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introduced at Sinai it was something new. A separate priesthood was instituted, and a
continuous preaching of the gospel in symbols and types was introduced. These symbols and
types appear under two different aspects: as the demands of God imposed on the people; and
as a divine message of salvation to the people. The Jews lost sight of the latter aspect, and fixed
their attention exclusively on the former. They regarded the covenant ever increasingly, but
mistakenly, as a covenant of works, and saw in the symbols and types a mere appendage to
this.
d. The law in the Sinaitic covenant also served Israel as a rule of life, so that the one law of God
assumed three different aspects, designated as the moral, the civil, and the ceremonial or
religious law. The civil law is simply the application of the principles of the moral law to the
social and civic life of the people in all its ramifications. Even the social and civil relations in
which the people stood to each other had to reflect the covenant relation in which they stood.
There have been several deviating opinions respecting the Sinaitic covenant which deserve
attention.
a. Coccejus saw in the decalogue a summary expression of the covenant of grace, particularly
applicable to Israel. When the people, after the establishment of this national covenant of
grace, became unfaithful and made a golden calf, the legal covenant of the ceremonial service
was instituted as a stricter and harsher dispensation of the covenant of grace. Thus the
revelation of grace is found particularly in the decalogue, and that of servitude in the
ceremonial law. Before the covenant of Sinai the fathers lived under the promise. There were
sacrifices, but these were not obligatory.
b. Others regarded the law as the formula of a new covenant of works established with Israel.
God did not really intend that Israel should merit life by keeping the law, since this had become
utterly impossible. He simply wanted them to try their strength and to bring them to a
consciousness of their own inability. When they left Egypt, they stood strong in the conviction
that they could do all that the Lord commanded; but at Sinai they soon discovered that they
could not. In view of their consciousness of guilt the Lord now reestablished the Abrahamic
covenant of grace, to which also the ceremonial law belonged. This reverses the position of
Coccejus. The element of grace is found in the ceremonial law. This is somewhat in line with the
view of present day dispensationalists, who regard the Sinaitic covenant as a “conditional
Mosaic covenant of works” (Scofield), containing in the ceremonial law, however, some
adumbrations of the coming redemption in Christ.
c. Still others are of the opinion that God established three covenants at Sinai, a national
covenant, a covenant of nature or of works, and a covenant of grace. The first was made with