The Bible is primarily divided into [the Old and New Testaments]. “Testament” in the Bible typically refers to a “covenant.” Thus, a distinction between the Old and New Covenants can also be made. A covenant: what is it? And why does it matter so much? We’ll investigate this.
The covenant in Genesis
The covenant in the Bible is essential to the dealings between God and man. After the fall of the first man, Adam, mankind and the earth become more and more separated from God. It even gets to the point where God decides to undo creation and destroy all life on earth with a great flood. However, God established a covenant with Noah that Noah and his family were not swallowed up by the waters of the flood (Genesis 6:18). That is the first time that a covenant is mentioned in the Bible. After the Flood, God establishes a covenant with all survivors of the Flood, both human and animal. God promises that the earth will not perish by water again. The rainbow is the sign of this covenant (Genesis 9:8-17).
The flood did not clear the earth of sin. People were still quick to sin. They built a tower which was explicitly against God’s command. God therefore scatters them across the earth and makes a new start with one man, Abraham. With him God makes a covenant that is central to the remainder of the Bible. God promised Abram a rich blessing (Genesis 12:2-3): “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” This promise is applied in the New Testament to Christ, the Mediator through whom all the earth receives the blessing, namely salvation.
Genesis 17 states that “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you” (Genesis 12:7). This covenant represents the promise of salvation to Abraham. According to Genesis 12:10–11, circumcision is a symbol of this covenant. Additionally, in Genesis 15, God established a covenant with Abraham, promising him the country of Canaan. God appeared to Abraham as a flaming fire and instructed him to split up certain animals into pieces. This demonstrates that God assumed accountability for the agreement.
Isaac, the son of Abraham, and Jacob, the son of Isaac, inherited the covenant with Abraham. Instead of forging a new covenant with them, God fulfilled His word. “I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac,” He so declared to Jacob at Bethel. I will give the land you lie on to you and your children. All the families on earth will be blessed in you and your descendants, and you yourselves will spread out to the west, east, north, and south. Your descendants will resemble the dust of the earth. (See Genesis 28:13–14). Thus, the promise and covenant are validated for Abraham’s offspring!
The Sinaitic covenant
Jacob’s descendants developed into a powerful nation. God liberated His people from years of servitude in Egypt; according to Exodus 2:24, He “remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob.” Another covenant was made at Sinai, when the people were guided by the Lord. The old covenant with Abraham serves as the cornerstone and central idea of this new “Sinaitic covenant.” Exodus 20–23 records that God handed the Israelites His law and provisions, and in Exodus 24–7, the people pledged their obedience to uphold the covenant. The covenant was established through the sprinkling of blood and the offering of animal sacrifices.
The entire covenantal connection between God and the Israelites revolves around the act of bloodsprinkling. Only when the correct kind of sacrifices were offered could God live among the people. Horrible penalties frequently ensued when the populace disobeyed in any other way or failed to do this. These are described in the book of Numbers. The conquest of Canaan is the subject of the book of Joshua. The promised land has now been given to the people, proving that God has fulfilled His promise. What would happen to them in that land? The narratives found in Judges, Samuel, and Kings all point toward this.
Its history turns out to be highly regrettable. Even though the people of Israel had vowed in Joshua 24:24, “we will serve the LORD our God, and we will obey his voice,” it was quickly evident that they were either unable to do so or did not feel like doing so. The list of transgressions against the covenant is extensive: they disobeyed God’s commandments, served idols, and contributed nothing to the needy. Such disobedience would inevitably result in punishment. God often brought famines, enemies, and other calamities to force people to turn from their sins.
This frequently had some fleeting effect. Hezekiah and Josiah were two godly kings who reaffirmed the covenant with God and actively strove to bring about transformation in the land. But Israel eventually fell back to sin. This history came to an end when Babylon was taken over and Jerusalem along with its temple were destroyed. Was this the breaking of God’s covenant with Abraham and his offspring? No, it wasn’t!
The covenant with David
God always remains faithful to His covenant. But His ways can never be predicted. Just as God chose Abraham from all mankind and made a covenant with him, so God chose David from all the people of Israel to make him king. God promised David a descendant who would be king forever: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12-13). The covenant with Abraham took on a special focus with David and the kingship of Judah. On this promised future king rested all the expectation and hope!
Nothing appeared to be left of God’s promise when Jerusalem was in ruins and the monarch had been overthrown. Now, the catastrophe about which the prophets had long prophesied had come to pass. Israel had repeatedly broken the terms of the agreement. And God was removing His hand from the people now. It was difficult for Israel to accept this trauma. Psalm 89:38–40 states, “But now you have rejected and cast off; you are full of wrath against your anointed.” You have broken your word to your servant and polluted his crown with dirt. You have broken through all of his defenses and destroyed his strongholds.
What happens next? Daniel prayed for the end of the exile based on the covenant (Daniel 9). Indeed, God was obedient and let Israel to return to its ancestral homeland. The temple and the city were restored, but the former grandeur was lost, and the monarch that had been prophesied had not yet materialized. The Old Testament comes to a close with many unanswered issues and unmet promises. The New Testament is, in many respects, the response to the Old. Consequently, let us now investigate what the New Covenant says to us.
A new covenant
Already under the old covenant, God announced a new covenant by Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Jeremiah puts it as follows: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
God does not make a totally different covenant, but the covenant with Israel enters a new phase with the fulfillment of this prophecy. Characteristic of the new covenant is the internalization of God’s law. This law is now written in the hearts, instead of being merely engraved on stone tablets. Israel always had great difficulty in keeping the law. Under the new covenant, this will happen naturally, because God will circumcise their hearts. Everyone will know the Lord and they will even teach others. Everything is much fuller and richer under the new covenant than under the old covenant. Ezekiel adds that the Messiah, God’s servant David will be king over the people. The people will live again in the land of their fathers and “David my servant shall be their prince forever” (Ezekiel 37:25). When was all this fulfilled?
The covenant in the New Testament
The preceding query has a clear response from the author of Hebrews: Jesus Christ is the new covenant’s Mediator and the promised Son of David. The Old Testament promises are realized in Him. In several ways, other apostles also write that God has fulfilled His promise to Israel by sending His Son to earth.
For instance, he wrote, “To show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us,” at the opening of Luke’s Gospel. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David,” according to what he said through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old. This song extols God’s kindness and covenantal fidelity.
The one who had been promised to Abraham is now coming—the Messiah. Thus, the covenant between God and Israel was confirmed. God never wavers in his faithfulness. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross replaces the sacrificial service provided by the previous covenant. A spiritual dispensation replaces the previous one where external laws were significant. On the day of Pentecost (Acts 2), the Spirit was poured forth, fulfilling the prophecy found in Jeremiah 31. Additionally, Jesus establishes the Lord’s Supper as a new covenant symbol. In Luke 22:20, He refers to the cup as “the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.”
The blood that served as the foundation of the previous covenant alluded to the blood that Jesus shed in order to establish the new covenant between God and humanity. It is only conceivable for a covenant between the holy God and sinful man via Jesus, the covenant mediator! Another symbol of this new covenant is baptism. In this way, God fulfills His word.
Unfortunately, Israel made a mistake once more by dismissing their Messiah. They were not satisfied with Jesus. He didn’t appear to be a powerful monarch. They were unaware, nevertheless, that Jesus desired far more than just external authority. It was their hearts that Jesus desired. Being the physical offspring of Abraham is not sufficient, Jesus told them in a bold way. Children of the covenant enjoy many benefits, but they also bear a heavy burden of serving God with all of their hearts and setting a good example for the other countries. God brought the gospel to the Gentiles because the Jews refused to accept God’s Messiah.
This was also a promised extension of the covenant. Henceforth, believers from the Gentiles were included in the covenant. Paul writes of them, “you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:12-14). The separation between Israel and the Gentiles was removed by Christ. The vast majority of believers today are not Jews, but “Gentiles”, people from outside Israel. Through Christ, they are included in God’s covenant!
However, what has happened to God’s covenant with the Israelites? In the epistle to the Romans, Paul debates this issue. He is confident that God keeps His word and upholds the terms of the previous covenant: “So, I ask, has God rejected his people? Not at all! (Romans 11:1). After examining numerous predictions, Paul comes to the conclusion that the Jews’ lack of faith is just momentary. What’s left over will be preserved.
When the fullness of the Gentiles is reached, Israel will also come to repentance and be accepted back into the covenant: “Lest you be wise in your own sight, I do not want you to be unaware of this mystery, brothers: a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved, as it is written, The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob; and this will be my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” (Romans 11:25-27). Thus, we look forward together to a mighty future. The other believing nations now have the task of being an example to Israel as true covenant children, until that time arrives.
Conclusion
We have journeyed through the Bible together. We found that God’s relationship with mankind depends on the covenant. A relationship between two parties is called a covenant. The relationship between God and His people is the central theme of the Bible. There is inequality in this relationship. God is the source of the covenant. He is the one who always strikes first. God promises salvation as a means of committing Himself to the people. Then, it is expected of humans to practice obedience and faith. We saw that over history, the focus of God’s covenant grew more and more limited until it all came together in Jesus Christ, the mediator of the covenant.
But the covenant is extended to all peoples of the world by Jesus. Gentile believers now enjoy the same rights and obligations as Israeli believers. God desires for us to be a part of His covenant and offers us His salvation. As His children, we are therefore expected to obey Him and believe in the promise. The same retribution that threatened to befall Israel still looms if we prove to be disloyal children of the covenant (Hebrews 3:7–4:13). We are grateful that there is no reason to question God’s faithfulness to His covenant. The whole tale of the Bible attests to His unwavering kindness and love and desire to establish a covenant with people! He has made this possible by way of the Cross.
