Covenant of Love

Archive for the ‘Covenant Theology’ Category

If what I said in the last post is correct, can it be that by the doctrine of sola fide we have created a false dichotomy between “faith and works” in regards to Justification? Here is Galatians 2:15-16:

We ourselves are Jews by birth, and not gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by doing what the law requires, but rather by the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah. We, too, have believed in the Messiah Jesus so that we might be justified by the faithfulness of the Messiah and not by doing what the law requires, for no human being will be justified by doing what the law requires. – Galatians 2:15-16 ISV

For starters, the phrase “law requires” is not the same as “good works”. There are a lot of people in the world today who think that they are “good” enough to “get into heaven”. But Paul is not writing to them, he is writing to “we who are Jews by birth”. For a Jew, the “law” was a reference to the covenant charter of Israel – specifically Deuteronomy 28. If they remained obedient to the law (i.e. God) they would remain in the covenant (vs. 1-14), but if they rejected the law they would be removed from the covenant (vs. 15ff.). So his readers would have understood his statement as: No person can be justified by obeying the Torah – remember the Exile? – but there is One who has been faithful to the covenant of God, and by his faithfulness (or obedience – Philippians 2:8) we are justified!

Notice the key point which Paul is making here: no one is justified by their obedience but we are justified by Christ’s obedience. Now notice the key point which Paul is not making here: he is not saying that one is justified by faith and not by works. This is one of those important implications in this debate which is bubbling under many Reformers skins.

The closer we get to comprehending this distinction the closer we come to happily embracing other often neglected passages about justification:

You observe that a person is justified through actions and not through faith alone. – James 2:24 (Luther had a good mind to reject James all together because of sola fide)

For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. – Romans 2:13

For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned. – Matthew 12:37 (a passage about bearing fruit in your life in keeping with repentance)

We are saved by grace through faith – there is nothing we can do to save ourselves (Ephesians 2:8-9), and when this happens we join the body of Christ and are therefore justified! All of this is possible because of Christ’s faithfulness to God on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11).

John MacArthur can be brassy. You’d have to have guts in odd places to get up in front of a room filled with Calvinist scholars, many of whom subscribe to Amillennailism, and proclaim that they are not self-respecting unless they change their end-time views to meet his. But that is exactly what MacArthur does at the Shepherd’s Conference at Grace Community Church, on March 7, 2007.

I must admit that from an outsiders perspective I found this debate particularly fascinating, and as an Amillennialist/Free Will theist I allow some of MacArthur’s rhetoric to slide knowing that his intended audience are primarily Calvinists. But he certainly stirred a hives nest among his co-Calvin-Reformers which eventually resulted in two major responses. The first came from Calvinist Amillennialist Kim Riddlebarger (author of Case for Amillennialism), you can find Riddlebargers response to MacArthur here. The second is by Samuel Waldron, author of MacArthur’s Millennial Manifesto: A Friendly Response. Waldron’s book is particularly helpful because he provides the complete transcript of MacArthur’s lecture in the back of the book. But if you prefer you can purchase his lecture here.

Single Deadly Sin

It has to be pretty embarrassing when a renown Biblical scholar gets up in front of other Biblical scholars and builds an entire argument on a single false premise, deduced by a bad source and accepted out of ignorance. That’s what I believe MacArthur does, but it is doubtful he is embarrassed – that would require discovering his error. Unfortunately the part of the crowd that laughed and cheered at MacArthur’s charismatic manifesto must also have been in the same delusion, because had they been aware of MacArthur’s mistaken premise, they would have sat in silence – unamused by his rhetorical and obnoxious claims.

As Kim Riddlebarger writes:

In fact, it was hard to recognize my own position as Dr. MacArthur made his case. Sadly, this was clearly an attack upon something that Dr. MacArthur truly believes that Reformed amillennarians believe.

Why couldn’t Kim Riddlebarger recognize his own position as MacArthur made his case? Because MacArthur, while making a case against something, was certainly not making a case against Amillennialism! Rather, MacArthur grossly confuses “Covenant Theology” with “Replacement Theology”. (This is almost as bad as confusing Arminianism with Pelagianism or anything of the sort – but that discussion is for another occasion ) As Riddlebarger pleads:

Let me put it simply so as not to be misunderstood.  Reformed amillenniarians do not believe that the church “replaces” Israel.  Repeat, we do not believe that the church replaces Israel.

I believe MacArthur’s confusion is created when he attempts to mesh together a Dispensational worldview with Covenant theology without understanding the hermeneutics of the New Testament. MacArthur is unable to get over his dispensational way of reading the Bible (i.e. Israel must always mean national ethnic Israel), and consequentially he confuses Covenantal Theology with Replacement Theology. This confusion is a major area of ignorance.

The situation only becomes more bleak when I discovered that MacArthur’s “authoritative” source is Diprose’ book on Replacement Theology (Israel and the Church: The Original and Effects of Replacement Theology), from there things only go from bad to worse when he highly recommends this goulash mess of confusion to everyone else. About a year or so back I was investigating Replacement Theology, and one of the books I picked up was Diprose’ book. What stunned me about the book was how Diprose casually crossed the impenetrable line between Covenant Theology and Replacement theology at will as if no line existed and they were one in the same. So I now understood where MacArthur’s enthusiastic ignorance came from.

Let me be as crystal clear as possible:

Replacement Theology: The Christian Church categorically replaces national ethnic Israel so that while in the Old Testament God only saved ethnic Israel, so now God only saves Gentiles. No ethnic Jew can be saved.

Covenant Theology: Jesus is the embodiment and representative of “True Israel”. He is the fulfillment of the Law and the whole Old Testament points to him. Jesus is the seed of Abraham and those who have the faith of Abraham are also his seed, i.e. the people or children of God. Jesus destroyed the wall of perdition which divided Jew and Gentile so that the two are made one “in Christ”. This one man is called “the Israel of God”. Jews may be saved today just as non-Jews may be saved – by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. The “Church” does not “replace Israel”. Israel is the People of God. Always has been, always will be.

John MacArthur has written some really great stuff in the past. My favourite is Twelve Ordinary Men (except the last chapter of course),  and the Gospel According to Jesus. This is why I am all the more baffled by what he did at this conference. It only goes to show that no one is beyond stooping to low levels of caricature on the one hand and to blinding bias on the other. I have always been told that if you are going to present an opposing view you ought to make every effort to present that view as if you yourself held to it. MacArthur does not present the Amillennial view in his attack on it. That is so sad, because he will be held accountable for the people who swallowed his hook.

Why do you suppose the word “covenant” is not found in the Biblical narrative until Genesis 9 when God establishes one with Noah? Some scholars have taken this to strictly mean that there was no “covenant of creation”, while others prefer to read all the “elements” of a biblical covenant in the creation narrative story.

Still, everywhere a biblical covenant is established in the scriptures, the word always seems to be used. Why not in the creation account? Can we account for this absence?

I’ve been reading John Goldingay’s Old Testament Theology Vol. 1, where he proposes an interesting hypothesis:

A covenant (berit) is a commitment undertaken with some formality. By not speaking of the relationship between God and the first human beings as a covenant, Genesis has perhaps implied that there was no need for formally binding commitments before the time of human disobedience and divine punishment. Those events have imperiled the relationship on both sides. – p.181

There was no need to formally initiate a covenant because in the very act of creation it is implied. And by the righteous act, the covenant faithfulness of both parties, the covenant was upheld until “the time of human disobedience”.

Creation/Evolution Disclaimer

The first eleven chapters of Genesis are the most controversial portion of the entire bible (who would disagree with that?); so let me state up front my approach in this post:

We will be looking at the creation account from a theological perspective, not an archeological scientific theorist’s one. For the purpose of our subject at hand I don’t care to delve into the creation/evolution debate, and I take for granted that the Genesis account is historically reliable. On that note, my primary concern is with the “symbolism” throughout the text. When the historical author penned Genesis 1-2, what was he trying to communicate? And, as a parallel question, what was the Divine Author communicating? Jointly these questions operate as my primary concern.

A Covenant is a Relationship

Keep in the front of your mind that when I use the term “covenant” I am referring to a “relationship”. But there are different types of relationships so let me clarify:

• I am not referring to a relationship a man has with his dog.
• I am not referring to a relationship an owner has with his employees.
• I am not referring to a relationship a government has with its people.

I am speaking of a relationship similar to a husband/wife marriage (Part 1). But even that is not saying much in our day and age, so again I clarify: I covenant is like a husband/wife marriage relationship as the scriptures ideally imagine it – a bond in blood (“until death do us part”) sovereignly administered (“what God has joined together…” [Mark 10:9] Part 2).

Mankind’s Special Place – Sovereignly Administered

A biblical theologian, Andrew Kulikovsky, summarizes mankind’s unique place this way:

Unlike the rest of creation, the first couple were formed directly by the hand of God. It was God Himself who crafted Adam from the dust of the earth and Eve from Adam’s side. He created our inmost being and knit us together in our mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13), and it was He who breathed life into our inanimate bodies (Genesis 2:7). The creation of mankind truly is the climax of God’s creative activities, humans alone are made in the Creator’s own image (Genesis  1:26). We are indeed ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ (Psalm 139:14).[1]

Can there be any doubt about mankind’s unique relationship with God? In Genesis 1:26 we are told that Adam was created as a co-ruler of the earth with God; he was created as the image of God in order that he would reflect God’s likeness (the character and authority of God) into the world.

Benefits of the Covenant

It is good to be friends with the King is it not? To be his right hand man (or woman), to speak with his authority, to carry his scepter and to stand over a portion of his kingdom and rule alongside him. The benefits are vast:

First you are given a territory to rule – “Let them rule… over all the earth” [Genesis 1:26]. Then you are invited into the court of the King, to eat at his very table – “The Lord God planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed” [Genesis 2:8]. And finally the King will pronounce a blessing on you with prosperity and success – “He created them male and female and blessed them” [Genesis 5:2].

So the benefits of being in covenant relationship with God are three fold: Authority, Location and Blessing.

1. Authority: As image bearers we were created to reflect God’s authority into creation, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” – to paraphrase, “Let us make mankind as reflectors (image bearers) which reflect our character and authority (likeness)” – “and let them rule” (for a fuller explanation see the foot note)[2] [Genesis 1:26].
2. Location: First God created Adam; then he gave him authority, and then he placed him in the Garden of Eden – a special place. To be in a covenant relationship with God is to rule from a special place. To eat from his table. To live in his Presence! [Genesis 2:8]. But more than that, when God placed man in the garden he is expected to “work it and take care of it” [Genesis 2:15]. Henri Blocher observes that “in Hebrew, ‘to till’ (work) is literally ‘to serve’… The cultivated garden will be like a song of praise to the God of order and of life, the God of peace.”[3] This “service” was to be mankind’s “spiritual act of worship” [Romans 12:1]. And the phrase “take care” literally means “keep”, “guard” or my personal favorite, “hedge” it.
3. Blessing: First mankind is blessed by the king to multiply and to rule [Genesis 1:28]; and Genesis 5:2 says that “He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them ‘man.’” – The day they were created was day six, it was a part of Gods “work” week: “For in six days the Lord” worked, but “he rested on the seventh day” [Exodus 20:11]. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy. It is very important to observe that on mankind’s first full day on earth he entered God’s rest! He was not created in it (he was created on the sixth day), but he entered it when he entered the land – after he was created.

“Until Death Do Us Part” – Bond in Blood

Genesis records two trees in the middle of the garden: “the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” [Genesis 2:9]. And then

“the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” – Genesis 2:16-17

This tree served – so far as I can tell – three essential purposes:

1. It was to maintain a distinction between God and man and to remind man that God is God and we are not. As O Palmer Robertson writes, “One tree stands in the midst of the garden as a symbolic reminder that man is not God… he is creature, God is Creator.”[4]
2. Closely related to the first is the fact that coupled with this commandment came autonomy – free will. Man could choose freely whether to obey God and live or he could choose freely to claim his own deity as a god in his own right and usurp the Almighty’s authority – and die.
3. The tree essentially functioned as God’s way of saying – like covenantal marriages in our day – ‘till death do us part’; or to use scriptural jargon, “when you eat of it you will surely die” resulting in Exile from Eden (into the curse) and separation from God.

It is this last reason above that most interests us in discussing the Covenant of Creation. We saw above the mankind’s relationship with God was sovereignly administered; now we see that it is a covenant made as “a bond in blood”. He initiated the covenant between man and himself, and then placed a tree in the midst of Eden as a way of saying, “until death do us part”.

In other words, the covenant in Eden was intended to be eternal (the tree of life), but it was still breakable (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). But if it is broken it can only be broken on pain of death, meaning that the violating party must die.

And as we shall see, die they did.

***Stay Tuned***

Discussion Questions:

1. What are the three benefits of being in the Covenant of God? (Briefly explain each)
2. What are the three reasons for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
3. Explain the significance of “image of God” verses “likeness of God”?

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[1] Creation, Fall, Restoration: A Biblical Theology of Creation; p.183

[2] In The Beginning: The Opening Chapters of Genesis; p.84-85: “Selem generally refers to a concrete image, a statue, often an idol” whereas “d’mut, ‘likeness’, is made of more abstract elements… it specifies the nature of the image, one which resembles and has analogical features which are not, however, identical.”

[3] Ibid.; p.120

[4] Christ of the Covenants; p.83-84

Thank you for joining me again this week as we begin to explore the Covenant of Agape as it was introduced to us last week. In this post I want to look at some basic elements of a biblical covenant. I do not want to assume that everyone knows what a covenant is and why God works in them, so we begin with some basics.

O. Palmer Robertson defines a biblical covenant as “a bond in blood sovereignly administered”[1]. He continues:

When God enters into a covenantal relationship with men, he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond. A covenant is a bond in blood, or a bond in life and death, sovereignly administered.[2]

Sovereignly Administered:

What this means is that when God enters into a covenant with a partner it is always God who initiates that covenantal relationship. It is God who created Adam and entered relationship with him [Genesis 1:26-27]; God who called Abram [Genesis 12:1-3], God who delivered Israel and brought them to the covenant mountain [Hosea 11:1], and God who promised David an everlasting heir [2 Samuel 7:16]; and it is Christ who called his disciples and established a covenant with them [John 15:16]. God initiates. Man responds.

Adam was given a choice to remain in that relationship or to exit it [Genesis 2:17]. He chose to rebel [Genesis 3:7]. Abraham was called to “go”; but he had to faithfully respond to God [Genesis 12:4]. Israel was sovereignly delivered by God, but remaining in that covenant depended upon their faithfulness to the covenant charter [Deuteronomy 28:62-63]. Even Christ’s disciples where given a chance, and a choice, to leave, and one took the opportunity to his own demise [John 6:66-70].[3]

Bond in Blood:

The Hebrew verb Karat is rendered “to make” a (covenant); but literally the phrase is translated “to cut a covenant”. This reinforces the fact that a biblical covenant, in fact all covenants in the ancient world, were covenants created as a “bond in blood”. The most dramatic example “scholars relate it to” is that of “a rite of ratification for a covenant, in which the parties to the covenant walked through dismembered parts of a sacrificed animal”[4]. Abraham seems to have been familiar with this practice, because he goes ahead and dismembers animals without having to be told by God to do so [Genesis 15:10].

This act was not to be taken lightly. It communicated the idea that if I break the stipulations of this covenant, may what happened to these animals happen to me. It was calling a curse down on the covenant makers if that covenant were broken. It was quite literally a vow made “until death do us death”. We’ll see this played out over and over again as we explore the unfolding of the biblical covenant.

Another custom in the ancient world related to the phrase “to cut a covenant” was in the practice of writing up the stipulations of the covenant on stone; it is then “cut out” of the stone and each member of the covenant was to take one copy and keep it as a reminder of the covenant agreement. This tradition takes on particular relevance during the covenant God ratifies with Israel at Zion.

If we allow these two images to stand, “to cut” out of stone or “to cut” to spill blood, both in the context of the covenant, then we are left with the conclusion that the covenant which God initiates can be broken only on pain of death. Gods covenant is intended to be everlasting.

Stipulations of the Covenant

A covenant has, by definition, stipulations. Vows are made, promises are given, contracts are written up; and if both parties agree to these stipulations they may enter the covenant. You will recall we just said that the biblical covenant is made or “cut” in blood, signifying the everlasting nature of the covenant broken only on pain of death. But it is that last part that is often ignored. People want to look at the everlasting nature of the covenant and forget that if it may be broken on pain of death, meaning that it is breakable. But that this results in death.

This means that if the vows made, the promises given or the contracts written up are violated, it results in judgment and death for the violating party. We see this again and again throughout the scriptures and will endeavor to make this explicit as we trace our way through the covenant of God.[5]

ONE Covenant: Old & New

The covenant of God is most discernibly divided between the “old” covenant and the “new” covenant, not least because this is the terminology which the bible itself uses[6]. But the characteristic of this divide is not “law and grace”. This is a misnomer which is in serious need of correction and results in many mistakes of interpretation: both the “old” covenant and the “new” covenant contain law and grace or grace and law.

Robertson writes:

The “old covenant” may be characterized as “promise,” as “shadow,” as “prophecy”; and the “new covenant” may be characterized as “fulfillment,” as “reality,” and as “realization.”[7]

The sacrifices, the promises, the priesthood, the land and the blessings in the “old” covenant all pointed towards their fulfillment in the “new” covenant. They were shadows, images, prophecy which all find their fulfillment in Christ and through his work. This will become most clear as we conclude our study on the covenant of God.

What is of primary importance here is to observe that there are not two separate and distinct covenants! The Old Testament is not to be seen or interpreted as a covenant of “law” or a covenant of “works”; and the New Testament is not to be seen or interpreted as a covenant of “grace” or a covenant of “faith”. There is one covenant, a Covenant of Agape, and this covenant has always included Gods grace and individual’s faithful response.[8]

The covenant[s] in the scriptures have an inherent unity that builds on the previous one until they find their climax in Christ. We will see the element of faith in each covenant and the place of obedience as well.

Immanuel Principle: The Heart of the Covenant (Conclusion)

After taking a brief look at what a biblical covenant is and how it works, we should ask the question which perhaps should have been asked first: What is the point? Why does God work in Covenant?

The thematic unity of the covenant is also the thematic unity of the scriptures as a whole. It is the primary artery running through the body of literature we call the scriptures. It is found in Genesis and it is found in Revelation. It is found in the simple phrase repeated over and over again in different ways throughout the scriptures like a beautiful refrain:

“I shall be your God and you shall be my people”. – God

Every time I read that refrain in the scriptures I feel as though I’ve been privileged to hear the heartbeat of heaven. It’s as though God opens up his most intimate and private journal entry and slides it to me across the coffee table saying, here is what I really want most, this is my heart. When God says, then I shall be your God and you shall be my people, he is giving us a glimpse of the plea of his deepest hearts cry.

It is in fact the point of the whole covenant because a covenant is a relationship. It should be no surprise then that the climax of the covenant is Jesus Christ himself, the Immanuel!

“The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” – which means, “God with us”. – Matthew 1:23

But before we go their we must begin in a garden called Eden (next week).

***Stay Tuned***

Discussion Questions:

1. Define a biblical covenant?
2. What is the significance of the Hebrew word Karat?
3. The covenant is intended to be everlasting. How may it be broken and what are the consequences?
4. Why does God work in covenant?

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[1] The Christ of the Covenant, p.4

[2] Ibid.

[3] If anyone tries to remove man’s legitimate free response to accept, reject, or walk out of that covenant from the equation, he might as well remove the word relationship from their biblical covenantal vocabulary altogether. Furthermore, to take this position is to only accept half the biblical testimony as I just illustrated it.

[4] Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, p.143

[5] Many people don’t take this reality seriously enough. They think that once someone enters the covenant they can never leave. The scriptures testify again and again against this notion and we’ll see this as we explore the covenant.

[6] Jeremiah 31:31, Hebrews 8:13, Hebrews 12:24

[7] The Christ of the Covenant, p.57

[8] Hebrews 4:2 – the gospel preached after Christ is the same gospel preached before Christ.

If you do a Google search for the words “Covenant of Love” the first thing you’ll notice are several sites devoted to marriage. You’ll see right away key words like Marriage, Purity, Sexuality, and Strengthening, among others. And for good reason too.

Covenant

Marriage is a binding agreement between two people, or at least that’s what it is supposed to be. Traditional wedding vows usually include the words, “until death do us part” and “through sickness and health“; so marriage is not a contract that can be severed if violated, it is a covenant sworn to death.

Rings, being circular and unending, are exchanged indicating the eternal value of the covenant being made, and – at least in the Judeo-Christian context – the deal is sealed by the act of consummation when, through a deeply spiritual blending (and bleeding), the two flesh literally become one. And that is the “covenant” side of “Covenant of Love”, but without the other side, without “Love”, the covenant aspect does not work, it remains broken and incomplete.

Love

But if words have worth value attached to them then no word in the English language has been devalued as the word “love”. It has been violated and raped, stripped of substance and definition. We might almost say it has become a word without meaning. Love is confused with “lust”, with “feelings”, with “infatuation”, with “sex”, with “looks”, and with “ego” (“I”).

Mildred Wynkoop writes:

But love is a weasel word… Love may mean anything – or nothing. It has lost its moorings and stands for “what I want” – a most deceptive concept and despotic tyrant.[1]

Love “stands for what I want“. That is a good way to sum it up.

Here is an interesting fact: in secular Greek before the New Testament was written the Greek word, agape was “a colorless word without any great depth of meaning, used frequently as a synonym”[2] of eros (sexual love – lust) and phileo (friendship). When the New Testament writers wrestled with how best to describe Gods loving act on the cross (John 3:16) it quickly became evident that eros and phileo failed to remotely express the love of God towards undeserving sinners. So they rescued the colorless and shallow word agape and gave it a depth greater than all the other words for love put together.

Agape can no longer be used as a synonym for sexual love because eros is a selfish love which seeks to gratify lustful passions, and cares nothing for its partner. Contrary to this, God’s love is sacrificial and everything it does it does out of concern for others. And phileo love also fails to express God’s love towards sinners expressed on the cross because phileo denotes the idea of affection or showing hospitality. God is full of phileo love, but phileo love could never hope to capture the depth of God’s love recorded in John 3:16.

Covenant of Love or Contract of Lust

Ironically, today, like in ancient secular Roman society, agape is used again as a synonym for eros and phileo. And this is why vows have no meaning anymore. Because the phrase, “until death do us part” really means, “until you no longer please me” or “until we stop becoming friends”. And the phrase, “through sickness and health” really means, “I’ll take care of you because I feel bad for you, but that doesn’t mean I have to be faithful to you”.

When agape becomes eros or phileo then a Covenant becomes a Contract.

The New Testament writers used the word agape whenever they wanted to convey God’s love for mankind expressed through the sacrificial obedience of Christ on the Cross (John 3:16, 1 John 3:1, 1 John 3:16, Romans 5:8). Jesus defined agape as a love that is self-sacrificial:

Greater agape has no one than this; that he lay down his life for his friends. – John 15:13

Then Paul applies this word to the type of love a husband and wife are to have for one another:

Husbands agape your wives, just as Christ agape the church and gave himself up for her. – Ephesians 5:25

If agape were put back into the vows, then the vows would become a Covenant. People would understand that marriage is a commitment which pledges itself to its partner “until death do us part”, meaning nothing but death can separate them.

Get to the Point

This is easy preaching, I’m not a marriage counselor and I know there are many difficult issues to consider (like what to do in the case of continued infidelity). My point with beginning here in discussing marriage between a man and a woman is to illustrate the relationship between Covenant and Love, and to point in the direction of something else:

This is a profound mystery – but I am talking about Christ and the church. – Ephesians 5:31-32

This is the first blog in a series on the Covenant of God, or I could just as easily say on the Covenant of Love (1 John 4:16). I am going to trace the major themes of the Covenant throughout the scriptures beginning in the Garden, looking briefly at Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah and finally Christ himself who is the Climax of that Covenant.

My approach, if you are interested, is to treat the scriptures as divinely-spired (God Breathed), taking a literary approach which asks the question a) what is the original author communicating and b) what is the Divine author communicating. Therefore I work on the premise of “scripture interprets scripture” paying careful attention to how the New Testament interprets the Old and to the various genres found in each unique book of the bible.

Stick with me as we explore the workings of God in redemption history and uncover the relationship between faith, grace and works, predestination and election, land and exile, death and life and blessings and cursings and eschatology – leaving behind a shallow and superficial reading of these things and grappling with their true significance and depth.

Because if you were to do a Google search for the words “Covenant of Love“, you would discover in the midst of several articles written about the marriage relationship between a man and a woman, this very blog which is about the Covenant of Agape expressed so dramatically on a hill called Calvary.

Reflection Questions:

1. In Greek the three words agape, eros and phileo can all be translated into English as “love”. How is agape different from the other two and how is this significant in our culture today?

2. What is the relationship between the two words, “Covenant” and “Love”?

3. In what ways does the divinely instituted covenant marriage between a man and a woman illustrate the Covenant God enters with people?

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[1] A Theology of Love, p.9

[2] Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, p.427