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.
