The covenants have been presented by some as a kind of exclusive deal God makes with a select (elect) group of people, singling them out for special favors. While there is some truth in that concept, it doesn't portray the whole picture. God did select (elect) certain individuals and make covenants with them and their descendants. These covenants not only included significant blessings but heightened responsibilities as well. God intended for His gospel of salvation to be shared, not hoarded. The covenants were designed to be inclusive, not exclusive. God's covenants with humanity are all grace-based, gospel-bearing, and mission-directed.
In at least one place in Scripture, the divine covenant is likened to a will (Heb. 9:16ff.). An executor of a will is responsible to inform those named in the will regarding their portion of the inheritance and to oversee the distribution of the estate to the beneficiaries. Using this metaphor, we may think of God's covenant as the will of His estate. His estate includes eternal salvation, as well as any temporal blessings and responsibilities that may be specified. Thus, we may think of those with whom God made His covenant (e.g., Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, David) not as exclusive beneficiaries of God's estate but rather as executors themselves, commissioned to notify the entire world that all nations of the earth have been listed as beneficiaries of this marvelous will--the gospel, resulting in life that glorifies God and lasts forever. It is a gospel conceived and offered by grace, to be received according to the terms and conditions specified. The terms and conditions are simple and profound: faith, through which God works His inner transformation of heart and mind to produce love and obedience to His commandments.
The everlasting gospel of grace, expressing God's everlasting covenant promise and commitment to sinful human beings, has always been universal in its application.[1] It was always God's purpose that the recipients of the individualized, differentiated covenants would share the gospel with the entire world. The gospel would reveal to the world that God's law had been given for their benefit (Deut. 10:13), to bring life, but that the world had broken this law (1 Kings 8:46; Isa. 24:5; Rom. 3:23) and that God had kept His promise to send His Son to take away the sin of the world (Gen. 3:15; Isa. 53:4, 6; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Gen. 22:8, 17; John 1:29; Heb. 13:20).
The Universality and Mission-Directed Purpose of the Covenant(s)
God's covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, David, and new covenant believers were never intended to be for them alone, but for everyone who would accept God's appeal in the everlasting gospel through their witness, for "my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations" (Isa. 56:7). As Dallas Willard notes, "God not only interacts with every individual human being (John 1:9; Acts 10:30-31; 14:17; Rom. 1:14-15), but also establishes a public presence in human history through a covenant people in which he is tangibly manifest to everyone on earth who wants to find him."[2]
With the intent that His covenants would be applied universally, God designed them to groom, equip, and commission the people He chose to carry out this missionary purpose.[3] This insight is crucial for a proper understanding of the covenants.
A thorough study of the Scriptures will demonstrate the mission-directed purpose of God's covenant(s) and the awareness that His faithful followers in every historical era have had of their divinely appointed mission to share the gospel with the nations.
At creation, God's everlasting covenant of love and peace embraced the whole of His created order.[4] In the creation story, even the animals did not prey on one another but, like human beings, were given a plant-based diet (Gen. 1:29-30). Had Adam been faithful to God, all humankind would have benefited from the unending blessings of God's covenant of creation.
The Universality and Mission-Directed Purpose of God's Covenant(s) Throughout the Old Testament Era
God's remarks to the serpent in Eden (Gen. 3:15) were an implicit covenant promise to Adam and all humankind that the woman's seed, the Messiah, would ultimately destroy Satan and the suffering Satan had imposed on them through the sin of Adam.[5] This grace-based, gospel bearing covenant promise was mission-directed, and Adam was to pass it on to his descendants, providing them with hope.
God's covenant with Noah was a "renewal" of His grace-based, gospel-bearing covenant made previously with Adam and his descendants (Gen. 6:18).[6] That the Noahic covenant was indeed a gospel-bearing covenant is evident from the sanctifying effect it had on Noah who "became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith" (Heb. 11:7). In addition, this covenant anticipated the impending flood and offered protection to Noah and his family. By strong implication, God's gracious offer of righteousness by faith and protection from the flood was extended to the entire world, for God's covenant with Noah had ordained and equipped him as "a preacher of righteousness" (2 Pet. 2:5).[7] After the flood, God's covenant with Noah was expanded further to include the universal sign of the rainbow to remind all people everywhere of "the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth" in which God "swore that the waters of Noah would never again cover the earth" (Gen. 9:16; Isa. 54:9).
God's covenant with Abraham and his descendants envisioned that "all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." "Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring" (Gen. 12:3; 28:14). God envisioned Abraham's descendants spreading throughout the world carrying the gospel to every nation, tribe, tongue, and people. Ellet Waggoner suggests that the altars Abraham built were an evangelistic witness to the peoples around him: "When Abraham built an altar, he 'called upon the name of the Lord.' (Gen. 12:8; 13:4) ... When Abraham erected the family altar, he not only taught his immediate family but he proclaimed the name of the Lord to all around him. Like Noah, Abraham was a preacher of righteousness. As God preached the Gospel to Abraham, so Abraham preached the Gospel to others."[8]
Meredith Kline likewise sees the altars built by Abraham and his descendants, including the nation of Israel prior to the conquest of Canaan, as "a missionary-evangelistic witness" to the nations they sojourned among: [Their altars] were a summons to repentant turning from the worship of idols and a call to reconciliation with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Creator of heaven and earth. They were a missionary-evangelistic witness. ... In their function of summoning to covenantal commitment to the Lord of redemptive promise, these altars afforded an intimation of a coming day when the reconciling call of the altar of Calvary would be heard in all the earth, when the gospel of Christ would go forth in the power of the Spirit to the Gentiles and the promise would be fulfilled that in Abraham's seed all the nations would be blessed with the salvation of God.[9]
God's covenant with Israel at Sinai called the entire nation to become a "kingdom of priests" through whom "'the nations will know that I am the Lord;' declares the Sovereign Lord, 'when I show myself holy through you before their eyes'" (Exod. 19:5-6; Ezek. 36:23). The believing Israelites perceived the universal scope of God's purpose for them as bearers of the everlasting gospel of salvation and prayed: "May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations" (Ps. 67:1-2). Through Israel's witness, God intended that "the law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations" (Isa. 51:4). However, realizing the magnitude of Israel's failure to fulfill its God-given mission of evangelizing the nations with the everlasting gospel, Isaiah confessed on Israel's behalf: "We have not brought salvation to the earth; we have not given birth to people of the world" (Isa. 26:18). Stating that God's covenant at Sinai was "made with the nation of Israel only," some imply that God created conditions that made it difficult for outsiders to get in and share the blessings of the covenant.[10] Such a portrayal misrepresents God's heart and intent with regard to this, or any other covenant He has made. His covenants always bore the whole of humankind in mind, were always for humankind's benefit, and were designed to promulgate the gospel of eternal salvation worldwide.
It was clear also to David that God's "everlasting covenant" with him followed the precedent set in the earlier covenants made with his forefathers in that it intended for David to lead his people to "make known among the nations what he [God] has done," to "declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples" (2 Sam. 23:5; 1 Chron. 16:7-33; Isa. 55:3-5).
God often reiterated the timeless universal mission purpose of His covenants to His covenant people. In a scriptural passage that blends the proclaimed mission of Israel with the prophesied mission of the Messiah into what has sometimes been called "the Great Commission of the Old Testament,"[11] God said through Isaiah: "You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor [NKJV: in whom I will be glorified]. ... It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth" (Isa. 49:3, 6).
When Paul and Barnabas defended their own mission to preach the gospel to the Gentiles in the new covenant historical era, they quoted from this very passage in Isaiah, as if to say that they were fulfilling the commission God gave to His covenant people from the beginning (Acts 13:46-47).
Indeed, throughout the entire old covenant historical era, God's covenants with His chosen people commissioned them to extend His everlasting covenant/gospel invitation to the entire world: "Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth" (Isa. 45:22). "For God is the king of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise. God reigns over the nations; God is seated on his holy throne. The nobles of the nations assemble as the people of the God of Abraham, for the kings of the earth belong to God; he is greatly exalted" (Ps. 47:7-9).
The Universality and Mission-Directed Purpose of God's Covenant in the New Testament Era
Jesus instructed His followers that they were "the salt of the earth" and "the light of the world": "Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your father in heaven" (Matt. 5:13-16). He adhered to the tradition of the everlasting covenant commission when He admonished New Testament believers, "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations" (Matt. 28:19-20). The book of Acts records the explosive growth of the church throughout the world as believers adopted and applied the great commission. Paul stated a universal, timeless truth when he said to the pagan philosophers in Athens: "From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us" (Acts 17:26-27).
Similarly, Paul wrote to the blended congregation of Jews and Gentiles at Rome, "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith" (Rom. 3:29-30).
God's Universal Covenant of Redemption Encompasses All Creation
Paul even intimates that the earthly ministry and atoning act of Jesus, which was at the core of God's everlasting covenant with humankind, reached far beyond the nations of the earth and encompassed the entire universe in its scope: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross" (Col. 1:19-20; cf. Eph. 3:10). From this verse it appears that God's redemptive actions through Christ in human history may have also addressed residual issues from the primordial fallout in heaven (Ezek. 28:13-15; Luke 10:17-18; Rev. 12:3-10). His everlasting covenant commitment of love encompasses the entire universe which naturally includes all humankind.
What Might Have Been[12]
Scripture provides tantalizing glimpses of what might have been if God's covenant people in the Old Testament era had by faith embraced the gospel of His covenant, allowing God to make them "a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" who would carry His gospel to the ends of the earth (Exod. 19:5-6; cf. Gen. 28:14; Lev. 20:7-8).
God would shower the covenant blessings on His people (Deut. 28:1-14; cf. Lev. 26:1-13). They would be such healthy (Deut. 7:15; cf. Exod. 15:26), happy (Deut. 28:2-8), holy (28:9), wise (4:6-7), morally enlightened (4:8), and prosperous (28:6-7; cf. Lev. 26:4-5, 10) people that they would become "the head, not the tail" (Deut. 28:13), above all the nations of the earth "in praise, fame and honor" (Deut. 26:19). All the people of other nations would see that they were "called by the name of the Lord" (28:10). God's praise and saving power would be proclaimed to the ends of the earth (Ps. 48:10; 57:9; 66:4; 67; 72:10-11; 126:2-3; 145:11-12). Other nations would gather to Jerusalem to worship the Lord (Ps. 86:9; 102:21-22).
An all too brief period of Solomon's era provided a fleeting glimpse of what might have been as "the whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart" (1 Kings 10:24), and the wealth of the world poured into his expanding empire (vv. 14-29).
However, on the whole, the history of God's chosen people betrayed its divinely envisioned potential. Yet God didn't abandon His people or His dream for them and the world. Even after God had to administer the ultimate covenant curse by disciplining His covenant people at the hands of their Babylonian captors, the prophets continued to convey God's ideal plan.
Moved by His everlasting covenant love, God would pardon His covenant people, cleanse them from their sins, put His Spirit in them, and cause them to walk in His laws (Ezek. 36:24-28; cf. Isa. 40:1-2; Jer. 31:31- 34). Their ruined cities and temple would be rebuilt and the land of Israel renewed "like the garden of Eden" (Isa. 44:24-28; Ezek. 36:33-35). Other nations would know that the God of Israel had done this for them (Ezek. 36:36). The surrounding nations would see God's righteousness and glory reflected in His covenant people and call them blessed (Isa. 61:9; 62:1-2; Jer. 33:9; Mal. 3:12). God's people would be His witnesses, a light to the nations (Isa. 43:10; 44:8; 49:6; 51:4). They would proclaim to the nations the gospel as taught in God's law, extending His universal offer of salvation to all who come to Him in faith, and warning of judgment on all who would refuse His gracious offer (Isa. 2:2-3; 45:22; 51:4; 52:7; Mic. 4:1-2; Jonah; Isaiah 13-33).
In response, nations would come to the light (Isa. 60:3). They would run to Jerusalem and go up to the house of the Lord-"a house of prayer for all nations"--to seek the and join themselves to Him (Isa. 2:2-3; 45:20; 49:6-22; 55:5; 56:7-8; Zech. 2:11; 8:20-33). These converted peoples from the nations of the earth would be fully incorporated as part of the covenant community (Isa. 56:1-8; Ezek. 47:22-23). "'And I will select some of them also to be priests and Levites,' says the Lord" (Isa. 66:18-21).
This inclusive spiritual community, made up of the redeemed from every nation, would be prepared to receive and honor the Messiah who would come into the world to "bear their iniquities" and make "intercession for the transgressors" (Isa. 53:11-12). Upon His resurrection, the Messiah would immediately (or eventually, the timing is unclear) take the throne of David and rule over a re-united Israel, including the redeemed from the nations of the earth (Ezek. 37:24-26; Isa. 9:6-7; Zech. 9:9-10). The borders of the "Promised Land" would expand to encompass the entire earth (Isa. 27:6; Amos 9:12).
The remaining enemies of the Lord would eventually launch a final attack on God and His people, resulting in the final destruction of the wicked and the end of sin forever (Isaiah 24; 26:20-21; 66:24; Ezekiel 38- 39; Joel 3; Obadiah 16; Nah. 1:9; Zechariah 14). Thereupon, God creates a new heavens and earth (Isaiah 35; 65:17). "'From one New Moon to another and from one Sabbath to another, all mankind will come and bow down before me,' says the Lord" (Isa. 66:23).
The Old Testament repeatedly tells us what might have been. The New Testament assures us that God's ultimate purpose will yet be realized. Sin and death will be destroyed and God's spiritual covenant community from every historical era and every nation will live with Him forever in "a new heaven and a new earth, the home of the righteous" (2 Pet. 3:10-13; Revelation 20-22). At the same time, the New Testament repeatedly sounds the following warning to anyone who persists in unbelief and the disobedient fruit it produces: the glorious future promised to God's covenant people, and to which they were destined from the foundation of the world, will be simply and tragically only "what might have been" (Matt. 7:21-23; 8:10-12; 25:1-12; Gal. 5:19-21; Titus 1:2; Rev. 21:7-8; 22:14- 15).
Summary
God's covenant(s) with His chosen people throughout the Old Testament period were never intended exclusively for those who initially received them. They applied universally. God gave His covenants to His chosen people to be shared with all peoples of the world. God's covenant(s) which envisioned the whole world, and indeed the entire universe, within the embrace of the everlasting covenant were never intended as a private possession. They were always intended as the missionary stewardship of those to whom they were initially given. If God's covenant people had been faithful as bearers and sharers of the gospel proclaimed in the covenant(s) divinely entrusted to them, His desire as expressed in the following texts would have been fulfilled: "Then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes" (Ezek. 36:23). "The law will go out from me; my justice will become a light to the nations" (Isa. 51:4). "Many nations will be joined with the Lord in that day and will become my people" (Zech. 2:11). "For my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations" (Isa. 56:7).
Notes: