing under the Old Covenant, he believes that it meant something different in that context. He maintains that following God with all your heart simply means not worshiping idols, and went on to provide a number of verses to support that (e.g., Deut. 29:18; 1 Sam. 7:3).
The connection between heart obedience and the rejection of idolatry did not escape my attention. However, if we assume my position, there’s nothing inconsistent about heart obedience being set over against idolatry. That is, we would expect that those who truly obey from the heart would also turn away from idols.
In clarifying his point, he went on to mention that David, who sinned grievously in what he did to Uriah, was nevertheless considered a man whose heart was wholly true to the Lord. Why? Because David never worshiped other gods, in contrast to Solomon, who did worship other gods and was described as someone who “did not wholly follow the Lord.” This is compelling, since the biblical use of the term “wholly” is closely tied to the idea of heart obedience (cf. 1 Kgs 15:3).
Even so, I would point out that there is also a connection between heart obedience and loving God (which, as I mentioned, was also an Old Covenant requirement). I maintain that loving God is inward obedience. If you love God you will serve Him from the heart. And if you’re serving Him from the heart, you will wholly follow Him (not worshiping idols would be one key fruit of that inward devotion to Him).
In response, my interlocutor stated:
I would understand “love” in the same way as “heart” above. In the Old Covenant, so far as blessing and curse is concerned, it refers to outward obedience to the letter of the law. Loving God means not loving foreign gods by worshiping them, obeying His commands, etc.
Let me just say—I really appreciated this exchange, and hearing his thoughts on the matter. That said, I would have a hard time accepting that loving and serving God from the heart means something different in the Old Covenant context than it does in the New Covenant context.
Here’s why:
When asked what the greatest commandment is, Jesus responded, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matt. 22:37–40). I would argue that the burden of proof is on those who would say Jesus meant something different than the original context.
Furthermore, Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 5:17–19 establishes His view of continuity—grounding our understanding of His appeal to the greatest commandment. The context of Matthew 5 clearly indicates that Jesus is addressing the abiding validity of the ethical stipulations of the Old Testament (Bahnsen, Theonomy in Christian Ethics, 3rd ed., 53). When He says that He came to fulfill the law, we know that whatever “fulfill” means, it cannot mean abrogate—or perforce abrogate—lest there be a contradiction (Bahnsen, 3rd ed., 57, 60). It also cannot mean to perfect or complete, as the law was already described as perfect and entirely right in all its precepts by the Holy Spirit–inspired psalmist (Ps. 19:7; 119:128).
One could argue that Jesus’s teaching on continuity doesn’t negate the notion that the law also functioned on another level within the Old Covenant context. However, if that were the case, then His rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocritical legalism (Matt. 5:20) would be terribly unfair, since they were simply living up to the righteousness that the covenant required (cf. Bahnsen, 3rd ed., 61).
Granted, it could be that Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees for failing to look beyond the covenant-level function of the law. I contend, however, that His correction had to do with their fundamental misunderstanding of the law. He was not calling them to rise to some higher level of spiritual obedience beyond what the covenant demanded. Rather, He was revealing what the law itself—the law of the Old Covenant—always required (i.e., obedience from the heart). He is expounding the true meaning of the law and showing that God never required mere external obedience.
That said, I don’t deny that God is free to bless partially for incomplete or even carnal obedience. Consider the Noahic covenant, which is a covenant of preservation often associated with God’s common grace and not based on obedience at all (in terms of God’s unilateral promise). Or consider the general sowing and reaping principle, where wise or upright living tends to result in a form of temporal blessing. But when it comes to a formal covenant in which God explicitly reveals His standards and stipulations, He can require nothing less than perfection.
It is worth noting that under the Old Covenant, God commands the Israelites to circumcise their hearts (Deut. 10:16), whereas the New Covenant promise is that He will circumcise His people’s hearts (Deut. 30:6). This is significant for two reasons: (1) it assumes continuity of language—again, the burden of proof is on those who would say that these terms mean something different in context (both appear in the same book, Deuteronomy)—and (2) it shows that God did, in fact, require a genuine change of heart under the Old Covenant—something the Old Covenant didn’t supply, but the New Covenant does. This supports my thesis that the Old and New Covenants are two different covenants, with God’s moral standard remaining the same in both.
As mentioned earlier, there was clearly an external element to the Old Covenant. Certain acts—such as circumcision, sacrifices, and participation in feast days—could be performed apart from faith and still be valid or efficacious in the covenantal context. Circumcision, for example, whether performed in faith or not, still functioned as a physical marker of covenant membership. It satisfied the requirement outwardly, enabling the individual to remain part of the covenant community.
My contention is that while God required faithful, heartfelt obedience, the lack of faith was not regulated under the covenant in the sense that God didn’t prevent outwardly compliant individuals from receiving covenantal privileges. Certain outward actions could hold off covenant curses and preserve one’s standing in the nation, even though they did not secure covenant blessings in the fullest sense.
So if God required obedience from the heart, how do we make sense of the fact that Israel—generally speaking—did not obey from the heart, yet still received covenant blessings?
A few things to consider:
1. God showed favor at times (in a sense) on the basis of Abraham’s faithful obedience (Gen. 22:15–18; 26:3–5). So while Israel may not have been obedient from the heart, He could still bless them on the basis of His promises to faithful Abraham. In that way, the blessings are grounded in heart obedience (Deut. 9:5; Ps. 103:17–18; cf. Ps. 105:8–11, 40–45).
2. God often blessed on the basis of the obedience of the king as their federal head, as it were, who obeyed from the heart (1 Kgs. 3:6; 15:4; 2 Chr. 29–31).
In summary, while the Old Covenant included stipulations that could be outwardly fulfilled apart from faith, Scripture also reveals that God required heartfelt obedience as a genuine covenant condition. Outward obedience could preserve visible covenant status, maintain one’s place in the land, and hold off covenant curses—but only inward obedience brought the covenant blessings in their fullest sense.