Well, Mr. Sanford, Scripture is clear that God made a Covenant of Works with Adam and Israel. Read Hosea 6:7, and especially Hebrews. But Covenantal language is throughout Scripture. You must not overlook the entirety of it.
The Greek διαθηκη plays in the teaching of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In the teaching of our Lord we meet with the idea only once, in the institution of the Supper. More frequently it occurs with Paul, in Romans (ix. 4; xi. 27), 2 Corinthians (iii. 6, 14), Galatians (iii. 15, 17; iv. 24), Ephesians (ii. 12), altogether nine times in six contexts. In Luke's writings we find it, apart from the institution of the Supper, once in the Gospel (i. 72), and twice in the Acts (iii. 25; vii 8). Once also it is met with in the Revelation of St. John (xi. 19). This makes sixteen instances of its occurrence outside of Hebrews. Over against this stand seventeen occurrences in Hebrews alone. In other words in this single Epistle the conception is more frequent than in all the rest of the New Testament writings put together.
Both these facts require an explanation — the relative quiescence of the idea in the New Testament as a whole, no less than its sudden activity in Hebrews. It seems strange at first that a conception which plays so dominant a role in the Old Testament and so strongly colors the representation of religion there should have found so little employment in the later stage of revelation. The cause is usually sought in this, that other ideas like the Kingdom of God and the Church have forced it into the background and taken its place. But this is rather a fuller statement of the problem, and only in so far of help towards the solution, than the solution itself. For the question persists: Why did other ideas, and precisely these ideas, become so dominant as to relegate the diatheke-idea to semi-oblivion? To this question the answer can only be found in the momentous change to which in the development of redemption and revelation the general character of religion became subject. Through the coming of the Messiah and the accomplishment of His work the people of God received a Messianic organization; their whole constitution and manner of life became determined by their relation to the Christ. Now the Old Testament idea of the berith, had in the long course of its history, scarcely come as yet into fructifying contact with the Messianic hope of Israel. Therefore at the dawn of the new dispensation it was not prepared to take the lead in the great rearrangement of doctrinal values characteristic of this epoch. While inherently not incapable of entering upon an organic union with the Messianic point of view, yet on the surface it did not suggest or invite such an interrelation. It will be remembered that the great prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the new berith which Jehovah will make with Israel in the future is not Messianically oriented. A definite, specific historical situation was required to draw this ancient idea into the service of the new Messianic outlook created by the appearance of Jesus and the accomplishment of His work.
