Sunday, February 12, 2006
THE JEWISH COVENANT
I've posed a question in the forum at Bettnet, but no one seems to have an opinion over there, so I'll propose it here in the hope that it might generate some discussion.
The current issue of “Culture Wars” contains an article that I've detailed over at Bettnet and won't repeat here. For the specific quote that brings up the question, take a look at Bettnet.
What it comes down to is the nature of the Jewish Covenant and of the Covenant with Jesus Christ. Are there two Covenants; or one Covenant first with the Jews, and when the Jews rejected Christ, then extended to the Gentiles?
The matter came up here in a blog recently. My own opinion is much closer to the claim that there is one Covenant made first with the Jews, but subsequently extended to the Gentiles when Christ was rejected. Yet Scripture passages claiming two Covenants are difficult to deny.
So what does the Church teach on the Jewish Covenant? And is the belief in a single Covenant a departure from what the Church has taught for 2000 years, or merely another way of looking at the same thing?
This becomes important when considering the contemporary culture that is embracing elements out of Jewish Kabbalah, including the tarot. Kabbalah is a post-Christ Jewish theology. The claims made by Dan Brown in TDVC are arising from this thinking. Believing there are two Covenants opens the door for what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls Judaizers, which are those people who want to impose the Old Testament Judaic laws on everyone. The potential claim is that the first Covenant is still in force, and thus that the Jews will be saved by that first Covenant, and without Christ. Two parallel Covenants means two parallel paths to salvation. If this is accepted, the next step on this path will be the enactment of the Noahide Laws which condemn Christianity for being polytheistic. At which point the door is open to anti-Christ.
