Covenant

God binds himself

The Old Testament word, berit (בְּרִית), means a solemn bond between two parties. A covenant has parties, promises and obligations, and often an oath and a visible sign. What is astonishing is that God binds himself first. To Abraham he promised:

I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.

Genesis 17:7

That promise is the heart of every covenant. On this verse Wesley writes, "What God is himself, that he will be to his people" Wesley. God owed us nothing, yet he made promises and keeps them. The Westminster Confession puts it this way:

The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

Westminster Confession 7.1

The New Testament word, diathēkē (διαθήκη), can also mean a will or testament, so Hebrews compares Christ's death to the death of a testator (Hebrews 9:15-17). The names Old and New Testament mean the old and the new covenant.

The covenants of Scripture

The story of the Bible moves through covenants. After the flood God promised Noah and every living creature, "Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood" (Genesis 9:11), and gave the rainbow as its sign. To Abraham he promised land, offspring and blessing, with circumcision as the sign. At Sinai he told the people he had rescued, "if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant" (Exodus 19:5), and Moses sprinkled "the blood of the covenant" (Exodus 24:8). To David he promised that "your throne will be established forever" (2 Samuel 7:16).

When Israel broke the covenant again and again, God promised through Jeremiah a new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31), and at the Last Supper Jesus said, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20). Paul says the covenants belong to Israel (Romans 9:4), and that Gentiles who were once "strangers to the covenants of the promise" (Ephesians 2:12) now share the promise in Christ. Some covenants stress God's promise, others the people's obedience; all begin in grace and call for a faithful response.

Where the traditions differ

All Christians confess the old and new covenants and the covenant made in Christ's blood. They differ over how the covenants fit together. Reformed covenant theology distinguishes a covenant of works before the fall from one covenant of grace after it, and reads the biblical covenants as that one covenant administered differently in different ages. Dispensationalism sees God governing history through distinct dispensations and distinguishes Israel from the church. Baptist covenant theologians and new covenant theology stress that the new covenant is new in substance, not only in form.

The Catholic and Orthodox churches confess the church as the people of the new covenant and the Eucharist as its sacrament. The Catholic Church teaches that the old covenant has never been revoked Catechism of the Catholic Church. Every tradition agrees that the God of the covenant is faithful, and that "all the promises of God are “Yes” in Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:20). See the lessons Law and covenant and The covenant of works and the covenant of grace.