What do you know about covenants? Have you been told they are like contracts? Have you heard a covenant is similar to a promise? Do you think of a covenant as a legal document? Have heard of a covenant being an agreement between two parties?
We often hear someone explaining a covenant with God being similar to a contract. We hear of it being like a legal agreement. Perhaps that is due to our lack of understanding of God’s promises. Perhaps we need a better understanding.
In one respect, it is true God’s covenant is between Himself and us. Yet, in another respect, it is God making a promise we can accept or reject. In every case of a covenant in the Bible, blood was required. In the Old Testament, it was the blood of an animal, usually a lamb. In the New Testament, it was Christ’s blood that sealed the New Covenant.
However, equating a covenant to a legal contract does not do it justice. Though similar, the difference is God will never break His covenant with us. We hear of and may even break a contract ourselves. God never will. In our culture, we know people go to court over the legalese within a contract. Not with God’s covenant.
I sometimes like to think of God’s covenant with us like a blood brother’s oath. If you are old enough, you have heard of this or may have done it. Two people cut a thumb or finger so that it bleeds, and they rub their blood together, making an oath to be true to one another forever. Typically, both parties take it very seriously and do not break their oath.
God’s covenant with us is even more serious than a blood brother’s oath. It is more serious than marriage vows. It is more serious than an oath of office. It is more serious than any contract. It is a promise of God that He will never break, even if we reject His covenant.
I pray we all take God’s covenant with us very seriously. I pray we accept His covenant. I pray each one of us will live within the covenant God has made with us, accepting eternal life. Know that God does not neglect His promises. Know that God’s covenant is forever. Trust God’s promises. Accept God’s covenant. Accept an eternal inheritance.
Hebrews 9:15 For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.
Marty Pressey 