All of us will experience the pain of broken promises at some point in our lives. Whether it is disappointment and hurt when a trusted friend betrays our confidence or the devastation of adultery in a marriage, we know what it is like to have promises broken. In fact much of our lives are characterised by broken promises, from the empty words of politicians to the lies we often read and hear in the media. These days, being true to one’s word is a rare quality.
God does not lie. Thus he is always true to his word.
In the midst of this myriad of broken promises we face in this sinful world, God is the only One who truly and perfectly keeps his promises, all of the time. Because he is infinitely good, he is faithful and true to all his promises. In fact, the Hebrew word ’êmêt, which is often translated as “faithfulness” in the Old Testament, also means “truth.” Faithfulness and truth are therefore inextricably connected. God’s promises are true, because he is faithful. God does not lie. Thus he is always true to his word.
God Will Be True to His Covenant Promises
God is not only faithful and true in an abstract sense, but he is faithful and true to us as his own people. How is this so? God expresses his faithfulness to us through covenants that he makes with his people. What then do we mean by “covenant”? And why are covenants relevant?
In the covenants in the Bible, God makes unbreakable promises to be faithful to his people.
Simply put, a covenant is a promise with obligations. God’s covenants with us contain the nature of his promise to be our God and we his own people. In the covenants in the Bible, God makes unbreakable promises to be faithful to his people. His people are to respond to his promises through covenantal obligations. From God’s covenants with Adam to Noah, Abraham to Moses, and David in the Old Testament, through to the New Covenant in Jesus Christ, we see God’s faithfulness expressed.
What relevance then do these covenants have in our lives?
Our Relationship with God is Covenantal
Firstly, they show us that our relationship with God is covenantal. Covenants are the way in which God relates to his people.
Our relationship with God is founded on terms set by him, not us.
Our relationship with God is not something that happens in isolation. Describing our relationship with God as our “personal relationship with Jesus” while not untrue, misses the covenantal dimension of our relationship with God. We do not have an unmediated, unregulated, free-for-all relationship with God. Our relationship with God is founded on terms set by him, not us.
This is why understanding the nature of God’s covenants with us is so important. It helps us better understand our relationship with God: how he has chosen to relate to us; and how we ought to respond in that relationship. Surely this should be one of the most important things to want to do as a Christian?
The Bible is a Covenant Story
Secondly, covenants help us understand what the Bible is really about.
To really understand what the Bible is about, we need to understand how God’s covenants work.
It is easy to lose sight of the bigger picture when reading the Bible. We often read portions of scripture in isolation of the grander scheme of things. This can cause us to potentially miss the point of certain passages and misinterpret the Bible. The reality is that the Bible is structured around covenants. Covenants hold scripture together. God has consistently dealt with his people throughout history through covenants. Therefore to really understand what the Bible is about, we need to understand how God’s covenants work.
From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is about Jesus Christ and his gospel (Luke 24:44-47). It is this that lies at the heart of the covenants in Scripture: who our God is, and how he has saved a people for himself in Christ. Though Adam broke the first covenant, a Covenant of Works, that God made with him in the Garden of Eden, God did not forsake his people.
God was faithful to the promise he made in Genesis 3:15, where he established a second covenant, a Covenant of Grace, to send a seed, a descendant of Eve to crush the head of the serpent, break the curse, and destroy the power of sin. God gradually fulfils this promise through his subsequent covenants with Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. Each points increasingly to this promised champion, the Messiah, a divine king who would come and bring the promise to fulfilment.
The Covenants Centre on Christ
Though we are also covenant-breakers like Adam, we receive these covenant blessings as a gift.
In the fullness of time, God’s promise is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, the promised seed of the woman. By his perfectly righteous life and atoning death on the cross, he crushed the serpent, Satan, undoing the curse and breaking the power of sin. Though Adam broke the covenant, Christ, the last Adam, perfectly obeyed the covenant. In this new covenant, the fulfilment of the Covenant of Grace, God, through his Son Jesus Christ, rescues us from slavery to sin, delivering us from judgement that we deserved, forgiving us our sins and raising us up into everlasting life with him.
Though we are also covenant-breakers like Adam, we receive these covenant blessings as a gift of grace by trusting in Christ, our perfect covenant keeping God.
Covenant Theology Stirs Our Faith
Christ is the One in whom all God’s covenant promises find their ‘yes and amen.’
Ultimately, through understanding the covenants in the Bible, we see that God fulfils his promise to save a sinful people for himself, to forgive our sins and reconcile us to him through Christ. Christ is the One in whom all God’s covenant promises find their “yes and amen” (2 Corinthians 1:20). Through Christ, the only perfect covenant-keeper, God shows himself to be the One who is faithful, good, loving, holy and entirely trustworthy. He has covenanted to never break his promises to us, that we will be his people and he our faithful God forever.
