Good morning. It is a 52 word paragraph. Those who wrote it argued vehemently over every one of those words, and it took six weeks to agree and then to write them down. The words were written in the midst of the unusually hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. The authors came to agree on five objectives that were deemed worthy to set the direction for the document to be introduced.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, ensure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I know that there are words where the capitalization seems strange, but I am sure it made sense 236 years ago.
But there is one part that I have always questioned. How do you form a “more perfect union”? If something is perfect, can it be improved upon? Apparently so, because the Constitution of the United States, for which those 52 words serve as a preamble, outlined a more perfect way to govern and be governed.
Long ago God formed a covenant with a man called Abraham. That covenant was one of promise, “I shall be your God and your descendants shall be My people”. In time, that covenant required rules so that the people could live in better health and would live according to the will of God. God poured out the Covenant of the Law through His servant Moses, and for hundreds of years millions of people were blessed as they obeyed the precepts of God’s Law.
Was that covenant revealed through the Law flawed? Of course not, it was provided by God and was therefore perfect for its use and intention. But it was never intended to be God’s last Word. No, that covenant pointed to the need for a Savior and there would, when the time was right, need to be a New Covenant. This New Covenant would be “more perfect” than that which had been first provided.
We read in Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the one who arranges a new covenant, so that those who have been called by God may receive the eternal blessings that God has promised. This can be done because there has been a death which sets people free from the wrongs they did while the first covenant was in effect.
Jesus Christ is our New Covenant. The promise is now written in His blood. The New Covenant is “more perfect” than what had come before it. The New Covenant brings salvation, eternal blessings, the promise of God.
Thank God for giving what was perfect, and then for improving on that perfection! It is by the power of the New Covenant, God’s more perfect answer to our need, that we are saved.
Vern