The covenant of promise made to Abraham and his seed, Christ, was confirmed 430 years before the Law was given, and "no man disannulleth or addeth thereto." "And this I say, That the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law, which was 430 years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of God of none effect;" Gal. 3:17. The inheritance is not of the Law, but of promise; vs. 18. Hence righteousness comes not by the Law, but by faith in the promises. "Wherefore then serveth the law It was added because of transgressions , till the seed should come to whom the promise was made;" ver. 19. in the day that Abraham "believed the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness," he made a covenant with him saying, "Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates;" Gen. 15.
At the same time he assured him of the 400 years actions, at the end of which he delivered Israel from Egypt, and gave them the Law, which he called a covenant, in Horeb, near Sinai; see 2 Ch. 5:10; Ex. 24:3-8; 34:27, 28; Deu. 5:1-3. "The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. The Lord made not this covenant with our fathers, but with me, even us, who are all of us here alive this day." This covenant was to continue only "till the seed (Christ) should come; then "a new covenant" was made; Is. 42:1, 6; 49:5-9. He confirmed the ( margin a) covenant, the new one, (Dan. 9:27,) the Gospel; Mark 1:14, 15; Mat. 4:23. " These are the two covenants ," and neither of them the Abrahamic, but both involved in that in its comprehensive sense.
Paul contrasts these two covenants, calling the latter the "better covenant," the "perfect;" whereas the former, "the Law, made nothing perfect;" but only had "figure," "patterns," "a shadow of the good things to come," "but the body," the substances of those legal shadows, is of Christ. The Law should be studied and "remembered" as a simple model of the great system of redemption, containing symbolic representations of the work begun by our Savior at hist advent, when he "came to fu the Law," and to be completed in "the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of His glory." Redemption is deliverance purchased by the payment of a ransom, hence it cannot be complete till man and the earth shall be delivered from the subjection and consequences of sin; the last act of deliverance will be at the end of the 1000 years. To this the shadow of the Law extended.
That the significance of the Law reaches beyond first Advent is evident from these considerations:" 1.The cleansing of the Sanctuary formed a part of the legal service, (Lev. 16: 20: 33,) and its antitype was not to be cleansed till the end of the 2300 days; Dan 8:14. 2.The Sabbaths under the Law typify the great Sabbath, the seventh millennium; Heb. 4:3. 3.The Jubilee types the release and return to their possessions of all captive Israel, this cannot be fulfilled till the resurrection of the just. - 4.The autumnal types were none of them fulfilled at first Advent. 5.The legal tenth day atonement was not, neither could it be fulfilled at that time.