Q&A 31: What does the Bible teach about covenants?
Vern Peterman · Jul 18, 2010
Questions & Answers, No. 29
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/492629595017

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

We're looking at what does the Bible say about covenants, and this will be at least a two-parter. So this week and next week. So if it seems like when we're done today you have a bunch of questions, that's fine, because we'll be continuing next week and addressing further questions next week. One of the reasons we're addressing covenants at this point, because remember I told you some weeks back we're kind of going sequentially through the Bible addressing passages and issues here. Covenants are found in both the Old and New Testaments between persons of the Trinity, God and mankind, and one man and another. If you look at Between those three categories, there are covenants in a great many places in the Bible. And some of the things we want to look at here, covenants are either unilateral, I will do this, period.

This is what I'm going to do. That's it. It doesn't depend on what the other person does. Or bilateral, I will do this and you will do that. There's a swapping. kind of covenant. I covenant to do this and you'll covenant to do that. And so that's also a possibility. Covenants are either conditional. If you do this, then I will do that. But if you don't do this, then I will bring about a different outcome. Or unconditional. I will do this regardless of what you do or don't do.

And we'll talk about each of the covenants there. Covenants are either limited in duration, as must be the case between two humans, or they are not limited in duration. Only God, of course, can fully carry that out, right? And there is also something somewhat in between covenants that are long in duration, but not eternal. So you could have a covenant, and there are some in scripture, that are long in duration but not eternal.

Then, covenants can be either earthly, that is purely about physical things, things that happen on this earth, or they can be spiritual or some combination of the two. And a great number of the covenants in the Bible are a mixture of spiritual and physical aspects. Then the covenants commonly had three elements, an oath, a swearing by a deity, and a physical gesture or sign.

Let's talk about each one of those. The oath can have these various characteristics. I promise within a certain period of time. I promise forever. the oath might be, you know, I promise, and again with all the variations we've talked about here, I promise if you do this that I will do that, right? So it could be of that character. Swearing by a deity.

Now that's one of the things that makes a covenant different from a contract. A covenant is different from a contract in part because of the swearing by a deity. that there is a spiritual involvement and things are done in view of God. One of the things we'll be looking at this morning in the main service is 2 Corinthians has five places where it says, in the sight of God or in the sight of the Lord. And things are in view of God. This covenant takes it a little one step farther and says, not only in view of God, but I make this oath in view of God and in honor or respect of that God. And then finally, the physical gesture or sign. That can be extremely varied as to what the physical gesture or sign might be. And we'll talk about that. No. Here's what's going on. This yes should be yes, no should be no, was Jesus warning the Jews. And this was in the Sermon on the Mount. The difficulty they had there that Jesus was dealing with is the Jews had come up with a list of things.

If you swear by this, you're held to it. But if you swear by this and this and this and this, you're not held to it. So you could basically say, I promise to do something, and it would not be considered binding because you did it off the list of things that weren't binding. And so that's where Jesus addresses that in the Sermon on the Mount. It was basically, He was taking them back to, here's all these dishonesties that have been developed and invented dishonesties, and so that's what that particular thing is addressing. Some have taken what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount to mean you shouldn't take an oath and accepted them from that.

But if you look at what was he looking at, it was that the rabbis had come up with lists of, if you swear by this, then you have to do it, but if you swear by this, then you don't. It was basically a way of lying. Yeah, and so if I swear by this and this and this, and that's off the list of things where I'm not held to it, basically you could make the other person think that you're committing to doing something when in fact you never intended to. And the reason is because you had this list, and if they didn't know the list of exceptions, you could swear by three or four things. that weren't binding and you still weren't held to it.

Anyway, we'll be talking about, as we go through these, some of the different examples. Genesis, for example, Genesis 9, 9-17, God swears by himself I myself will make this covenant." Because you have to swear by a deity, right? So he says, I'm the deity. So he swears by himself.

Throughout the rest of Genesis there we have several different examples, and it's not all the covenants that are in Genesis, but certainly some instances. It is swearing by a deity and the confirming sign that makes a covenant different from a conventional human contract. along with the possibility that the covenant may be endless. If you have a contract to, let's say, you know, we use the term contractor, contractor to build something, okay? We don't typically think of that as a covenant. And why not? Yeah, no deity involved, and there isn't some sign or gesture that goes along with it.

You ever hear the expression, you know, he's a man of his word? Basically people, you know, and it's almost getting to be an antique, but people would say something and then the sign would at most be they'd shake on it. And you would consider, okay, that person is actually going to do that. And people could be counted upon to follow through on it and and to do it.

So that would be, however, a contract with a handshake that at least adds that aspect to it. But now, while there are numerous examples of one person making a covenant with another, Abraham and Abimelech, for example, in Genesis 21, and we've included that in our list of examples in the bullets above, We'll focus from here forward on those covenants in which God is a party to the covenant, since those are most significant. Take note that God can act within the covenant or can act outside of a covenant, but when God makes a covenant, he will hold to the covenant. Additionally, we will also focus particular and greater attention on those covenants that have a particular impact upon or issue upon regarding the church, present on earth from Acts 2 to the Rapture. But that's going to be completed this next week here, so we're not going to be covering everything on that today. We have the biblical covenants, a quick summary here.

One is the Eternal Covenant, that's out of Hebrews 13.20. It's between the Father and the Son impacting Christ and, of course, all mankind. The next with Adam, impacting Adam and all mankind, the Edenic Covenant.

Basically, this is the conditions that God gave Adam in the garden. And what were some of the conditions that God gave Adam in the garden? Do not eat of the fruit of this tree. You can eat of everything else, just not this one. So that's part one. What were some other things in the covenant that the Lord had with Adam? He basically gave him some responsibilities. What was he allowed to eat? Right. Any tree in the garden, except for this, basically it was a vegetarian diet that he was told to abide by there in the garden.

One of the reasons why we can clearly call it a covenant is Hosea 6-7 calls it a covenant. He said Adam broke it. So Adam broke the covenant. So what's called the Adamic covenant is basically the consequences of Adam breaking the Adamic covenant. What were some of the consequences that the Lord gave to Adam because he broke the original covenant?

What's that? Yeah, one is you're going to get out of here, right? Yeah, that was one of the consequences. First, you may eat of any tree of the garden. And then it turns around and says you can't eat of any of the trees of the garden, right? You're getting out of this garden. What's that? Weeds. Weeds, yeah. Thorns and thistles. Before you would till and boy, this ground was fertile and nothing bad came out of it. That's going to change, right? Weeds. What else? Death. Pardon? Death. Death, yeah.

You may eat of this tree of life, only once he broke the covenant, then God said we have to keep him away from the tree. Why was it a gracious act for God to keep Adam away from the tree after he broke the covenant? Why was it a gracious act? He needed to die. He needed to die. Yeah, he didn't, if you look at it, there at the end of chapter 3, it was a matter of, we don't want to have him locked into this like permanent death condition here on earth. And so actually driving him out of the garden, keeping him away from the tree was a gracious act. And there's another ingredient, why else was it a gracious act for him to be driven from the garden? Yeah.

Genesis 3.15 is the first prophecy of the Savior.

It's given in Genesis 3.15, speaking to the serpent. You shall bruise his heel, but he's going to crush your hip.

All right, now let's move on here, because we're just touching the outline. The Noahic Covenant, with Noah impacting Noah and all subsequent mankind. This is God's covenant that changes some things. We'll address that shortly here. The Abrahamic Covenant, and we have several references. Those are the short list. That's actually the very short list, because the longer list, which we have later, includes more things. One of the reasons that God has not wound up things here on this earth and said, hey, it's time to pull the plug on this earth thing, is because of the Abrahamic covenant. So we'll take a look at that. The Mosaic covenant was basically, here's the law. Here's the law. 613 laws, 365 of them are don't do this and don't do that. The next one, the Palestinian or land covenant.

You're about to go into the land. If you obey, you will be blessed. That's 14 verses. The rest of the verses, 15 on to 68, which is, by the way, a longer list. The rest of it is all about, here are the curses. Not only will you have a difficult time in the land, but the land will spit you out.

Okay? Okay, then the next one, the Davidic Covenant. What's the Davidic Covenant? You call every fifth guy David? What's the Davidic Covenant? What's that? always have someone on the throne. Yes, David will always have someone on the throne. We'll see that here. And then finally, the New Covenant, which is spelled out. I give several passages. There's actually even more than that. Now let's go through each one of these and talk about it.

The eternal covenant taken from Hebrews 13.20 would be between the Father and the Son involving the Holy Spirit, would be regarding the incarnation, death, and resurrection of Christ, impacting Christ as the God-man, with results for all mankind. The blood of the eternal covenant, Christ's blood would be shed, and surrounding that, the other things that would be prior to and after Christ's death. Some have said that the eternal covenant is simply the new covenant, since it's an eternal covenant. But I would have a couple of reasons why that wouldn't quite settle. One, there are a few covenants that are eternal. Several covenants are eternal, as we'll soon see. That's one.

And there would have to be eternal agreement between the persons of the Trinity about Christ's incarnation, death, and resurrection, even from eternity past. Yeah? Would you repeat the first part of that? I didn't quite catch what you said. One is that there is more than one covenant that is eternal. More than one of these covenants is eternal. No, I meant the premise. You said some think... Some think that the eternal covenant is simply the new covenant. That that's what they're referring to. and because it is looked upon as eternal. The difficulty I have with that is there are several different eternal covenants, and so if one of the covenants that we've already listed is looked upon as eternal, that would be one thing. The reality is there are several of them that are eternal.

No, when you go through the Gospel of John repeatedly, Jesus says, the Father sent me, the Father sent me, the Father sent me. Well, was that just a last minute plan on God's part that the Father would send the Son? No. This was one that was determined before the foundation of the world, even as the Scripture lays it out, slain from the foundation of the world.

Now the next one we detail here is the Edenic Covenant. This comes out of a couple of different passages, or a few different. One is in chapter 1, where God said, let us make man in our image. And by the way, who's us and our? Yeah, this is basically, it does not explicitly say the Trinity, but it points to the Trinity. Some people have said, well, us means God's talking to the angels. Why would that not be the case? Are we made in the image of the angels? No. So that would not quite fit.

And then here's Adam used to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the cattle over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. image of God, He created a male and female. Those are all things part of the original creation.

Then the Lord said, and this is verse 28, be fruitful and multiply. This is one of the things that Adam is supposed to do, right? Be fruitful and multiply. He's supposed to do that. He's supposed to carry that out. Now, let's ask this question. Did God make an agreement with Adam. Adam, you know, you do this and I'd like you to let me know if you're willing to do that. No, it's interesting. As you look at this, he didn't kind of negotiate with Adam and come to some sort of, you know, I'm happy and you're happy kind of arrangement.

He said, this is what you'll do. So it is basically, you know, you must do this. It is also conditional. Why is this a conditional covenant? Because if he doesn't do certain things, other things will happen. That's right. We know it's conditional because if you do this, on the day that you eat of it, you will die, right? Something's going to happen. If you break this covenant, something's going to happen. There will be consequences.

It's not unconditional. You don't get to just stay in this garden no matter what. So you must fulfill the covenant. You're part of it and God didn't ask him if he wanted to do that or not. Then it says the Lord took the man and put him in the garden. This is Genesis 2. In the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it the Lord commanded the man to say from any tree of the garden you may eat freely.

Isn't it interesting the words any and freely. I mean, that's pretty broad, isn't it? Any of them. And as much as it's not like, you know, look, five from each one, that's it. They didn't give them that. Didn't put them on a diet. Right? Okay? Eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it, you will surely die. By the way, what do you think Adam thought You Shall Surely Die meant? Well, maybe.

I don't think he had any concept. Yeah, Crystal was about to say the same thing. If you think of it, You Shall Surely Die is not something he had experience with. But it would be a consequence he may not have had experience with, but God told him, don't go there. Right? Don't go there. You don't have experience with it and you don't want to. It would be kind of like, you know, if you do this, then this awful thing will happen. Well, certainly a lot of us have experienced some difficult things, but there are also some difficult things that we haven't experienced, probably because we decided, you know, I don't think I'll go there. You know? I don't think I want to do that.

Hosea 6-7 says, but like Adam, they have transgressed the covenant. There they have dealt treacherously against me. And particularly, Hosea is making a comparison between this covenant in Eden that was broken, and which covenant, if you read in the context of Hosea, it's this Mosaic covenant. They have broken this covenant, and also along with that, ultimately, the Palestinian covenant, the land covenant. Yes. Maybe your previous question talked about that.

Probably the only example in the garden would have been Like Jesus saying, the ear has to die for the seed to grow. So the fruit on the trees in the garden would have fallen to the ground and they would have expired. I mean, I don't think that the fruit would have stacked up until it was, you know, something had to happen with the fruit. It had to deteriorate, right? You would think. So that would probably be the closest example he may have had to something changing at least, or dying. Yeah, yeah. It is interesting to ponder that. That might be a close example. You wonder if he would even think of that.

We don't know. But it is curious. God gives him this warning, don't eat of that, you'll die. I know you don't know what that is, but you won't like it. Right? You kind of get that impression. It's like, all right, you don't understand what it is, but let me tell you, you're not going to like it. Yeah.

You also wonder, when he saw you eat it, did the state change anything? Yeah, she ate it and it wasn't like she all of a sudden started shriveling or turning purple or something, right? And so, gee, it's not that bad. Something changed because they knew right away. Yeah. But interesting, it makes note of that, you're quite correct. But interesting that the change took place when Adam ate. Adam, when Adam ate. That's very interesting. That's right.

The covenant, and that's something else to look at, the covenant is with Adam. Specifically with him. It's interesting if you look at, for example, Paul talks about being in Adam and in Christ. He doesn't talk about being in Eve. He talks about being in Adam. You're right on. The covenant was with Adam. In addition to that, I don't think Eve was even created when the covenant was made, right? It wasn't made in verse 17 or something, that Eve was created in 18.

Every indication that we have is that Adam was the one that got the instruction. Every indication that we have was that it was Adam's responsibility to be the steward, that's something we're going to talk about next week, to be the steward of this covenant. For the covenants there is a stewardship. It's not exclusive that a covenant is required for stewardship, but one of the things we'll find as we look through this is that with each of the covenants, there definitely is a stewardship, even if there are other stewardships outside of the covenants.

The Edenic covenant was spoken from God to Adam, was conditional. It wasn't, you're going to stay here in the Garden of Eden no matter what, but it's rather, you can eat of anything, eat as much as you want, just not that one. And there are also other things, be fruitful, multiply, you know, you're to eat basically vegetable matter, not, don't go eating the animals at this point in time, right?

So it was conditional, it was limited to the time when God gave Adam instructions as to what to do and not to do until Adam broke the covenant. Was God ever going to break the covenant that he had with Adam? No. So on God's side, it wasn't something God would or could break, but Adam could and did. So it was limited in time by that. Which required a radical modification of the Edenic Covenant, notice the Adamic Covenant, consisting of consequences for breaking the Edenic Covenant.

Art? Why was there a time element in regarding the Eden? Okay, why was there a time element regarding to the eating? Okay. Anybody answer that question? Why was there a time element regarding to the eating? Pardon? I don't think there was a time. Time elements. Okay.

Yeah, in other words, God already knew what was going to happen, right? He knew what was going to happen. The time of breaking the covenant was Adam's to make, even though God knew it, right? So the time of breaking the covenant was Adam's to make. It's at the time that he ate it that the covenant was broken.

Let's ask a hypothetical question, but I think it's possibly insightful. What if Eve had eaten of the tree, and Adam said, I'm not going there. What would have happened? Would things have half fallen or what would have taken place? Yeah? You think just Eve would have died? You think that would have happened? Isn't this interesting? In fact, there are Aspects of this, we could ask the hypothetical question. I'm not sure we have a definitive answer.

But what is clear is that it was Adam's breaking of the covenant that was really the pivotal point. It was his breaking of the covenant that caused the problem. And in fact, the identity issue of people being in Adam is because of this, because of him. He's the one.

I would say the answer to that, you would have to do a word search for his household. because that concept is in scripture and it does show that the person in charge of the household received certain blessings and he also had the repercussions of people who under his direction didn't do certain things. The centurion was another example where Christ said he had great faith him and when he told them to do something, they did something. So again, it's this hierarchy and order that God set up. So I think, I would think the same thing would have happened because he would have still been held responsible.

Okay, so you think that, alright, now let's ask another question. Was it just Eve and the serpent talking and Adam came along later? What does the passage say? Actually, we don't have it quoted here, but it says her husband who was with her. Who was with her. What's interesting is that the wording seems to indicate that Adam was there all along and saw this going on. He should have been saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you know.

And he just kind of backed off. So that's an interesting problem. Was it not a problem that Evie or was it? Pardon? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Here's the interesting thing. The covenant was with Adam. But somehow Eve had gotten the idea I shouldn't be eating this thing. And she even says that. You might pick away at some of the details, but she did have the idea I shouldn't be eating this thing. We don't know exactly what all the consequences would be because we are talking about a hypothetical case. But I think it's interesting. It was not okay for her to have eaten. And she knew it.

The heavy-duty consequences to mankind seemed to be focused upon Adam. Adam was the one who had the stewardship. Eve was working with and alongside Adam's stewardship. Yeah. a primary thing, I think. And that is that it took a long time before there was a proper help made for Adam. So Adam waited a long time for Eve to come along and have this relationship.

And so because of that, I think he put her as being more important than God. And so God, definitely throughout all of scripture, has said that he's number one, and that you But nothing is supposed to be more important than God. And Adam did that. And so he suffered the consequences of that. In a sense, it's idolatry. Adam knew what he was supposed to do. Even as Paul points out in 1 Timothy 2, Adam knew what he was doing. Eve was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing. Isn't that something?

He was there, apparently watching this or listening to this conversation between Eve and the serpent, but Adam didn't say anything, but he knew what he was doing. So in a sense, Eve was more important than God's command to Adam. As far as Adam's assessment, yeah, I'm going to set aside what God said and listen to what Eve said. He had listened first to what Eve said, and to the persuasion of the serpent, who called into question God's intent and God's character.

Interesting. We had no idea what the time element was, days and so forth, from the time when they were created, and what they ate. It could have been a number of years. Another point to add to that, since Adam hadn't eaten up the tree at that point in time, he did not know the difference between good and evil. And until Eve ate of the fruit, she would not have known that the serpent was evil or good. Because that was the purpose of that tree. Was that not correct? So until they ate of the fruit, they would not have known any sense of evil at all. So in a sense this was good because if Adam and Eve were actually going to be in the true image of God, which is doing good while knowing evil, they would have to know evil. And they didn't know evil until they ate of this tree. So in a sense, like all things that God does, the ultimate end of it is a good thing. Because now they know good and evil and it's the process of doing good while image of God. That's what you do.

Okay, now we'll talk about the image of God issue in a bit because when he created man in the image of God, that was the image of God right there. That was the image of God right there. Let's take a look here. Now we've got the Adamic Covenant consists of God's radical modifications of the Edenic Covenant plus some additions to the Edenic Covenant.

So it's not just modifications its modifications and additions. There's both of those. Genesis 3, A through 24, we have it referenced there for the sake of time since we're almost out of time and we're apparently going to be studying this next week off this handout. Don't let that confuse you. Hold on to it.

Let's look at the Adamic Covenant and I'd like us to look at page 4 there and At the top of page 4 I have some bolded words in verse 15. And this is in the middle where it says, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and she shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel, speaking to the serpent. Bruise you on the head, fatal wound. On the heel, a wound, but not not eternally fatal.

So, in Genesis 3.15 we have that gracious provision in the middle of the consequences for Adam and Eve. What's interesting is, as you read through this passage, God comes to Adam, talks to Adam, asks him questions, and converses with Adam, whereupon Adam points the blame to the woman, right? Then God talks to the woman, converses with the woman, whereupon the woman points the blame to the serpent.

God does not converse with the serpent. Why? Why doesn't God ask the serpent questions and go back and forth? Why not converse with the serpent? What's that? Yeah, there's no relationship with the serpent, that's one. And that brings up the other point, why did God ask the questions of Adam and Eve? Was it because he didn't know? No, it was a rhetorical question, but to go back to the serpent, did not, I can't remember exactly because I haven't read this for a while, but was not Satan serpent, where Adam and Eve actually were not assuming an image, but they were in the form that God created them. So there is a communication between Satan and God, and the serpent really was just a manifestation of who Satan was. It's a deception. Yeah, Satan was a deceiver from the beginning, remember? A liar and a murderer from the beginning. John has him described as the serpent of old in Genesis. So yeah, that's the guy taking on one form or another. One place he's a serpent, another place, as Paul says, he's an angel of light. He'll take on whatever form he needs to.

God asked Adam and Eve questions, but not the serpent. Why would God ask Adam questions? Why would He ask Eve questions, but not the serpent? question. It requires you to come up with an answer, which is emotional, spiritual, physical, and all the rest of it. Did God not know the answers to the questions He was asking? God knew the answers, right? He wasn't asking the questions so that He would know. He was asking the questions of Adam and Eve so that they would know.

Right? That make sense? Is that a rhetorical question? Yeah. Oh boy, yeah. Which questions do I mean for you to answer? So very interestingly, he asked questions of Adam and asked questions of Eve that he already knew the answers to, but he wanted them to think through the consequences of what they had done.

They had just both done something wrong. Eve, because she was deceived, Adam, because he knew what he was doing, but he did wrong anyway. Eve was deceived. Adam knew what he was doing, and he did wrong anyway. For both of them, the reasons for asking the questions was to get him back to the truth. You've just been through a deceptive process. Eve was deceived. Adam stood there and let it go on, and didn't say anything, and went along with the deception.

Now God asked questions to get them back to the truth. Back to the truth. See that? But not with the serpent. There is no way that asking the serpent questions is going to do any good. Does he care about the truth? Is it going to matter? Is there a provision for salvation for the serpent?

No. Also, I just thought about this. now know the difference between good and evil because they've eaten out of the tree. So they are now, in a sense, the first time capable of understanding what evil is. Yeah. Do you realize what you've done? Do you realize what you've done?

The day that you eat of it, you will die. What's this going to mean? It doesn't mean that this is the day that you're going to turn to dust. But he does tell him, you will die and this is how it's going to happen. You're going to go back to the dust. Yes? It wouldn't be true. What I'm wondering is, they didn't have a sin nature before. That's correct. There was no sin nature before. But now they did. And guess what? All those who are in Adam have a sin nature. have us in nature. Okay, believe it or not, we've run out of time and we haven't got halfway through here. So we're going to have to stop there. I'm going to flip through some of the pictures here. Here's the presentation, the serpent and Eve and Adam.

Here's the covenant with Noah. God says, I myself will make this covenant. I'm going to swear by myself. The rainbow is the sign. So there's an oath. There is a swearing by the deity, God swearing by himself. And there is the sign. You have the covenant with Abraham. First presented in Genesis 12 verse 3 verses and as we'll see later on here there are a great number of subsequent verses throughout the book of Genesis where the covenant with Abraham is repeated to Isaac and repeated to Jacob and detailed further as well. You have the Mosaic Covenant here. The Ten Commandments was essentially a down payment, if you will, a beginning. Only the start of the total 613 laws in the book of the laws of Moses. The Palestinian covenant was the conditional covenant.

Here's the land. Here's the land I promised to Abraham. You'll be blessed in this land if you obey. You will be cursed in it and even pitched out of it if you do not obey. The covenant with David. which was about the lineage of David and ultimately having a king forever sitting on David's throne and then ultimately into the new covenant.

So anyway, we're running out of time here. Let me pray and we'll continue this. Hold on to the papers. We'll continue this next week. I hope we'll finish it next week. Lord, we do thank you for what you've revealed. We thank you for the insights and understanding we have because of what's in your word. We thank you for the infinite depth in your word because you are an infinite God who has revealed it. We thank you for these things. Thank you for these insights. And we thank you just as you promised there in Genesis 3. Thank you for the Savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.