A Study Of Covenant, Part 4 - The New Covenant - Part 1

It has been centuries since Moses received the covenant on Mount Sinai, centuries since the Israelites said that they would obey God. But they hadn’t, and now they were reaping the curses that they were warned about; the consequences of breaking the covenant they had sworn to keep. They promised to obey God’s commandments, but they didn’t - they couldn’t - because no matter how hard they tried they couldn’t overcome one thing – they were sinners. They, like each of us, had a nature that cannot be controlled by desire or by will power. God knew this, He knew it when he made the covenant at Sinai, He knew it before the foundation of the world, and He had a solution.

God was about to reveal something so amazing that words can hardly describe it; God was going to make a new covenant with His people, and this covenant would be the fulfillment of all of the previous covenants; the hope mankind had been waiting for.

In the Book of Jeremiah we get the first glimpse of what was to come. In chapter 31 of Jeremiah we read the following:

“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, 32 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. 33 But 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. 34 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

Here we have the first promise of a new covenant; a covenant that is not based on external laws, but a covenant where God will write His law on our hearts. The Israelites failed to keep the covenant that God made with them at Sinai because it didn’t address the problem of sin; they could try with all of their might to keep the law, but without a change of heart they would never succeed.

Warren Wiersbe puts it this way:

Any plan for the betterment of human society that ignores the sin problem is destined to failure. It isn’t enough to change the environment, for the heart of every problem is the problem of the heart. God must change the hearts of people so that they want to love Him and do His will. That’s why He announced a New Covenant to replace the Old Covenant under which the Jews had lived since the days of Moses, a covenant that could direct their conduct but not change their character. 1

Ezekiel, a contemporary of Jeremiah, also prophesied the coming of the New Covenant.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. 28 You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

Ezekiel 36:25-28

According to these verses, and the verses we just read in Jeremiah, God is going to make a New Covenant. In this covenant He will remove our hard heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. In this covenant He will place His Spirit within us and give us the power to obey Him. In this covenant He will be our God and we will be His people. But when will this take place?

To answer this question lets look at the Gospel of Luke:

And when the hour came, he reclined at table, and the apostles with him. 15 And he said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. 16 For I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he said, “Take this, and divide it among yourselves. 18 For I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 20 And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

Luke 22:14-20

Looking back at our earlier discussions where we defined covenant and then looked at some of he parts of the covenant ceremony you should be starting to see this passage in different light. First of all note that this took place at Passover; to see the significance of this we need to go back to the time of the exodus and look at the first Passover, which we find in Exodus chapter 12.

In this chapter we can see that the coming New Covenant was not an after-thought for God; the coming crucifixion of the Messiah, the Seed of Abraham, is foreshadowed here in the Passover Lamb. The first thing we see here is God told Moses to have each family select a lamb, one per household. This lamb was to be without blemish and it was to be killed and eaten and the blood was to be put on the doorposts of the house in which the lamb was eaten. On the night that all of this took place God would go throughout the land and strike dead every firstborn male of any house where the blood had not been applied.

Now with this picture in mind let’s go back and look again at the verses above from Luke. The first thing that I want you to see here is that this was the fulfillment of the Passover (verse 16). John MacArthur says:

Christ’s death on the following day fulfilled the symbolism of the Passover meal. Passover was both a memorial of deliverance from Egypt, and a prophetic type of the sacrifice of Christ.2

But what we have here is more than just Jesus and His disciples sharing a Passover meal; they are sharing a covenant meal. Notice in verse 20, “ This cup is the new covenant established by My blood; it is shed for you.” Pay attention here, this is important, Jesus just said He was establishing a new covenant with them, a covenant cut in His own blood!

But why did we need a new covenant? To understand this we need to go next to the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews chapters eight and nine we see the reason for the new covenant; let’s begin in chapter eight verse six:

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

Hebrews 8:6

In this verse we learn that the new covenant is a better covenant because it was enacted on better promises. What are the “better promises” that this new covenant is enacted upon? The promises that were made back in Jeremiah 31: 31-34 (and that are repeated here is Hebrews 8:8-12), these are: the promise of God’s Grace, the promise of an internal change, and the promise of the forgiveness of sin. Let’s look at each of these in a little more detail.

The Promise of God’s Grace:

Under the Old Covenant the blessings promised were conditioned upon the obedience of those under that covenant. In Exodus 24:3 the Israelites said, “All the words the Lord has spoken we will do!” But they didn’t obey, and as a result they inherited the curses of the covenant. Under this new covenant the blessings are no longer dependent upon man’s obedience; notice in the Jeremiah passage God says six times “I will”: “the covenant I will make”, “I will put my law within them”, “on their heart I will write it”, “I will be their God”, “I will forgive their iniquity”, “I will remember their sin no more.” Each of these statements show the grace of God; His unmerited favor on us, and it is based not an anything we did, or can do, but it is based on His covenant with us.

Warren Wiersbe writes:

The New Covenant is wholly of God’s grace; no sinner can become a part of this New Covenant without faith in Jesus Christ. Grace and faith go together just as the Law and works go together (Rom. 11:6). The Law says, “The man that doeth them [the things written in the Law] shall live in them” (Gal. 3:12). But grace says, “The work is done—believe and live!3

The Promise of an Internal Change:

Under the old covenant the law was written on tablets of stone; under the new covenant God says that He will write His law on our hearts. The problem with the old covenant was this while it declared God’s holy standard it did not give us the power necessary to carry it out; it could tell us what we needed to do, but it could not enable us to do it.

I see this promise as two fold: first it is the promise of a new nature, and second it is the promise of the indwelling of God’s Spirit within us. By our very nature we are sinful and we cannot please God or obey Him; we just don’t have the ability. No matter how hard we try to keep His law we just can’t seem to do it, we continually fall short (Romans 3:23). So God, with His new covenant gives us a new nature, a divine nature, so that not only will we want to obey Him, now we actually can.

The second part of this promise that I see is His indwelling Holy Spirit. We don’t see this from the Jeremiah passage, but from the parallel passage in Ezekiel where God says, “I will place My Spirit within you…” Under the old covenant God’s Spirit may abide for a short time with a person, but His Spirit never indwelt them. His promise here is that He will put His Spirit within us and cause us to follow and obey Him. The apostle Paul calls this a down payment on our inheritance when he says:

In Him, you also, after listening to  the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were  sealed in Him with  the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of  our inheritance, with a view to the  redemption of  God’s own possession,  to the praise of His glory.

Ephesians 1:13-14 (NASB)

Now, with a new nature, and the Holy Spirit living within us we have an ability that we never had before, the ability to live a godly life. This was not possible under the law, because that was never the purpose of the law (more on this later).

The Promise of the Forgiveness of Sin:

Under the new covenant God promises to forgive our sins; He says, “For I will forgive their wrongdoing and never again remember their sin.” This was not possible under the law, because the Bible teaches us “by the works of the law will no flesh be justified.”4 According to R.C. Stedman:

This is, perhaps, the most difficult aspect for us to believe, for it forces us to do two difficult things: recognize that we do wicked things, and believe that God has already made ample provision to set aside that wickedness and continue treating us as his beloved children. Any sin called to our attention by our conscience needs only to be acknowledged to be set aside. Provision for God to do so justly rests on the death of Christ on our behalf, not on our sense of regret or our promise to do better.5

Here God not only promises to forgive our sins, He says that He will not remember them any more. This does not mean that God forgets them, because God cannot forget anything; if God forgot something He would cease to be God. What this is telling us is that God will no longer hold our sin against us. Warren Wiersbe says it this way:

God recalls what we have done, but He does not hold it against us. He deals with us on the basis of grace and mercy, not law and merit. Once sin has been forgiven, it is never brought before us again. The matter is settled eternally.6

Why does He do this you ask? Dr. Wiersbe goes on to say:

[This] is possible because of the cross, for there God treated His Son as though He had done it! 7

So here we see that the new covenant is based on better promises. We also see (in verse 13 of chapter 8) that the old covenant has become obsolete.

When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete.

Hebrews 8:13a (NASB)

The letter to the Hebrews was written at a time when the temple was still standing and the priests were still offering sacrifices prescribed by the covenant that was established with Moses. But the writer here is telling these young Jewish Christians that not only is there a new and better covenant, but the old covenant that has been followed for centuries is now obsolete. The Greek word translated “new” here is the word kainos which means new in quality, not new in time; in other words this new covenant is of such quality that it will never need to be replaced. So what we see here is that the old covenant has been replaced by a new and better covenant that will never grow old and never need replacing.

Moving then into chapter nine of Hebrews we see the author making an argument for the superiority of the new covenant to the old. He begins in verses 1-10 by reminding them (and us) of the regulations set up for worship under the old covenant. He talks about the tabernacle and the utensils used in worship and then he concludes by talking about the ministry of the high priest and how he was only able to enter the inner part of the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, or Most Holy Place, once a year. In verse eight we are told that the way into the holy of holies had not yet been disclosed, but he says in verse eleven, when Jesus appeared as our Great High Priest, the High Priest of the new covenant, He entered the Holy Place not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood having obtained eternal redemption, the forgiveness of sin.

Under the old covenant the high priest was only able to enter the inner most part of the tabernacle, the place where God dwelled, once a year on the day of atonement. And then he was only able to enter with blood offered on behalf of himself, his family, and the people. What this passage is telling us is that the way to God was restricted under the old covenant, but look at what Hebrews 4:16 says

Since therefore it remains for some to enter it, and those who formerly received the good news failed to enter because of disobedience,

Hebrews 4:16

Why can we approach the throne of grace with boldness? According to Hebrews 10:19 it is because of the blood of Jesus. This passage goes on to say that He has inaugurated a way through the curtain into the Holy Place, the very presence of God. This passage continues:

let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

Hebrews 10:22-23

Our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience; just like the promise of Jeremiah 31:34, “their sins I will remember no more.” Under the new covenant we can come boldly to the throne of grace, into the Most Holy Place, because Jesus has paid the price once and for all with the sacrifice of His body. Our sins are forgiven and God will not bring them up again. He has made a covenant and it cannot be canceled; we, who have come into a relationship with Him through Jesus, have become His covenant partners, He has written His law on our hearts and has forgiven our sins.

Next time we will wrap up our study of Covenant by looking at the covenant symbolism we find in the establishment of the New Covenant.



1 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1995). Be decisive. An Old Testament study. (Je 31:31). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.
2 MacArthur, John. The MacArthur Study Bible. Ó1997 Word Publishing. Pg 1559. Luke 22:16
3 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible exposition commentary. "An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire 'BE' series"--Jkt. (Heb 8:6). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.
4 Romans 3:20
5 Stedman, R. C. (1992). Hebrews. The IVP New Testament commentary series (Heb 8:7). Downers Grove, Ill., U.S.A.: InterVarsity Press.
6 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible exposition commentary. "An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire 'BE' series"--Jkt. (Heb 8:6). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.
7 Wiersbe, W. W. (1996, c1989). The Bible exposition commentary. "An exposition of the New Testament comprising the entire 'BE' series"--Jkt. (Heb 8:6). Wheaton, Ill.: Victor Books.

A Study Of Covenant, Part 3 - The Abrahamic & Mosaic Covenants

These next two parts are where I want to spend the most time and go into the most detail in this series on Covenant, because this is where covenant becomes very important to us. In this part we are going to look at the covenants that God made with Abraham, and with Moses and the people of Israel, and then next time The New Covenant that Jesus made with the Church.

There are other covenants we could look at when we discuss salvation; covenants that directly relate, and covenants that allude, in types and shadows, to our salvation, and I encourage you to study these on your own. I have picked these three because they each directly play a part in our salvation, and by understanding these three covenants you will understand what it means to be in a covenant relationship with God.

1. The Abrahamic Covenant

Let me set the scene; Abram, the son of Terah lived in Ur of the Chaldeans with his father and his extended family. The family was moving from Ur to Canaan but when they came to Haran they settled there. When Abram was 75 years old God appeared to him in Haran and made him a promise (actually it was several promises)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And 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.”

Genesis 12:1-3

So Abram did what the Lord told him and he left his home and headed for the land God had promised him. In the next few chapters we are able to journey with Abram as he escapes a famine by going to Egypt, we see family problems arise as he separates with his nephew Lot, we see Lot get captured and Abram waging a war against several kings to get Lot back, and we see Abram receive a blessing from one of the most mysterious people in the Bible, Melchizedek. But what we don’t see in all this time is Abram and his wife Sarai having any children. This is a problem because as pointed out above, Abram was already 75 years old before any of this took place.

After Abram and Lot separated in chapter 13 God once again appeared to Abram and said:

“Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land that you see I will give to you and to your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you.”

Genesis 13:14-17

Here we see God reemphasizing His earlier promise to Abram. From here we go into the war with the kings that was mentioned above which culminates at the end of chapter 14 with Abram receiving a blessing from the king and priest of Jerusalem, Melchizedek. At this time Abram refused to accept any reward from the king of Sodom because he didn’t want him to be able to say that he made Abram rich; he was still relying on the promise that God had made to him.

Then in chapter 15 God once again appears to Abram and tells him in verse 1, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield; your reward will be very great.” (Genesis 15:1) And Abram asks God in verse 2 how any of this can come to pass since he is childless. Then Abram comes up with a solution to help God out; Abram says since I don’t have any offspring of my own I can name an heir from among those born in my house. I have a servant that fits this bill; his name is Eliezer of Damascus and he can be my heir.

Look at how God replies to Abram:

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: “This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.” And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness. And he said to him, “I am the Lord who brought you out from Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to possess.”

Genesis 15:4-7

Please note that this is where Abram received salvation; this is where he believed God, believed the promise, and it was credited to him as righteousness. The word translated here “credited” is the Hebrew word Hoseb, and it is an accounting term which means to put on the credit side of the ledger.

So, Abram believed God and took Him at his word, but he still had questions. In verse 8 Abram asks how will I know that I will possess this land? And god says:

“Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.”

Genesis 15:9

Why did God tell Abram to do this? He was going to make a covenant with him, a solemn binding agreement.

Abram did as he was told. He brought the animals that God requested, and he split them down the middle and laid the pieces out opposite each other. Then we see beginning in verse 13:

Then the Lord said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

Genesis 15:13-21

There are a few important things to point out here: First please note that Abram did not pass between the animals, only God did; God was assuming the full weight and responsibility of the covenant He was making with Abram. Second I think in this passage we can see a picture of the Trinity; we see God the Father represented by the smoking fire pot, and we see the Holy Spirit represented by the flaming torch, and I think Jesus was represented here by the animals that were slain. Third we see that the covenant promised Abram both offspring and a land.

In chapter 16 we see Sarai get into the act as she is now trying to help God out with keeping his promise. In this chapter we see Sarai give Abram her maid Hagar thinking that if Abram and Hagar had a child it would be the offspring that God had promised and everything would be good. We know now that things didn’t work out as she had planned, and she ended up blaming Abram for the problems this caused.

Then in chapter 17 God again appears to Abram and instituted the covenant that He had cut with Abram back in chapter 15. God restates the terms of the covenant by telling Abram that he would be the father of many nations. God then changed his name from Abram to Abraham, and changed Sarai’s name to Sarah. Many Hebrew scholars believe that what God did here was insert part of His own name into Abram and Sarai’s names.

God also instituted a sign of the covenant, the sign of circumcision. He said, “Every one of your males must be circumcised. You must circumcise the flesh of your foreskin to serve as a sign of the covenant between Me and you. “ (Genesis 17:10-11). Why circumcision you ask; remember early on in this discussion we noted that as part of the covenant ritual some from of scar was used as a sign to remember that you had a covenant partner? Well, that is what circumcision is; the scar that reminds of the covenant. And I hear you say, “OK I get the scar thing, but I still don’t understand why circumcision.” I think Kay Arthur has the best explanation I have ever read; in her book on covenant she says:

Because, beloved, the cut is at the closest site of paternity—and it is for Abraham’s descendents! The seed is from the man. It comes from where the covenant will be made. It is a covenant with Abraham and his seed.1

In this chapter we also see Abraham laughing because he is now 99 years old and Sarah is 89, and the thought of two people as old as they are having a baby is funny. Again Abraham has a solution to help God out; he says to God, “If only Ishmael could live before You.” In other words, “why don’t you just establish your covenant through Ishmael?” But God said, “No, not through Ishmael. You will bear a son with Sarah, your wife, and you will call his name Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him and with his offspring.” One year later, when Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was 90 Isaac was born. God had kept His promise, because His promise was based on covenant.

We will come back to this covenant later in our discussion, but for now just remember that God made a covenant with Abram and that covenant promised a seed and a land.

Now let’s move on to the next covenant we want to look at; the covenant made at Mount Sinai; the covenant of the law.

2. The Sinai Covenant

It is now several years after God made the covenant with Abraham. Abraham’s descendents have been enslaved for 400 years just as God had prophesied to Abram on the day He cut covenant with him. They have been released from captivity and are now camped at the base of Mount Sinai where God is about to make a second covenant with the children of Israel.

Will this covenant invalidate or replace the covenant God made with Abraham? No, that was an everlasting covenant that cannot be altered and cannot be replaced. So why make another covenant? The answer to that is found in the New Testament book a Galatians, which we will look at in detail later on, but right now let’s just look at this details of this covenant and see what we can learn.

First of all, as the name implies, this covenant was made with Moses on Mt. Sinai. We can see this in Exodus 34. We will not look at the whole chapter here, but I do want to look at a few verses from this chapter. In verses one through nine we see God telling Moses to cut two stone tablets and to bring them up the mountain where he is to meet with God. While he is on the mountain God came down in a cloud and stood there with him. These verses tell us that Moses spent 40 days on this mountain, and that while he was there he didn’t eat of drink anything. But why was he there? We get the answer in verse 10:

And he said, “Behold, I am making a covenant. Before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been created in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord, for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.

Exodus 34:10

God was making a covenant with the people, with His people, Israel.

In verses 11 through the end of the chapter God give Moses instruction for the Israelites to follow. Then look at what He says in verse 27:

And the Lord said to Moses, “Write these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.”

Exodus 34:27

And what did Moses write down? Look at verse 28:

And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.

Exodus 34:28b

The covenant God mad with Moses and the children of Israel was what we know as the Ten Commandments. As we have already seen, in a covenant there are duties imposed and blessings and consequences for either keeping or breaking the covenant. Do we have these here?

In verse eleven God tells Moses that if they obey He will drive out the nations that inhabit the land that they are about to inherit, but if they disobey there will be consequences. We also saw that when a covenant is made between a superior and inferior the inferior has the responsibility to either accept or reject the terms of the covenant. Did they accept the terms of the covenant? For the answer to this let’s look at Deuteronomy chapter five.

Deuteronomy is the last book of the Torah, the five books of Moses. In this book Moses is restating the terms of the covenant that God made on Mount Sinai with those who came out of Egypt. It has been forty years since the exodus and he is talking to the generation that is about to enter the Promised Land to possess it. In chapter five he says:

“Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord. For you were afraid because of the fire, and you did not go up into the mountain."

Deuteronomy 5:1-5

Then he proceeds to restate the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy 5:6-21. In Deuteronomy 5:22-33 the Israelites tell Moses that they are afraid that they will die if they hear God speaking to them, so they tell Moses to go listen to what God has to say and then report it to them, and whatever it is they will obey. The whole rest of the book of Deuteronomy is a restating of the terms of the covenant, the blessings for keeping it, and the curses for not keeping it.

Look now at Deuteronomy 26:16-19 for a summary of the covenant:

“This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.”

Deuteronomy 26:16-19

Remember back to the beginning of this study I said that part of the covenant ceremony was to set up a memorial to be a testament to the covenant. Look now at Deuteronomy 27:1-8

Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today. And on the day you cross over the Jordan to the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall set up large stones and plaster them with plaster. And you shall write on them all the words of this law, when you cross over to enter the land that the Lord your God is giving you, a land flowing with milk and honey, as the Lord, the God of your fathers, has promised you. And when you have crossed over the Jordan, you shall set up these stones, concerning which I command you today, on Mount Ebal, and you shall plaster them with plaster. And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God, and you shall sacrifice peace offerings and shall eat there, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God. And you shall write on the stones all the words of this law very plainly.”

Deuteronomy 27:1-8

The people have been commanded to create a memorial so that they would remember the terms of the covenant. Moses tells them in chapter 30 that this is not too difficult for them to do; all they have to do is obey. They have a choice to make, life and prosperity or death and adversity. If they obey, God promises them every blessing, but if they disobey they will be driven out of the land that He gave them.

Moses dies at the end of Deuteronomy and Joshua becomes the new leader of the nation. In the book of Joshua we see the Israelites enter the land just as God had promised. At the end of the book of Joshua, as he is about to die, the nation is again addressed and reminded of the terms of the covenant. In chapter 24 Joshua gives us a condensed version of the history of Israel followed by this exchange:

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good.” And the people said to Joshua, “No, but we will serve the Lord.” Then Joshua said to the people, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord, to serve him.” And they said, “We are witnesses.”

Joshua 24:14-22

The rest of the Old Testament chronicles the history of the nation of Israel as they turn from God and are exiled from the land, return to God and come back to the land, and repeat the process again and again, just as God stated in the terms of the covenant. But this is not the end of the story, there is still another covenant, a New Covenant, a covenant that does what we could not do on our own, empower us to obey; we will look at this covenant next time.



1 Arthur, Kay: Our Covenant God: Learning to Trust Him. Colorado Springs CO.: WaterBrook Press, c1993. Pg. 233

A Study Of Covenant, Part 2 - A Look At Examples Of Covenant in the Bible

As we continue our study of what it means to be in a covenant relationship with God I want to look at two of the covenants we see in the Old Testament: The covenant between God and Noah, and the covenant between Jonathan and David. The principles we learn from these covenants will help us to more fully understand and appreciate what we will see when we study the covenant of our salvation - the New Covenant - in a few weeks.


A. God’s Covenant with Noah

The first use of the word covenant in the Bible occurs in Genesis 6:18. In this verse God tells Noah that He will establish His covenant with Him, and in order to do this He must first save Noah and his family from the coming judgment:

Then God said to Noah, “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Genesis 8:15-22

In these verses we see that after the flood was over God told Noah to come out of the ark, and the very first thing he did after leaving the ark was to build an alter and offer burnt offerings to God. The passage then tells us that when God smelled the pleasing aroma of the offering He said that He would never again curse the ground because of man, and would never again kill every living creature.

As we move then into chapter 9 we see God say to Noah:

And you, be fruitful and multiply, teem on the earth and multiply in it.”
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Genesis 9:7-11

In these verses God is setting the conditions for the covenant; Noah and his family are to be fruitful and multiply, and spread out over the whole earth. God said that He was establishing this covenant not only with Noah, but also with all of Noah’s descendents and with every living creature on earth. God cut a covenant with Noah and his descendants, which included you and me, stating that He would never again destroy the whole earth with a flood.

And remember from part 1 that as part of the process of cutting a covenant a memorial was set up? Look at verses 12-17

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

Genesis 9:12-17

There is a lot more we could go into here, but that is not the purpose of this lesson; what I want you to see here in this first mention of covenant in the Bible is that:

• God was the one who initiated the covenant
• God was the one who established the conditions of the covenant
• God was the one who took all of the responsibility in the covenant.

The only condition, or responsibility, that Noah had in this covenant was to be fruitful and multiply. And we still benefit from this covenant today.

B. Jonathan’s covenant with David

The next covenant that I want to look at is the covenant between Jonathan and David; we find this covenant in 1 Samuel 18. In verse 1 we see that Jonathan committed himself to David because he loved him as much as he loved himself. Then in verse 3 we see that Jonathan made a covenant with David:

Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt.

1 Samuel 18:3-4

We are not given the privilege of seeing the whole covenant ceremony here, but here is what we do get to see; Jonathan and David exchanged robes, weapons, and belts. Remember from part 1 the significance of this, as it will be important later on.

As we continue in 1 Samuel we learn that Saul (Jonathan’s father) begins to hate David and wants to kill him. He tries on several occasions but David is always able to escape. This goes on for the next two chapters, then in chapter 20 we pick up the story with David asking Jonathan what he did to anger Jonathan’s father and requesting that Jonathan help him in his escape from Saul. Jonathan tells David in verse 2 that Saul won’t do anything without first letting him know, so David has nothing to worry about. But David persists in his request and in verse 8 David reminds Jonathan about the covenant.

Therefore deal kindly with your servant, for you have brought your servant into a covenant of the Lord with you. But if there is guilt in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?”

1 Samuel 20:8

And Jonathan responds in verse 9.

And Jonathan said, “Far be it from you! If I knew that it was determined by my father that harm should come to you, would I not tell you?”

1 Samuel 20:9

Why? Because of the covenant David is now more important to Jonathan that his own family. Remember that as part of covenant the enemies of one party become the enemies of the other party - even when this includes family. The covenant relationship supersedes all other relationships.

As we continue the story Jonathan does what David asks of him and helps him to escape from Saul, and in the process Saul actually tries to kill Jonathan. So Jonathan and David part company and David flees to Nob, but before they separate Jonathan revisits the covenant and expands it to include their descendants.

And Jonathan made a covenant with the house of David, saying, “May the Lord take vengeance on David’s enemies.”

1 Samuel 20:16

Fast forward several years to 1 Samuel 31 and we see the death of Saul and his sons, including Jonathan. This happened in a battle with the Philistines, and after the deaths of Saul and Jonathan David is made king of Israel. After David becomes king a civil war breaks out between the house of David and those remaining of the house of Saul. This culminates with the death of Saul’s only remaining son Ishbosheth, but what I want you to see here is in verse 4 of 2 Samuel chapter 4.

Jonathan, the son of Saul, had a son who was crippled in his feet. He was five years old when the news about Saul and Jonathan came from Jezreel, and his nurse took him up and fled, and as she fled in her haste, he fell and became lame. And his name was Mephibosheth.

2 Samuel 4:4

This is important, and to fully appreciate the ramifications of covenant you must get this. Saul was king of Israel and he has just died. David became king and a civil war broke out that resulted in all of Saul’s descendents being killed – with the exception of one. There still remains a son of Jonathan named Mephibosheth that was crippled in both feet when his nurse dropped him trying to save him from the fate of the rest of Saul’s family. By all rights he has the legal claim the throne of Saul, but in fear for his life he is taken into hiding where he spends the next several years.

David , now king in Israel, has many victories over the next few chapters of 2 Samuel. Then in chapter 9 we again pick up the story of Mephibosheth. This is rather lengthy, but I think it is important that we read the whole passage.

And David said, “Is there still anyone left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of the house of Saul whose name was Ziba, and they called him to David. And the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” And he said, “I am your servant.” And the king said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.” The king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.” And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”

Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.” Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants. Then Ziba said to the king, “According to all that my lord the king commands his servant, so will your servant do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons. And Mephibosheth had a young son, whose name was Mica. And all who lived in Ziba’s house became Mephibosheth’s servants. So Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, for he ate always at the king’s table. Now he was lame in both his feet.

2 Samuel 9:1-13

I hear you asking, “Why is this so important?” Let’s look at it together and I will try to help you understand. As I have already said, Mephibosheth is the only remaining heir of Saul, and more importantly, he is Jonathan’s son. He has spent his entire life crippled and in hiding from the king. He has nothing to offer David, and when David inquires about the descendents of Saul and has Mephibosheth brought to him Mephibosheth is afraid for his life. And rightly so, as the only remaining heir of Saul’s household, and a cripple, I’m sure he thought he was about to be put to death.

But that is not what happened. Remember, David had a covenant with Jonathan; a covenant that Mephibosheth didn’t know anything about, but that covenant not only protected him, it actually became a blessing to him as he spent the rest of his life living in the king’s city and eating frequently at the kings table.

What a wonderful picture of covenant, and what a blessing to us when we realize that Mephibosheth is a picture of us, and our relationship, in covenant, with God!

A Study Of Covenant - Part 1

Over the next several weeks I am going to post a study that I wrote a few years ago on the topic of Covenant. This is one of the most fascinating topics you can study in the Bible, and it is also one that is often overlooked and misunderstood. It is my prayer that over the next few weeks you will get enough of an understanding of what it means to be in in a covenant relationship with God that you will dig deeper into the Scriptures on your own; I guarantee that when you truly understand and embrace this truth you will never be the same.

Kay Arthur, the first teacher I ever heard teach on this topic, said:

Once you understand and embrace the reality that God is a God of covenant, you will experience a peace, a strength, a security you have never known. The Word of God will take on a whole new dimension—delighting you with wonder as you explore the height, the depth, the breadth of what it means to be in covenant with God. The words lovingkindness and friend will take on new meaning and become so precious as you identify them as covenant terms.

She also said:

Once you grasp the full understanding of covenant—and note that I said full—and begin to understand the character and ways of our covenant God, you will find the answer, the cure for pain that threatens to overwhelm you. And as long as you cling to the truth, you'll find yourself soaking in the love, the peace, the confidence, and the joy that belong to those who live in the knowledge of the covenant that God cut on behalf of every man, every woman, every child—regardless of color, nationality, or station in life. All you need to do is enter into and abide in His covenant.

With an introduction like that you can see that this is going to be a wonderful study. The outline we will use as we work our way through this study is as follows:

I. Define Covenant
A. Hebrew words and meanings
B. Greek words and meanings

II. Look at some examples of covenants in the Bible
A. The Noahic Covenant
B. Covenant between Jonathan and David

III. Study in detail the three major covenants in the Bible

A. The Abrahamic Covenant
B. The Sinai Covenant
C. The New Covenant

As we begin our journey please keep in mind that there are over 300 references to covenants in the Bible and that we will not exhaust this topic in just a few short weeks. When we finish here I encourage you to look up the word covenant in your concordance and check out some of the references that we didn't have time to cover here together.

Let's get started.

I. Define Covenant

Merriam Webster defines a covenant as a:

[F]ormal, solemn, and binding agreement

Or

[A] written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance of some action.

Harper's Bible Dictionary says a covenant is:

[A] formal agreement or treaty between two parties with each assuming some obligation.

The Hebrew word that we translate covenant is the word Beriyth meaning treaty, alliance, or agreement. The word Beriyth is often preceded by the verb Karath, which means to cut.

When these two words are used together it expresses the idea of cutting a covenant. This is significant because according to Easton's Bible Dictionary karath beriyth makes:

[R]eference to the cutting or dividing of animals into two parts, and the contracting parties passing between them, in making a covenant.

So literally, the definition of karath beriyth is a compact made by passing between pieces of flesh.

The Greek word translated covenant in the New Testament is diatheke, which has the same meaning as berith. It should be noted that in the KJV this word is often translated as testament, but this word should actually be translated covenant the same as berith was translated in the Old Testament since they have the exact same meaning.

Karat Berith – To Cut Covenant

As stated above the Hebrew term Karat Berith means to cut covenant. To help you get a better understanding of this I though we should look at the process and examine what takes place in the cutting of a covenant before we move on and look at some examples of covenants in the Bible.

The way in which a covenant was cut in the Old Testament is this: animals were cut in half down the spine and the pieces were placed in a line side-by-side with a path down the middle. The parties involved would remove their robes and hand them to each other to put on. They would exchange weapons. They would give the other party their belt. Then in a figure-eight pattern they would walk between the pieces while reciting the terms of the covenant. They would then point to heaven, and to the animals, while swearing an oath "God, do so to me, if I break this covenant."

Next the covenant partners would take a knife and make a cut in their wrists, clasps hands, and let their blood mingle together. Then they would recite to each other everything that they owned and everything that they owed. They would then reach down and scoop up a hand full of dirt and rub it into the cut on their wrists. After all of this they would exchange new names and then sit down to a meal. Lastly they would set up a memorial, a pile of stones, a planted tree, a written contract… something that would be a testament to the agreement they had just made.

From this point on they were forever in covenant with each other; a covenant that could only be broken by death. There is a lot of rich symbolism in this ritual, symbolism that will become very important to us as we go along, so let's take a few minutes to look at a few of these:

The first thing we see is that after the animals were slain and cut in half the parties involved would exchange robes. By doing this they were symbolizing their new covenant identity with the other person. They were in essence saying "I am putting you on, and you are putting me on; we were once two, but now we are one."

Next we see them exchanging weapons. The symbolism here is that they were saying your enemies are now my enemies and my enemies are your enemies.

Then they would exchange belts. This was a symbol of strength and they were saying that from this point forward you do not have to rely on your own strength – you now have my strength and I yours.

Then dressed as the other person, with the other person's weapons in their hand and wearing their belt, they would walk between the animals symbolizing walking into death. They did this for two reasons: first they were showing that from this point forward they were no longer living for themselves; they were now living for their covenant partner; and secondly they were saying that if they ever break the covenant, they should have done to them what was done to these animals. And they call on God to carry it out by swearing an oath, "God, do so to me, if I break this covenant."

The cut wrist and mingled blood would once again show that they were no longer two persons; from this point on they were one. As stated above they would also rub dirt into the cut; they did this so it would scar, and then every time they saw their wrist from that time forward they would remember that they have a covenant partner.

Next they would exchange new names, which symbolized a new identity - an identity based on the covenant. Then they would share a meal, a covenant meal, where they would each take a piece of bread, break it, and place it in their covenant partner's mouth. While doing this they would each say, "you are eating me, and I you."

There is one more thing we need to talk about here before we move on. A covenant is not always entered into by persons who are equals. So what happens when one of the covenant partners is the subordinate of the other? This is a very important question for us since what we are ultimately discussing here is the covenant that God made with mankind. Man is subordinate to God, we are not equals, so we need to understand how covenant works when one of the parties in inferior or subordinate to the other.

In a covenant where the involved parties are not equals the superior party lowers themselves to the level of the lower party and honors them by dealing with them on a more or less equal footing. The superior stipulates the demand of the covenant and the subordinate either accepts or rejects them. The lesser assumes the duties imposed upon him voluntarily and as a result inherits the blessings of the covenant (more on this later). The superior party is the one who assumes the full responsibility for the conditions of the covenant.

This then is a covenant; a solemn, binding agreement, a pledge cut in blood, a walk into death. And that is exactly what our relationship with God is based upon.

Next time we will look at Noahic Covenant and the Sinai Covenant.