The Bible is more than two covenants, Old and New. There are multiple covenants in the Old Testament. There are the Edenic, Adamic, Noahide, Abrahamic, Sinaitic, Davidic, and Messianic Covenants. The Messianic Covenant is a product of the events recorded in the Gospels of the New Testament.
The Edenic covenant outlines man’s responsibilities at creation, when death occurred, and when it was broken after humans disobeyed God’s instruction. The Adamic covenant is a consequence of breaking the Edenic covenant, and it outlines the restrictions on human life (everyone dies) and operations on the earth (toiling for food, pain in childbirth, etc.). Then the Noahide Covenant begins with Noah; any rules given to him when he came off the Ark apply to all Gentile nations. This one includes the death penalty for murder, since murder and violence led to the earth being flooded. These three covenants are universal, applying to everyone.
The remaining covenants are theocratic, meaning they pertain to God’s rule. Abraham had a unique covenant for himself and his descendants, which required him and his descendants to be marked by the command for all males to undergo circumcision as babies. Unlike the other theocratic covenants, this one doesn’t have any conditional statements that would remove someone from it. Everyone who is covered by this covenant is promised the blessing. The Sinaitic Covenant (which can be divided into the Mosaic Covenant and Palestinian Covenant) is an extension of the Abrahamic Covenant, as it pertains to his descendants who will enter the Promised Land and their lives in it. This is what Moses established for them on Mount Sinai, including moral laws carried over from the Noahide Covenant, but setting the Israelites apart as a nation with additional ceremonial and ritual purity laws and ordinances. This covenant was conditional and had consequences, including exile from the land, if its rules were broken. God also made a covenant with David, which is similar to the Abrahamic covenant since it affects one bloodline and proclaims that the Messiah will come from his lineage. The Davidic covenant excludes the kings after David, who broke his laws, such as Solomon, and led the nation into exile; however, the Messiah, Jesus, still came through David’s line through a non-monarch. The Adamic, Abrahamic, and Davidic simply apply a promise to the affected bloodline. The Noahide, Sinaitic (Mosaic and Palestinian Covenant) laws are akin to the original Edenic Covenant, requiring observance of rules, and there are negative consequences for breaking these covenants.
You can think of God’s Sinaitic Covenant with Israel as a marriage, with Abraham’s covenant being the engagement, and the Sinai agreement being the wedding. The exile is akin to a temporal divorce (Jeremiah 3:8 uses the language of a Jewish divorce certificate to describe it), and that represents a temporal fracture in the Sinaitic Covenant. In Hosea chapters 1-3, God has Hosea marry a prostitute named Gomer, and she cheats by prostituting herself, then another man pimps her out. Divorcing her is his legal right because of her adultery; however, God tells him to buy her back from her lover and reconcile with her. This ends up becoming a metaphor for what God will do with Israel after the exile, despite their idolatry. The Israelites are restored 70 years later; however, God’s presence is not in the most holy place of the 2nd Temple. So they are essentially on probation until the Messiah appears, then he will remarry them along with Gentile believers. God’s presence returned in Acts 2, after Jesus’ ascension, to inhabit the human bodies of believers in Christ, making them His new Temple.
The New Testament writings transition between the two covenants. The Gospels are still under the old Sinaitic Covenant because Jesus had not yet risen, and the Holy Spirit had not yet been distributed. Following the resurrection, the New Covenant began, and Acts 2 marks the commencement of the Church movement initiated by the distribution of the Holy Spirit on Shavuot (Pentecost). The marriage covenant analogy I made earlier also applies to the New Covenant, because Jesus’ resurrection and the distribution of the Holy Spirit represent the engagement; the wedding is when He returns to retrieve His bride (the New Jerusalem) and start a new creation, where He will reign forever. This covenant restores everything to the state of the Edenic Covenant.
The Edenic Covenant:
The Edenic Covenant was God’s initial plan for creation. He creates the heavens and the Earth and assigns humans to rule over and care for the Earth, as well as multiple on it (Genesis 1:26-28). This covenant was broken when Adam and Eve stole fruit from the Forbidden Tree (Genesis 2:16-17), resulting in the fall of creation and the introduction of death (Genesis 3). Humans were deceived by a spiritual rebel, who came to them as a serpent, named Satan, who sought to destroy humanity, causing the humans to rebel against God by stealing from Him.
Adamic Covenant:
The breaking of the Edenic Covenant led God to create the Adamic Covenant. This covenant laid out the new terms of humanity’s relationship with God. Under this Covenant, death is the product of sin and all humans sin because of the sin nature we inherit from Adam (Romans 3:23, Romans 5:12). Adam didnt initially have sin nature but one he sinned the first time he and Eve spiritually died and they pass on this corrupted to all of their descendants. Men have to toil and labor for food and resources, and women will struggle in reproduction. Satan, the spiritual rebel who deceived the woman and tempted humans into breaking God’s prohibition on eating the Forbidden Tree, is going to be defeated by a future human who will save humanity (Gen 3:15). In the meantime, Satan now has authority on the earth to cause chaos (2 Corinthians 4:4), and further influence wickedness actions in the Earth, by taking advantage of humanity’s sin nature.
Animal sacrifices were prescribed to atone for human sins; this allowed animals to die in a human’s place instead of a person immediately dying for their sins. The sacrifices of specific animals, representing sinlessness, could be made as a temporary atonement for sin; however, this approach had limitations because humans were created in the image of God and distinct from animals, and therefore, no animal could ever truly replace a human. Thus, only a human can fully substitute for a human, but since no human was sinless, no human could qualify to function as a substitute for humanity. This means the solution is that there needs to be a sinless human.
Adam and Eve’s firstborn son, Cain, murders his younger brother Abel, and this starts a chain of violence that eventually affects the world. Cain was jealous that God received Abel’s sacrifice, but his wasn’t. Actions like murder and such were sins and violated God’s laws under the Adamic Covenant, but God didn’t punish them with death immediately; instead, He showed mercy. He gave Cain a mark that would signal to others not to kill him, a method that prevents the violence. However, Cain’s descendant Lamech took that mercy out of context, treated it like a reward, and came up with the idea that when you murder someone, you’ll get a bonus of protection. I call this the “Murder Olympics,” as we can see in Genesis 6:11. This foolishness grieved God, so He had to execute judgment, but at the same time preserve humanity to fulfill His promise to Adam and Eve to save humankind from this sinful state. This led to mass violence on Earth, and God responded to the violence by using a flood to reset the world. God had Noah preserve a few humans and at least one pair of all the creatures that couldn’t survive the flood on the Ark (boat-like structure).
Noahide Covenant:
God called a man named Noah to build the Ark to preserve life during the flood and made a new covenant marked by the rainbow; this is known as the Noahide Covenant. This covenant applies to all people, as they all descend from Noah and his family, who were the sole survivors of humanity. This covenant outlines promises not to destroy humankind again with a flood and reaffirms their responsibility to care for the Earth and reproduce. This covenant also features moral laws that are accompanied by specific punishments. For example, the death penalty was introduced for murder in Genesis 9:5. For people who have objections to the death penalty and don’t understand why a loving God would cause such a thing, all they have to do is read Genesis chapters 4-9 and they’ll see that when he didn’t give the death penalty for murder, there was mass violence, so it was necessary to stop people from doing that again. In Genesis 9, we are also introduced to the concept of meat-eating. Previously, humans and animals all ate plants (Gen 1:29-30). In this covenant, there are no dietary restrictions on which meats are edible. However, animals are distinguished as clean or unclean when Noah put them on the ark (7 pairs of clean land animals and flying creatures, and one pair of each kind of unclean land animals). These distinctions would later be applied to dietary restriction in the Siniatic Covenant. The only catch is to avoid drinking blood, which is also forbidden in the Sinaitic Covenant (Lev 19:26, Deut 12:16-25) and even in the Messianic Covenant, as seen in Acts 15:19-21. Moral laws that appear in the Sinaitic Covenant, such as prohibitions on murder, adultery, and stealing, apply to all humanity through the Noahide Covenant. These laws all center around behavior that causes us to break God’s laws. Humans are told to spread out and populate the planet, like before. Still, they rebelled and decided to build a tower to heaven. So, God divided their languages so they wouldn’t be united, which is how humanity was split into separate nations (Genesis 11:1-9).
Abrahamic Covenant:
From Noah’s son Shem, descended a man named Abram (later known as Abraham). Abraham, at age 75, was chosen and called by God to leave Babylon (Ur of the Chaldeans) and move to the land of Canaan in the west. Canaan was the grandson of Noah from his son Ham, and Noah cursed him because of Ham’s disrespect towards his father. God called Abraham, who was childless at the time, and promised to not only give him a child but make a special nation from him through that child’s descendants. This nation would be the Israelites. Israel gets its name from Abraham’s grandson Jacob, the son of Isaac, whose name was changed to Israel. Isaac, Jacob’s father, was the promised son to Abraham. Abraham had eight sons from three different women, but only Isaac was born through a miraculous conception within Abraham’s 90-year-old wife, Sarah, who was barren all her life.
The only requirement in the Abrahamic Covenant is for Abraham’s descendants only to worship God (YHWH) and to circumcise the boys on their eighth day. This covenant offers a blessing to all of Abraham’s descendants, for God said He would “bless those who blessed Abraham and curse those who curse him” (Gen 12:1-3). This blessing extended to non-descendants who showed favor towards Abraham’s descendants. Abraham’s descendants include Ishmael from his concubine Hagar, Isaac from his wife Sarah, and from his 2nd wife Keturah (whom he married after Sarah died), he has Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Isaac, however, has a special blessing because his mother was Abraham’s first wife and received a special place in the Abrahamic covenant. Like Abraham, whose birth name was Abram, she also had her name changed from Sarai to Sarah, as recorded in Genesis 17. Even though Ishmael was the firstborn, God said that Isaac would be the promised seed (Gen 17:15-22). This covenant was offered at a time when Abraham had no children, and God promised to give him an heir through his wife Sarah. Unfortunately, Abraham and Sarah attempted to control their destiny by using Hagar as a surrogate (Genesis 16), which resulted in the birth of Ishmael and strife between Sarah and Hagar, ultimately spilling over into conflict between Ishmael and Isaac. Abraham and Sarah’s lack of faith led to the abuse of Hagar, and this was not the promised seed that God would supernaturally impart to them through Sarah’s womb. Eventually, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90, Isaac, Sarah’s only child, was born.
After Abraham’s death at the age of 175, God continued to bless his descendants just as He had promised. God told him that 430 years after the time he entered Canaan, long after his death, Abraham’s descendants would come back to Canaan from slavery in another nation and would conquer the Canaanites. For the next 215 years, they would dwell in Canaan. Then, during a famine, they moved to Egypt, where one of Jacob’s sons, Joseph, who had been sold into slavery by his brothers, had become the vizier of Egypt. Jacob’s family, the Israelites, were welcomed into Egypt as refugees. However, as God prophesied to Abraham, they would be enslaved by those same Egyptians years later. The Israelites lived in Egypt for a total of 215 years, and then God sent an 80-year-old Israelite prophet named Moses, who had fled Egypt as a fugitive 40 years prior, to lead them out of Egypt. This was the famous Exodus story where God empowered Moses with plagues to destroy Egypt, defeat the Pharaoh, and lead them out of slavery.
Sinaitic Covenant:
The Sinaitic Covenant is the Covenant established on Mount Sinai with Moses after the Israelites leave Egypt (Ex 20). This covenant involved an intimate relationship between the Israelite nation and God himself. Every human was guilty of sin and unholy before God, and therefore could not be in God’s presence for long. God gave them a specific sacrificial system that allowed them to cover their sins while interacting in such proximity to His presence without being destroyed. This is what distinguished the Israelites from all other nations.
The laws introduced here are often referred to as the Mosaic Law. The Sinaitic Covenant encompasses the moral laws from the Noahide tradition (such as those against murder and adultery), and as descendants of Abraham, the Israelites naturally inherit the law of circumcision from Abraham. Additionally, new rules have been introduced that specifically apply to the Israelites. Some of them only apply immediately, such as not making false gods and idols, while others only apply while they are in the land. Most of the laws that immediately apply to them as a people are included in the Mosaic Covenant, while the rules that apply to them as a nation-state after conquering Canaan are outlined in the Palestinian Covenant.
Palestinian Covenant laws only apply after they’ve conquered the promised land, including rules for government land allotments, slavery, tithes, and offerings. While the Mosaic Covenant rules like the ceremonial and ritual purity laws regarding circumcision, impurity/uncleanness (contact with certain bodily fluids or courses of humans or unclean animals, skin disease, etc), kosher food, and holidays. With these kinds of laws, God would say, “When you get to the promised land, do or don’t this or that”. That means that these kinds of laws only apply in the actual land of Israel and nowhere else on earth. Gentile nations outside of Israel are not required to follow the uniquely Jewish laws. Even though they were given while the Israelites were still trekking through the wilderness for 40 years, the Israelites could not execute laws involving agricultural practices because they were not yet in the land of Canaan. For 40 years, they were in the desert eating quail and manna provided by God, so those laws did not apply until they conquered Canaan.
There are other laws throughout the Torah, including civil laws governing dress, agricultural and economic practices, as well as ceremonial laws and rules regarding sacrifices. Some civil laws are about moral purity, like the laws dealing with accidental death (Ex 21:12-14, Numbers ch. 35). In contrast, others are more cultural and have specific social functions like distinguishing Israelites (Jews) from Foreigners (Gentiles). An example is the circumcision requirement, which is only applicable to the descendants of Abraham. Another example is the requirement for Jews to wear tassels on their clothing (Num 15:37-41, Deut 22:12). This law only applied to Jews in the land, as it visually distinguished them from Gentiles living among them, helping them follow the law. For instance, if an Israelite wanted to sell assets to, purchase (for slavery), or marry a person to their offspring, the other person’s clothing would be a quick way to determine what the legal limitations are on any dealings with a person based on that person’s nationality. All land allotments are permanent for the tribes of Israelites (Lev 25:23) except for the Levites (Numbers 18:20-24). Since only Jews can own land, it makes sense that Jewish slaves are only required to work for six years, as their debts are canceled during the Shmita (sabbatical year), and on the Jubilee (restoration year), they regain ownership of their land (Lev 25:1-22).
Meanwhile, Gentile slaves don’t have a 6-year limitation or debt cancellation every seven years like the Israelite slaves do (Deut 15:3). Marriage to Gentiles is allowed, but there are some restrictions. Ideally, they are converts to Judaism and renounce idol worship. Moreover, treaty marriages to Canaanites were prohibited (Deut 7:3), and marriage of Israelite women to men of specific gentile nationalities (Moabites, Ammonites, Egyptians, Edomites) had restrictions that required them to live in Israel for a set number of generations before inheriting any land (Deut 23:3-8). This rule about distinct clothing doesn’t make sense if applied to Gentiles around the world, since its goal was to make it easier to follow land-specific laws.
Another example is that Jews were required to observe holidays like Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, but Gentiles were not required to celebrate Jewish holidays. They were not even allowed to eat the Passover meal unless they were circumcised (Ex 12:43-48), and circumcision for Gentiles was optional. Jews in Israel had more restrictions and rules to follow. On the flip side, Jews also had more perks, like permanent land ownership, so there was a trade-off. Some civil laws applied to both Jews and Gentiles living in the land, like the law requiring rest on the Sabbath both for the weekly Sabbath (Ex 12:19, Ex 23:12) and holiday Sabbaths (Lev 16:29). These laws include accompanying text like: “these regulations apply both to the foreigners living among you and to the native-born Israelites.” Therefore, any law governing something like land ownership, Sabbath years, or slavery wouldn’t apply to Gentiles living outside of Israel. These kinds of laws were specifically for the nation of Israel and couldn’t be enforced outside of Israel’s borders. Therefore, they don’t apply to Christians, as the body of Christ encompasses believers from all nations and ethnic groups who reside worldwide (Matt 28:18-20).
These laws teach the Israelites ritual and moral purity for living in God’s presence and representing him on earth as a nation of priests (Ex 19:6) to the Gentiles. There was a blessing of expansion and longevity for keeping the law, but a curse of destruction and exile for breaking it (Deut ch, 7, 9, 28). God had them build a special tent called the Tabernacle, where His presence would dwell. He set the Levites apart to assist the priests in serving in God’s presence by managing sacrifices and ritual purification ceremonies, as well as serving as stewards of the law who taught the ordinary people. The rest of the Israelites would receive tribal land allotments and be required to share 10% of their harvest with the Levites, as they didn’t have a land allotment. Some moral laws were punished by restitution or debt enslavement, but other, more serious crimes were punished by execution, which required at least 2-3 witnesses in order to execute death. Their goal was to preserve God’s ways and laws until the Messiah came, but they failed and were exiled from the land temporarily. However, God restored them and abided with them in silence until the Messiah came and offered the new Messianic covenant through Jesus.
Davidic Covenant:
In 2 Samuel 7, God made the Davidic covenant with David, which states that if his descendants remain faithful, they will be a blessing to him. In this Covenant, he also confirms that David’s lineage will lead to a greater King, the Messiah himself. However, Solomon sinned, and their descendants broke the Covenant. Despite this, God remained faithful to his Covenant that the Messiah would still come through his lineage, just not from Solomon’s line. Look at Luke 3:23-38 for more details on the biological lineage of Jesus to David through Mary. Jesus was blood-related to David through Solomon’s younger brother Nathan.
Messianic Covenant:
The Messianic Covenant initiated by Jesus the Messiah connects Jews and Gentiles into one Covenant. God promised this New Covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34.
Jeremiah 31:31 31 “The day is coming,” says the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. 32 This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife,” says the Lord. 33 “But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days,” says the Lord. “I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already,” says the Lord. “And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.”
Jesus is the product of the three bloodline covenants (Adamic, Abrahamic, and Davidic) because he descends from all three. He is called the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) because He came to undo what Adam had done. To do that, Jesus had to be sinless and a human (descendant of Adam). Since all humans inherit sin nature from Adam through their fathers, Jesus had to be born from a virgin (Matt 1:18-25, Luke 1:26-38). This allowed him to be a descendant of Adam, who, like Adam, initially didn’t have sin nature. This covenant promises to restore the problem of the sin nature and its effects on the world after the breaking of the Edenic Covenant. Jesus is the “promised seed“ of Genesis 3:15 who will “bruise Satan’s head”. He is the promised seed that descends from Abraham, who will bless the nations (Genesis 12:7, Gen 13:15, Galatians 3:15-28). He is the promised savior and King who will descend from David (2 Samuel 7:12-16, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5-61).
The Moral laws of the Noahide and Sinaitic Covenants and their corresponding punishments are fulfilled in Jesus. The moral laws are still punishable on Judgment Day, but no one has to be executed for breaking the ones that demand death. We are expected to follow these laws until we receive new bodies that will be sin-free (1 Cor 15:35-58, 2 Cor 5:1-10, Phil 3:20-21). Then, we will no longer have the sin nature that causes us to break them, and as a byproduct, there will be no more sin, and therefore no more death. This is why life will be eternal.
The Holy Spirit only indwells within believers who have received the New Covenant through Jesus. Hence, unbelievers are still slaves to their sinful nature and will still deal with eternal condemnation on Judgment Day unless they accept the covenant of Jesus. Everyone sins and will be judged and condemned for their sins, but Jesus makes a way for everyone to be redeemed while justice is still done. This covenant is for all descendants of Adam, thereby undoing the curse of the Adamic Covenant. Jesus took the punishment for us for the sake of God’s justice being satisfied against our law-breaking. This doesn’t mean we are free to sin all we want. However, the punishment for breaking them was taken by the sinless one, Christ himself. And those who receive the covenant He established by doing so will be adopted as God’s children and joint-heirs with Christ, instead of receiving eternal life instead of eternal condemnation ( Romans 8:1-17). In addition, they receive the Holy Spirit, who transforms and sanctifies their minds (Romans 12:1-2), positioning them to resist their sinful nature and yield to God’s laws (Gal 5:16). In Galatians 6:7-8, Paul writes, “If we sow to the flesh, we reap corruption; if we sow to the Spirit, we reap eternal life.” The moral purity laws are referenced in the New Testament in Acts 15:22-28 when the Jerusalem council determined that Gentile followers of Jesus didn’t follow ritual purity laws but did need moral laws.
The laws regarding the priestly system, the sacrificial system, and the holy days are also fulfilled by Christ. Hebrews chapters 5-7 discuss Jesus’ role as our High Priest under the New Covenant, in the order of Melchizedek. This is how he fulfills the role of the Old Testament priest in the order of Aaron (Moses’ brother), replacing the need for the Levitical priesthood established by Moses. Hebrews 8-10 states that Jesus is the greatest sacrifice that cleanses us of sin, rather than merely covering us, as the animal sacrifices under the law did. This is because animals are not made in the image of God like humans are, so we needed a human substitute, but since all humans inherit sin nature, none of them qualify, except Jesus. This is how he fulfils the need for a sacrificial system. That is why many laws of the Old Covenant are no longer necessary. Jesus’ blood went on the altar in heaven (Hebrews 9), which is higher than the bronze altar for animal sacrifices set up for Israel on earth. Lastly, the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD, so they could not keep all of the laws of the Sinaitic Covenant even if they were Jewish and living in Israel.
Holy days like Passover, First Fruits, and Shavuot also point to Jesus. He died on Passover, also known as the Festival of Unleavened Bread, as the “bread of life” or “unleavened one” (leaven can metaphorically refer to sin, so he is the sinless one). He rose from the dead on First Fruits as the first “fruits of the harvest of resurrection” (1 Corinthians 15:20), meaning he is the first human who is resurrected with eternal life. The rest will be resurrected (harvested) when he returns, which may correspond with Sukkot or the Festival of Tabernacles/Ingathering (final harvest of the year). Shavuot, also known as Pentecost, takes place 50 days after the First Fruits offering and corresponds to when the disciples received the Holy Spirit and the Church was born, as described in Acts 2. These holy days in the Sinantic Covenant correspond to key events in the history of Israel. Passover commemorates when the Israelites were delivered from slavery in Egypt (Leviticus 23:5-8); likewise, Christ came to deliver humanity from slavery to sin. Shavuot commemorates the day when the Mosaic Law was given on Mount Sinai (Lev 23:43). Nevertheless, in the New Covenant, believers in Christ, who are not exclusively limited to being Israelites, follow the moral laws through the Holy Spirit, not by their fleshly willpower. And if they fail, instead of sacrificing animals to cover their sins, they are covered by Christ’s sacrifice. Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) is when all the sins of Israel are assigned to a sacrificial animal, and the High Priest sprinkles its blood in the Most Holy place, which covers the sins of Israel for that entire year so that they can start a new year redeemed from their faults. By taking our punishment, Jesus becomes our sacrifice, resetting our status from wicked to righteous in the eyes of God. Sukkot reminds the Israelites of the time their ancestors lived in tents, traveling through the wilderness. The Tabernacle was a meeting tent where God’s presence would dwell, later replaced by the Temple. Now, Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and are called Temples of the living God.
Furthermore, we don’t need to be in a clean state (ritually pure) to interact with God’s presence anymore. This is because he no longer resides in a Temple or Tabernacle; believers are now “living temples.” According to the New Testament, believers have God’s Spirit inside them because they were made pure by the sacrifice of Jesus, making their bodies new Temples rather than having to build another one in Israel (1 Cor 6:19-20, and 2 Cor 6:15-18). Also, Hebrews 10:22 says that Jesus’ blood has sanctified people as if they were washed with “pure water”. In the Old Testament, ritual impurity was often resolved by taking a bath, so Hebrews 10:22 suggests that Christ’s blood functions similarly, purifying all ritual impurity. In the Old Testament, humans could not go into God’s presence if they were ritually impure. Ritually impure people were people who recently touched an unclean animal carcass or a dead human, were menstruating or touched by menstrual blood, had bodily discharges or skin diseases, or touched someone who had these issues or had recently had sex. God’s spirit is now dwelling inside believers, so that is a sign that something has changed in our status. Jesus, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, was able to heal lepers and people’s bodily discharges by touching them without becoming ritually impure himself. Therefore, believers who follow Jesus can do the same, since they have the same Spirit (Romans 6:10-11). It wouldn’t make much sense for these laws to apply now because that would mean the Holy Spirit would have to leave if a Christian had sex with their spouse, was menstruating, or touched a dead body. The Holy Spirit is always with those who follow Christ and will abide with them forever, as stated in John 14:16-17.
While most of the Covenants are a response to humanity’s rebellion, the breaking of the Edenic Covenant, the Messianic Covenant addresses the sin problem directly. It promises restoration to the way things were in the Edenic Covenant, which is why it is the best. It is the fulfillment of God’s promise to save humanity at the inception of the Adamic Covenant (Genesis 3:15). The covenants, with their legal codes and punishments, sought only to regulate human behavior. Still, the Messianic Covenants aim to change the human heart and ultimately defeat Satan and the evil he enslaves humans.
Genesis 3:14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent [Satan], “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live.15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.
Resources:
A paper by Lambert Dolphin with a more in-depth take on all of the various covenants in the Bible: