God’s Eternal Covenant
“And I will establish My covenant between Me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee”. Genesis 17:7
A covenant is like a contract. From a college course in business law, I learned that there are six elements that have to be met before one can have a legal contract: 1.) an offer and an acceptance-a “meeting of the minds”; 2.) consideration-a reason, cause, motive, or price to a contract sufficient and agreed upon; 3.) capacity-both parties must be competent and know what they are doing; 4.) legality-the contract can’t be for an illegal purpose or against public policy; 5.) reality of assent-consent of both parties must be genuine; and 6.) form-whatever the law requires, usually in writing and notarized.
There are two major types of contracts: 1.) unilateral-a promise for an act, and 2.) bilateral-a promise for a promise. The problem with earthly contracts is that they can be breached, or broken, because they are made by humans, who are not always trustworthy. Believe it or not, there are some Christians with whom others should not make a contract, not because they would intentionally break the contract, but sometimes, out of negligence or a lack of commitment, they fail to hold up their end of the contract. Some folks do not understand that God is serious about vows. Solomon said that it was better to not make a vow than to make one and then break it (Ecclesiastes 5:5). It is the same for contracts, for a contract is basically a written vow or promise to do something or pay a certain sum for an item. I have often heard it said that years ago a contract could be made with just a handshake because a man was as good as his word, but now-a-days, folks have to have a whole team of lawyers and a lot of written “lawyer-ese” terms that aren’t easily understood by the lay person. How many average folks read through an entire contract before signing on the dotted line?
Biblical covenants were also of the same two types. Bilateral covenants were negotiated between the two parties with each having input into the terms of the covenant. Unilateral covenants were not negotiated but dictated by someone in a high position to someone under his authority. Thus, God’s covenant with Abram was a unilateral covenant because man had no input into it. Imagine if God had allowed man to have input into His covenant? It might have gone something like this: “LORD, if You will protect us and provide for us, then we will obey and serve You”. However, we know from the history of Israel up unto this present day that man could never keep this covenant. Since men and women cannot keep the covenant that God initiated, they certainly couldn’t keep one that they initiated. God has no interest in negotiating with man. All the covenants that God made with man were all initiated by God. He was the One who made the promises and the conditions for enjoying those promises.
Some folks believe that God’s original covenant is no longer in effect. We know that Jesus issued a new commandment in Mark 12:30-31: to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. His new commandment did not negate nor replace God’s covenant with His creation nor His ten commandments. It reinforced God’s commandments, making them even stronger, yet condensing them from ten to two commandments. Jesus’ first commandment to love God covers the first four of God’s ten commandments, and Jesus’ second commandment covers the remaining six of God’s commandments. Simply put, if one obeys Jesus’ two commandments, he or she automatically honors God’s ten commandments. God’s covenant is called an everlasting covenant and was promised to Abraham and to every person in every generation after Abraham who would honor God by obedience to His will, with His ultimate will being that of repentance of sin and belief in His Son, Jesus Christ.
Jesus came to fulfill the law, not destroy it (Matthew 5:17). A sacrifice by One who could fulfill the law perfectly because He was without sin was necessary in order for men and women to be forgiven of sin. Jesus met all aspects of God’s law perfectly in man’s stead. The law could never make a sinner righteous, but One who could satisfy the law could exchange His righteousness for man’s sin. Jesus’ sacrifice caused the law which was written on tables of stone to be written on the hearts of men and women who receive Christ as Lord and Savior; thus, God’s covenant is alive and well in the hearts of all those who possess Christ and who will receive His promise of eternal life.