While it is true that
Jacob’s descendants (Israel) were given a set of covenant requirements to go
along with the covenant mark of circumcision that had been established with
Abraham, and that the overall history of those descendants that is presented in
the Scriptures is one in which the predominant theme is a violation of those
requirements, it can surely be said that their covenant was also based on a
trusting belief in the faithfulness of the Creator God. Regardless of the
fact that there were required actions associated with receiving the blessings
of the covenant, their performance of those actions, or avoidance of those
actions, would still be based on a belief in their God, in His power, and in
His faithfulness to carry out the associated promises.
Ultimately, their
justification (righteousness) was going to be based upon a belief in their God’s
righteousness (His covenant faithfulness). What can be seen in the
Scriptures is that Israel ultimately did not believe in their God or His
promises. In the end, the historical narrative suggests that, by and
large, there was no faith. Ultimately, this would result in the division
of Israel into northern and southern kingdoms (Israel and Judah), the
destruction and captivity and dispersion of the northern kingdom (Israel) by
Assyria, the destruction and captivity of the southern kingdom (Judah) by Babylon,
and the ongoing subjugation of the land of promise to numerous world powers
through the time of Roman domination that would be experienced by Jesus and the
church.
When the people of
the southern kingdom, under the rule of Persia and under the leadership of
Ezra, returned to the land of Judah (remembering that it was only a portion of
the people that were deported, and only a portion of the deported that
returned), they would do so with the clear understanding that the destruction,
deportation, and subjugation that had come upon them was the fulfillment of
their God’s promised curses for disobedience to His law. Scripture
provides an indication that the covenant people no longer needed to be
convinced of their God’s power and righteousness. They no longer lacked
understanding of what it would take for them to be justified. From that
point, with direction from both Ezra and Nehemiah, there would be what seems
like an enthusiastic effort to uphold the covenantal requirements, so that
their God would provide His people with His blessings, and that they might
become a blessing to the nations.
This sense of
responsibility to the covenant, with knowledge of their ongoing subjugation to
foreign powers and ongoing exile from the full covenant blessings of their God
hanging thickly in the air, continued on in to Jesus’ day, with the Pharisees
acting as the upholders and enforcers of the terms of the covenant. By
then, the three basic covenant requirements of avoiding idolatry, keeping the
Sabbaths, and reverencing the sanctuary, together with circumcision---with
idolatry seeming to have been effectively dealt with and now practically
non-existent among the Jews---had morphed into the keeping of kosher laws,
purity laws, and the keeping of Sabbath.
These were the things
that were then looked to as the marks of their God’s covenant, and these were
the things that were held to so as to effectively delineate the Creator God’s
covenant people. It could be insisted upon that, almost without a doubt,
these things were being held to because of a belief in the power and promises
of their God, as many desperately hoped to achieve their God’s promised
blessings, according to the covenant that provided the collective and defining
history of their people. Taken together, these covenantal standards came
to be known in popular parlance as the “works of the law.”
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