The Everlasting Covenant

Ezekiel 16

Ezekiel 16:59–63 ESV

“For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, you who have despised the oath in breaking the covenant, yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish for you an everlasting covenant. Then you will remember your ways and be ashamed when you take your sisters, both your elder and your younger, and I give them to you as daughters, but not on account of the covenant with you. I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the Lord, that you may remember and be confounded, and never open your mouth again because of your shame, when I atone for you for all that you have done, declares the Lord God.”

The book of Ezekiel is one that hits you hard. The people have messed up and they really should not have. God is going to deal with their disobedience but even through this he will not forget his covenant. What a covenant is, is an agreement. We might think of it more like a contract today. The only difference is that we sometimes try to get out of a contract but the one who has all of the power to get out of the contract in this passage doesn’t, he remembers it.

God remembering his covenant here even though the people has tossed it to the side is an act of his grace. Grace is something that we get and do not deserve. God is showing his grace right here because the people do not deserve for him to show grace yet he still does.

This grace points us straight towards the cross where the everlasting covenant was made. The ultimate display of Grace was Jesus dying on the cross and it is plain to see that this wasn’t some new grace but rather it was grace that God showed time after time all leading up to this ultimate display. It is by grace that we are saved through faith and this is not of our own doing so that no one may boast.

even through the Old Testament we see that God is gracious.