Let me give you a scripture that shows clearly the difference between the old and new covenants:

For the law was given through Moses, but grace [unmerited favor] and truth came through Jesus Christ.
—John 1:17

Sometimes, people tell me things like, “Well, it’s good that you preach grace, but we also have to tell people about truth.” This makes it seem as though grace and truth are two different things when in fact, they are one and the same. You cannot separate truth from grace and grace from truth as they are both embodied in the person of Jesus Christ.

In fact, just a few verses before this, John 1:14, referring to the person of Jesus, says, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace [unmerited favor] and truth.” Grace and truth came together through the person and ministry of Jesus. Grace is not a doctrine or teaching. Grace is a Person.

Many years ago, when I was studying God’s Word, the Lord spoke to me, saying, “Before the law was given, none of the children of Israel died when they came out of Egypt. Even though they murmured and complained against God’s appointed leadership, not a single one of them died. This is a picture of pure grace.” I had never heard anyone teach this before or read it in any book, so I quickly went through that portion in my Bible and indeed, I could not find anyone who died before the law was given!

The children of Israel were dependent upon God’s faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant, which was a covenant based on His grace (unmerited favor). Abrahamlived more than 400 years before the law was given, long before there were the Ten Commandments. God had related to Abraham based on Abraham’s faith in His grace and not based on Abraham’s obedience to the law.

God’s Word makes it clear that Abraham was not justified by the law: “For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.’” Romans 4:2-3 How was Abraham made righteous? He believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness!

The good news for you and me is this: Today, we are under the new covenant of grace (unmerited favor), and God’s unmerited favor is upon us. His blessings and His provisions for us are based entirely on HIS GOODNESS and HIS FAITHFULNESS. Hallelujah!

When the Israelites journeyed from Egypt to Mount Sinai, they were under the Abrahamic covenant of grace. Therefore, in spite of their sins, God delivered them out of Egypt and provided for them supernaturally, not based on their goodness and faithfulness, but based on His goodness andfaithfulness. How cool is that?

God’s desire was to have a relationship with the children of Israel. When they arrived at Mount Sinai, God told Moses to tell them this: “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people ...And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” Exodus 19:4-6

When God said this, it was with tenderness in His voice as He recounted how He had brought them to Himself so that He could forge a special relationship with them.

However, the tragedy of all tragedies occurred for the children of Israel when they responded to God after hearing this at the foot of Mount Sinai. They were proud and did not want the relationship God had envisioned. They wanted to deal with God at arm’s length, through impersonal commandments.

They seemed to have forgotten that it was God’s unmerited favor that had brought them out of Egypt, that it was His unmerited favor that had opened a way for them when there was no way, and that it was His unmerited favor that had given them manna from heaven.

Now, they wanted to exchange the covenant of grace that they had been under for a different kind of covenant. When Moses told them what God had said, they responded arrogantly (which can be seen from the Hebrew syntax), saying in essence, “All that God commands us, we are well able to perform!” Exodus 19:8

In other words, this is what they said to God, “God, don’t judge us and bless us anymore based on Your goodness and faithfulness. Assess us based on our merits. Bless us based on our obedience because we are well able to perform whatever You demand of us!”

From that moment onwards, God immediately changed His tone with the children of Israel. He distanced Himself from them and told Moses to command the people not to go near Mount Sinai for the mountain was holy. What happened? Once God’s grace was rejected, and the people presumed upon their own righteousness and obedience to respond to Him, God drew back from them.

Look at the tone that He used on the Israelites after they chose to come under the covenant of law: “Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud...Whoever touches the mountain shall surely be put to death. Not a hand shall touch him, but he shall surely be stoned or shot with an arrow...” Exodus 19:9-13

What a change! The Lord’s presence had been with them every step of the way in the pillar of cloud by day and pillar of fire by night. He had brought them through the Red Sea and provided for their every need. He was good to them because of His faithfulness to the Abrahamic covenant based on His grace (unmerited favor). But now, He warned the children of Israel to keep away from His presence!

He could no longer deal with them in the same way after they had elected to come under a different covenant in their dealings with Him—
one that was based on their performance and obedience, not on His goodness as before.

In fact, in the beginning of the very next chapter after the Israelites had told God to judge them based on their performance, God gave them the Ten Commandments and the covenant of law was introduced. But were the Israelites able to live up to their boasting that they could perform all that God commanded them to do? Absolutely not! Right at the foot of Mount Sinai, they created a golden calf out of the very gold that God had given them and worshipped it as the god who had brought them out of the land of Egypt!

Why did they commit such a terrible act? The apostle Paul tells us that “the strength of sin is the law.” 1 Corinthians 15:56 The more you try to keep the law by your efforts, the more it will bring forth what it was designed to bring forth—your failings and sins. And this will happen until it brings you to the end of yourself, until you realize that you cannot meet God’s perfect standards on your own and you cast yourself totally upon His grace (unmerited favor) and goodness.

In Deuteronomy 28, there is a beautiful passage that records the wonderful blessings from God that affect every area of our lives, including our families, careers and finances. Let’s look at some of these blessings:

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks...The Lord will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.
—Deuteronomy 28:3–4, 12

These were blessings that were promised under the old covenant of law. But how would these blessings come upon you if you were under the old covenant?

God answered this question when He said, “And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail... if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. So you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them.” Deuteronomy 28:13-14

The key operative word to access God’s blessings under the old covenant is one big “IF”— IF you can keep God’s commandments perfectly, then you can enjoy His blessings! Is this a good deal? This basically means that the old covenant of law was entirely contingent on your works and ability to keep God’s commandments impeccably. Only then could you be blessed!

But what happens IF you fail to keep God’s commandments perfectly? Under this old covenant of law, the Lord said:

But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you: Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country ...Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks ...The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke in all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken Me.
—Deuteronomy 28:15–16, 18, 20

Wow, this is heavy stuff! If you were offered the choice to go back under the old covenant of law today, would you?

Under the old covenant, you would be blessed if you kept God’s law perfectly, but you would also attract horrific curses when you failed! Why do you think that God found fault with this covenant? The old covenant of law was not His best for the children of Israel. They asked for it when they boasted in their ability to be blessed based on their own works. They rejected His unmerited favor. They rejected the Abrahamic covenant and declared that they wanted to be evaluated based on their own goodness rather than His goodness.

God wanted to bless His people based on His unmerited favor, but because they wanted to be blessed based on their own law-keeping, He had to humble their self-consuming arrogance. He showed them His perfect standards that no man could ever maintain -He gave them the old covenant of law.

To prove to you that Jesus (and not the law) is God’s best, do you know that God had already concealed shadows pointing to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross in the very same chapter that the Ten Commandments were given?

Let me show you something about reading and understanding the Old Testament. The Old Testament is full of shadows, types and pictures that point to the person of Jesus and His death on the cross. Paul explains this in the Book of Hebrews when he speaks of the law as “having a shadow of the good things to come.” Hebrews 10:1

Do you know that even as God gave the Ten Commandments, Jesus was on His mind? God was already preparing to send His Son to die for you and me! Jesus is in the old covenant concealed and in the new covenant revealed. He is the key to unlocking the Old Testament, and that makes unveiling every detail that is recorded in the Bible so exciting. My ministry is all about unveiling the person of Jesus and what I am about to share with you really gets my spiritual hormones bubbling.

Let’s look at Exodus 20 again, where the Ten Commandments were given. We can see that even when God was giving the law, Jesus’ death on the cross was already on His mind. He knew that the people could not keep the law, so He made provision for the cross as the answer to the people’s failure.

God’s immediate instruction to Moses after the law was given was to build Him an altar. What is an altar? An altar is a place where offerings were sacrificed. Right here you see a shadow of the cross of Calvary, where Jesus was sacrificed. But God didn’t stop there. He gave some instructions about building the altar, which reveal even more about the cross.

In the last two verses of Exodus 20, God told Moses, “And if you make Me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stone; for if you use your tool on it, you have profaned it.” Exodus 20:25 What this instruction tells us about the cross is that there can be no human effort (no hewn stone) involved. It tells us that man’s works cannot be added to the finished work of Jesus, for that would profane it. God also said, “Nor shall you go up by steps to My altar, that your unclothedness may not be exposed on it.” Exodus 20:26

My friend, man cannot gain access to God’s unmerited favor by his own steps. Man’s self efforts to deserve God’s favor will only expose his own weaknesses. Favor comes only from Jesus’ work on the cross. You cannot add to His work nor can you deserve His favor by depending on your obedience to the law. Jesus did a complete work on the cross and declared that “It is finished!” John 19:30 Now, isn’t it exhilarating to see Jesus unveiled in the Old Testament?

But I am not done yet. I have only mentioned the altar. What about the offerings? I am not going to go into every detail about the offerings in this book. However, suffice it to say that God told the children of Israel to sacrifice offerings to Him. These offerings are found in the Book of Leviticus, which gives a detailed account of the burnt offering, peace offering, meal offering, sin offering, and trespass offering.