Why does god make covenants with man

Indeed, they would even be ejected from the land and go into exile. The promise of victory over the serpent and his offspring will come through a child of Abraham Gen. The new feature is that victory over the serpent would come through a king. The child of Abraham who will conquer sin and death will be a son of David.

The covenant with David, however, had conditional and unconditional elements as well. As history progresses, it becomes evident that something was radically wrong with the kings and with the nation. In fact, the sin of the kings of Judah and Israel were so significant that Israel was expelled from the land. God had pledged that the world would be transformed through a son of David, but the promise was going backwards! Israel and Judah were thrown out of the land in and BC respectively.

Israel had made a mess of things, and it almost seems as if the promise of triumph over the serpent had been withdrawn, but we remember that the promise in Gen. The Lord enacted a new covenant with his people which fulfilled the promises made to Adam, Abraham, and David cf. This book shows how the kingdom of God has advanced through the progression of distinct covenants, collectively serving as the foundation for God's promise to bring redemption to his people.

All those who belong to Jesus are his offspring: they are the children of Abraham and members of the Israel of God. The land promise is also fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The goal is to see the work and person of Christ in light of the Old Testament and to highlight aspects that we have possibly overlooked.

Regarding our calling, Christopher J. This people also has a mission, derived from the mission of God. Again the word is used to mean that this people exists for a purpose, or more precisely, have been brought into existence for the sake of the purposes of God. Indeed, one way of walking through the story of God in Scripture is to see God sending his Son and his people into the world through covenants as an act of worship in relation to himself and as an act of witness in relation to the nations.

When God speaks of his covenant relationship with his people throughout the Bible, the language is often that of marriage. God is like a groom. Israel had to obey God in order to fulfill his purpose for delivering them from Egypt and subsequently giving them the promised land. They were to be his priestly kingdom and holy nation.

Gal The Davidic covenant continues the trajectory of both the Mosaic and Abrahamic covenants. Moreover, significant parallels link David to Abraham:. This covenant therefore introduces a subtle but significant shift in focus. With the great nation promised to Abraham now firmly established 2 Sam , attention zooms in on his royal progeny cf.

Gen , This royal line, already traced explicitly in Genesis cf. In Isaiah this everlasting covenant of peace is closely associated with the servant figure Isa ; ; ; ; While Jeremiah and Ezekiel use different terminology to describe it, both anticipate a fundamental change taking place in the covenant community: Jeremiah speaks of internalizing the Torah Jer , whereas Ezekiel speaks of spiritual surgery and radical transformation Ezek — In this new covenant, all the hopes and expectations of previous covenants will attain climactic fulfillment and eschatological expression.

Luke —55 , 69—75 ; 2 Cor , the long-awaited Davidic Messiah Matt —18 ; —6 ; ; ; Luke ; John , Acts — Matt ; Mark ; Luke ; 1 Cor Jer and the blood associated with the establishment of the old i. Exod Accordingly, the NT emphasizes the forgiveness of sins, something only fully attainable under the new covenant Acts ; cf. Thus, according to both Paul and the writer of Hebrews, the new covenant is far superior to the old i.

Paul is even more pointed, however, in 2 Cor 3, where he explicitly contrasts the new and the old covenants, highlighting the vast inferiority of the old in comparison with the surpassing glory and permanence of the new. The author of Hebrews draws analogous conclusions.

Having noted the superiority of the new covenant in Heb , the writer elaborates his point through an extended comment on Jer —34 , which forms a literary bracket around much of the argument in Heb 8— Like Paul, therefore, the contrast is not between something bad and something good, but between something good but temporal and something better because, unlike the old covenant, the new is unbreakable and eternal.

While these new covenant realities are in many respects already present cf. Heb , it is nevertheless true that the best is still to come. Do you have your own copy? Helpful introductions to books and sections of the Bible combined with 20, verse-by-verse study notes will guide you to a clearer understanding of every portion of Scripture. Moses and Paul and therefore we belong to one family. The same is true for Paul and for us in the new covenant—only more so: we are the sons of God by adoption —17 ; we are being changed from one degree of glory to another 2 Cor.

We live in different epochs, but we are one people, one family. Throughout the covenant ages, there is one faith, one Christ, one people. Hebrews —6 puts it this way: in both the old and the new covenant epochs, believers have belonged to the same household and the same family. They have occupied the same house, even though changes have taken place. And now Moses the servant has given way to Jesus the Son.

Restrictions have been lifted we are no longer heirs who are underage. But the ancestral home remains one and the same. What a privilege it is to belong to this millennia-old covenant family. Learning about church history is simply visiting our relatives.