The Hebrew word for covenant, berit, refers to "a legally binding relationship contracted between two parties."[1] This word appears nearly 250 times in the Old Testament. Most usages apply to God's covenant(s)[2] with humankind-primarily Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David, with 159 references to the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai.[3]
The Definition and Nature of the Covenant(s)
Covenants differ in nature. Some covenants are legal stipulations, either mutually agreed on, such as a business contract, or unilaterally determined, such as a will. When writing of God's covenants with humanity, the New Testament authors chose not to use the Greek term for a mutually negotiated agreement, syntheke, but rather the one used for a will, diatheke. In some respects the divine covenant does indeed resemble a will in that its terms are defined by God rather than mutually negotiated (Gal. 3:15; Heb. 9:13-18ff.). But John Murray points out that God's covenant prescribes a divinely-initiated, grace-based relationship rather than a business contract or even a will, as it aims to direct humanity toward "the crown and goal of the whole process of religion, namely, union and communion with God."[4] Robert Rayburn states: "Covenant is a relational concept. The word does not so much mean laws or stipulations. The Abrahamic and Sinaitic covenants are not laws, they are rather a relationship between God and people, a relationship conceived and ordered in a certain way. This is covenant in the Old Testament and the New."[5]
There are various kinds of covenantal relationships. In a master/slave relationship the slave is obligated to carry out the will of the master or suffer punishment. The Bible often refers to God's covenant recipients (including the Messiah Jesus Himself) as slaves/servants, though always in the context of God as a loving, benevolent, though not indulgent, Master (Gen. 26:24; Rom. 1:1).[6] The Bible places even greater emphasis on the covenant bonds between parent and child to illustrate the nature of God's covenant with humanity (Jer. 31:9, 20; Matt. 6:9; 7:9-11; 1 John 3:1). It even dares to liken the divine covenant with humanity to a marriage covenant between husband and wife, in which each promises wholehearted devotion to the other. God Himself likened His covenant with Israel at Sinai to such a covenant: "I was a husband to them" (Jer. 31:32).[7] Some biblical scholars have equated the divine covenant with divine promise.[8]
Thus, the biblical idea of God's covenant with humanity differs from that of human contracts. In the latter, each party to the contract tries to gain the most benefits for the least cost, or the superior party threatens severe penalties should the inferior party fail to live up to the demands made of them (as in penalties imposed for failure to pay taxes on time or for a late payment on a credit card) and offers rewards for superior performance (a bonus for getting the job done early). But in God's covenant with humankind, God promises His wholehearted, whole-souled commitment, even to the death if need be, for human welfare (e.g., Gen. 3:15),[9] and He requires that same wholehearted devotion from humanity in return (Rev. 12:11).[10] That is indeed the definition and nature of God's covenant with human beings. "The basic idea of the covenant is that of relationship with God,"[11] a relationship characterized by love, trust, and wholehearted commitment.
At no time was the divine covenant ever reduced merely to a list of legal stipulations with promised rewards for obedience and punishments threatened for disobedience. The true nature of the covenant was rather a loving relationship of wholehearted devotion to one another in which God pledged Himself to the death for the sake of humankind and asked for our reciprocal, wholehearted pledge of love, devotion, and obedience. The disciplinary rewards and punishments associated with the stipulations of God's covenant with humanity were built into the very nature of the relationship itself[12] and were always to be understood within the context of parental or marital love in which God the parent/husband provided the promise, protective boundaries, and corrective action necessary to ensure that His covenant members, His believing and faithful children/wife, would mature in holiness and receive their eternal inheritance in the kingdom of God (Leviticus 26; Deut. 11:22-32; Eph. 5:23-32; Heb. 12:5-11).
The Everlasting Covenant
Imagine yourself traveling back to the very beginning of time, back past the moment when God brought angels into being, past the time when the entire process of creation itself began, back to a time before "all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities" (Col. 1:16). What would be there before the cosmic creation itself existed? The closer you got to that time, the more you would notice that the darkness of the cosmos was giving way to light, until the darkness became wholly swallowed by the light. That light is altogether "unapproachable" (1 Tim. 6:16) on the one hand, and yet it has a marvelous attraction that draws you toward it. And suddenly you realize that the light is God Himself (1 John 1:5; cf. John 8:12). Back in that primeval deep-space time, before anything else existed, before time itself existed, God--the everlasting, Trinitarian God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit--existed.
If we had been able to observe God for a time before the creation itself existed--to watch Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interacting--we likely would have had the remarkable experience of noting how they regarded one another with utmost honor and respect. We could have heard it in the words they spoke, noted it in their body language,[13] seen it in the way they treated one another, how supremely they valued one another. When one speaks, the others listen as though their very lives depended on the speaker's words, as though for the first time gaining some new depth of understanding and insight into the beauty and character of the speaker. Their words and actions display kindness, thoughtfulness, and courtesy. Nothing in their relationship resembles what we would recognize as rudeness or self-seeking. Rather, their relationship is characterized by genuine humility and a compelling desire to serve one another in practical expressions of love and affirmation. The trust levels among them seem to be without boundaries. Their othercentered relationship constitutes a veritable circle of beneficence. The longer we observe, the more practical evidences we see of the true meaning of the Bible's primary revelation of the nature and character of God: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). This wholehearted, whole-souled commitment in love that binds Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into one God, indivisible in character, is covenant.
If you have children, you no doubt love them to the point that you would die for them if necessary. But you probably have never told them either that you are in a "covenant" with them or have made a "covenant commitment" to them. And yet you are and you have. Likewise, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have always loved one another in covenant relationship.[14] The Trinitarian covenant of love reveals itself in each treating the others as He would want to be treated were their roles reversed. This is perhaps why Jesus identified the so-called "golden rule" as the essence of the law and the prophets (Matt. 7:12)[15] and taught that love to God and neighbor was the great law on which "all the law and the prophets hang" (Matt. 22:36-40). The "golden rule" (Matt. 7:12) plumbs the depths of God's commitment inwardly within the Trinity and outwardly to His entire creation. Herein lies the essence of God's covenant: it's an everlasting covenant of love.
John Ortberg illustrates this kind of covenant love with a story about his family. When his daughter was a baby, he and his wife would calm her by holding her and repeating over and over, "Honey, honey, honey. ... I know, I know." When she got a little older, they noticed her calming herself by saying, "Honey, honey, honey. ... I know, I know," just as they had done. But as soon as they would appear, her little arms would fly up along with her plaintive cry, "Hold you me." Ortberg makes the application to Trinity love and covenant:
Even an infant being held knows, with an understanding deeper than words, that what is being expressed with the body is in fact the decision of the soul: to hold another person in one's heart. I will seek your good; I will share your joy and hurt; we will know a kind of oneness, you and I. It is the brief enactment of a covenant. It is a promise of self-giving love.
The life of the Trinity is an unceasing offering and receiving of self-giving love. The Father holds the Son in his heart, and the Son does the same with the Father. "The Father is in me and I am in the Father," Jesus says, and the Spirit holds and is held as well. "Hold you me"--offering themselves to one another in ceaseless, joy-filled, mutually submissive, generous, creative, self-giving love--is what the Trinity has been doing from before the beginning of time.[16]
Before creation existed, God existed, love existed, covenant existed- everlasting God, everlasting love, everlasting covenant. This everlasting covenant expresses the heart of the everlasting God manifested in the sacrificial love that existed among the Trinity before the beginning of time. The term "everlasting covenant" can never be invoked without calling to mind the love bonds that existed from eternity past within the divine, triune heavenly council, each seeking the happiness of the other.
Every covenant God ever made with His creation has its roots in this everlasting, Trinitarian covenant of love. Each divinely initiated covenant with humankind is its own masterfully crafted and unique expression of the greater, original "everlasting covenant." Most books about covenants miss this important point. But the true nature, the organic unity, and the interdependence of the individual covenants becomes clear only when it is realized that they are all based on the one archetypal covenant of love.
There was a time when I assembled electronic kits called Heath Kits. A person could be completely ignorant about electronics and yet assemble a beautiful stereo system by following the directions ("solder the red transistor [see picture on p. 3] to electronic board A," etc.). While assembling my first Heath Kit, I learned how to solder. Using a soldering iron I was able to fuse multiple wires into a single strand, making a permanent unity of what had been separate strands.
The covenant love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the solder that fuses together the individual, divinely-initiated covenants of the Bible into a single covenant. That's why the term "covenant(s)" is useful as a reminder that all God's individual covenants (plural) were manifestations of the one everlasting covenant (singular).
All divinely initiated covenants are unique expressions of God's everlasting covenant of love adapted to the specific needs of those to whom they were addressed. Each bears the divine fingerprint of the everlasting covenant and is a locally applied adaptation of that greater covenant. In every time and place, God, true to His own nature, has treated His creation as He would want to be treated were His role and ours reversed. It's the natural, heart-felt response of God to His creation's call, "Hold You me." This core truth of the everlasting covenant is the core truth of every covenant God has ever made. "I the Lord do not change" (Mal. 3:6). "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb. 13:8).
"An Everlasting Covenant"
The term "everlasting covenant" (Hebrew, berith olam; Greek, aionios diatheke) occurs sixteen times in Scripture. Thirteen times the English translation, "an everlasting covenant," is applied to the specific covenants God made with Abraham (Gen. 17:3-7, 13, 19), Israel at Sinai,[17] and David (2 Sam. 23:5). (See table 1 in appendix D for a brief, partial list and description of the covenants.) These covenants are each called "an everlasting covenant" because they are all expressions of the greater, primordial everlasting covenant of love that existed from eternity past within the Trinity and from the Trinity toward all creation. While each had its own unique fingerprint, each bore the essential nature of the archetypical everlasting covenant. Each was an expression of the everlasting covenant perfectly adapted to the needs of the people to which it was addressed. And embedded in each can be seen the eternal truths that God was progressively revealing throughout history.[18]
"The Everlasting Covenant"
The remaining three times the phrase berith olam / aionios diatheke is found in Scripture, most English translations present it as "the everlasting covenant" based on the context in which it occurs.[19] In these three cases "the everlasting covenant" is said to include:
• the whole of God's creation on earth. "Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth" (Gen. 9:16).
• His law for all humankind which they have all disobeyed: "The earth is defiled by its people; they have disobeyed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the everlasting covenant" (Isa. 24:5).
• Jesus Christ's own once-for-all blood sacrifice as the atonement for the sins of the whole world, a sacrifice that while made in human history was potentiated from time immemorial, from everlasting: "May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will" (Heb. 13:20; cf. 1 John 2:2; Rev. 13:8).
These characteristics are specifically identified in Scripture, are comprehensive in their reach, and have been embedded in every covenant God initiated with humanity. Through them God acted on our behalf as He would have wanted us to act on His behalf were our role and His reversed.
The Everlasting Gospel
Revelation speaks of "the everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6 NKJV), which is the good news of God's saving grace toward humanity. The reference to "the everlasting gospel" in Revelation 14:6-7 is specifically addressed to an end-time generation which is called to fear the creator God and give Him glory for "the hour of his judgment has come." God's final message to the end-time generation includes "the everlasting gospel" first announced in Genesis 3:15 and progressively revealed throughout Scripture. It is that which Paul contended for as the one and only true gospel (Gal. 1:6-9).
This good news runs like a golden, unifying thread throughout human history from Adam's fall to the second coming of Jesus. The everlasting gospel constitutes the core truth of the covenant of redemption-God's everlasting covenant crafted to meet humanity in its sinful condition, reconcile us to God, and restore our inheritance in God's eternal kingdom. This is the one and only gospel God ordained to be preached to all who dwell on the earth (Rev. 14:6). This is the same gospel that was preached through promise, symbols, and anticipation to Adam (Gen. 3:15), to Abraham (Gal. 3:8), to Israel in the wilderness (Heb. 3:7-4:2), to those in Isaiah's day (Isa. 52:7), and to all in the Old Testament era: "But they have not all obeyed the gospel" (Rom. 10:10-16, NKJV). It is also the same gospel that was preached by all New Testament authors, who had the privilege of looking back on Christ's sacrificial death as an accomplished fact.
Thus, to reiterate, the gospel preached in the Old Testament era, which looked forward to the coming Messiah, and the gospel preached in the New Testament era, which looked back on the Messiah's atoning death and resurrection, were the very same gospel. The author of Hebrews writes: "We [in the New Testament era] also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they [in the Old Testament era] did" (Heb. 4:2). In context, the "they" referred to in this verse was those to whom God had given His covenant on Sinai, but it has broader application to all those who lived in the Old Testament era.[20] Paul pronounced a curse upon anyone, even an angel from heaven, who dared preach "a different gospel" (Gal. 1:6-9).
Whatever else may be said about the covenants, it can never be said that any covenant ever initiated by God was based on, or was an expression of, anything other than the everlasting gospel He ordained to be preached "to every nation, tribe, language, and people" (Rev. 14:6). This is a foundational, core truth that must be affirmed and constantly kept in mind in any study of the covenants.
Summary
Covenant has its origins in the relationship of love that has existed among God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from all eternity. Trinity love constitutes the "everlasting covenant" of which every divinely initiated covenant in human history is a unique adaptation to specific time and place. Thus the term "covenant(s)" may be used to signify that no divinely initiated covenant stands alone, but represents a specific expression of the archetype everlasting covenant love that exists within the Trinity. God's covenants with humanity may be defined generally as His whole-souled commitment in love to their ultimate welfare and happiness, with expectations of their whole-souled commitment in love, loyalty, and obedience to Him in return. God's sacrificial commitment during the reign of sin (from the fall of Adam to the second coming of Jesus) to restore humanity to an eternal hope may be termed "the covenant of redemption" or "the everlasting gospel." The "covenant of redemption"/"everlasting gospel"-God's plan of salvation for the eternal salvation of human beings -is timeless and universal, having existed in the heart of God before time began, and having never changed since its implementation at the fall of Adam.
Notes: