True Christian Religion # 285
285. Since this law is the means of linking the Lord with man and man with the Lord, it is called a covenant and a testimony. It is called a covenant because it serves as a link, and a testimony because it establishes the terms of the covenant. For covenant in the Word means linking, testimony the establishment and witnessing of its terms. That is why there were two tablets, one for God and the other for man. The link is provided by the Lord, but only when man does what is written in his tablet. For the Lord is continually present, and wishes to enter; but man must open the door by the free will which the Lord gives him. For He says:
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with me, Revelation 3:20.
The stone tablets on which the law was written are called the tablets of the covenant, and the Ark is called from them the Ark of the covenant; the law itself is called the covenant: see Numbers 10:33; Deuteronomy 4:13, 23; 5:2-3; 9:9; Joshua 3:11; 1 Kings 8:21; Revelation 11:19; and elsewhere.
Since a covenant means being joined, it is said of the Lord that He will be a covenant for the people (Isaiah 42:6; 49:8); He is called the messenger of the covenant (Malachi 3:1); and His blood is called the blood of the covenant (Matthew 26:28; Zechariah 9:11; Exodus 24:4-10). That is why the Word is called the Old and the New Covenants 1 , for covenants are made on account of love, friendship, association and linking.
Poznámky pod čarou:
1. The author uses the correct Latin translation of the Greek word, which was erroneously translated into Latin in antiquity as testamentum, hence our Testament.
Exodus 25:17-21
17
You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold. Two and a half cubits shall be its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
18
You shall make two cherubim of hammered gold. You shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat.
19
Make one cherub at the one end, and one cherub at the other end. You shall make the cherubim on its two ends of one piece with the mercy seat.
20
The cherubim shall spread out their wings upward, covering the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces toward one another. The faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy seat.
21
You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I will give you.
