2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
God has challenged me today to study excepts about covenant theology from L. Berkhof’s “Systematic Theology,” p. 124 to have a better understanding of this subject and convey it to you. This is not meant to be merely an academic exercise, but is designed to help all of us understand why covenants, particularly ones with the Lord, are so crucial to our lives. The Hebrew word, “berith,” which means “to cut” becomes synonymous with the Hebrew word, “choq,” which means a “statute of ordinance,” in the following five citations from the OT. That shows us where they fit in the scheme of covenant theology and reveals their monopleuric nature. Remember a monopleuric covenant is one in which a superior party (in this case, God) imposes the covenant on a lesser party (in this case, mankind). Read through these citations with this in mind, but don’t neglect to appreciate God’s righteous sovereignty and mankind’s need to respond to it in them.
IS 59: 21, “And I make a covenant with you; I have given you My power and My teaching to be yours forever, and from now on you are to obey Me and to teach your children and your descendants to obey Me for all time to come.” The context of this verse matters. It is in a portion of the book of Isaiah were God is giving warnings and promises to His people whom He knows He will have to punish and then will rescue. JER 31: 36, “He promises that as long as the natural order lasts, so long will Israel be a nation.” Jeremiah is telling the people here that God will not give up on Israel. The comment about “as long as the natural order exists” tells me that Israel will be a nation until God establishes His Kingdom. Then there will be no need for separate nations, as believers will all be together in a united entity which is His Kingdom. JER 33: 20, “I have made a covenant with the day and with the night, so that they always come at their proper times; and that covenant can never be broken.” This statement of God’s was made to Jeremiah at the time he was imprisoned in response to a prayer Jeremiah had offered on the subject of the plight of the Jewish people at the hands of the Babylonians. God spoke to Jeremiah again regarding the deceitful treatment of slaves in which the Jews had engaged, in JER 34:12-14. “Then the Lord, the God of Israel, told me to say to the people: ‘I made a covenant with your ancestors when I rescued them from Egypt and set them free from slavery. I told them that every seven years they were to set free any Hebrew slave who had served them for six years. But your ancestors would not pay any attention to Me of listen to what I said [in EX 21: 2; DT 15: 12].” This was just one of the many facets of their covenant with God that the Jews of Jeremiah’s time had broken.
The Hebrew words, “karath berith,” mean “to cut a covenant.” In the following four passages, both the Hebrew prepositions, “am and ben,” which mean “with” and “lamedh” which means “to” are used. Once again, that would suggest the monopleuric nature of the covenants discussed in them. In JS 9: 3-4, 14-15, & 23-27, we see God’s hand in the final outcome of a deceptive covenant instigated by the Gibeonites [who are Hivites, one of the Canaanite peoples Joshua had been commanded by God to vanquish] with Joshua. “But the people of Gibeon, who were Hivites, heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, and they decided to deceive him…The men of Israel accepted some food from them, but did not consult the Lord about it. Joshua made a treaty of friendship with the people of Gibeon and allowed them to live. The leaders of the community of Israel gave their solemn promise to keep the treaty…Because you [Gibeonites] did this [deceived Joshua], God has always condemned you. Your people will always be slaves, cutting wood and carrying water for the sanctuary of my God. They answered, ‘We did it, sir, because we learned that it was really true that the Lord your God had commanded His servant Moses to give you the whole land and to kill the people living in it as you advanced. We did it because we were terrified of you; we were in fear of our lives. Now we are in your power; do with us what you think is right.’ So this is what Joshua did: he protected them and did not allow the people of Israel to kill them. But at the same time he made them slaves, to cut wood and carry water for the people of Israel and for the Lord’s altar. To this day they have continued to do this work in the place where the Lord has chosen to be worshipped.”
IS 55: 3, “Listen now, My people, and come to Me; come to Me, and you will have life! I will make a lasting covenant with you and give you the blessings I promised David.” This statement of God through Isaiah is part of His offer of mercy to His people if they will stop their disobedience. IS 61: 8, “The Lord says, ‘I love justice and hate oppression and crime. I will faithfully reward my people and make an eternal covenant with them.” This statement was made by God as part of revealing the good news of deliverance through Isaiah. JER 32: 40, “I will make an eternal covenant with them. I will never stop doing good things for them, and I will make them fear Me with all their heart, so that they will never turn away from Me.” In this last citation, God is offering an imprisoned Jeremiah His promise of hope for His people. How very like the words of Paul in RO 8: 28 this is! “We know that in all things God works for good with those who love Him, those He has called according to His purpose.” When we look at the messages in these covenant promises in the light of our understanding of covenant theology, how can we miss the profound love, compassion, and patience our Lord has for each and every one us no matter what era of human history in which we live?
PRAYER: O Lord, how magnificent and consistent Your righteous use of Your sovereignty and Your love for us is! It can be seen in each of the covenant promises You directed me to share today. Yesterday, You showed us how one can be a “prisoner” to Christ and the Gospel while at the same time being “free,” because we have been allowed to know the truth. Paul found delight in this, and so do we. Each promise that You made, You have kept, except for the ones You will keep that apply to our future. You have never lied to us or done evil to us. Your patience when we have momentarily broken our promises to You, unknowingly (as Joshua did with the Gibeonites) or knowingly (as the Jews who mistreated their Hebrew slaves did), is nothing short of remarkable. As long as we have been willing to repent, really walk away from the sin we had committed, You have been willing to forgive. Yet, we know that there is a limit to how much and what kind of sin You are willing to forgive. For that reason, we pledge today to make a concerted effort to expunge our own individual and corporate sin from our lives as a response to the work of the cross and Your sovereign right to have us do so. We approach You in humility to offer our adoration, worship, loyalty, glory, honor, trust, obedience, praise and thanksgiving. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, I am directed to continue discussing the truths about covenant theology that I am learning from Berkhof’s “Systematic Theology.” In taking the time to see how the ancient Hebrew and Greek language is used in the Scriptures, we can have a better understanding of what God reveals to us in these crucial, and urgent messages. All around us, we can feel God’s love. He is present in the details of our lives as well as the bigger picture of our eternal life. That kind of presence is not in any way an intrusion, but instead can grant us the comfort of knowing real and eternal love from Him. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn