The Covenant God

Doctrine I

October 12, 2015

The Covenant God

a. What is a Covenant? Grudem defines it as "an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship" (515) Charles Spurgeon said that “All God's dealings with men have had a covenant character. It hath so pleased him to arrange it, that he will not deal with us except through a covenant, nor can we deal with him except in the same manner.” (212) If this is true about God, it is worth us studying, because in it we find what God has promised and requires of us.

b. God makes Covenants. There are two things to note about this. 1. GOD is the one who makes the covenants. We are not ones to order to do God what we want. He is the absolute ruler over all things. As Grudem says, they are divinely imposed; our accepting the terms of the covenant or rejecting them does not change the fact that they are still there (515). “The New Testament authors...chose a...word..which emphasized that the provisions of the covenant were laid down by one of the parties only.” (Grudem, 515) God laid down the terms. We must choose to either accept or reject them. 2. God MAKES covenants. Wow! God cares about us enough to reveal Himself to us, to tell us what He requires of us, to make His ways known. “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" (Matthew 11:27). "God has revealed (things) to us through the Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:10). In this paper, I will focus on three things that God has showed me about Himself through His Covenants.

I. His Holiness

God cares about holiness. So much so that He wants us to follow His example in the way that we order our lives. He blesses those things that remind Him of Himself. The first area that this shows itself is in Genesis. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them"(Genesis 1:27-8). He blessed man, just because man was made in His image. "God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation"(2:3). He blesses a day of rest, just because that is what He did. Then, in Genesis 2:16-17, God makes what is called by many theologians “The Covenant of Works.” God says that Adam does not have permission to eat the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. If Adam disobeyed, he would die. He disobeyed God, and he died. God sent Adam out of the Garden of Eden, cursed the ground, and made work hard; because Adam had transgressed God's covenant. In Exodus, the night before the Israelites left Egypt, they killed a lamb and put its blood on their doorposts. Why? God was coming to kill all the first born males in Egypt. But, He made a covenant that if He saw the blood on the doorpost, He would pass that house. (Exodus 12:13). Later on in the Bible, once God had set some rules in His covenant for worship; one of them being, “You shall not offer unauthorized incense” (Exodus 30:9), we find the story of Nadab and Abihu. In Leviticus, it says that they “each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, which he had not commanded them” (Lev. 10:1). God killed them with fire because of what they had done. God is Holy. We can only come to Him in ways that are approved by Him. “God's holiness means that He is separated from sin, and devoted to seeking His own honor”(Grudem 202) But, if “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” (Rom 3:23) that means that God is separate from us, and we from him. So, Do we have any Hope? Yes, we do, but only because of God.

II. His Grace in His Covenant of Redemption Sometime, before time, before man, God knew that we would sin against Him. That we, because of His Holiness, would necessarily be separated from Him. So, He made an agreement, a covenant. "[It was] made before the foundation of the world between God the Father, and God the Son; or to put it in a more spiritual light, it was made mutually between the three divine persons of the adorable Trinity” [Spurgeon, 215]. The goal was to save a chosen people. God had "a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him (Christ)" (Eph 1:10) That they, the chosen ones, would obtain an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Himself, who would work all things according to the counsel of his will (Eph. 1:11). "[The] work of God's Son was for the purpose of saving us from guilt, the penalty, the power, and ultimately the presence of sin" (Thiessen 201) This truth is so stunning, because God do not need to do this. There is absolutely no reason for him to take care of us like this, to love us like this, to choose us.

III. His Faithfulness in Keeping His Covenants. "Know therefore that the LORD your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love..." (Deu 7:9). God has kept all of His covenants to Israel, even as the New Covenant was formed, God did not forget his promises. “...Has God rejected his people? By no means!” (Romans 11:1) Christ came to fulfill the Law, not to throw it away. (Matthew 5:17-20) “For Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses—as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself.” (Hebrews 3:3) “With respect to His promises, God always does what he promises to do, and we can depend on Him never to be unfaithful to His promises.” (Grudem, 196) EVEN “If we are faithless, he will remain faithful, for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). His covenants are eternal; they were, are, and will be true, Because he is true. His word is true. (Jn. 17:17)

Application

As Christians, trying to become like Christ, we should imitate Him in to keeping our word.

     -In marital relationships. (Eph. 5:25)

     -Keeping our promises, even if it Hurts us. "swears to his own hurt and does not change;" (Psalm        15:4)

Worship Him for His Faithfulness, Grace, and Holiness; For revealing Himself to us.

Thank Him for never giving up on us, even when we sin against, get angry with, and misunderstand       His commandments and covenants.

Works Cited

Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994. Print.

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, New York: Good News Publishers, 2001. Print.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon. Spurgeon's Sermons Volume Seven, New York: Baker Book House Company 1983. Print.

Thiessen, Henry Clarence. Lectures in Systematic Theology, Grand Rapids: Eerdman's Publishing Company, 1979.