How about a nice, easy lesson today? Let’s talk covenants.
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Before we talk about covenants, let’s make sure we are all on the same page as to what a covenant is: it is an agreement between two or more parties, and it can be conditional or unconditional.
Conditional covenants are those where each party promises to perform some act in order to make the covenant valid, and if either party violates their side of the agreement, then the covenant is rendered null and void.
Unconditional covenants are those where one side of the agreement promises to perform some act and the other side is not required to do anything.
Simple, right?
Okay, so the main 5 covenants we know from the Bible are these:
- Noahdic Covenant– God promises unconditionally not to destroy life by a flood anymore, and the rainbow is the sign of that covenant.
- Abrahamic Covenant– God promises Abraham that he will make him into a nation and give him the land of the Canaanites. He also promises that those who curse Abraham will be cursed, and those who bless him will be blessed. The sign of this covenant is that all the males of Abraham’s family and slaves must be circumcised.
- The Mosaic Covenant- God promises to make us into a holy nation if we obey the laws he gives us. The sign of this covenant is the Shabbat (Sabbath).
- The Davidic Covenant– God promises King David that so long as his children obey God’s commandments (in the Torah) then he will always have a descendant sitting on the throne. Most important about this is that he also promises to make David’s house a perpetual house, which is understood to be the promise that the Messiah will be a descendant of David.
- The New Covenant– Despite what you may think, this is not in the New Covenant writings, but in Jeremiah 31:31. God promises to write his Torah on our hearts and forgive our sins so that no longer will anyone have to say “Know Adonai” because we will all know him.
So, now that we have the covenants down, let’s identify which ones are conditional and which aren’t.
There is really only one that is unconditional, the Noahdic Covenant. God doesn’t require anything from us in that covenant.
The other four are all conditional: for Abraham we need to be a circumcised male (although obviously females won’t have to undergo that), for the Mosaic Covenant we need to obey the Torah, and the Davidic Covenant is conditional upon David’s descendants obeying the Torah.
Although the New Covenant doesn’t specify any requirement, I have to believe that if someone has not turned their heart towards God they probably won’t be allowed into that covenant.
You may be thinking why God, who has always kept his side of the bargain even though we have often (actually, always) broken our side of his covenants, has still done what he said he would do regarding the conditional covenants.
I think the answer is this: God loves us so much that he is willing to allow us to screw up over and over, but he will not take advantage of his legal right to break his side of the covenant.
I believe this is pretty obvious when we see how many times God has allowed his people to violate his covenants yet was willing to forgive us when we did T’shuvah (turning from sin) in order that the covenant would remain in force.
Ezekiel 18:23 says it best: God doesn’t want to see anyone die (meaning an eternal death), which is why he maintains his side of broken covenants, just waiting for us to re-establish our side.
And when we fail to get around to replacing our heads on our shoulders from where we had them (I won’t say where, but the sun doesn’t shine there), God eventually runs out of patience and decides to give us some motivation, such as a plague, sending the sword against us, famine, etc. He still keeps his side, despite our violation, and instead of just leaving us be he tries to get us back on track.
However, for those who constantly and happily violate the covenants, God will allow them to go their own way, which I believe is very painful to him. But because he loves us so much, he is willing to allow us to kill ourselves, even when he doesn’t want that to happen.
One more thing about covenants- they are in force until one side breaks them or whatever time period they may have attached to them runs out. As for God’s Torah, he gives us a term limit- throughout all your generations.
That means as long as we are alive, those laws are valid and required to be in the covenant with God. Christianity has taught that you can violate the Mosaic Covenant without any repercussions, but that is a false teaching, unless you can show that you have no more generations.
Yeshua lived in accordance with all God’s covenants, including the Torah, which is why he was resurrected- like it or not, the Torah IS the path to salvation because it is God’s “User Manual for Righteousness”, and obedience to the Torah will result in salvation; Yeshua proved that by being resurrected.
The problem is that humans cannot do that, which is why God sent the Messiah, to cover our tuchas when we screw up.
Everyone is under the Noahdic Covenant, and can be under every other covenant if they choose to be obedient and meet the requirements for our side of the agreement. To be saved you do not have to be circumcised because being a member of the Abrahamic Covenant is not a requirement for salvation, but if you want to be saved you need to recognize that believing in Yeshua is NOT a part of any of the covenants, and salvation cannot be earned so it is not a covenental issue, either. Believing in Yeshua is required to receive forgiveness by means of the sacrificial blood he shed, replacing the need to bring an animal to the temple.
Salvation is eternal life, and it is a side-effect of the New Covenant, but (as I said earlier) I truly believe that anyone who rejects obedience to God’s Mosaic Covenant will not be allowed to participate in the New Covenant.
It just doesn’t make sense that God will allow those who purposefully reject his Torah to be forgiven, despite what your Christian religion may tell you.
Here is something to consider: at the end of time we will all face God, and some will say, “I tried to be obedient to your covenants” and others will say, “I did what my man-made religion told me was okay to do.”
So nu?… which of those people do you think God will accept into his presence?
Thank you for being here and please remember to comment and share these messages, even with non-believers. Hey, after all, you never know how fertile the soil is until you plant a seed in it.
That’s it for today, so l’hitraot and Baruch HaShem!