The Covenant-Keeping God
By Dr. Greg
Bahnsen
We Believe
What we know about God we know because of His own self-disclosure to us. As men, and especially as sinful men, we have no ability and no prerogative to determine for ourselves what God would be like. He must reveal Himself to us - which He has clearly done through the created order, the words of Scripture, and supremely in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
We learn a great deal about God from His revelation of Himself in the Bible. We learn that He created all things, that He is personal, and that all men depend upon Him. We learn of His omnipotence and eternality. We learn of His holiness and justice. We learn of His love and mercy - and many other things. When theologians gather together all that the Bible teaches us about God and offer a summary of it, they usually speak about His person and attributes, as well as about His works. The works of God, such as creation, redemption and consummation, are properly understood only in the light of God's person and attributes; likewise, the attributes of God are illustrated and explained in His works.
Of the many things which we can know about God from the scriptures - something which is too often ignored or played down by evangelical theologians - is that He is a covenant-keeping God. This is one of the primary attributes of God which the Bible reveals, an attribute which is intimately involved with what God has done and continues to do - with His works. Thus to know God as He is specifically revealed in His word - to know the God of the Bible - we must think of Him in terms of His covenant.
From the very outset of the Bible we find God, the Creator, in a personal relationship with man, the creature. This relationship was not arbitrary or haphazard; it had a specific character and content. God sovereignly established and transacted the relationship, in virtue of being man's Creator. In this relationship God granted blessings to man which were not, strictly speaking, "earned" or meritorious.
The blessings of existence and providential sustaining were not somehow earned by Adam and Eve. The very first thing God did after creating Adam and Eve, according to the Bible, is this: "And He blessed them" (Gen. 1:28). God's first word was a word of promise or favor, not one of demand or judgment. This was a gracious relationship, one which blessed our first parents before they had done anything good or evil. Further, the blessing of walking and talking with God in intimate communion did not wait until Adam had accomplished certain meritorious works, but was granted from the moment of his creation. And even if Adam had perfectly obeyed God's subsequent commandments (e.g., Gen. 1:28; 2:16-17, 24) he would not have merited any special favor from God - any more than a watch which works properly deserves anything from its maker (it is, after all, only doing what it is made to do).
Adam was called upon to trust the word of the Lord, and to trust it simply on the authority of God. This relationship of trust entailed submission to God, seen in obedience to His commandments - such as the prohibition of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God's command carried the sanction of blessing (continued communion with God) and curse - "in the day that you eat from it you will surely die" (Gen. 2:17). God was bound to this compact as much as were Adam and Eve. God's justice would not allow Him to reverse His word, condemning obedience but overlooking (or even blessing) disobedience. When our first parents transgressed the prohibition of eating from the tree, they separated themselves from the Source of life (in all its facets: spiritual, physical, etc.). According to God's word and character, they had to die. "The wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23).
The Bible terms the kind of relationship or arrangement which existed between God and Adam a "covenant." We can define "covenant" as a mutually binding compact between God and His people, sovereignly transacted by the Lord, wherein a promise is made by God which calls for trust on the part of His people and entails obligations of submission which are sanctioned by blessings and curses. By checking the preceding discussion we can find all of these theological elements of the concept of a covenant in the relationship between God and Adam. Moreover, the Bible explicitly speaks of Adam's relationship to God in covenantal terms. For instance, in Hosea 6:7 the prophet indicts the rebels of his generation by likening them to the first man, Adam, who rebelled against God. Notice what Hosea says Adam transgressed: "But they like Adam have transgressed the covenant." Scripture speaks of Adam being in "covenant" with God; like Hosea's contemporaries, Adam proved to be a covenant-breaker, rather than a covenant-keeper. In fact, the Bible teaches us that all men are covenant-breakers, where presumably the covenant which they violate is the one transacted between God the Creator and their first parents, Adam and Eve. Isaiah 24:5-6 says: "The earth also is polluted under the inhabitants therefore because they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore has the curse devoured the earth, and they who dwell in it are found guilty."
The point to be made here is that from the very outset of the Biblical story, we find God revealed as the God of the covenant. From a literary standpoint, anybody reading the Bible from the start - from the book of Genesis forward - should not miss this important aspect of God's character and actions. God is the covenant-keeping God. Just a few chapters beyond the account of man's creation and fall, after the crisis of the flood, we read that "God spoke unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying: 'And I, behold I, establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you and with every living creature" (9:8-10). Then in the days of Abraham God called a people to be His own, from among the other families on earth. God appeared to Abraham and uttered both a promise and demands (12:1-3), which are later explained in these words: "Jehovah appeared to Abram and said unto him, I am God Almighty; walk before me and be perfect. And I will make my covenant between me and you..." (17:1-2).
God kept covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their family eventually went down into Egypt and multiplied greatly, but at last came under miserable slavery. What is it that sets up the story of the exodus and conquest of the promised land? We read in Exodus 2:24, "And God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob." The background for the redemption from Egypt - and the rest of the Biblical story - is precisely the covenant-keeping character of God. He is the God of the covenant. Accordingly, what God revealed through Moses was the law, but specifically the law "of the covenant" (Ex. 34:27-28). And as Israel prepared to enter the promised land, Moses reminded God's people of the basis and character of their blessing: "Know therefore that Jehovah your God, he is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness with them that love him and keep his commandments..." (Deut. 7:9).
As we read through the Bible this feature of God's character and actions continually comes to our attention. God made a "covenant" with David and his seed (2 Sam. 23:5; Ps. 89). Many years later, in the days of Isaiah, Jehovah declared "I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David" (55:3). When Jeremiah the prophet ministered to God's people, God revealed the coming of that day when all of His previous promises would come to realization and fulfillment - in the days (just as you would expect) of a "new covenant" (31:31-34).
We cannot properly understand the saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ without a covenantal perspective. The birth of Jesus was an open declaration that God had remembered "his holy covenant" (Luke 1:72). Before going out to be crucified for the sins of His people, Jesus ordained the cup of the "new covenant" (Luke 22:20). His resurrection and redemptive work were specifically the blessing of "the covenant God made with your [Jewish] fathers" (Acts 3:25-26). The New Testament explicitly calls Jesus "the Mediator of the New Covenant" (Heb. 12:24) and views His work of salvation in covenantal terms: "Now the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant..." (Heb. 13:20).
We Believe
God reveals Himself in the pages of Scripture specifically as the covenant-keeping God. To understand His person and works properly, we must see Him in light of the covenant He has made and fulfills with His people.
We have already seen that God's relationship with man from the very beginning was covenantal in nature. His covenant with Adam was gracious in character, sovereignly imposed, mutually binding, called for trust and submission on Adam's part, and carried sanctions (blessings or curse). When Adam fell into sin, God mercifully re-established a covenantal relationship with him, one in which the gracious and promissory character of the covenant was accentuated even further. God's grace was magnified in promising to send a Savior who would destroy the Tempter, Satan (Gen. 3:15). As we know, this was the first promise of the coming of Christ to set things right between God and man (cf. John 12:31-32; 1 John 3:8). In the subsequent pages of Scripture God expands upon and explains this promise, particularly in the further covenants into which He entered with His people.
These covenants were thoroughly gracious, being established by God for the undeserved benefit of sinful and unworthy men. Their aim was that He would be their God, and they would be His people -- for instance: "Hear the words of this covenant.... So shall you be my people, and I will be your God" (Jer. 11:2-4). These covenants were not based upon the accomplishments, worthiness, or righteousness of God's people, but instead stemmed from His own lovingkindness. "The Lord did not set His love upon you, nor choose you, because you were more in number than any people... but because the Lord loves you.... Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and lovingkindness with them that love Him and keep His commandments" (Deut. 7:7-9).
The various covenants of which we read in the Old Testament were all covenants of promise, including the covenant of law established through Moses. They were not legalistic or ungracious. In Galatians 3 Paul categorically and clearly declares "The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.... The law [Moses] does not set aside the covenant previously established by God [Abraham] and thus do away with the promise. For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends upon promise.... Is the law therefore opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not!" (3:15-22). From the perspective of Paul, all of the Jewish covenants -- whether made with Abraham, Moses , or David -- were elaborations of the one, single, basic promise of God. He wrote in Ephesians 2:12, "You [Gentiles] were at that time separate from Christ..., strangers from the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world."
Therefore, although there were many covenants made throughout the Old Testament, it is Biblically accurate to view them as explanations of a single promise of God. They were all part of what we call "the covenant of grace" -- all administrations and applications of God's gracious promise of salvation. The provisions of God's promise were progressively made known through redemptive history as we read of it in the Bible. Each and every one of these provisions pointed to the person and work of Jesus Christ, the coming Savior. "For however many may be the promises of God, in him [Christ] is the yes, wherefore also through him is the amen unto the glory of God through us" (2 Cor. 1:20). Every promise in the covenants was affirmed and confirmed in Christ.
Thus when the resurrected Lord encountered His downcast disciples on the road to Emmaus, "beginning from Moses and from all the prophets he interpreted for them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27). All of the Old Testament -- that is, the "Old Covenant" -- was about Christ the coming Savior. Jesus said "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; these scriptures testify about me" (John 5:39).
As the "Mediator of a New Covenant" which God promised through Jeremiah (31:31-34), Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Covenant's anticipation or promise, and He is the one who grants God's people the benefits which were previously promised -- "that they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance" (Heb. 9:15). Christ gained the inheritance promised to Abraham (Heb. 11:8-10; Gal. 3:16; Eph. 1:14; 1 Peter 1:4). In Him all nations will be blessed, as God promised Abraham (Luke 2:32; Matt. 12:21; Acts 13:47-48; Gal. 3:14). Christ is the model of that righteousness revealed in the Mosaic law (Matt. 5:17; Heb. 4:15; 1 John 2:5-6), as well as the true and perfect, atoning sacrifice for sinners which required in the Mosaic covenant (Heb. 9). He is the long awaited King which was promised in the Davidic covenant (Luke 1:32-33; Acts 5:31; 1 Tim. 6:15; 1 Cor. 15:25).
(1) Because all of the post-fall covenants were gracious in character, being elaborations upon God's promise of salvation, and (2) because subsequent covenants do not conflict with each other but complement and expand upon previous ones, and (3) because all of the promises of God's covenants center on Christ and His redemptive work, we must recognize the unity and continuity of God's covenantal administrations. This is what is meant by speaking of "the covenant of grace."
Dispensational theology has enjoyed widespread endorsement among twentieth-century evangelical schools and churches, and its influence has been felt even among a number of Reformed preachers. At the heart of dispensationalism is the denial of "the covenant of grace." It is denied when dispensationalists claim that God has two plans (not one) revealed in the Scriptures: a plan regarding Christ and the church (a mixed Gentile and Jewish people for whom Christ is the Redeemer), and a distinct plan regarding the Jewish people themselves and the land of Palestine (where Christ will yet become the Davidic King). Dispensationalists sometimes refer to these distinct plans and peoples of God as His "heavenly" and "earthly" programs. Thus dispensationalists insist on drawing a dichotomy between Israel and the church.
This is contrary to Paul, who called the mixed Galatian congregation "the Israel of God" (Gal. 6:16), and who said that Gentiles who are saved by Christ have now been incorporated into "the commonwealth of Israel" (Eph. 2:12).
Likewise, dispensationalists deny the unity of Old Testament covenants, for they teach that there was a root difference between the gracious character of the Abrahamic covenant and the (alleged) legalistic character of the Mosaic covenant. They maintain that God granted His blessings to Abraham on the basis of promise, but in the Mosaic era God held out -- hypothetically -- the offer of blessing based on meritorious obedience to the law.
This too is contrary to Paul, who wrote in Romans 9:31-32 that Israel did not arrive at the righteousness of the law because "they sought it not by faith, but as it were by works." The Mosaic law itself would have taught them not to be legalists! (Gal. 2:19). The covenant God made with Abraham could not be disannulled 430 years later by the covenant made with Moses, making the promise of no effect (Gal. 3:17). Was the law, then, against the promises of God? Paul declared "Absolutely not!" (3:21).
Finally, dispensationalists deny the covenant of grace by teaching that the benefits of the Abrahamic covenant, which come to Jewish and Gentile believers in the church (Gal. 3:7, 29), are to be viewed as tandem or parallel with the benefits of the Mosaic and Davidic covenants, which come to the literal Jewish children of Abraham -- and which will be fulfilled when Christ returns to establish an earthly kingdom in Palestine.
We are now in a position to define "covenant theology," which is the major opponent and alternative to dispensationalism within the evangelical church. Covenant theology is based squarely upon the Biblical teaching regarding the covenant of grace. Covenant theology is the position that all of the post-fall covenants made by God are essentially one, centering on God's gracious promise in Jesus Christ, with each successive covenant expanding on previous ones, rather than disregarding them or running parallel to the others; the covenants prior to Christ were marked by anticipation and administered by foreshadows of the Savior, while the fulfillment or substance came in person and redemptive work of Christ, who established the New Covenant today in the international church of Christ.