How to Study the Bible: The Covenants

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Jay F Guin

biblepage-781x1024Walton lays out God’s history of covenants in terms that I’d never heard before.

He concludes that the covenant made with Noah is separate from all the others, as it indicates no effort toward self-revelation. God had appeared to Noah and rescued him from the coming destruction. But it wasn’t yet time to introduce the plan that would culminate in Jesus.

That plan begins with Abraham, leading to this
pattern —

* God makes a covenant with Abraham. God elects Abraham and his descendants to occupy the Promised Land and to bless the nations. God reveals himself through his promises.

* God is actively engaged with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons.

* There is a transition period while Israel lives in Egypt.

* God makes a covenant with Israel. God elects Israel as his nation among all other nations. God reveals his character through his Law.

* God is actively engaged with Moses, Joshua, and the judges.

* There is a transition period while the Ark of the Covenant leaves Israel, taking the very presence of God away from his people (1 Sam 4 – 2 Sam 6).

* God makes a covenant with David. God elects David’s dynasty to rule over his kingdom. God reveals himself through the Temple and through a king charged to serve as covenant administrator.

* God is actively engaged with David and his descendants on the throne of Israel and Judah.

* There is a transition period while Israel is in exile and the very presence of God departs from Jerusalem.

* God makes a covenant with the church through Jesus. God elects those who have faith in Jesus to bless the nations and to live with him in the New Heavens and New Earth. God reveals himself through Jesus.

* God is actively engaged with his people until Jesus returns.

Notice that each covenant is instituted with a failure of purpose, but is soon replaced by a victory.

Abraham could not have a son. Ishmael was rejected. But finally Isaac was born.

Israel worshipped a golden calf at the foot of Mt. Sinai and then soon refused to enter the Promised Land for lack of faith. But finally a generation was born that re-made the covenant with God (the book of Deuteronomy) and entered the Promised Land.

Israel demanded a king who could win battles, and they received Saul — but Saul failed to be a king who reflected the heart of God. He did not represent God to the people. And then David was anointed.

Jesus died on the cross. But then he was resurrected. There appeared to be a failure, but the failure became the victory.

About Jay F Guin

My name is Jay Guin, and I’m a retired elder. I wrote The Holy Spirit and Revolutionary Grace about 18 years ago. I’ve spoken at the Pepperdine, Lipscomb, ACU, Harding, and Tulsa lectureships and at ElderLink. My wife’s name is Denise, and I have four sons, Chris, Jonathan, Tyler, and Philip. I have two grandchildren. And I practice law.
This entry was posted in How to Study the Bible, Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

6 Responses to How to Study the Bible: The Covenants

  1. Price says:
    June 6, 2015 at 6:33 am

    I guess I would have to read more of his thoughts on Noah.. Seems consistent with your outline of failure/redemption… Mankind was created and it was good…It got messed up so that all of mankind, except for 8 were abhorrent in the eyes of God… He destroys the evil and saves the good (better)… And Lord knows it gets brought up with I Peter 3:21 all the time…:)

  2. need4news says:
    June 6, 2015 at 9:21 am

    I heard a professor describe the covenants as a series of nesting dolls. It’s not a bad way to look at them.

  3. John F says:
    June 6, 2015 at 11:57 am

    Interesting that in Acts 15, when discussing the relationship of Gentile to Jewish Christians, the elders, apostles (and the whole church in the decision making process) go back to the Noahic covenant.to recommend (BIND?) on the new converts

    Acts 15:19-20 Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles, 20 but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. NASU

  4. Jay Guin says:
    June 6, 2015 at 6:49 pm

    John F,

    I’ve never been persuaded that Acts 15 is a reference to the covenant with Noah. Compare:

    (Gen 9:1-7 NAU) And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. 2 “The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. 3 “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. 4 “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5 “Surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. 7 “As for you, be fruitful and multiply; Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it.”

    Acts 15:19-20

    * Idolatrous things (likely meat sacrificed to idols)(not in Gen 9)
    * Fornication (not in Gen 9)
    * Strangled animals (not in Gen 9)
    * Blood (Gen 9:4)
    * Murder (not in Acts 15 but Gen 9:6)

    So the covenant with Noah only corresponds with Acts 15 with regard to the prohibition on eating blood. And yet countless commentaries see the rabbinic interpretation of Gen 9 is what James and company had in mind. It seems unlikely to me.

    Therefore, others argue for Lev 17-18, being the portions of the Law binding on Gentiles residing in Israel. But I don’t find the rule regarding strangled animals. Some find that command in an interpretation by the rabbis, that is, in the Oral Law, but as little regard as Jesus had for the oral law, it’s hard to imagine James etc. imposing the oral law on the Gentiles.

    But Witherington more persuasively relates the prohibitions to participation in temple feasts, where sexual immorality was regularly found in association with meat offerings that were an abomination to Jews. The issue of food and fellowship between Jewish and Gentile Christians was discussed in Acts 10-11, and another social matter is under discussion here, namely, ‘what to do about Gentiles’ associations with pagan temples, both before and even after their conversion to Christianity.’60 A more elaborate interpretation explains the restrictions in terms of the so-called Noachian precepts, which at least one strand of Jewish tradition believed were applicable to all nations. However, ‘the parallel is not close, and there is nothing in the text of Acts to call Noah to mind.’61 More widely accepted is the view that the rules in Leviticus 17:8-18:18 relating to Jews and resident aliens in the land of Israel were being applied to Christian Gentiles in the Jewish Dispersion. Gentile converts were not required to become Jewish proselytes and keep the whole law, but only those parts of it that were required by Moses of resident aliens.62 But this implies that Gentile Christians were living with Jewish believers in the Dispersion in a way that was comparable to living with Jews in the Holy Land, ignoring the argument that God has taken for himself a new and distinctive people from among the nations (15:14).63 Moreover, ‘there is, in fact, no known Jewish parallel to the selection of precisely these four commandments from the Law of Moses as those which are binding on Gentiles or a category of Gentiles.’64 It is difficult to align the command to avoid ‘the defilements caused by idols’ with Leviticus 17:8-9 and hard to explain why other laws binding on resident aliens are not included in Acts 15:20 (e.g. Lv. 16:29; 17:15-16; 20:2; 22:18; 24:22; 25:47). Finally, 15:21 is a call to recognise the importance of the law for Jews, not a justification for imposing some of its requirements on Gentiles. Another possible background is provided by a group of rabbinic texts which indicate three matters on which compromise by Jews was impossible: idolatry, the shedding of blood and incest.65

    David Peterson, The Acts of the Apostles (Pillar NTC; Accordance electronic ed. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), n.p.

    I agree with Witherington. All the prohibitions fit nicely into a world in which meat sacrificed to idols was a critically important ethical question, along with common meals among Jewish and Gentile Christians. Everything on the list would have been a problem for a Jewish Christian invited to eat at a Gentile banquet. Table fellowship was absolutely critical, and so the Gentiles were to be instructed on how to be welcoming to their Jewish brothers and sisters — both in terms of real morality (fornication) and matters of conscience.

  5. rich constant says:
    June 7, 2015 at 6:45 am

    shouldn’t forget about God’s righteousness and covenant faithfulness as spoken of in Romans 3, God was faithful to his words.a covenant, of promise or grace, to Abraham bringing about his disclosure of what was to come also keeping Israel in check, by the curse of the law or Torah covenant, the full disclosure comes in Romans 3 :19 and 20 and 21 through which God is faithful to his words of disclosure of what was to come also Jesus was faithful to those words and fulfilled those words which brings about grace for all that believe, thus we have a law of faith not nullifying old law but establishing it.
    and thus we have a new covenant by grace through faith that not of yourselves least anyone should boast.
    Blessings rich

  6. rich constant says:
    June 7, 2015 at 6:53 am

    I Know I turned that thing around but there is that thing called a new perspective now, better get with it.
    happy FIRST Day of the week…
    😉
    Rich

Comments are closed.