What Is a Covenant? Understanding God’s Promises

Question 1: What is a Covenant?

It is a contract! In the ancient world a king or a ruler would make “an offer that can not be refused” to his subjects. There were two kinds of such covenants — two sided and one sided covenants. The one sided covenant was much stronger because normally it would be given by the king of ruler to a worthy citizen who has earned the favor of the ruler. Such a covenant if it was not limited by time would be valid until one of the parties dies or is deposed.

Each covenant had three elements:

a) The agreement

b) The document or book that recorded the agreement and it’s terms

c) The sign or monument of the covenant which would serve as a witness and reminder of the covenant

There were times when the covenant also had a covenant meal or celebration that would commemorate each year the date and terms of the covenant.

Question 2: In the New Covenant, what are the terms of the covenant?

This is a valid question because as believers we have not been educated to look at the Work of Yeshua as a covenant — it has been masked in every way even by calling it a “Testament” which normally would mean a dead-man’s last wish. So, what are the terms of the New Covenant? I think that we need to go back to Jeremiah 31 to see what God promised when he foretold us that he will make a New Covenant. The way I understand the terms of the covenant is as follows. In the Sinai covenant the terms were:

The New Covenant that God promised to Jeremiah says:

Note the similarities between these two statements of God. Often times we note the differences but forget to look at the common points in God’s promises in both cases. Here are a few of these similarities:

God is the covenant giver in both cases. Both covenants have to do with God’s Torah (law) – the New Covenant is not a covenant that releases one from keeping God’s Torah (law) – only the material that it is written upon is different. In Sinai it was written on stone and in Jeremiah it is written on our hearts. In both cases God said, “my Torah (law)” – not free from Torah.

How many Torahs (laws) does God have? What does God want from humanity now? What did God want from Humanity before he gave the two tables of stone to Moses on Mt. Sinai? What did God want from Adam and Eve in the Garden, what did He want form the generation of Noah? I think that these are the terms that we need to look at and get free from the traditional Protestant attitude that is negative toward God’s will which is the Torah that we got used to calling it “The Law.” The results of giving the New Covenant have to be according to Jeremiah,

But, these are the same results that God expected when He gave the Torah in Sinai – He did not get these results from Israel as a nation. Plan “A” did not work well, but God had plan “B” – that was already predicted and foretold in the scheme of things inside plan “A.” It would be as if you just purchased a new car – and immediately started a new savings account and started to put your change in this account for the next new car. This would indicate that you know that the new car that you just purchased will need a replacement after it runs it’s course in time. This is what the writer of the book of Hebrews says in chapter 8.