What Is a Covenant?

Israel, as we know, there at the foot of Sinai, was a faithless bride. She broke her covenant. And so God sent his son Jesus, and Christ entered into this covenantal marriage with his bride to redeem us, to redeem his church. If you have been listening to Renewing Your Mind for some time, you will have heard our teachers speak of covenant theology. You might have questions about that, and perhaps you're even wondering about one of the fundamental questions.

What is a covenant? Welcome to this Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm Nathan W. Bingham, and today you'll be hearing from a guest teacher, JV Fesco. Dr.

Fesco is the featured teacher in a series titled Signed, Sealed, Delivered. It's a six-part introduction to covenant theology. And if you'd like to own this series on DVD, along with a hardcover copy of the companion book and digital access to the messages and study guide, simply make a year-end donation at renewingyourmind.org before midnight tonight. Or when you call us at 800-435-4343. And this resource bundle will be yours as our way of saying thank you.

Well, to whet your appetite for this series and to answer the question, what is a covenant? Here is the Harriet Barber Professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at Reform Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. J.V. Fesco. The Bible closes with a beautiful picture of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

We read in Revelation chapter 19, verse 7: Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come. We see the bride decked in fine linen, bright and pure, according to Revelation 19:8. And John's angelic guide tells him that all who are invited to the supper are blessed. While it may not immediately strike us as such, this is a passage that is steeped. in the doctrine of the covenants.

When the prophet Malachi, for example, rebuked his fellow Israelites for their lax attitude towards marriage, he reminded them that marriage is a covenant. And so here, this tells us that our marriage to Christ is ultimately a covenant. We can say that marriage is simply another way of saying covenant. The covenant marriage is something that runs all throughout scripture, and I think it also gives us a window into God's covenantal marriage to us, to his people. Adam and Eve, for example, were husband and wife, but their sin introduced death, it introduced conflict, as well as introduced evil into the world.

God promised, though, that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent. And the seed of the woman, of course, is Jesus, whom Paul identifies in 1 Corinthians 15, 45 as the last Adam. Which this implicitly tells us that if Jesus is the last Adam, well, then the church is the last Eve. And if the first atom Failed to obey God, then the last Adam is going to come to obey his father and to lay down his life for his bride, to redeem her, to save her. And so God traces the line of the covenant across Israel's history, a line that slowly unveils his plan to redeem his people.

God, for example, entered into a covenant with his people Israel at Mount Sinai. And he signaled that marital love is a way back to the blessings of Eden. A truth that we can say is celebrated in the book, The Song of Songs. And in fact, first century Jewish rabbis called the Song of Songs the Holy of Holies of the Old Testament. The song we can say is a commentary on Paradise Lost and Recovered.

But Israel, as we know, there at the foot of Sinai, was a faithless bride. She broke her covenant. She was, according to the prophet Hosea, a wife of whoredom. And so God sent his son Jesus, who, as Paul says in Ephesians 5:25, he loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her. By the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy.

and without blemish. And so Christ entered into this covenantal marriage with his bride to redeem us, to redeem his church.

Now, I think we can say about the doctrine of the covenants in the scriptures that we could say it's a bit like Claude Monet's Impressionist painting, Waterlilies, if you've ever seen that painting. When you step back and you look at that particular painting. You can see the whole pictures. You can see clusters of water lilies floating atop the surface of the water. But maybe when you get closer to that particular painting, you lose the big picture and you only see small globs of paint, various colors, and the picture becomes less clear.

I think similarly, when we look at the grand sweep of the scriptures, we can perceive the big picture. We can see salvation through covenant. But when we get closer to the scriptures and we look at each of the individual covenants as they unfold in redemptive history, we might lose the big picture. How, for example, do the covenants all fit together? How does God's covenant with Adam fit with the covenant with Noah and the covenant with Moses and the people of Israel, the covenant with Abraham, the covenant with David, or as the prophets later speak of, the new covenant?

Or we could switch gears and we could say, how do all of the covenants fit together? But if we're talking about classic historic 16th-century Protestant Reformation teaching and the theology of the Reformation, when we speak, for example, of the covenant of redemption, or the covenant of works. or the covenant of grace. How do all of these different covenants fit with the various covenants that we find in the Bible?

Well, in these lectures, we're going to examine classic covenant theology that emerged from the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. we'll look at the covenant of redemption. Which is the eternal intra-Trinitarian covenant among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We'll look at the covenant of works. This is the covenant that God made with Adam when he created and placed him in the Garden of Eden and gave him work to do.

And then last, of course, but not least, we'll look at the covenant of grace, which is the way that God saves His people through the work of the Son and of the Spirit. And so in the lectures that follow, we're going to examine the covenant of redemption. the covenant of works, the covenant of grace. And then we'll also look at the covenant signs, the attendant signs that come along with each of these covenants. And then lastly, we'll look at the doctrine of the covenant as it relates to the church.

But before we continue, what we want to do is we want to ask a couple of questions to ensure that we're all on the same page. And that we want to ask the question. What is a covenant so that we can define what it is? And then, in addition to this, we're also going to talk about the characteristics of common covenants that we find in the scriptures, as well as the different kinds of covenants that we find in the scriptures.

So, first, let's ask and answer that fundamental question as to what is a covenant. We could say that covenant is actually a challenging word to define if we're looking at the English Standard Version of the Scriptures, that translation of the Bible, it appears 301 times, which means it's a pretty common term as far as its frequency in the scripture. But what is a covenant? We can say this. A simple definition comes to us in the document that's called the Children's Catechism: that a covenant is an agreement between two or more persons.

A covenant is an agreement. Between two or more persons.

Now this is a very basic kind of definition that we'll attach to this term covenant, but we find confirmation of this, for example, in the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 28, verse 15, the prophet says this, because you have said, We have made A covenant with death. And with shale, We have an agreement. We have made a covenant with death. And with Sheol, we have made an agreement.

So notice here how the prophet places covenant and agreement in parallel with each other. Because here the terms death and shal are interchangeable. And so he's stating the same thing in a different way. We have made a covenant with death. And the alternative way of saying that is, we have made an agreement with Sheol.

And so these two terms, covenant and agreement, they're interchangeable. But what we also want to note, and this is something that we know even from our own common everyday experience, is that there are all kinds of agreements. And so we don't want to place a straitjacket definition and force it upon every single instance of the term. An abstract definition never tells us what a word means. Rather, the surrounding context tells us what the word means.

For example. If we abstractly define the word trunk, as a box for storing clothing. then we're going to run into trouble if we find that cars have trunks. that trees have trunks. And elephants also have trunks as well.

So if we say, well, a trunk is always a box that we use for storing clothing. And that's not going to help us.

So we don't want to have that straitjacket definition of a term. Context determines meaning.

So if you say, go to the trunk of the car and get the box that is in the trunk, or if we say go to the trunk of the tree, it's the surrounding context. of the use of that particular term that helps us to understand. what the term means. And so I think that we can, as we look at the subsequent covenants throughout the scriptures, we can use that strategy. Of defining the term covenant basically as an agreement, but then adjusting that definition as necessary as we encounter it in various parts of the Bible.

So that's the definition, but we want also to look at Common characteristics of a covenant. And then, last, we'll look at the types of covenants that we encounter in the scriptures.

So as far as common characteristics goes, One of the most common things that we will find are oaths. Whenever you find a covenant, chances are you're going to find an oath.

So for example, when Abraham and Abimelech made a covenant with one another, we read in Genesis chapter 21, verses 31 and following, therefore that place was called Beersheba. Because there both of them swore an oath.

So they made a covenant at Beersheba.

So notice this: the way that you make a covenant is you swear an oath.

So this is one of the common characteristics that you find for a covenant is swearing an oath. A second common characteristic that we find when we're looking at covenants is the presence. of laws. In other words, you can say that God makes a covenant with his people and he distributes, he administers laws in the course of making that covenant. An important passage to this particular characteristic comes to us in Psalm 105.

verses 8 through 10. Listen to what the psalmist says here. He remembers his covenant forever.

So here we're clearly talking about the context of a covenant. The word that he commanded So the psalmist equates making a covenant with God giving a command. For a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham His sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute. to Israel as an everlasting covenant.

So notice here in Psalm 105 verses 8 and following the overlapping categories here. that you find the overlapping categories of covenant. A sworn promise, which we could say would also be an oath. a statute which we can say is a rule. As well as a command.

So command, statute, sworn promise, all overlapping here with the category of covenant.

So, in addition to this, we can say about the laws that God gives is that sometimes covenants or we can say an agreement. can have a promissory character to them. They are heavily emphasizing God's promises, the things that God Himself will do. This is characteristic, for example, of God's covenant with Abraham. or in some cases A covenant can have a more legal emphasis, such as God's covenant with Israel.

Think of all of the laws that he administered to the Israelites there at the foot of Sinai, the covenant code and the book of the law.

So we've got these characteristics so far of swearing an oath. As well as laws. A third characteristic that we find are animal sacrifices. This is something that we see quite common whenever we see a covenant. Remember in Genesis chapter 15.

God had Abraham gather animals together in verse 9, and then he had him cut those animals in half. This mirrored the covenant-making practices of the day when people would literally cut a covenant. And in fact, we can say that that language still persists in our own context today when you go and you cut a deal. You cut a business deal. And so here, in fact, in Genesis chapter 15, verse 18, if we translate this quite literally out of the Hebrew, we can say that on that day, he, God, cut a covenant with Abraham.

To make a covenant is to cut a covenant because it has in view that cutting ceremony, the cutting of the animals in half.

Now why did God have Abraham cut these animals in half?

Well, the prophet Jeremiah gives us an important explanation here. And this explanation comes to us in Jeremiah chapter 34, verses 18 and following. Where Jeremiah says. God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, and the men who transgressed my covenant. did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make them.

like the calf. that they cut in two and passed between its parts. Going on a few verses, Their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth.

So, when God has Abraham take the animals and divide them, cut them in two, and to create an aisle, if you will, between which presumably he and Abraham would walk.

Now, we know from the rest of the biblical narrative that Abraham didn't walk between the severed animals and that he was fast asleep, and that God alone, represented by the burning oven, walked between them. That walking between the severed animal halves was another way of saying... If you break your word. what has happened to these animals will happen to you. Or if I break my word, What has happened to these animals will happen to me.

It was a way of swearing a self-maledictory oath. In other words, Calling a curse upon yourself. By saying, if I don't keep my word, then may the curse of the covenant come upon me. And so this is what was signified by the sacrifice of the animals. And so, if we have here these common characteristics so far, if we have oaths, If we have laws, we have animal sacrifices.

We also, as you can imagine, this is attendant with those animal sacrifices is blessings and curses. Think for example In the law, in the commandments, in Exodus chapter 20, beginning verse 4, that God tells the Israelites that the iniquity of the fathers will be visited on the children to the third and fourth generation, to those who hate him, but for those who love him, he would show his steadfast love to thousands.

So you see blessings. For those who are in the covenant, but if there are those who violate or break the covenant, well, then you find curses. This is what is so, I think, dramatic, but not only dramatic. But it's a tremendous blessing the more that we meditate upon what happens when God makes his covenant with Abraham. As I said moments ago, God had Abraham cut those animals in half, but then He puts Abraham to sleep.

And God, represented by a burning oven, walks between those severed animal halves, which was God's way of saying to Abraham, If I break my word, May the curses of the covenant fall upon me. But stunningly, what he's also saying to Abraham is if you break your word. May the curses of the covenant fall Upon me. Not upon you. And so here God is taking and swearing this self-maledictory oath upon himself.

He's saying, I will bear the curse of the covenant on your behalf. Which brings us to yet another common characteristic that we find in covenants, and that is. Love. Love is one of the most important characteristics that we find attendant to. Covenants.

In Deuteronomy 7:9, we read: Now, know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant. And steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. Just as a marriage covenant is the context in which a husband and wife express their love towards one another, so God's covenants with us. Are the arena, if you will, in which He pours out His love upon us, but it's also the context in which God affords us the privilege and the opportunity and the blessing to be able to show our love. to God.

There are these further characteristics of the covenants. There are oaths, there are laws, animal sacrifices, blessings and curses, love, as well as witnesses. When Jacob made a covenant with his father-in-law Laban, He called for witnesses to observe this covenant. In addition, when God made his covenant with Israel, he says, Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may there be a witness against you.

So, in addition to witnesses, we also have, lastly, this last common characteristic is signs. We'll take a closer look at the nature of the covenant signs in a future lecture. But think, for example, of the rainbow with Noah. Or think, for example, of circumcision, which was a sign of the covenant that God made with Abraham.

So we've defined what a covenant is. We've looked at common Covenant characteristics, but in the time that remains, we briefly want to rehearse the different types of covenants. One of the chief types of covenants that you find in the scriptures are the covenant that exists within the Godhead. The covenant among Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where all three participants are equals in this covenant. the triune God covenants in eternity before the foundation of the world.

A second type of covenant that we find in the scriptures Are the covenant between God and humans? Think of the covenant of works. The covenant that God makes with Adam? The Covenant of Grace? which we see unfolding between the triune God and fallen but elect and to be redeemed sinners.

And then a third type of covenant that we find are covenants that exist between human beings.

So the covenant among the members of the Trinity. covenants between God and human beings. And then, thirdly, these covenants between human beings. The friendship covenant, for example, that exists between Jonathan and David. A covenant that exists among equals.

Think, for example, of Abraham and Abimelech in Genesis chapter 21. Or think of the Lord and servant covenants. that existed between Joshua and the Gibeonites. The Gibeonites were covenanted with Israel, but they were covenant as inferiors as servants. Or then think last but not least, this is the covenant type of covenant that we mentioned at the beginning of the lecture, which is the marriage covenant.

These are just some of the different types of covenants that exist between humans.

Well, in conclusion, we can say this. What is a covenant? It's an agreement between two or more persons. But we would say that the context within the particular passage of scripture will help us further define the nature of that covenant. All of God's covenants either fall under the covenant of redemption, or the covenant of works.

or the covenant of grace. That was J.V. Fesco, our guest teacher today, introducing us to the term covenant and covenant theology. When I first understood covenant theology, it was like a light bulb turned on, and suddenly the Bible made more sense from Genesis all the way to Revelation. This is the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind.

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