My First Exegesis Regarding the Doctrine of Covenants: To Include the Covenant of Friendship- Part 2 of 3
By: Candice C. Farney
What covenants are we most familiar with? What is revealed about these covenants?
First Covenant: God and man
When you Google "covenant" this is probably what is going to come up first. I say that because this was what came up first for me. There are many Christian and Jewish scholars that discuss the different covenants that God creates with men. Many theologians smarter than I have covered the topic and I would highly suggest you study some of those texts if you are interested. However, just because other's cover it, doesn't mean I won't. And honestly, there are a couple of points that I disagree with. Typically, commentators identify these are the major covenants between God and man: Edenic (Hosea 6:7), Adamic (Genesis 2-3), Noahic (Genesis 9), Abrahamic (Genesis 15), Aaronic (aka Priestly covenant from Numbers 25), Mosaic (Exodus 24), Davidic (2 Samuel 7) and the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-39 and Ephesians 1:11-14). This is not an exhaustive list. But these are the most commonly identified covenants (though not all of them are called covenants specifically in the bible). The only one I will cover in depth here is the covenant that each of us may enter into: the new covenant.
The new covenant- The new covenant first appears in the Old Testament when God reveals it as a promise to the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-39). God tells Jeremiah that even though Israel turned from her husband, the Lord and breaks her portion of the covenant. As an aside, this metaphor is an interesting one and later is revealed in Ephesians 5 that Christ is the head of the church as a husband is the head of his wife. Keep this in mind as I will come back to it. However, God has remained faithful and continues to fulfill his end. Under the new covenant, the law will dwell within God's people and it will be written on their hearts. This seems to allude to the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Even if it doesn't, remember that Christ said that the law is based on love. So when God says the law will dwell within us, He is literally saying that we will be indwelt with love for God and love for others. It is under this new covenant that Christians live. God describes a covenant that reaches to the ends of the earth and expands for the rest of time. But in the New Testament, we learn that there is one ‘way out’ of this covenant. There is one thing that cannot be forgiven and will break any covenant that one has with God. It is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:22-32 and Mark 12:22-30). These instances are specifically mentioned twice in the bible and both times are said from the mouth of Christ. I will not get into specifics on the subject because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit really deserves volumes with all the theories and implications in these verses. The important thing to know is that, because the result is losing salvation, it must break the covenant that should result in salvation. For the purposes of the doctrines of covenant, it is just important to know that God does provide a way that this covenant can be broken. But we still see the purpose of entering the new covenant is to the praise of His glory in Ephesians 1:11-14.
Second Covenant: Husband and Wife
The second most talked about or referenced biblical covenant is the one of husband and wife. This covenant starts in the Garden of Eden itself. Genesis 2 provides our first definition of marriage, a man and woman that leave their families in order to create their own. We know that God intends this to be a covenant because He calls it that in Malachi 2:14. The covenant of marriage literally is the joining of two people into one person. Jesus says in Matthew 19:6 "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” We see many conditions of the covenant of marriage given in the bible. Entering this covenant requires one man, one woman and God. It requires leaving the original family unit and making a new one together. It is not called to separate.
But, just like the new covenant, there is a ‘way out’ provided. Technically, there is one provided in the Old Testament and one provided in the New Testament. The first way to break the covenant of marriage is covered in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Matthew 5:32 and Mark 10:4 saying that if one spouse commits adultery on the other it gives the non-adulterous spouse the right to offer a certificate of divorce and break the covenant. Now, to put it bluntly, God doesn't want to see divorce in any circumstance ("let not man separate!"). But God being a loving God understood that adultery is so painful to the faithful spouse that there heart would be hardened (Mark 10:5). So God allows them a way out without the guilt being on their head. For my husband and I, we decided when we got married to supersede this covenant. We acknowledged that God doesn't want us to divorce in the worst of circumstances. That He can be brought glory even through adultery. So we decided that we will not divorce in the case of adultery. When we made our covenant, we said that the only case in which we would divorce is if one of us had a repeated sexual relationship with another person that we are not willing to give up. It doesn't matter if it is caught nor confessed. So long as the adulterous spouse is willing to give up the relationship and stay in the marriage, then we both will. We will live in love and forgiveness and we will stick around and figure it out to bring God glory. Because God is a God of healing and reconciliation, we trust that He would heal our marriage. Not that either of us has any worry about the other cheating. Because we know that our line for divorce is so far back, I can honestly say that we have more freedom in our marriage than pretty much any other we know. My husband and I can confess our every sin to the other and know that the other won't leave. Even more so, each of us is willing to have the other confess their sins to us and love each other and help each other through it. I have almost as much freedom in my covenant with my husband as I do in my covenant with Christ, which is fitting because the covenant of marriage is supposed to reflect the covenant Christ made with the church (Ephesians 5). It is the kind of love that casts out all fears and doubts (1 John 4:18).
Now, on the topic of divorce (or breaking the covenant of marriage), the Apostle Paul gives one other acceptable circumstance for divorce. Paul says that if a believer is married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever leaves, then the believer is released from the covenant (1 Corinthians 7:12-16). Paul comes to this conclusion saying that an unbelieving spouse is made holy by their oneness with the believing spouse. Now, this is not saying that the unbelieving spouse is saved and Paul makes that clear in verse sixteen. The non-believing spouse is just entering a marriage and cannot be bound by the covenant because they cannot make one before a God in whom they do not believe. This is why Paul starts by saying the believer cannot leave. Is it going to be frustrating covenanting yourself to a person that has not covenanted themselves to you? Yes. Is it going to cause friction? Most likely. Does that give you license to leave? No. Why? Because you make them holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). This does not mean you tell your unbelieving spouse to leave you so that you can be free of your covenant. It just means that if they want to break their vow, then it will release you from the covenant.
On this note, there is one excuse that believers like to make to justify their divorce from a non-believing spouse. That God didn't want them to enter that marriage in the first place. This is the first of two times I will say this, covenant beats command. The reason Paul tells you that you cannot leave is because you entered a covenant that God didn't want you to enter in the first place. But let me back up. Multiple places in the bible give the same command; believers are called to marry other believers, not unbelievers. The bible talks about this in many terms; including being equally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14-18, Deuteronomy 7:3; Joshua 23:12; Ezra 9:2; Nehemiah 13:25; 1 Corinthians 7:39). The idea comes from farm work where you would yoke two oxen (or other large animals that would pull your plow) together and put them to the plow. You would want two of equal size and strength so that they both pull equally and at the same speed. If one was significantly weaker, it would pretty much be dragged by the stronger and could damage both animals in the end. In life, you want your partner to plow at the same speed as yourself. You don't want to be the strong one dragging the weaker one along until they quit and you don't want to be the weak one holding someone back; especially in their faith. It's about going in the same direction, at the same speed, neither pulling the other. Instead walking along side each other, and sharing the weight of the load. So how does covenant beat this command? We have already been told that failing to obey God's command and marrying a non-believer does not give the believer the right to leave. The covenant you enter, even against God's command, you must honor because that still gives God more glory. This does not mean that God is required to bless you in your disobedience. It just means He gets more glory by your fulfilling your promise to Him and others in spite of your disobedience to His command.
Third Covenant: Covenant with the Oneself
The third covenant from the bible most commonly talked about comes from Job. The book of Job talks about Job’s faithfulness to God in a very hard to endure circumstance. He was a man who had lost everything, but was still worshipping God. When a friend asked him what sin he had committed that would make God punish him, he answered that he hadn’t sinned at all. And in explaining part of his righteousness in Job 31:1, Job tells us he made a covenant with his eyes to not look at any woman lustfully. This is a covenant of purity. This reveals knowledge that isn't again revealed until Jesus brings it up in Matthew 5:28, when He says that even looking at a woman lustfully means you have committed adultery. Job is merely trying to indicate that he knows he is blameless before the Lord but his covenant to himself for purity is an inspiration to many. His example reveals that you can covenant with yourself before the Lord to not sin. This would be another way to love God and bring Him glory, by following His commands. The problem is that most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to make this kind of intense commitment even if it is to free themselves from a sin they cannot escape. If you are taking your sin seriously and are truly ready to give it up, make a covenant with yourself before God to never do it again. Choose loving God and others over loving yourself and your sin. This type of covenant may not be necessary for all types of sin, but it may be for you if there is a specific sin that you have been tempted by for years. However, do not enter this covenant rashly. You need to be very honest with yourself and if you are really ready to give up your sin and never turn back to it. Because, again, if you make a covenant and you break it, it will not go well with you.
Fourth Covenant: Covenant between peoples/ tribes
The fourth covenant covers covenants between people groups or tribes. These types of covenants can be found in the Old Testament but there is one that stands out to me the most. It is found in Joshua 9. Joshua was leading Israel to the lands God promises after Moses died and Joshua was tricked into entering a covenant with the Gibeonites, a people God commanded them to destroy. After realizing this, Joshua made them forced laborers for Israel, but honored his covenant. Again, covenant overrides command. If it did not, we would have seen God rebuke the Israelites for allowing the Gibeonites to live, as He did whenever the Israelites did not fully fulfill His commands to destroy other tribes. As a matter of fact, 2 Samuel 21 we see that years after Joshua died we learn that King Saul killed some of the Gibeonites. Though we do not know why, we do know that God punished Israel with a famine that lasted at least three years and passed the point of Saul's death. The reason I chose to focus on this covenant is that not only does it show covenant beating commandment, it shows how covenant transcends time. The original maker of the covenant was long since dead and the violator of the covenant had also died, but God still held the nation of Israel accountable through famine. And we already know that famine is one of the ways God says He will punish those that break a covenant. Even though God never wanted them to enter this covenant, He still expected them to honor it.
But how do we enter this type of covenant when we no longer have tribes and we are not diplomats that can tie our country's fate to another? My thoughts on the best fulfilling of this type of covenant would be to create covenants between churches. As long as that church believes in the fundamental principles of the Gospel, then the small differences don't matter for the sake of covenant. By covenanting churches together, we not only learn to love each other better, but we can expand our reach to God's glory! Consider this: a church in the heart of a big city and a big church in the heart of a suburb. The church in the suburb probably has a lot more money (and is likely wasting some of it on the finer things it does not need) and the church in the city has a big mission. By partnering these churches, you can extend the reach of both. You partner in saying neither church will let the other die but both churches will receive what they need to preach the Gospel. The big church might seem like it is helping the small church more, but really, both would be a blessing to each other. In seeing the Gospel spread and the word alive, the suburban church will grow and be blessed. They actually receive more by being a part of a Gospel that grows. Churches should be looking for new methods to expand their Gospel reach and I think partnering with other churches would be a perfect way to do that. Aside from giving monetary support, each of the churches should find ways to serve the other instead of their own and partner together in love.
For the full version, visit this link.
By: Candice C. Farney
What covenants are we most familiar with? What is revealed about these covenants?
First Covenant: God and man
When you Google "covenant" this is probably what is going to come up first. I say that because this was what came up first for me. There are many Christian and Jewish scholars that discuss the different covenants that God creates with men. Many theologians smarter than I have covered the topic and I would highly suggest you study some of those texts if you are interested. However, just because other's cover it, doesn't mean I won't. And honestly, there are a couple of points that I disagree with. Typically, commentators identify these are the major covenants between God and man: Edenic (Hosea 6:7), Adamic (Genesis 2-3), Noahic (Genesis 9), Abrahamic (Genesis 15), Aaronic (aka Priestly covenant from Numbers 25), Mosaic (Exodus 24), Davidic (2 Samuel 7) and the new covenant (Jeremiah 31:31-39 and Ephesians 1:11-14). This is not an exhaustive list. But these are the most commonly identified covenants (though not all of them are called covenants specifically in the bible). The only one I will cover in depth here is the covenant that each of us may enter into: the new covenant.
The new covenant- The new covenant first appears in the Old Testament when God reveals it as a promise to the Prophet Jeremiah (Jeremiah 31:31-39). God tells Jeremiah that even though Israel turned from her husband, the Lord and breaks her portion of the covenant. As an aside, this metaphor is an interesting one and later is revealed in Ephesians 5 that Christ is the head of the church as a husband is the head of his wife. Keep this in mind as I will come back to it. However, God has remained faithful and continues to fulfill his end. Under the new covenant, the law will dwell within God's people and it will be written on their hearts. This seems to allude to the promised indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Even if it doesn't, remember that Christ said that the law is based on love. So when God says the law will dwell within us, He is literally saying that we will be indwelt with love for God and love for others. It is under this new covenant that Christians live. God describes a covenant that reaches to the ends of the earth and expands for the rest of time. But in the New Testament, we learn that there is one ‘way out’ of this covenant. There is one thing that cannot be forgiven and will break any covenant that one has with God. It is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:22-32 and Mark 12:22-30). These instances are specifically mentioned twice in the bible and both times are said from the mouth of Christ. I will not get into specifics on the subject because blasphemy against the Holy Spirit really deserves volumes with all the theories and implications in these verses. The important thing to know is that, because the result is losing salvation, it must break the covenant that should result in salvation. For the purposes of the doctrines of covenant, it is just important to know that God does provide a way that this covenant can be broken. But we still see the purpose of entering the new covenant is to the praise of His glory in Ephesians 1:11-14.
Second Covenant: Husband and Wife
The second most talked about or referenced biblical covenant is the one of husband and wife. This covenant starts in the Garden of Eden itself. Genesis 2 provides our first definition of marriage, a man and woman that leave their families in order to create their own. We know that God intends this to be a covenant because He calls it that in Malachi 2:14. The covenant of marriage literally is the joining of two people into one person. Jesus says in Matthew 19:6 "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together let not man separate.” We see many conditions of the covenant of marriage given in the bible. Entering this covenant requires one man, one woman and God. It requires leaving the original family unit and making a new one together. It is not called to separate.
But, just like the new covenant, there is a ‘way out’ provided. Technically, there is one provided in the Old Testament and one provided in the New Testament. The first way to break the covenant of marriage is covered in Deuteronomy 24:1-4, Matthew 5:32 and Mark 10:4 saying that if one spouse commits adultery on the other it gives the non-adulterous spouse the right to offer a certificate of divorce and break the covenant. Now, to put it bluntly, God doesn't want to see divorce in any circumstance ("let not man separate!"). But God being a loving God understood that adultery is so painful to the faithful spouse that there heart would be hardened (Mark 10:5). So God allows them a way out without the guilt being on their head. For my husband and I, we decided when we got married to supersede this covenant. We acknowledged that God doesn't want us to divorce in the worst of circumstances. That He can be brought glory even through adultery. So we decided that we will not divorce in the case of adultery. When we made our covenant, we said that the only case in which we would divorce is if one of us had a repeated sexual relationship with another person that we are not willing to give up. It doesn't matter if it is caught nor confessed. So long as the adulterous spouse is willing to give up the relationship and stay in the marriage, then we both will. We will live in love and forgiveness and we will stick around and figure it out to bring God glory. Because God is a God of healing and reconciliation, we trust that He would heal our marriage. Not that either of us has any worry about the other cheating. Because we know that our line for divorce is so far back, I can honestly say that we have more freedom in our marriage than pretty much any other we know. My husband and I can confess our every sin to the other and know that the other won't leave. Even more so, each of us is willing to have the other confess their sins to us and love each other and help each other through it. I have almost as much freedom in my covenant with my husband as I do in my covenant with Christ, which is fitting because the covenant of marriage is supposed to reflect the covenant Christ made with the church (Ephesians 5). It is the kind of love that casts out all fears and doubts (1 John 4:18).
Now, on the topic of divorce (or breaking the covenant of marriage), the Apostle Paul gives one other acceptable circumstance for divorce. Paul says that if a believer is married to an unbeliever and the unbeliever leaves, then the believer is released from the covenant (1 Corinthians 7:12-16). Paul comes to this conclusion saying that an unbelieving spouse is made holy by their oneness with the believing spouse. Now, this is not saying that the unbelieving spouse is saved and Paul makes that clear in verse sixteen. The non-believing spouse is just entering a marriage and cannot be bound by the covenant because they cannot make one before a God in whom they do not believe. This is why Paul starts by saying the believer cannot leave. Is it going to be frustrating covenanting yourself to a person that has not covenanted themselves to you? Yes. Is it going to cause friction? Most likely. Does that give you license to leave? No. Why? Because you make them holy (1 Corinthians 7:14). This does not mean you tell your unbelieving spouse to leave you so that you can be free of your covenant. It just means that if they want to break their vow, then it will release you from the covenant.
On this note, there is one excuse that believers like to make to justify their divorce from a non-believing spouse. That God didn't want them to enter that marriage in the first place. This is the first of two times I will say this, covenant beats command. The reason Paul tells you that you cannot leave is because you entered a covenant that God didn't want you to enter in the first place. But let me back up. Multiple places in the bible give the same command; believers are called to marry other believers, not unbelievers. The bible talks about this in many terms; including being equally yoked (2 Corinthians 6:14-18, Deuteronomy 7:3; Joshua 23:12; Ezra 9:2; Nehemiah 13:25; 1 Corinthians 7:39). The idea comes from farm work where you would yoke two oxen (or other large animals that would pull your plow) together and put them to the plow. You would want two of equal size and strength so that they both pull equally and at the same speed. If one was significantly weaker, it would pretty much be dragged by the stronger and could damage both animals in the end. In life, you want your partner to plow at the same speed as yourself. You don't want to be the strong one dragging the weaker one along until they quit and you don't want to be the weak one holding someone back; especially in their faith. It's about going in the same direction, at the same speed, neither pulling the other. Instead walking along side each other, and sharing the weight of the load. So how does covenant beat this command? We have already been told that failing to obey God's command and marrying a non-believer does not give the believer the right to leave. The covenant you enter, even against God's command, you must honor because that still gives God more glory. This does not mean that God is required to bless you in your disobedience. It just means He gets more glory by your fulfilling your promise to Him and others in spite of your disobedience to His command.
Third Covenant: Covenant with the Oneself
The third covenant from the bible most commonly talked about comes from Job. The book of Job talks about Job’s faithfulness to God in a very hard to endure circumstance. He was a man who had lost everything, but was still worshipping God. When a friend asked him what sin he had committed that would make God punish him, he answered that he hadn’t sinned at all. And in explaining part of his righteousness in Job 31:1, Job tells us he made a covenant with his eyes to not look at any woman lustfully. This is a covenant of purity. This reveals knowledge that isn't again revealed until Jesus brings it up in Matthew 5:28, when He says that even looking at a woman lustfully means you have committed adultery. Job is merely trying to indicate that he knows he is blameless before the Lord but his covenant to himself for purity is an inspiration to many. His example reveals that you can covenant with yourself before the Lord to not sin. This would be another way to love God and bring Him glory, by following His commands. The problem is that most people don't have the intestinal fortitude to make this kind of intense commitment even if it is to free themselves from a sin they cannot escape. If you are taking your sin seriously and are truly ready to give it up, make a covenant with yourself before God to never do it again. Choose loving God and others over loving yourself and your sin. This type of covenant may not be necessary for all types of sin, but it may be for you if there is a specific sin that you have been tempted by for years. However, do not enter this covenant rashly. You need to be very honest with yourself and if you are really ready to give up your sin and never turn back to it. Because, again, if you make a covenant and you break it, it will not go well with you.
Fourth Covenant: Covenant between peoples/ tribes
The fourth covenant covers covenants between people groups or tribes. These types of covenants can be found in the Old Testament but there is one that stands out to me the most. It is found in Joshua 9. Joshua was leading Israel to the lands God promises after Moses died and Joshua was tricked into entering a covenant with the Gibeonites, a people God commanded them to destroy. After realizing this, Joshua made them forced laborers for Israel, but honored his covenant. Again, covenant overrides command. If it did not, we would have seen God rebuke the Israelites for allowing the Gibeonites to live, as He did whenever the Israelites did not fully fulfill His commands to destroy other tribes. As a matter of fact, 2 Samuel 21 we see that years after Joshua died we learn that King Saul killed some of the Gibeonites. Though we do not know why, we do know that God punished Israel with a famine that lasted at least three years and passed the point of Saul's death. The reason I chose to focus on this covenant is that not only does it show covenant beating commandment, it shows how covenant transcends time. The original maker of the covenant was long since dead and the violator of the covenant had also died, but God still held the nation of Israel accountable through famine. And we already know that famine is one of the ways God says He will punish those that break a covenant. Even though God never wanted them to enter this covenant, He still expected them to honor it.
But how do we enter this type of covenant when we no longer have tribes and we are not diplomats that can tie our country's fate to another? My thoughts on the best fulfilling of this type of covenant would be to create covenants between churches. As long as that church believes in the fundamental principles of the Gospel, then the small differences don't matter for the sake of covenant. By covenanting churches together, we not only learn to love each other better, but we can expand our reach to God's glory! Consider this: a church in the heart of a big city and a big church in the heart of a suburb. The church in the suburb probably has a lot more money (and is likely wasting some of it on the finer things it does not need) and the church in the city has a big mission. By partnering these churches, you can extend the reach of both. You partner in saying neither church will let the other die but both churches will receive what they need to preach the Gospel. The big church might seem like it is helping the small church more, but really, both would be a blessing to each other. In seeing the Gospel spread and the word alive, the suburban church will grow and be blessed. They actually receive more by being a part of a Gospel that grows. Churches should be looking for new methods to expand their Gospel reach and I think partnering with other churches would be a perfect way to do that. Aside from giving monetary support, each of the churches should find ways to serve the other instead of their own and partner together in love.
For the full version, visit this link.
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