There is a difficult word in the Bible that keeps coming up. It’s the word “Covenant”. If you look up the definition in different Bible sites and dictionaries/concordances, you’ll find different approaches and definitions to this word and concept. God made covenants with Adam, with Noah, with Moses (and the Israelites), with Abraham, with David, and finally with the Elect (those who confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts Jesus is the risen Lord).
Each time God makes a covenant with someone, it establishes a very special relationship. It has the commitment of a promise, but it’s more binding than a promise. It has the specifics of a contract, but it goes beyond contractual obligations. It has the heart and force of an oath, but can includes specific penalties carried out by God for breaking that oath. In the covenants God made with His people, blood was part of the making of the covenant; it was as if to say, if either of us break this covenant, may his blood be spilled in the same way as it was for these sacrifices. And in all these covenant is proclaimed God’s eternal love for His people, as seen in the fact that God will never forget His side of the covenant no matter how we break our part of the covenant.
One of the best ways to understand the scope of this complex idea is to look at the actual covenants that God made with people.
Adam was the first man with whom God made a covenant. Genesis 1:28-30 and Genesis 2:15-17 tell what God expects of Adam (be fruitful and fill the earth with his children, take care of the earth and be steward of all creation, and don’t eat fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil) and what the penalty will be if he breaks the covenant (death). In Genesis 3:14-19 we read of the curses God sets in place because of Adam and Eve breaking the covenant (child-bearing is going to be painful, work is going to be hard, and relationships are going to be full of tension). Notice that Adam and Eve are still expected to carry out their part of the covenant regarding filling the earth with their children and stewarding creation. It’s also at this point that the first shedding of blood happens as God tells them His expectations are still in force. Animals are killed to make clothing for them.
Noah is the next one told to have a covenant with God. Noah followed God’s directions to build an ark, condemning the rest of humanity (as Hebrews 11:7 says). He recognized he was just as sinful as those who died in the flood. So his very first act upon leaving the ark was to build an alter to offer a sacrifice to God. In Genesis 8:20-22 and 9:8-17, we read that when God smelled the pleasing smell of the offering, He made this covenant with Noah: never again would God flood the whole earth and bring death to all creatures as He had in this flood. The rainbow would be a sign of His continuing commitment to that covenant. And God still honors it today. There may be local floods, but there will never be another world-wide flood. The rainbow still speaks to that covenant.
It’s also interesting to see that God repeats with Noah the expectations He spoke to Adam and Eve: to fill the earth with their children and steward creation.
Abraham was the next to covenant with God. At the time of Genesis 15:4-21 it was the practice of making a formal covenant to walk between the two halves of the dead animal, basically declaring “let me be cut in two like this animal if I break my part of the covenant.” God, Himself, moved through the midst of the halved animals, swearing by Himself to make good His promise that the childless Abraham’s descendants uncountable like the stars of the sky and that they would possess the land God had promised them.
In Genesis 17:1-10, God renewed that covenant promise and gave Abraham his responsibility in their covenant – circumcise all the males in his household from then on. Just like the Rainbow was an outward sign of God’s covenant with Noah, so circumcision would be Abraham’s outward sign of his covenant with God. Genesis 17:23 tells us that Abraham carried out his part of that covenant “that very day.”
Moses and the people of Israel were the next to covenant with God at Mount Sinai. Exodus 24:3-8 tell us how Moses read “The Book of the Covenant” which spoke of all God’s laws He wanted His people to follow. The people said in one voice “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do.” At that point, Moses threw the blood of the sacrifices on the people, basically saying, may your blood be spilled like this animal’s if you break the covenant.
Just before they began their battles to claim the Land of Promise, God had Moses remind them of their covenant with Him (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). At this time, God told them that obeying the Law would bring life and good; worshiping other gods and otherwise disobeying the Law would lead to death. And in Leviticus 26:40-45, God tells them that if they turn away from Him, He will banish them from the Land of Promise. But if they confess their evil ways and return to Him, He will continue to remember the covenant with Abraham and let His people return to the Land. Because God keeps His covenant, He reminded the Exiles centuries later of this part of the covenant with Him through the different prophets like Ezekiel (Ezekiel 16:59-60).
The sign of this covenant with God was the Law, including all the sacrifices, which they were to keep in obedience to God because He had brought them out of slavery to Egypt and made them a holy nation.
David had an amazing covenant with God. In 2 Samuel 7:8-16 we see that God vows to make David a great and successful king, whose kingdom will last forever. David totally blew it a number of times, and yet God kept that promise through David’s descendant, the Messiah.
Through the Messiah, God not only honored His covenant with David, He brought about a New Covenant spoken about by the prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-34). The people of Israel broke the old covenant with Moses by not keeping the Law. But in this new covenant, God would write the Law directly on the hearts of His people. In the New Testament, we see how God brought this about. In Hebrews 8:13 it says that, “in speaking of a New Covenant, He [God] makes the first one obsolete.” In Hebrews chapter 9, that’s explained further. The first covenant brought about a holy nation on earth, worshiping in a holy place set up on earth. But this earthly nation and holy place were only shadows of the heavenly nation and the heavenly holy place. And, just as blood was required for the first covenants, the blood of goats and bulls, so blood was required for the new covenant. But the sacrifice for the new covenant was so much better – it was the very blood of the perfect, holy Messiah, Jesus, the Son of God, who gave Himself on the cross for our sins.
Like Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians, in Adam we die, because Adam disobeyed in sin. In Jesus we live, because Jesus died to pay our sin penalty, then came back to life so that we can live with Him.
In Noah’s covenant, we have God’s promise that He won’t drown the world again, though it is still filled with evil. In Christ, we have God’s grace that like Noah, we will be saved from the judgement that is coming soon. This next judgement won’t be water (because God promised) – it will be fire.
In Moses’ covenant with God, we find that we are not able to keep the Law perfectly. And if we break even one part of the Law, we’ve broken the whole law and are guilty and worthy of death (James 2:10). Basically, it’s like we are slaves to sin just as the Israelites were slaves to Egypt. In Jesus, He kept the Law of God perfectly for us and took onto Himself the judgement, the penalty that we have rightly earned. Not only that, we are freed from our sin/slavery and are allowed to “wear” His perfect Law-keeping righteousness as we stand before God our Righteous Judge.
And while David was a very imperfect king, Jesus is a wholly Good, Righteous, Perfect, Just, everything good you can think of King. And He will be King forever. And if we are in Him, we get to enjoy Him forever as our King. And that is God’s promise to all who believe in Jesus.
Faith Gym 