3.5 Covenants

Big question: How does God relate to us?

Since the creation of the world, God’s relationship to man has been defined by specific requirements and promises.

Covenant: an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship

Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Second Edition) A. The Covenant of Works

clear stipulation of the parties involved, statement of the conditions of the covenant, and a promise of blessing for obedience and punishment for disobedience

The difference between a covenant and agreement is that God has laid out the details and benefits of the covenant for us, and we are to accept or deny.

Example: the difference between a purchase/transaction versus a law (maybe?)

The Covenant of Works

We don’t see the word covenant in Genesis, but the arrangement is there: a clear definition of the parties involved, a legally binding set of provisions, and condition for obtaining those blessings.

Garden of Eden command one: Gen1:28-30

Genesis 1:28–30 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.

Garden of Eden command two: Gen2:16-17

Genesis 2:16–17 ESV

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

The promise of punishment for disobedience: death

Hosea 6:7 ESV

But like Adam they transgressed the covenant; there they dealt faithlessly with me.

Our relationship with God is not something normal between Creator and creature. God makes no covenants with any other part of creation except us.]

The issue for us with this covenant: we do not do the works perfectly in order to receive the promise God gives! We are doomed!

The Covenant of Grace

Man fails to obtain the blessing in the covenant of works.

Genesis 3 is the story of God working out in history the amazing plan of redemption whereby sinful people could come into fellowship with him.

In this covenant, God and man are the parties involved, but in this case Christ fulfills a role as mediator in which he fulfills the conditions for us and makes us right with God.

The requirement of participation in this covenant is faith in the work of Christ the redeemer.

To begin the covenant of grace starts with Christ’s work alone, but to continue it is faith and obedience to God’s commands.

In this new covenant, the beginning is baptism, while continuing it is participation in God’s work!