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Category Archive: Covenant Theology
Subcategories: Covenant of Creation
Covenant of Creation
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.
- 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].
- 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.
- 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:
- 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]
- 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.
- 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:
- What are the three benefits of being in the Covenant of God? (Briefly explain each)
- What are the three reasons for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?
- Explain the significance of “image of God” verses “likeness of God”?
[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.”
[4] Christ of the Covenants; p.83-84
What Is A Biblical Covenant?
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:
- Define a biblical covenant?
- What is the significance of the Hebrew word Karat?
- The covenant is intended to be everlasting. How may it be broken and what are the consequences?
- Why does God work in covenant?
[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.
Covenant Theology: Beginning a New Series
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?
[1] A Theology of Love, p.9
[2] Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old & New Testament Words, p.427
