Covenants

God’s Desired Partnership with Humanity

When Christians talk about having a personal relationship with God, they’re usually referring to having God as a friend, or a father, or even a teacher.

But the Bible also frequently talks about our relationship with God in terms of a partnership. A partnership involves working alongside someone to accomplish a goal together, and we see this partnership in the beginning of the Bible. God creates a good world, full of potential and appoints humans as his partners in bringing about more and more goodness out of all that potential.

But the humans don’t want to partner with God. They rebel and try to create a world on their own terms (see Genesis 3). This broken partnership is the Bible’s explanation for why we’re stuck in a world of corruption, injustice, and the tragedy of death.

And it’s not like one or two humans bail on this relationship. In the story of the Bible, everyone abandons the partnership with God. So God selects a small group of people and makes a new partnership with them, called a covenant. 

In a covenant, God makes promises, and then in exchange, asks his partner to fulfill certain commitments. His purpose is to use this covenant relationship to renew his partnership with everyone else.

God initiates a covenant at four different points in the Old Testament: with Noah,, Abraham, the nation of Israel, and King David. Through these partnerships, God is forming a covenant family into which all people will eventually be invited.

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The Four Old Testament Covenants

Covenant with Noah

. In this story, God uses a flood to cleanse the world of humanity’s corruption, and Noah and his family are the only ones left (see Genesis 6-9). So God makes a covenant with Noah saying, “Listen, I know that humans will continue to be evil, but despite that, I’m not going to destroy it like this again. Instead the earth will be a reliable place for us to work together.” And Noah doesn’t have to do anything! In this first covenant, God is promising to be faithful, even though he knows humans will fail.

Covenant with Abraham

(see Genesis 18:17-19). And God’s whole reason for this covenant is to somehow bring his

Covenant with Israel

Eventually Abraham’s family grows into the tribe of Israel, and so God makes a covenant with the whole tribe. He asks Israel to obey a set of laws, or guidelines for living well as a community of God’s partners. And if they do this, God promises to bless them so they become a people who represent him to the rest of humanity.

Covenant with David

When the tribe of Israel becomes a large nation, ruled by David, God asks David and his descendants to partner with him in this last covenant. If they obey the laws and do what is right and just, God promises that one of David’s sons will come and extend God’s kingdom of peace and blessing over all nations.

Israel Breaks the Covenant

So God makes four covenants in order to restore his partnership with the whole world. But Israel breaks the covenant. They worship other gods and allow horrible injustice. And as a result, they lose their land and are forced into exile.

During this seemingly hopeless time, Israel’s prophets speak about a day when God will restore his covenant in spite of Israel’s failure. This is called the new covenant.

Jesus Fulfills the Covenants

Finally, Jesus is introduced into the story as the one who fulfills all of these covenant relationships. We are told that he’s from the family of Abraham, and so he will bring the blessings of that family to the whole world. We are told that he’s the faithful Israelite who is able to truly obey the law. And we’re told that he’s the king from the line of David who extends God’s Kingdom of justice and peace to all.

But perhaps the most surprising claim of all is that Jesus is no mere human. Rather, God has become human in order to be the faithful covenant partner that we were created, but failed, to be. And through Jesus, God opens a way for anyone to be in a renewed partnership with him.

So Jesus calls people to follow him and become part of his new covenant family. And despite their failures, Jesus is committed to making them into partners who are becoming more and more faithful.

The story of the Bible ends with a vision of a fully renewed world full of goodness and peace. There we will find a renewed humanity, partnering together with God to expand the goodness of his creation. Therefore, the end of the Bible’s story is really a new beginning.