Covenants

Daily Friendship with God #11 Covenants 

The Concept of Covenants

A covenant in the ancient world was similar to what we in the modern world would call a contract, treaty, or a will. Each covenant established the basis of a relationship, conditions for that relationship, promises and conditions of the relationship and consequences if those conditions were unmet. One of the most familiar examples of a covenant for us is marriage.

Understanding God’s covenants relationally is another foundation in knowing God because the covenants provide the skeletal framework for how the whole biblical story holds together. As the story of the Bible unfolds, we see God is a covenant making, covenant keeping, and covenant fulfilling God. God establishes covenants with certain people and these covenants are the way God unfolds his redemptive plan. The covenants are the structure of the story.

The Biblical Covenants

There are several covenants in the Bible and they are crucial for understanding the story of the Bible and God’s redemptive plan for humanity. Gods Covenants are broken into two categories the old and the new Covenant. The old covenant consist of 4 covenants which are the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, The Mosaic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant. Of those four the one that is referred to the most as the old covenant is that of the Mosaic Covenant from which the Mosaic Law was established. Below is  a brief overview of each of the old Covenants. 

The four Old Testament Covenants

The Noahic Covenant

From Genesis 9, this is a covenant God establishes with Noah after the flood in which he resets and renews the blessings of creation, reaffirming God’s image in humanity and the work of dominion. This covenant promises the preservation of humanity and provides for the restraint of human evil and violence.

The Abrahamic Covenant

See Genesis 12 and 15. This is the most central to the biblical story. In it, God promises Abraham a land, descendants and blessing. This blessing promised to Abraham would extend through him to all the peoples of the earth. Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant is paramount to understanding theological concepts like a Promised Land, election, the people of God, inheritance and so on. It provides context for understanding practices like circumcision, conflicts with surrounding nations and divisions between Jews and Gentiles.

The Mosaic Covenant

See Exodus 19 and 24. This is the covenant God establishes with the people of Israel at Mt. Sinai after he led them out of Egyptian slavery. With it, God supplies the Law that is meant to govern and shape the people of Israel in the Promised Land. This Law was not a means of salvation but would distinguish the people from the surrounding nations as a special kingdom of priests (Exodus 19:1-7). This covenant was conditional and defined blessings and curses based on obedience or disobedience (see Deuteronomy 28-29). Understanding the Mosaic Covenant is foundational to understanding the cycles of blessing and curse in the Old Testament, the exiles of Israel and Judah, the disputes between Jesus and the Pharisees and Paul’s pastoral teachings about law and grace.

The Davidic Covenant

See 2 Samuel 7. This is the covenant where God promises a descendant of David to reign on the throne over the people of God. It is a continuation of the earlier covenants in that it promises a Davidic king as the figure through whom God would secure the promises of land, descendants, and blessing. This covenant becomes the basis for hope of a Messiah and makes sense of the Gospels’ concern to show Jesus was the rightful King of the Jews.

The New Covenant

In the old testament book of Jeremiah in chapter 31:31-34  God speaks of the new Covenant He is going to establish. In the new testament the writer of Hebrew quotes Jerimiah 31 in the following passage. 

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then He adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”

Jesus clarifies how He is going to establish the new Covenant Jeremiah talked about in the book of Matthew

And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.” Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you. For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matthew 26:26-28)

The word remission has the following meaning:

1.    release from bondage or imprisonment

2.    forgiveness or pardon, of sins (letting them go as if they had never been committed), remission(cancelation) of the penalty

Jeremiah was talking the same new covenant that Jesus was about 600 years before Jesus would lift up the cup of the new covenant. Ezekiel states the following: 

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them. Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleanness. 

With the new covenant that Jesus established comes the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and a whole new life in Jesus. 

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. ( 2 Corinthians 5:17) 

This is all based on the work that He accomplished in and through the good news of His death burial and resurrection so that we can by faith have a personal relationship with God now and throughout all eternity.  

Please take some time to read the following passages and ask God to help you to understand how they apply to your personal relationship with Him and to how you can help others to understand Gods heart of love towards them in and through the New Covenant of the Gospel.

how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (Hebrews 9:14-15)

 “As for Me,” says the LORD, “this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants’ descendants,” says the LORD, “from this time and forevermore.” (Isaiah 59:21) 

 And we have such trust through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. (2 Corinthians 3:4-6) 

And when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:24-26)

This leads us to the next Daily Friendship with God #12 Communion