Diving in! Introduction

Posted on September 19, 2023 By The author

Introduction

As Bible-believing Christians, we find our identity in what God says about us and what God does for us, and nowhere is this laid our more clearly than in the Covenants in Scripture. So we are going to explore the Covenants, not as an intellectual exercise, but as a way to get to know our God better, and to better understand His purposes – not just for us, but for the whole creation. We will see how they all point to Christ so that we may bow in awe and wonder at the One Who says of Himself:

“I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me. Who then is like Me? Let him say so! Let him declare his case before Me, since I established an ancient people. Let him foretell the things to come, and what is to take place. Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.” (Isa. 44:6-8)

“I am God—there is no other. I am God, and there is none like Me— declaring the end from the beginning, from ancient time, what is yet to come, saying, “My purpose will stand, and I will accomplish all that I please.” (Isa 46:9-10)

So our prayer for this whole series is that all of us “may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to Him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God” (Col. 1:9-10). Knowledge of God is, or should be(!), the objective of ‘theology,’ which is a word that we will be using a lot in these studies!

Unlike all other religions, which are man’s search for God, the Christian Bible is the record of God’s search for man, from God’s searching question to Adam “Where are you?” in Gen. 3 to God dwelling with man in eternity in Rev. 21. Our role is to respond to God in faith and to find out more about the God who wants us to have fellowship with Him. This is called theology.

The ‘ABC’ of Theology

Theology is the study of God. Theology is at best, man’s attempt/effort to set a framework to help understand God and His Word, but theologies are man made and not divinely inspired. So we need to remember to balance the theological framework or one’s own theological position against the inspired word of God itself. We all have, knowingly or unknowingly, some “ology” of some description – and it’s important to recognise what one’s own biases may be.

		Comment
A	Anybody’s theology	if you don’t make a claim to a specific theological train of thought, that is a theological position – even atheists (Psa. 14:1)and the devil have that (Jas. 2:19)
B	Biblical theology	Everybody who makes a claim to some sort of theology says that theirs is the Biblical one!
C	Covenant theology	The position underlying at least 80% of the denominations – a Covenantal framework implying a single people of God through the ages. Tends towards Replacement Theology where the Church has replaced Israel as the People of God; interprets the OT through an allegorical framework.
D	Dispensational theology	Popularised in the last couple of centuries – rooted in the Early Church Fathers but lost under the cloak of Augustinian allegorical thought; takes the Bible literally (but not woodenly!) and keeps Israel and the Church as separate entities in God’s dealings
E	Esoteric theology	Anything you want it to be – popular with false teachers and the prosperity gospel – can lead to…
F	False theology	Variation of the above – any theology that does not have Christ as the objective and focus
G	God’s theology	Biblical revelation, revealed by the Holy Spirit

Everybody has a ‘theology’ – the way they think about God (I put on record here that my thinking has been shaped by Dispensational Theology, but that I try to understand the other frameworks as well. The Dispensational view seems to me to be the most obvious framework in the Bible– even theologians of other dispositions accept that!)

While we cannot know what God thinks about when He thinks about Himself (His self-knowledge), we can know what He has told us to think about Him and how He interacts with His creation. It is apparent from Scripture, that Covenant is God’s principle method of interacting with us (we’ll consider ‘why?’ a bit later). So Covenant is a vital area of study if we want to know our God better and His purposes.

Topics to be covered

Covenant

A number of views and frameworks have built up around the Covenants over the centuries, principally since the 16^th century and have caused a lot of debate – at times heated – and not a little confusion. The covenants were identified by the early Church Fathers as being key pointers in Scripture to the ways in which God related to His people – first as Israel and later as the Church. They were systematised in the 16^th & 17^th centuries by the Reformers and form the main structure of Reformed thought, known as Covenant Theology (e.g. Lutherans, Presbyterians and nominally Anglicans).

Augustine laid the foundations for this in the 5^th century with his writings, especially “The City of God”, written in response to the decline of the Roman Empire, and that became the framework for the Church’s understanding of her position in, and relationship to, the world in which she found herself. Augustine’s theology shaped the Catholic church, but Calvin was also steeped in Augustinian thought so the Reformation didn’t change anything in that respect. So Augustine and Augustinian Theology has been very influential in the history of the Church and her theology.

So what we want to try to do is to understand what Scripture actually teaches about the ways God deals with His People and His Creation in the succession of Covenants related in Scripture, without any theological framework influencing us (VERY difficult!).

So we’ll look at:

The Big Picture of the Bible Story and a look at the Bible’s own framework of that story (i.e. testing the depth of the water before we dive in!)
What is a covenant? What are the main Covenants?
Overview of the chronological order of the Covenants in the Bible
How do the Covenants feature in the Bible story and how do they define it
Deep dive into each of the primary Covenants we have identified
Continuities and discontinuities between the OT covenants and the New Covenant and attempts by theologians to reconcile and explain

The Tabernacle and the Set Feasts of the Lord

So that’s our starting point for “Diving In”. We will then be in a position to see the beautiful typology in the Tabernacle and the Set Feasts of the Lord (Moedim). I suspect we’ll spend a lot of time in Leviticus and Hebrews in that section!

We will need to consider how the Old Covenant sacrifices ‘worked’, i.e. how did they atone for the offerer and what does atonement actually mean? We’ll see that atonement is an Old Covenant concept which has been imported into the New Covenant and theological understandings through the use of the same word to translate the original Hebrew and Greek words, which had different meanings, and has thus obscured the wonderful truths of the New Covenant!

Approach to God is the goal of the sacrifices under both Covenants (Hebrew for ‘offering’ is ’corban’, which means ‘to come near’), but, under the Old Covenant, the sinner (and his sins) were only covered (literal translation of ‘kaphar’ unfortunately rendered ‘atonement’ in many Bible translations) so he could approach a Holy God, while in the New Covenant, we are reconciled to our Holy God in Yeshua with our sins removed completely.

However, there are a lot of parallels between both Covenants in the process whereby we can gain the goal of ‘coming near’ to God, and this is the subject of the book of Hebrews, which is rooted in the Passover and the Day of Atonement. So there is very good reason for us to familiarise ourselves with the book as we look at the Moedim.

So let’s Dive In!!

Summarise terms and definitions

Theology – the study of God and His attributes and plans. Often used to describe a particular view on the Bible, e.g. you may have heard of Covenant Theology or Dispensational Theology. We all have a theological outlook, even if we don’t know it or define it as such, and it controls how we view life, people, the world, our own existence. Even the atheist has a view of God – God doesn’t exist – but that becomes a controlling factor in his life and outlook.
Covenant – a binding agreement between two parties involving promises, usually around the issue of protection of an inferior by a superior party, and commitments made in return. Often involves an oath and is only breakable on pain of death or some other severe sanction. We’ll unpack this is detail later. There are some 22 Covenants in the Bible! (To be contrasted with Contract, where 2 equals often agree something on a quid-pro-quo basis.)
Dispensation – used to define a specific period of time when God deals with mankind on a particular set of principles. It is used this way in Eph. 1:10; also Eph. 3:2 “the dispensation of the grace of God”. Also conveys the idea of stewardship (Luke 16:2-4, 1 Cor. 9:17).
Ages – literally aeons, corresponding to the Hebrew olam. Both the Greek and Hebrew words are often translated as ‘for ever’, although it really means ‘to the age of the ages’, implying a consummation, or pointing to the Messianic era. Also used to translate genea – generations. Invariably used to define an epoch, or epoch making event, like the Flood, the call of Abraham, the giving of the Law, the coming of Christ.

When we get to study the Moedim, we will see that their structure reveals the Lord’s saving purpose for the nation of Israel, as they foreshadow the First and Second Coming of Messiah (Spring festivals = First coming; Autumn festivals = Second Coming). But there is a much bigger plan being worked out – there is a bigger story unfolding – God’s story, not the church’s, not even Israel’s, but God’s! And it is His purpose for the whole of Creation, leading to the restoration of all things Acts 3:21

Our redemption, and Israel’s redemption, is part of the consummation of all things, not the objective of it. The Bible shows us that God intends to consummate what He started in Genesis. See, for example, Col. 1:20 where Paul states that God is pleased “through him [Jesus] to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven”.

At one level (probably the highest level) the Bible is the story of God’s rest – disturbed by His creatures’ sin but recovered by His own sovereign action and Self-sacrifice. This is the story that the succession of the Covenants is instructing us in.

Is the plan of God a mystery?

Paul speaks of this in Eph. 1:9-10 Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth

God is working to a plan and He has revealed it to us in the Scriptures. He has told us ‘the end from the beginning’ as we saw earlier (Isa. 46:10)

You will recognise from a straightforward reading of the Bible that there are times when something quite dramatic occurs, because of disobedience on the part of people, God steps in, usually in judgement and then makes an agreement or covenant with specific people or people groups. Eventually people breach the terms of the previous arrangement (or covenant) and a crisis develops (e.g. the Fall, the unremitting evil of mankind by Noah’s time, the Tower of Babel, Israel in Egypt) and the cycle repeats. We might recall, for example, the Curse of Gen. 3, the Flood of Noah’s time, the destruction of Babel, the Exodus.

These are not simply stories to tell in Sunday School, but epoch-making events that shaped the history of mankind’s relationship with his Creator, and are recognised as such by most theologians, expositors of the Bible and Bible students. Many also recognise that this provides some sort of framework for the succession of Covenants God makes. This has been the case from the earliest days of the Church and can be traced back to the Post-Apostolic Fathers.

The changes in mankind’s relationship with The Lord are usually delineated in a Covenant being made – initiated by the Lord Himself. As J. I. Packer puts it:

The biblical revelation, which is the written Word of God, centres upon a God-given narrative of how successive and cumulative revelations of God’s covenant purpose and provision were given and responded to at key points in history. The backbone of the Bible […] is the unfolding in space and time of God’s unchanging intention of having a people on earth to whom He would relate covenantally for His and their joy. The contents of Scripture cohere into a single consistent body of truth about God and mankind, by which every Christian — indeed, every human being — in every generation is called to live. The Bible in one sense, like Jesus Christ in another, is God’s word to the world.
Packer, J.I.. An Introduction to Covenant Theology (p. 7). Fig. Kindle Edition

We’ll think later about why God would chose to work in this way, but firstly, let’s dive into the concept of Covenant.

What does ‘Covenant’ mean?

What is a covenant?

Some may view covenant like a contract, where you both sign on the dotted line and get your rewards for doing your part. But, biblically, it is far more than that. In political situations, it can be translated treaty (Gen. 14:13); in a social setting, it means a lifelong friendship agreement (1 Sam. 20:16); or it can refer to a marriage (Mal. 2:14). But the Covenants God makes in the Bible are on a different level entirely!

Alexander MacLaren:

It has come to be very unfashionable nowadays to talk about the covenant. People think that it is archaic, technically theological, far away from daily life, and so on and so on. I believe that Christian people would be a great deal stronger, if there were a more prominent place given in Christian meditations to the great idea that underlies that metaphor.

And it is just this, that God is under obligations, taken on Him by Himself, to fulfil to a poor, trusting soul the great promises to which that soul has been drawn. He has, if I might use such a metaphor, like some monarch, given a constitution to His people.

He has not left us to grope as to what His mind and purpose may be. Across the infinite ocean of possibilities, He has marked out on the chart, so to speak, the line which He will pursue. We have His word, and His word is this: ‘After those days, saith the Lord, I will make a new covenant. I will write My law on their inward parts. I will be their God, and they shall be My people.’

So the definite, distinct promise, in black and white, so to speak, to every man and woman on the face of the earth, is ‘Come into the covenant by trusting Me, and you will get all that I have promised.’

Hebrew ‘berith’ (H1285) from root words meaning to eat or cut – hence the Biblical expression ‘to cut a covenant’, which is a phrase that occurs in most of the covenants God makes with mankind as we shall see, illustrated in Gen, 15 where Abraham is instructed by God to take some animals and birds and he divides the animals in half and God passes between the pieces.

The idea that seems to be embodied in cutting animals in half – both parties would normally walk between the pieces signifying that this is what would happen to the party that breaks the terms of the Covenant. (It is significant that only God passes between the pieces in Gen.15 and in two forms, while Abraham is only watching.)

Also the parties eating a meal seals a covenant, and if no meal is eaten, in Middle Eastern thought, the covenant is not binding. It seems to include salt – the Levitical offerings were to include the ‘salt of the covenant of your God’ (Lev. 2:13) which God promised to supply to the Levites (Num. 18:19). Abijah refers to God’s covenant with David as being a ‘covenant of salt’ (2 Chron. 13:5) which was thought to make it strong and legally binding:

In the ancient world, ingesting salt was a way to make an agreement legally binding. If two parties entered into an agreement, they would eat salt together in the presence of witnesses, and that act would bind their contract.
Got Questions

Greek diatheke G1242 can be used for a contract but really indicates a will (as in ‘last will and testament’ – same word). Something that cannot be changed or annulled; comes into effect on the death of the testator.

So Covenant is far more than a contract. It’s a life or death commitment! Covenants made in the Bible include:

a promise by the stronger party to protect the other party
a commitment by the protected party to rely on that protection
to share everything – assets and liabilities, responsibilities and relationships; by default you are in covenant with everyone that the other party is in covenant with
with no strings attached! It’s not a cold legal agreement fulfilled through gritted teeth! That God is a God of grace and mercy is constantly repeated in a covenant context, and the phrase “I will be their God and they will be My people” characterises all the main Covenants and into eternity” (Rev. 21:3)

Covenants are often Confirmed by an oath (Heb. 6:16-18) and by blood (Gen. 15:10; 17:11).

The concept of covenant is significant in the Scriptures. In fact, the word testament is really another word for covenant. The Bible is comprised of two parts, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant (Old Testament and New Testament). Covenant was a well-known concept in ancient times, and covenants could be made between two equal parties or between a king and a subject. The king would promise certain protections, and the subject would promise loyalty to the king. A covenant might be conditional or unconditional.

The Old Testament is more than a history of Israel. It is really a history of the covenant in which God revealed, little by little, His character and His plans and purposes for mankind …

The concept of covenant has been lost in modern society. Promises are broken when new circumstances arise. Contracts are broken, and one party simply says, “Sue me.” Marriage is supposed to be a covenant between a man and a woman for life, but divorce is commonplace today. Regardless of how unfaithful people may be, God will never be unfaithful to His covenant promises.
Got Questions

This is illustrated in Marriage. Marriage is covenantal. Marriage is no marriage at all if it is conditional or partial or entered into with fingers crossed (Richard Foster). It involves loving uncalculating abandon, and utter and mutual outpouring of love and loyalty. It is a “one flesh” reality in which the two become one functional whole (e.g. bow and arrow). In a word – commitment. Both are committed to each other to the exclusion of all others.

Types of Covenants in the Bible

Two – conditional and unconditional Covenants (ONMB identifies a third – reinforcing) involving God, made by Him, are sometimes defined as Suzerain-Vassal covenant, and Royal Grant:

A Suzerain-Vassal covenant represented legal treaties set between kings and their subjects, or between two kings where one is more powerful than the other, that established what the king would do for the subjects and how they were to respond back to his government, i.e. conditional. In Scripture, God is often described as ‘cutting’ this type of covenant (ONMB Glossary – misses the exception Gen. 15:18 where God cuts an unconditional Covenant with Abram?)

A bilateral covenant in which a proposal of God to man providing man fulfils certain conditions in the covenant; response to the covenant agreement brings blessings or cursing (ie Mosaic covenant comes into mind!). Blessings are secured by obedience and man must meet his conditions before God will meet His. (AF)

A Royal Grant covenant is an agreement where one person in the covenant makes an unconditional promise to the other, with the other person not having to do anything in return except to agree to it. God ‘gives’ or ‘establishes’ this type of Covenant in Scripture.

A unilateral covenant act of God whereby He unconditionally obligated himself to bring to pass definite blessings and conditions. Formula here is, I will, which declares God’s determination to do as He promises. Blessings are secured by the grace of God. There may be conditions by which God requests the covenanted ones to fulfil out of gratitude, but they are not themselves the basis of God’s fulfilling His promises). (AF)

Why would God choose covenant as His way of dealing with His Creatures?

Answers on a postcard please! He could have chosen any number of different ways to interact with us – from robotic control to incoherent freedom. Why covenant?

Discuss

To express His character and attributes
To demonstrate His commitment to His people (why would He want to do that given His knowledge in advance of our unfaithfulness? His unconditional love?)
To model His character for His people to imitate
To give His people absolute assurance of their relationship with Him, so that we can enjoy security and intimacy – it is an environment where true love flourishes and is fruitful
For a progressive revelation of His Character and purposes suitable for the ages in which there were given

How many of them are there?

Within the Bible we find six main agreements made by God with Man which are called Covenants, and 2 agreements which are like Covenants without being explicitly called such (ONMB lists 22 in total, including reinforcing covenants – which are often restatements but with extra revelation?).

These have been identified from the earliest days of the Church – Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Augustine of Hippo – who used them to define different dispensations in God’s dealings with mankind. (define ‘dispensation’ – literally ‘house rules’ which operated as a framework for man’s relationship with God for a specific period of time; a thoroughly Biblical word Eph. 1:10; 3:2; translated ‘stewardship’ in Luke 16:2-4; 1 Cor. 9:17)

Eight main covenants, known as the Edenic, Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Palestinian or Land, Davidic and New (we’ll see why we consider these the main covenants next week, as each covenant is made in a specific context). Arnold Fructenbaum observes:

Six out of the eight are unconditional (Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Palestinian or Land, Davidic and the New). Five of the eight were made exclusively with Israel while others were made with mankind in general. Only one of the five made with Israel is conditional: Mosaic. The other four Abrahamic, Land, Davidic and the New Covenant are unconditional.

4 things to be noted concerning the nature of the unconditional covenants made with Israel:

they are literal covenants and their contents must be interpreted literally as well’ indeed as the original recipients would have understood them (not as applying to some future, as yet unknown, group of people called ‘The Church’ – which was a mystery hidden in God at that time Eph. 3:5,9).
necessary to re-emphasise that these unconditional convents are not abrogated because of Israel’s disobedience; because the covenants are unconditional and totally dependent upon God for their fulfilment, their ultimate fulfilment can be expected.
5 of the covenants were made with a specific people: Israel. Point brought out by Paul in Rom 9:4 “who are Israelites; who is the adoption, and the glory; the covenants, and the giving of the laws, and the service of God, and the promises. This passage clearly points out that these covenants were made with the covenanted people and are Israel’s possession. This is brought out again in Eph. 2:11-12. Five of the eight Bible covenants belong to the people of Israel and, as this passage notes, Gentiles were considered strangers from the covenants.
covenants that God made with Israel are eternal and not in any way restricted or altered by time.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum also notes:

The principle and timing of the provisions of a covenant should be noted: it can be signed, sealed made at specific point in history, but not all go immediately into effect. 3 different things happen once a covenant is sealed

some go into effect right away
some provisions go into effect in the near future which maybe twenty or five hundred years away
some of into effect in the distant prophetic future not having been fulfilled to this day

Questions we need to consider:

Do these covenants succeed one another or do they build on each other? We are trained to think Old and New, with the New replacing the Old, but in Rom. 9:4 and Eph. 2:12, Paul speaks of Covenants (plural) and in the present tense as though they applied (to Israel) at the time he was writing. But Hebrews speaks of the old covenant as passing away and Jesus taking away the first to replace it with the second.

If the Covenants prior to the New Covenant still apply, do they apply in whole or in part?

If in part, which parts still apply and why?

The New Covenant is specifically made by God with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. We’ll need to consider how Gentiles are to be included and what Paul means by them being ‘grafted in’ in Rom. 11 – into what? And how?

Are the Covenants (and if so, which Covenants) the olive tree of Rom. 11 into which the Gentiles are grafted?

Are the various ‘theologies’ around covenant man-made additions to the Word of God? Are they helpful or distractions?

Covenant, Diving In!