Sacred Bond, by Brown & Keele

The Mosaic covenant powerfully points us to Christ precisely due to its strictness. He is the One who fulfilled Sinai’s command, “Do this and live” (Lev. 18: 5). The moment we begin to water down the law character of this covenant, the work of Christ starts to become obscured. If we are blind to the depth of our sin, then we are handicapped in perceiving the grace of God to save us in Christ. As the saying goes, if you don’t understand sin, you will never understand grace. So God gives us the history of Israel to show us our sinful identity. We discover our spiritual poverty, not primarily through introspection, but by looking to the revelation of God in history as he deals with his people. As Paul remarks about the Old Testament history, “Now, these things happened to them as types and were written down for our instruction” (1 Cor. 10: 11, my translation). By types, Paul means that the events Israel experienced were pictures or models of things to come. They pictured not only Christ but also us. This fact reveals that the law is still the guide for our life in pleasing God, as the Psalmist says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps. 119:105).