God brought them to Sinai; He manifested His glory; He gave them His law, with the promise of great blessings on condition of obedience: "If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then . . . ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation." Exodus 19:5, 6. The people did not realize the sinfulness of their own hearts, and that without Christ it was impossible for them to keep God's law; and they readily entered into covenant with God. Feeling that they were able to establish their own righteousness, they declared, "All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." Exodus 24:7. They had witnessed the proclamation of the law in awful majesty, and had trembled with terror before the mount; and yet only a few weeks passed before they broke their covenant with God, and bowed down to worship a graven image. They could not hope for the favor of God through a covenant which they had broken; and now, seeing their sinfulness and their need of pardon, they were brought to feel their need of the Saviour revealed in the Abrahamic covenant and shadowed forth in the sacrificial offerings. Now by faith and love they were bound to God as their deliverer from the bondage of sin. Now they were prepared to appreciate the blessings of the new covenant. {PP 371.4} [Patriarchs and Prophets (1890)]

Obedience must come from the heart. It was heart work with Christ. As we endeavor to honor God, discouragements will come to us; the enemy will try with all his power to make us swerve from the right; but we need not, because of this, give up the warfare against evil. Our duty is to guard carefully the weak points in our characters, seeking by divine grace to make them strong. There is no one living that has any power which he has not received from God, and the source whence it came is open to the weakest human being. If we draw near to God, the unfailing source of strength, we shall realize the fulfilment of the promise, "Ask, and ye shall receive." If we lift the cross, leaving the results with God, who has given us the law which we are trying to keep, we shall find that all the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies." {ST, March 4, 1897 par. 15}

Here Mrs. White has equated the "New Covenant" with the "Abrahamic Covenant." It was into THIS covenant that God had invited His people. That they made a promise apart from a true understanding of God's covenant was a mistake on their part. However, this does not signify that they should not have made any covenant with God. Not at all. He was asking them to enter His covenant as He had also covenanted with Abraham.

This is the Covenant that I long to enter--deliverance from the bondage of sin. This covenant applies here and now, not to some future-date-in-time-because-we-cannot-stop-sinning kind of thing.

The Covenants of Promise.

That the covenant and promise of God are one and the same thing, is clearly seen from Gal.3:17, where it appears that to disannul the covenant would be to make void the promise.

In Genesis 17 we read that God made a covenant with Abraham to give him the land of Canaan--and with it the whole world--for an everlasting possession; but Gal.3:18 says that God gave it to him by promise. God's covenants with men can be nothing else than promises to them: "Who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things." Rom.11:35,36.

It is so rare for men to do anything without expecting an equivalent, that theologians have taken it for granted that it is the same with God. So they begin their dissertations on God's covenant with the statement that a covenant is "a mutual agreement between two or more persons, to do or refrain from doing certain things."

But God does not make bargains with men, because He knows that they could not fulfil their part. After the flood God made a covenant with every beast of the earth, and with every fowl; but the beasts and the birds did not promise anything in return. Gen.9:9-16. They simply received the favor at the hand of God. That is all we can do. God promises us everything that we need, and more than we can ask or think, as a gift.

We give Him ourselves, that is, nothing, and He gives us Himself, that is, everything. That which makes all the trouble is that even when men are willing to recognize the Lord at all, they want to make bargains with Him. They want it to be a "mutual" affair--a transaction in which they will be considered as on a par with God. But whoever deals with God must deal with Him on His own terms, that is, on a basis of fact--that we have nothing and are nothing, and He has everything and is everything, and gives everything. (The Glad Tidings)

I have no brakes to put on now. I stand in perfect freedom, calling light, light, and darkness, darkness. I told them yesterday that the position of the covenants I believed as presented in my Volume I [Patriarchs and Prophets]. If that was Dr. Waggoner's position then he had the truth. (1888 Mat. 617)

Since I made the statement last Sabbath that the view of the covenants as it had been taught by Brother Waggoner was truth, it seems that great relief has come to many minds.(1888 Mat. 623)

Night before last I was shown that evidences in regard to the covenants were clear and convincing.(1888 Mat. 604)

Yourself, Brother Dan Jones, Brother Porter and others are spending your investigative powers for naught to produce a position on the covenants to vary from the position that Brother Waggoner has presented.(ibid.)

As for the latter part, I fail to see how Ellen White made those four points, so I guess I'm not quite understanding the logic there.

I think you're looking at things in the way that "genedereth to bondage" as Paul puts it. That is, in terms of the "'mutual' affair" that Waggoner alludes to. I think what Waggoner wrote is correct, that the Everlasting Covenant is a promise, and our part is to believe. This does not give birth to bondage, but to freedom, as opposed to the mutual affair (the Old Covenant) which does give birth to bondage.

There are those who say, "Give me Christ, but I want nothing of the law." They talk of the grace of Christ, but they know not the meaning of grace; for God does not use His grace to make void the law. Satan has confused their minds, leading them to look upon the law as a yoke of bondage, a hindrance to spirituality. They talk of faith, but they know not the meaning of the word; for faith is never found apart from truth. The peace which they boast their faith gives them is but self-righteous confidence. Let no one claim that he has been accepted by Christ, and is living without sin, while at the same time he is, like Lucifer, waging war against God's law, aiding the enemy in the very work which he commenced in heaven and is carrying forward on this earth. {ST, July 31, 1901 par. 4}

Satan has confused their minds, leading them to look upon the law as a yoke of bondage, a hindrance to spirituality.

The "new covenant" was established upon "better promises"--the promise of forgiveness of sins and of the grace of God to renew the heart and bring it into harmony with the principles of God's law. "This shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts . . . . I will forgive their iniquity, and will remember their sin no more." Jeremiah 31:33, 34.

The same law that was engraved upon the tables of stone is written by the Holy Spirit upon the tables of the heart. Instead of going about to establish our own righteousness we accept the righteousness of Christ.(PP 372;emphasis mine)

O that there were such an heart in them, that they would fear me, and keep all my commandments always, that it might be well with them, and with their children for ever!(Deut. 5:29)

it seems to be a problem of understanding what imparted righteousness is.

somehow it seems to be understood that if one is living by grace, or in the "Spirit" that they are ignoring the law.

we have to live the law perfectly,

not one slip,

no matter how minor ever.

we cannot.

Christ came, lived that perfect life and offers it to us as a gift.

not just a covering,

but inside, by faith.


the only way that we can obey the law is by accepting Christs righteousness, the "new man" in us, by faith.

anything else is self-righteousness, filled with self, filthy rags, etc.

Christ has paid the price of your redemption.... But you cannot come expecting that Christ will cover your wickedness, cover your indulgence in sin, with his robe of righteousness. He has come to save his people from their sins.... {ST, May 9, 1892}

Yet we should never be content with a sinful life. It is a thought that should arouse Christians to greater zeal and earnestness in overcoming evil, that every defect in character, every point in which they fail to meet the divine standard, is an open door by which Satan can enter to tempt and destroy them; and, furthermore, that every failure and defect on their part gives occasion to the tempter and his agents to reproach Christ. We are to exert every energy of the soul in the work of overcoming, and to look to Jesus for strength to do what we can not do of ourselves. No sin can be tolerated in those who shall walk with Christ in white. The filthy garments are to be removed, and Christ's robe of righteousness is to be placed upon us. By repentance and faith we are enabled to render obedience to all the commandments of God, and are found without blame before him. Those who shall meet the approval of God are now afflicting their souls, confessing their sins, and earnestly pleading for pardon through Jesus their Advocate. Their attention is fixed on him, and when the command is given, "Take away the filthy garments," and clothe him with "change of raiment," and "set a fair miter upon his head," they are prepared to give him all the glory of their salvation.
(To be concluded)
-
{RH, January 2, 1908 par. 12}
[The Review and Herald]

Regarding the sentence in bold which you cited:



Nobody said anything about the *law* leading to bondage. It's the *covenant* that leads to bondage (i.e., the Old Covenant). There's nothing wrong with the law. The problem comes when one tries to establish one's own righteousness by it (the Old Covenant) as opposed to accepting the righteousness of Christ (the New Covenant), which point is made here:



Please note here that EGW is contrasting the Old Covenant with the New Covenant.

Having the law written on the heart is the essence of the New Covenant. In the Old Covenant, the law is only written on stone, which is why it gives birth to bondage. The New Covenant gives birth to freedom, because in it the law is written in the heart.

The problem is not one of the law, but of the heart.

Christ does not lessen the claims of the law. In unmistakable language He presents obedience to it as the condition of eternal life--the same condition that was required of Adam before his fall. The Lord expects no less of the soul now than He expected of man in Paradise, perfect obedience, unblemished righteousness. The requirement under the covenant of grace is just as broad as the requirement made in Eden--harmony with God's law, which is holy, just, and good. {COL 391.2}

Esau had no love for devotion, no inclination to a religious life. The requirements that accompanied the spiritual birthright were an unwelcome and even hateful restraint to him. The law of God, which was the condition of the divine covenant with Abraham, was regarded by Esau as a yoke of bondage. Bent on self-indulgence, he desired nothing so much as liberty to do as he pleased. To him power and riches, feasting and reveling, were happiness. He gloried in the unrestrained freedom of his wild, roving life. {CC 61.2}