God's Covenants Lesson 1 Foundation

Foundation of Our Faith, Lesson 1

Table of Contents

Foundation of Our Faith ............................................ - 3 -

Covenant Relationship Defined................................ - 7 -

God’s Covenant (An excerpt)

...Let me repeat, Covenant is the foundational teaching for Judaism and Christianity.

Covenant Relationship Defined

The American legal system was based on God’s covenant laws given to Moses. This nation of America was founded, and its laws based upon the concept that God has given us certain rights. But we also have certain responsibilities to God and to each other; this defines covenant relationship. Not just covenant but covenant relationship, note that word, relationship.

The term “covenant” is not generally understood in our day and time and culture, and we are the very people who benefit from its inexplicable privileges and promises. The word “covenant” is found 280 times in the King James Bible according to biblegateway.com. It will do you good to read those scriptures so you can see the various illustrations of covenant acts. The word

Testament is another word for covenant and is found another 13 times in the Bible. Really, almost 300 times in the bible, the word covenant or testament is found. That is a lot of space devoted to this topic in the scriptures, meaning it is worthy of our knowing what it is, and how it operates, and how it relates to us, and how we relate to it.

Covenant comes from the Hebrew word berit (beh-reet’), Strong’s #1285 meaning “to cut”, a compact, pledge, or treaty agreement. It is one of the most theologically important words in the Bible. It comes from flesh being cut and blood being shed. In its simplest form, a covenant is an all-encompassing agreement between two parties with clearly outlined perimeters and promises. The parties can be made up of a singular person or group of people. Clearly the outlined perimeters and promises are the word of God. It is a mutual understanding between two persons, a king and his people, or God and His people, who bind themselves together with specific obligations to fulfil. God is a covenant God. Every benefit that He has for us is based upon covenant relationship. Allow me to reiterate, every benefit for you and I that God has provided for us is obtained based upon covenant relationship.

H. Clay Trumbull in his book, the Blood Covenant, shares multiple accounts of early missionaries Livingstone and Stanley encountering primitive tribes whereby they secured peace, provision and safety by entering blood covenant. In other words, they could enter into a blood covenant by drinking it, or by mixing it, and then they were able to pass through unharmed. The idea is that the stronger one makes the rules and the weaker benefit thereby. In the case of God and us, there is no comparison. However, we can receive the benefit of everything God is, transferred to us. How then do we give Him what we have? By giving Him ourselves, laying down our lives for Him, which is exactly what He wants. A king and his people, God and His people or just people with other people make up the parties of a covenant. Covenant is a word that describes God’s relationship with us. Everything He has is mine and everything I have is now His. Remarkable to say the least. That is really a good thing for us and God is pleased because He loves us. It is like when we were children, when we were young and wanted to buy our parents a Christmas present. The money was our parents money but the child takes it and picks out a present for them. The very fact that the child has given of themselves to do it blesses the parent, even though it was their resources that enabled them to purchase anything. This is just the human way to explain it. What God is saying is that He is blessed by you giving yourself entirely to him in the spirit of relationship, and he of course gives everything He is to you.

Covenant then is a word that describes God’s relationship to you and me. Since the very creation of the world, God has used a unique pattern, a unique cultural event, referred to as the covenant. In fact, speaking of day and night, they are actually a covenant. This is referred to in Jer 33:20-21, God said, “If you can break my covenant with day and night, and with seasons,”. The strength of covenant...

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