The Signficance of Making Coveants with God

One way in which God displays His goodness and kindness to His people is through His covenants. When God makes a covenant, He sovereignly enters into a relationship with men that is a bond of life and death. When a covenant is entered by God, there is no bargaining from man's side, after all the sovereign Lord of the universes does not need to stoop down to man. A covenant is a bond in blood, that is once a covenant is entered, nothing less than the shedding of blood is necessary if a party fails to keep the covenant.

The entire history of mankind can be understood as a continuing covenant between God and man. Some believe God's first covenant was with Noah, to the contrary God's relationship with man prior to Noah can be termed covenantal. Even though the word “covenant” is not used prior to Noah we know creation is covenantal, as Jeremiah 33:20-26 asserts, as well as Hosea 6:7 telling us that Adam was in a covenant with God, but transgressed it. From creation through consummation, covenants have determined God's relationship to His people.

The primary covenants that God made were with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and the new covenant, as well as original creation and God's first bond with man after the fall also being a covenant. Is it proper to think of these covenants as separate? Does the successive covenant annual the former? Do the covenants relate to each other in any way? One of the necessary foundations in understanding the covenants of Scripture, is knowing the unified character of the covenants. Although particular details of the covenants vary, they are ultimately one covenant. Each successive covenant builds on the previous relationship, that is God does not wipe clean the slate and start completely...

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...ovenanting grace of God.

The last covenant termed the covenant of consummation brings together the various covenantal promises throughout history. Through this new covenant, all the promises of the covenants established earlier shall find consummate fulfillment. The heart of this covenant rest upon a single person, the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ represents the full restoration of God's blessings on the Land of promise. The law of God will now be internalized by the work of the Holy Spirit. There is an everlasting character to this covenant which implies an eschatological dimension. It is the last covenant, which brings the full fruition that which God intends in redemption. The form of the Old Covenants passes away, but the promises of this covenant are fulfilled in Christ. There is no need for the types, shadows, and ceremonies now that the actual in here.