Six Bible Covenants

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

To hear an audio of the Covenant lesson, click here. Covenants
The original blessing is that we are created and blessed as very good in God’s sight.
The original sin of rebellion is a rejection of God and God’s blessing.
Brokenness is the term that describes the fundamental disorder in creation that affects a person's relationships and creative activity.

 God will eventually restore creation to the original blessing. While we wait, God uses his faithful followers to transform the world. He uses covenants to keep the faithful on track.

 Covenants are pacts established by God to reconnect the people of God with the Creator.

 Let’s consider six great Bible covenants.

 1.    God's Covenant with Adam and Eve – Genesis 1-2

God created Adam and Eve to live in the garden and enjoy fellowship with God. They were given the boundary: do not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam and Eve’s responsibility was to be obedient. They were to live within the boundary.

The family form of this covenant was man and wife.

2.    God's Covenant with Noah - Genesis 6:5-9:17

The Lord singled out Noah from among all his contemporaries and chose him as the man to accomplish a great work.

When God saw the wickedness that prevailed in the world, he told Noah of his plan to destroy the world by a universal flood. God instructed Noah to build an ark in which he and his family would survive. This responsibility meant that Noah had to act. He had to do something! With confidence in God, Noah started building the ark. Noah continued to preach God's judgment and mercy but people continued in their evil ways and ignored his pleadings and warnings until the flood overtook them. Noah was grateful to the Lord who had delivered him from the flood. After the flood, he built an altar to God and made a sacrifice. God made a covenant promise to Noah when he promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood. As a sign of the covenant, he gave the beautiful rainbow.

The family form used in this covenant was the traditional family.

3.  God's Covenant with Abraham - Genesis 12

Years after the Flood, pride leads the people to rebel against God by constructing the tower of Babel. After having scattered them all over the world, God would eventually choose one man and one nation as the instrument of His blessing to the entire world. In his covenant with Abraham, God asked him to leave his home and family and go to an unnamed land. Abraham had a responsibility to be obedient to God. Like Noah, he had to “act.” God promised to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation and bless all of the nations through his lineage. From Abraham’s line came the 12 tribes of Israel.

The family form used in this covenant was the family tribe.

4.   God's Covenant with Moses - Exodus 6:1-9, 19:1-8, 24:1-8

In this covenant God gives his divine laws to Moses on Mount Sanai. Once again, we see how God uses people. At 80 years old and having traveled the desert for 3 months, Moses followed God and walked up the mountain in full obedience. The blessings that God promised in this covenant are directly related to Israel’s obedience to the Mosaic Law.  If Israel is obedient, then God will bless them, but if they disobey, then God will punish them.  God’s intention was to build a holy nation of people who obeyed his laws.

The family form of this covenant was a holy nation.

5.   God's Covenant with David  - 2 Samuel 7:1-7

After the people disobeyed the commands made in the previous covenant, God made a covenant with David as a means to bring them back into relationship with Himself. God makes an unconditional covenant to David and his descendants and promises that his house will rule over Israel forever. The promise that David’s “house,” “kingdom,” and “throne” will be established forever is significant because it shows that the Messiah will come from the lineage of David

The family form in this covenant is an eternal royal kingdom

6. The Covenant of Christ  - Luke 22:14-20

Jesus gathers his disciples for the Passover meal and tells of his upcoming sacrificial death that will usher in a new covenant. The "new covenant" is the new agreement God has made with mankind, based on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The new covenant accomplished what the old could not. It fulfills the old covenant. Christ death takes away our sin The shedding of his blood means that all animal sacrifice is obsolete.

The family form for this covenant is a universal worldwide Kingdom, or His Church

Notice how the family form progressed with each of God's six covenants - man and wife, family, tribe, nation, kingdom, universal worldwide kingdom.  What a beautiful image of the family is presented through the covenants. We see with each covenant God reveals more of himself until he is revealed fully in Jesus Christ. Even while man failed time after time, God has been true to each of his covenants.  

We too live in a covenant relationship with our Creator God. Our relationship with Jesus is based upon covenant. When we trust Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we began a relationship. At the time of our confession, repentance and trust in Jesus, we entered into a covenant. Our goal in our relationship with Christ is to become pleasing to God in every part of our lives. He wants to bless us and give us eternal life in him.