What “Covenant” Meant In Exodus 19

Apr 11, 2026

A covenant means “I am yours and you are mine”. In Exodus 19 the covenant meant that the people would be “a holy nation” and a “treasured possession”.

Exodus 19:5-6: “Now if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, you will be My treasured possession out of all the nations—for the whole earth is Mine. And unto Me you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

Here we see that through the covenant (which was based on faith and basic obedience at the time) the people could be pleasing to God through the inferior form of sanctification/justification that was available prior to Christ’s coming. It meant that they were God’s people through faith and obedience to Him.

Thus, if the Jews have a valid covenant now (as John Paul II and the other Vatican II antipopes repeatedly taught), that signifies that they can be pleasing to God and saved in their religion - which is heresy (see the Council of Florence, etc.).

John Paul II, Meeting on the Roots of Anti-Semitism, 1997: “This people [the Jewish people] has been called and led by God, Creator of Heaven and Earth. Their existence then is not a mere natural or cultural happening… It is a supernatural one. This people continues in spite of everything to be the people of the covenant…”

That statement is blatantly heretical. There are in fact many similar statements of John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis which teach, contrary to true papal teaching, that Jews have a valid covenant and that they can be holy, pleasing to God, etc. through the practice of their religion.