"We are told who was the author of the first covenant.
It was God.
We are told with whom it was made.
It was made with Israel.
We are told when it was made:
It was made with that people when they came out of the land of Egypt. Jer. 31:32; Heb. 8:9.
By these circumstances the old covenant is clearly distinguished from the Adamic, the Abrahamic, or any other covenant brought to view in the Bible.
We go back therefore to the history of Israel as they came out of Egypt, and lay down this as a consistent and self-evident principle: That the very first transaction we find taking place between God and the Israelites after they left Egypt, which answers to the definition of the word covenant, must be the first covenant.
But what of the Sabbath?
We answer, The Minister of the new covenant was careful to affirm its perpetuity and consequent binding obligation in this dispensation, by affirming in the most positive manner, the perpetuity and immutability of that law of which it is an integral part; that law which is the standard or righteousness, and from which not a jot or tittle was to pass while the heavens and the earth should remain. Matt. 5:17-20.
And the prophecy of the new covenant, itself, has something very emphatic to say about the law.
*Under this covenant says God, "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts."
*As Paul quotes it, it reads, "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts."
*To what law does this prophecy refer? To that which was the law of God in the days of Jeremiah, which no one will dispute was the ten commandments.
---If it does not mean this, then it should have read, I will put a new law into their minds, and write it in their hearts.
No! the middle wall of partition was broken down that the Gentiles might go in where the Jews were, and be partakers of the blessings and promises which they entertained. God never made, and never proposed to make, a covenant with the Gentiles."
UriahSmith
Wherever the ark was there was this book of the covenant by its side. Hence Solomon could say, referring to the place where the ark was, that there, in that place, was also the covenant which the Lord made with that people when he led them out of Egypt.
Here a most ludicrous and ridiculous blunder is made by some opponents of the Sabbath, even those who claim to be ministers of the word.
*-*They assert that the wall of partition was broken down in order that the Jews might come out where the Gentiles were, and partake of their liberty and blessings, the privileges of the gospel, and the first-day Sabbath.
*-*This is just exactly the opposite of the truth.
The Gentiles had no blessings to offer.
We have already seen from Paul’s testimony that they are
without God,
without Christ,
and without hope,
and have no interest in the covenants.
The gospel was not theirs, but was preached to Abraham, to Moses, and the Hebrews, all through their history; and all its blessings were included in the new covenant, which, like the old, was made with that people. Gal. 3:8; Heb. 4:2.
UriahSmith