LESSON 2 - THE COVENANTS
In eternity past, the Almighty purposed within Himself to share His glorious life by creating mankind in His image. Since God transcends time, He knew we would sin before He created us, just as human parents know their children will cause them much heartache as well as joy.
As part of His eternal plan, God made an covenant with Himself to redeem mankind from sin and restore His life to us. While we normally speak of God making covenants with us, He really made this covenant with Himself for us. In this lesson, we are going to survey the biblical covenants and learn how they relate to our lives today.
The Bible uses various words to speak of God’s covenant. It is called His decree, His purpose, His counsel or pleasure, and the counsel of His will. (See Isaiah 46:8-10; Daniel 4:25; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 8:28-29; Revelation 4:11.)
God has chosen to carry out His decree by means of covenant. The particular kind of covenant God made is a blood covenant. God committed Himself to us by making a literal, unconditional, everlasting, sacred blood covenant with Himself for us. From a Christian view, we understand that God’s covenant was planned by the Father, to be implemented by the Son, and applied to our lives personally by the Holy Spirit.
The writer of Hebrews refers to this covenant as an everlasting blood covenant, “Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to who be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Hebrews 13:20-21.
Peter had this everlasting blood covenant in mind when he wrote: “knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (1 Peter 1:18-21).
God made this covenant with Himself in heaven, but it was necessary for Him to reveal it to mankind on the earth. God would do this by using the blood of the innocent substitutionary sacrifice as a visual aid for mankind to understand His “divine agreement” with Himself on our behalf.
God originally revealed His covenant to Adam and Eve after they had sinned. God desired that Adam and Eve rule the earth for His glory and populate the earth with many children who would share in God’s glory through their parents. However, Satan tempted Eve to sin because he wanted to disrupt man’s fellowship with God and take the rule over the earth from Adam.
When Adam and Eve sinned, their fellowship with God was broken, and they lost His glorious covering of their bodies. Whey they realized this, they covered themselves with fig leaves and hid from God.
Because God is perfectly holy and just, He must keep His word and judge sin. As human parents can understand, God cannot allow open rebellion to go unchecked. God pronounced judgment on Satan and on Adam and Eve because of their sin.
However, God is a merciful God. In Genesis 3:15, God gives the first promise of redemption and preview of His plan of atonement for sin through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
God said to Satan represented by the serpent: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15).
God promised that the “Seed of Woman” would defeat Satan and restore glory and dominion to man. The “Seed of Woman” is a reference to the Messiah who would come and be bruised for our iniquities but defeat Satan through His resurrection and ascension to the throne of God. This victory would be climaxed in the coming of the Messiah in power and glory to establish the Messianic Kingdom on the earth. The Messiah is the one to whom and through whom God would restore glory and dominion to man.
As a preview of God’s promise of redemption through blood covenant, God killed an animal, made tunics from the skin, and clothed Adam and Eve (Genesis. 3:21).
God’s holy nature required death as the judgment for sin. His grace and love provided an innocent animal as the substitutionary sacrifice for Adam and Eve. This was the first foreshadowing of substitutionary atonement in which judgment of the innocent would provide a covering for the guilty.
Adam and Eve tried to cover their sin with fig leaves. We might consider this as the first self-righteous, religious deed to atone for sin. However, God’s plan provided covering by means of sacrifice. God covered Adam and Eve with the animal skin, which served as their “garment of salvation” and constant reminder and visual aid of God’s greater garment of salvation which He would provide through the Messiah.
We may describe this era as the natural development of the human race. It is the time when there is a separation between the godly seed of Seth and the ungodly seed of Cain. Cain murdered his brother because Abel offered a blood sacrifice, which God accepted, while Cain’s was rejected. (See Genesis 4 and Hebrews 11:4.) As a result of his sin, God banished Cain from His presence. After this, a corrupt civilization developed.
In Genesis 6, we learn about the further moral corruption of man. There was a terrible intermarriage between the “sons of God” and the ungodly seed of Cain. The whole of the human race, except Noah, became so corrupted, God had to destroy mankind. Violence filled the earth.
Because Noah was upright in the sight of God, he and his family were spared. While God had to judge mankind because of sin, He used Noah and his family to continue the progressive unfolding of His promise of redemption through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
It is instructive that Noah’s first act following the flood was to make a blood sacrifice. “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in His heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground for man’s sake, although the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done’ ” (Genesis 8:20-21.
God gave instructions for governing the earth. Noah was to multiply his seed on the earth. He was given the right to eat meat, but without blood. Animals would now fear man. God established capital punishment as a means of sanctifying life. Finally, God put the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His promise to never again destroy the world by water. All of this was part of God’s unconditional covenant to bless mankind.
Genesis 12 is a major chapter in the Bible where God chooses Abraham as the central figure through whom God will establish and perpetuate His covenant. It is through Abraham that God would give us the Bible and bring forth the Messiah who would redeem mankind and eventually establish God’s kingdom on the earth.
Because God made His covenant with Abraham, He decreed blessings on those who blessed Abraham and curses on those who cursed him. Biblical accounts and world history have certainly substantiated this divine decree. Nations that have favored the Jews have been blessed by God while those that have opposed the Jews have fallen under God’s judgment.
The Jews are still God’s chosen people, and He is calling them back to their ancient land, and to Himself, in fulfillment of His covenant promises to Abraham. In fact, all of God’s redemptive work on the earth revolves around the Jewish people and God’s outworking of His covenant with Abraham. This is why Christians must bless the Jewish people and the state of Israel.
In the basic outline of the covenant, God says to Abraham:
“ ... Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:1-3).
One cannot understand the Bible nor God’s plan for Israel and the nations without understanding the Abrahamic covenant. It is the most important preview on the earth of God’s everlasting covenant in heaven. Since it is a preview on the earth of the heavenly covenant, it is a literal, unconditional, everlasting, blood covenant that absolutely cannot be broken.
The Abrahamic Covenant consists of three major promises that God made to Abraham, which God further explained in the rest of the Bible. These promises are: 1) God would give Abraham and his descendants a land of their own, 2) God would give Abraham descendants and make them a great nation, and finally, 3) God would bless them and the world with redemption by a new covenant made by the Messiah.
E. The Covenant Revealed to Moses
Abraham’s descendants migrated to Egypt where they eventually became slaves. Yet, God would redeem them through a mighty deliverance after the Hebrews killed the Passover lamb (Exodus 12). This was preliminary to the greater deliverance He would provide through the blood of Messiah Jesus, the human Passover Lamb of God. God then renewed His covenant with the Hebrews, calling them to be a kingdom of priests and mediators of God kingdom and covenant on the earth.
While the Abrahamic Covenant is unconditional, the blessings or benefits of the covenant are conditional based on obedience. This renewing of the covenant is known as the Mosaic Covenant. It was similar to ancient covenants made between a king and his subjects or vassal states. The king promises to protect and provide for his subjects while the subjects promise to obey the king. They will be blessed if they obey but cursed if they disobey.
As part of the Mosaic Covenant, God gave the Hebrews instructions they were to follow in order to function as His kingly priest on the earth. This Torah (instructions) is normally called laws. However God never intended the Hebrews to be redeemed by keeping the Torah. They were redeemed by the blood of the Passover lamb. Because they had been redeemed, they would walk with God by keeping the Torah, even though they would fail God many times.
After Moses received God’s Torah, called the Book of the Law, Moses made a sacrifice and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the Book of the Law and towards the people. He then said: “ ... This is the blood of the covenant which the LORD has made with you according to all these words” (Exodus 28:8). (See also Hebrews 9:19-22.)
F. The Covenant Revealed to David
After Israel became a strong nation, God further revealed His covenant plan to King David, promising to continue the covenant through David. God said to David: “And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever. Your throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16).
God promised David that his descendants would rule forever over Israel. Even though Solomon sinned, God would honor His word to David. The Messiah would be the Greater Son of David who would rule forever on the throne of David. While there is no mention of blood in this promise, the commitment God made with David is called a covenant, which implies and assumes blood. (See Psalm 50:5; 89:3-4.)
The final preview God of the blood covenant is through the prophets. God called it a New Covenant. Jeremiah writes:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah¾not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.
But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put my law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
“No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD.’ for they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD, for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
H. The Covenant and Jesus
Jesus declared that the Hebrew Scriptures (what Christians call the Old Testament) were a portrait of Himself. When Jesus and the New Testament writers referred to the “Scriptures,” they were speaking of the Hebrew Scriptures, the entire Old Testament. Jesus said: “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me” (John 5:39).
He then added: “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you¾Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me” (John 5:45-46).
When Jesus ate the Passover meal with His disciples, He declared His coming death to be the reality of the blood of the everlasting covenant. Matthew writes:
“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 I shed for many for the remission of sins.’ ” (Matthew 26:26-28).
During the first century, Jewish scholars had divided the Hebrew Scriptures into three divisions. These were: 1) the Law of Moses, 2) the Prophets, and 3) the Psalms. Jesus claimed it was about Him. He said:
“ ... These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.
“And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures. Then He said to them, ‘Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ (Messiah) to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things’ ” (Luke 24:44-48).
Jesus opened their minds by telling them the key for understanding the Scriptures. He told His disciples that the Hebrew Scriptures spoke of His crucifixion and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins. This is how the two testaments are linked together. They both tell this one story.
After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to two of His followers on the road to Emmaus. They were saddened by His death and didn’t recognize Him. After walking with them a way, Jesus said:
“ ‘ ... O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ (Messiah) to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?’ And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (Luke 24:25-27).
The Bible is a book about an everlasting covenant God made with Himself in His heavenly abode before the foundations of the world. Since we cannot see this in heaven, God chose to reveal the covenant to us on the earth in picture language.
Beginning with Adam and Eve, God gave a preview of the covenant and enlarged upon this preview by giving more details with Noah, Abraham, Moses, Kind David, and the prophets. The covenant picture was complete when Jesus “cut the covenant” with the Father on our behalf at the cross.
The covenant is the central story of the Bible connecting the two Testaments. It is a covenant God made with Himself through the Jewish people. Christians become part of this covenant through a personal relationship with Jesus. As covenant people, Christians become part of the commonwealth of Israel. Our destiny is forever linked to the Jewish people through the blood of the everlasting covenant in Jesus.
A. How and why did God reveal His decree on the earth?
B. How did Jesus fulfill the covenant?
C. How can you apply this lesson to your life?