We have traced the Lord's dealings with Israel from their call in Abraham, and their

deliverance from Egypt to their arrival at the wilderness of Sinai (Exod. 19: 1). Sinai

marks a crisis in the history of this people, and is of fundamental importance in their

typical story. Israel are to show once and for all the utter inability of the flesh to enter

into blessing by a covenant of works. This necessitates the New Covenant with its better

promises and its better sacrifices, which is the theme of the epistle to the Hebrews. "The

law made nothing perfect."

In Exod. 19: 3, 8 and 20 we have recorded three ascents of Sinai by Moses,

culminating in  the giving  of the law.  Three more ascents  are recorded in

Exod. 24: 9-32: 14; 32: 31-33 and 34: 4-28, culminating in the building of

the Tabernacle, the Ark and not the people receiving the tables of stone written the

second time, and so bearing witness to Israel's failure and their need of Christ. There is

therefore a distinct connection between the old and the new covenants as Jer. 31: 31-34

Let us observe how definite the Scripture is with regard to the covenanting parties.

"The Lord" on the one hand, and "The house of Israel and the house of Judah" on the

other. It is a covenant properly drawn up, and no one who is not of the house of Israel or

Judah, or who cannot show full Scriptural warrant for being reckoned with such or

`grafted in', can have part or lot in it.  Rom. 11: reveals the method whereby some

believing Gentiles came within the bounds of the new covenant. They are spoken of as

wild olive branches grafted into the true olive, and, with the branches that remained

unbroken, `partaking of the root and fatness of the olive tree' (Rom. 11: 17). Such is the

widest extension of the bounds of this covenant. The moment Israel as a nation passed

off the scene, that moment the new covenant and all pertaining to it was withdrawn, to be

reserved until the day when:

We now proceed with the statement of Jer. 31::