Covenant and Baptism: Parts 1 - 3


Foundations:

1. Covenant is the biblical word that sums up God’s self-revelation in history. Covenant is the most frequently used biblical device for structuring biblical history and theology. So the history of the redemption revealed in the Bible is the story of the covenant.

2. While there are many historical manifestations of God’s covenant – God made a covenant with Adam, with Noah, Abraham, Israel at Sinai, David, Christ – there is but one covenant that God has entered into with man. As we study through the history of redemption and look at the many historical covenants, there really is but one covenant that God has made with the race of man in order to enter into relationship with him and then redeem him.

3. What is the covenant’s larger biblical framework? The overarching theme of the Bible is the kingdom of God. Christ is the essence of the kingdom. Redemption is God’s work of restoring His rebellious kingdom which He will consummate in Christ. God’s glory is the ultimate goal of God’s kingdom work. God’s covenant is the means by which God enters into relationship with man in order to accomplish His kingdom purposes through them and on their behalf to His glory. The covenant defines and establishes the kingdom; the kingdom in its essence is an extended covenantal relationship. The covenant is the constitution of the kingdom of God. So the message of the Bible is a message about a covenantal kingdom.

The essence of the covenant

The covenant is something far greater than a mere agreement between two persons. A covenant is a bond of love that involves oaths of loyalty between two persons devoted to seek the blessing of the other party. “A covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered” (O. Palmer Robertson). “Broadly described, a covenant is a relationship between persons, begun by the sovereign determination of the greater party, in which the greater commits himself to the lesser in the context of mutual loyalty, and in which mutual obligations serve as illustrations of that loyalty” (Michael Williams). The essence of the covenant is love. This is very important and will be developed more later.

Four summary descriptions of the covenant

1. God’s covenant is His. (Gen 6:18; 17:2-4; Hos 8:1; Rom 5:10)

God conceived it.

God initiated it

God extends to whomever He pleases.

God exercises accountability over it.
 

2. God’s covenant is an eternal covenant. (Heb 13:20-21)

It is unchangeable.

It cannot be interrupted.

It is not timeless (it varies historically).
 

3. God’s covenant is a comprehensive covenant. (Jer 33:25; Gen 9:8-15; Ps 104; Rom 5:12-21)

God extends His covenant to all of creation.

God extends His covenant to every living creature.

God extends His covenant to all men.
 

4. God’s covenant is a gracious covenant.

It is all of grace for God to condescend to enter into a relationship of love with man.

 

“He comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found” (Isaac Watts).

 
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Introduction

In the ancient Near East, a great king, or a suzerain, would enter into an agreement with a lesser king, or a vassal. The suzerain who wanted to live together in peace would agree on terms of an arrangement, a treaty or agreement, between himself and the subject nation. They would declare those terms publicly before their families and subjects, seal their covenant with a special ceremony, and then enjoy a meal together as a token of their mutual goodwill. The Hebrew word for covenant is berith and is used some 286 times in the Old Testament, and this word reflects the suzerain treaty that was present in these ancient cultures. The covenant that God made with Israel took the form of the suzerain treaty.

In the suzerain treaty document there were five parts. The book of Deuteronomy in fact takes the form of a suzerain treaty and is a covenant document – in fact Deuteronomy is the covenant document. Romans is to doctrine what Deuteronomy is to the covenant.

The book of Deuteronomy is outlined according to the 5 elements of the suzerain treaty. All five of the parts are very clear.

1. Name of the Great King - In Deut 1:1-5 God introduces Himself as the Lord of the Israelites who is entering into covenant with them. The focus is on the King as the mediator of the covenant.

2. Historical prologue - In Deut 1:6-4:49 God reviews His history with Israel and shows how He has demonstrated His authority over them through His representatives.

3. Laws - In Deut 5-26, which is the largest part of the book, God gives the stipulations, the terms, the expectations of the covenant. Here is God’s law. We find here the 10 Commandments reiterated and then applied in specific cases. These are the commands for the nation of Israel to obey in order to be God’s holy people who will find success and defeat its enemies.

4. Blessings and curses - In Deut 27-30 on the ceremony of Mounts Ebal and Gerizim God lays out the blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience to the terms of the covenant. God and Israel took oaths to bind these blessings and curses to themselves.

5. Terms for continuity – Finally, in Deut 31-34 God shows Israel how the covenant will be passed on to heirs. The eye is on the next generation, led by Joshua. The covenant would be handed down from this generation to the next generation.

These five points are far more than simply a description of the content of the covenant in Deuteronomy. They are what theologian Ray Sutton in his book That You May Prosper calls “the five points of covenantalism.” These five points are really principles that open up what it looks like to see the Scriptures through the lens of the covenant. These are principles for living a covenantal way of life. They are the five priorities of thinking covenantally and the five areas in which the covenant is applicable to our lives.

First point of covenantalism: Lordship.

There is a distinction here between Moses and God, between Moses’ words and God’s words. There is a basic dividing line between God and man -- the same distinction we saw Moses make clear in the first chapter of Genesis – the dividing line between the Creator and the creation. It is God who, as Creator and Lord, takes initiative to come to man. God is coming to mediate His covenant with His people. So God is establishing that He is King over Israel, and He is acting to bring them into covenant with Himself in His kingdom.

This is the equivalent of what God said when He gave the 10 Commandments: “I am the Lord your God.” God establishes His Lordship over His people. And this is what we mean when we use the word transcendence.

The covenant preserves God’s transcendence (Creator/creation distinction) and immanence (God coming near to creation to be in relationship with it). The covenant shows how the transcendent Lord comes near to His creation.

Only a God who is transcendent over creation can enable man to rise above His fallen nature and be restored to His Creator and covenant Lord. God must take initiative and restore a right relationship with sinful man. God must come to us and exercise His Lordship over us and bring us into covenant with Himself so that we will be redeemed and restored to His image.

This is what the Bible is concerned to show us that God has done in sending His Son Jesus Christ. John 1:14 tells us the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, to redeem us. In Jesus Christ, the Word above made flesh below, we see the meeting place of God’s transcendence and God’s immanence. The covenant is the structure through which God enters into relationship with us.

Second point of covenantalism: Structure of authority.

In His covenant God manifests His Lordship through a visible structure of authority. To be covenantal is to embrace God’s pattern of authority in the world, in the church, and in the family.

There is a progression in the covenant here: God is the transcendent Lord who speaks His Word and brings His will to pass (“I am the Lord your God”), and then He manifests that Lordship by exercising His authority in history (“who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage”). Heaven comes down to earth. This is the pattern in Deuteronomy. God identifies Himself as Lord first whose Word bears authority and then He shows how His people will manifest His authority in the world by representing Him.

God says that Israel will have representatives of His authority among them to rule over them, and He says that Israel will itself be God’s representative among the nations of the earth (Deut 4:6-8). That idea of representation is a principle of authority. There is a hierarchy, a structure of authority that God establishes in the world through His covenant.

Continuing through Deuteronomy into chapters 2 and 3, God reviews His history with Israel – their sin and disobedience and also their victories and God’s grace shown to them to carry them through and reveal Himself through them. God is showing Israel that His purpose all along has been to establish His people under His Lordship and authority, then set representatives in their midst to mediate His authority to them, and then place Israel in the world as the visible presence of His authority in the world. Israel would rule as God’s representatives in bringing God’s authority to the nations of the earth.

God re-established Adam’s hierarchical rule over the world after Adam gave it away to the Serpent. God did this by sending a seed who represented Him better than Adam, Seth. God was still doing this with Israel and Moses in Deuteronomy. But one by one each seed fell, just like Adam, until the true Son, Jesus Christ. He was the true seed of the woman toward which all the other seeds pointed. He was the only one who could truly manifest God’s visible sovereignty. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us to manifest God’s authority in the world. Christ died, rose again, and put a new delegated authority on the earth again, the Church, who bear the authority of the Word of God.

The Apostle Paul describes this fact in Ephesians 1:20-23. God (theos) rules (kratos). We live in a theocracy. The entire universe is a theocracy. Every human institution is a theocracy – church, state, family, business, etc. There is no escape from theocracy. Christians in every aspect of their daily lives are supposed to make manifest His rule in every institution. This is why God is interested in having earthly authority. This does not mean that the institutional Church is to control politics. It means that biblical principles are to govern all the affairs of men. This is why Paul encourages the Ephesian Church to take rule in the world by preaching God’s Word. Christ has conquered the powers and now He wants them out of office. It is time in our anti-authority age for Christians to take their place of authority.

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Introduction

God relates to us covenantally because God relates to Himself covenantally. God is covenantal in His very being. Scripture reveals God as both one and many. He is one God, yet He is also three. And though the Trinity is a great mystery, it is no contradiction. God is the divine, Triune community of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three Persons who perfectly interpenetrate one another with complete deity yet who are distinct persons. The bonds that unite the persons of the Godhead in perfect union are bonds of perfect covenantal love.

The many ways the Scriptures describe the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit are all descriptions of the covenant bond of love. So covenant is the basis for relationship within the Trinity, and the relationship within the Trinity is then the basis for all other relationships in God’s creation. It cannot be otherwise. God is ultimate, and we are dependent on Him for our very being.

So God’s relationship with men mirrors forward into history the pre-existing, eternal inter-Trinitarian relationship of covenantal love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Man is inescapably a covenantal being. When God created Adam, He created him in covenant with Himself. Adam was a covenantal head for the whole race so that every many is born in covenant with God. It is not a question of whether every man is in covenant with God or not. Every man is either a covenant keeper or a covenant breaker. And Scripture tells us that God has acted in history to bring a specially favored group of people into covenant with Himself in a special way, in Christ, for redemption, and so that His kingdom purposes in the world will go forward through them to His glory.

We continue to unfold the five points of covenantalism to see how God’s covenant has taken shape in history.

Third point of covenantalism: Law.

After revealing His Lordship and establishing a structure of authority for Israel and for the world, God gives what is called the stipulations of the covenant. This is His law, the terms of the treaty. Law is a description of how God as Lord expects His people to live in order to show loyalty to Him and receive the benefits of the covenant. Law shows us the covenant way of life.

1. The cause and effect pattern of obedience to the law.

God establishes a relationship between cause and effect that hinges on obedience. God dictates the terms (commandments) under which man can have a relationship with Him. These terms are the standard of the covenant. Man is called to be faithful to God by submitting to them. If he submits (this is covenant-keeping), he is blessed. If he does not submit (this is covenant-breaking), he is cursed. This is a command and fulfillment pattern.

2. The person who fulfills the law.

Only a certain kind of person can fulfill the commandments of God. Only a true son of the covenant can fulfill the law of God. See Deut 6:4-7.

3. The kind of obedience to the law that God desires.

God requires proper motivation (a faith response to God’s grace, i.e., with a “circumcised” heart), proper standards (God’s law is to be on our hearts), and proper application (to His glory).

Fourth point of covenantalism: Blessings and curses.

This is the point in the covenant process at which the covenant is confirmed, and the parties of the covenant are ceremonially bound together. There is an oath taken that secures blessings for obedience to the law of the Lord of the covenant and invites punishment for disobedience. It flows very naturally from the third point, in which law is established as the terms of the relationship, the way of life of those who live in covenant.

In Deut 27-30, we find this oath-taking ceremony and then we hear descriptions of the consequences of obedience and disobedience. There is an agreement that is made: if God’s people keep the covenant and obey God’s law, there is blessing. If God’s people break the covenant and disobey, there is cursing. This is the inescapable structure of our relationship to God.

There are 3 factors needed for the confirmation of the covenant here at this ceremony: sanctions (these are the blessings and curses themselves), an oath (this is the “Amens” of the people ceremonially stationed on Mts. Gerizim and Ebal), and witnesses (heaven and earth).

Two observations about blessings and curses:

1. The covenant can be broken.

2. The covenant was applied not just to individuals but to households.

Fifth point of covenantalism: Continuity.

The covenant closes with terms for continuity, and in Deut 31-34 God shows Israel how the covenant will be passed on to heirs. The eye is on the next generation, led by Joshua. The covenant would be handed down from this generation to the next generation.

The Lord established three things that will confirm the heirs in their inheritance of covenant blessing.

First, covenant renewal worship was an act of confirming the nation’s covenant loyalty to God, their sovereign Head.

Second, the inheritance was confirmed for the heirs through conquest. Israel was given the positive task of conquering the land, fulfilling promises reaching all the way back to Abraham, who was promised by the Lord to inherit the land of Canaan. What does this mean for us? Very simply, we should move on from our worship into God’s world to conquer by obedience to His Word.

Third, the true heirs would be confirmed in their inheritance and that is by what we might call discipleship of the next generation. See Deut 31:10-13. Moses gives the Israelites the positive command to teach their children the law of the Lord because Moses knew that the people would be prone to forget the Lord. There is a running refrain throughout Deuteronomy that the people of Israel will be tempted to forget the Lord and to forget the law of the Lord. And by the way, this is exactly what happens in the history of Israel. So what must Israel do? Teach and disciple the children to come, so that they will fear the Lord and keep His law.