Opus 2025-513: Covenant Languages

There are differences between the old covenant, or Old Testament, and the new covenant, or New Testament.  There are differences in teaching.  There’s a fuller understanding of God’s plan.  There’s a clear explanation of the place of grace and a highlighting of the need for faith.

I’m wondering if one of the reasons that we needed a new covenant also had to do with the fact that it came in a new language with different nuances.  I came to this in a roundabout way.  I was thinking about the differences between animals and human beings.  I don’t think animals experience like we do.  I think that they exist at different levels.  My first thought was with a bear ambling through the woods.  He was looking for grubs to eat, berries to munch on and possibly some honey for dessert.  He was getting ready for his long winters nap.  Did he think deep philosophical questions?  Did he ask the other bears about the meaning of life?  I doubt it.  At the same time he was somewhat aware.  If he was a small bear and a grizzly snuck up on him, he would know fear.

Go down to the other end of creation to the insect world.  Are they aware of fear?  I don’t think so, not in the way that we think of fear.  They may scramble or dodged to preserve their life, but that’s just a reaction.  I doubt if they have the cerebral cortex to allow them to be aware of what’s really going on.

Hugh Ross in his writings about creation, talks about a word that is used for the higher levels of animals.  That is in Hebrew I believe, nephesh.  In his theory, certain animals were created with this level of awareness.  These were the animals that are able to relate to human beings, such as dogs and horses.  You wouldn’t find it in the lower animals.

The ultimate of creation, of course, was humanity.  We were created in the image of God.  I’m wondering if one of the reasons we have the New Testament written in Greek rather than Hebrew is so that we could have a new word for what it is to have this life source.  It might be the word that we use for spirit in Holy Spirit, pneuma.

New Testament words, such as agape would have all of the nuance of the Old Testament, chesed but with added depth and understanding.  That tells us the concept of love that we get from God in the Greek is higher than the awesome thought of loving kindness in the Hebrew.

We serve a loving God.  In one sense He never changes.  But in another sense, He is constantly finding new ways to reach out and develop us in His presence.

homo unius libri