Covenant Refresher

I. Covenant drives the biblical story

A. The dysfunctional closet analogy. Sandra Richter, The Epic of Eden (2008)

B. What’s a covenant?
1. An instrument of relationship

2. “Asking for a definition of ‘covenant’ is something like asking for a definition of

‘mother’.” (O. Palmer Robertson, Christ of the Covenants)

Collins: “A covenant formally binds twp parties together in a relationship, and obligates
them to practice faithfulness, with rewards and sanctions.” (C. Jack Collins)

A relationship between persons, begun by the sovereign determination of the greater

party, in which both parties commit themselves to the other in the context of mutual
loyalty, and which mutual obligations or responsibilities serve as illustrations of that
loyalty. (Williams, Far as the Curse Is Found)

II. The character of covenant events

A. They all begin in God’s gracious condescension
1. The Confession of faith connects covenant with divine condescension
“The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although
reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their Creator, yet they could
never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some
voluntary condescension on God’s part.” (WCF, 7.1)

2. Covenant is the product of God’s benevolence, his grace. Thus his covenantal
condescension is the instrument of his gracious disposition toward his creatures.

God is “elevated above humanity in his sovereign exaltedness and majesty,” such that
no “fellowship” between God and human beings is possible apart from God’s initiating,
condescending, covenantal action.”

“For then God has to come down from his lofty position, condescend to his creatures,
impart, reveal, and give himself away to human beings... But this set of conditions is
nothing other than the description of a covenant.” Rather than pantheistically “pull God
into what is creaturely” or “deistically elevate him endlessly above it,” we should
recognize that God “is infinitely great and condescendingly good; he is sovereign but
also Father; he is Creator but also Prototype. In a word, he is the God of the covenat.”
Thus, “True religion... cannot be anything other than a covenant: it has its origin in the
condescending goodness and grace of God. It has that character before as well as
after the fall.”1

3. Divine transcendence and immanence

1
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2.569-70, emphasis added.
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God’s transcendence is ontological. But his immanence, his descending to us in

covenant is always the result of God’s own good will and freedom.

B. Covenant is a relationship between parties

1. Reciprocal fidelity
“In Scripture, ‘covenant’ is the fixed form in which the relation of God to his
people is depicted and presented. And even when the word does not occur, we
nevertheless always see the two parties, as it were, in dialogue with ea other,
dealing with ea other, with God calling people to conversion, reminding them of
their obligation, and obligating himself to provide all that is good.”2

2. Covenant affirms both parties

Robert Letham, The Westminster Assembly: condescension is not just the act of God’s
coming down and accommodating himself to the creature, but also the act of accrediting
the other, of generously making room for the other.

“He does not need our love, but he loves us. He does not need our help, but he lets us
help.”3

It is crucial to hold on to both sides of the covenant

The covenant formula (e.g. Exo.6:7; Rev.21:3): I will be your God and you will be my
people.

3. Covenant creates a relationship of kinship

Kinship relationships are deeply personal and morally freighted with responsibilities,
obligations
Covenant is “a bond in blood, sovereignly administered.” (Robertson)

4. Is a covenant a contract?
“An appreciation of the significance of the loyalty aspect in covenant can come
through a contrast of contract and covenant. The contract form differs from the
covenant in that its elements are: list of consenting parties, description of
transaction, witness list and date. But beyond this formal aspect there are other
basic differences. The occasion for contract is largely the benefits that each
party expects, thus for a satisfactory sum one party agrees to supply a specified
quantity of some desired product for the other party. The contract is
characteristically thing-oriented. The covenant is person-oriented and,
theologically speaking, arises, not with benefits as the chief barter term, but out
of a desire for a measure of intimacy. In a contract negotiation an arrival at a
mutually satisfactory agreement is important. In a covenant, negotiation has no
place. The greater in grace offers his help; the initiative is his. ‘Gift’ is
descriptive of covenant as ‘negotiation’ is descriptive of contract. Bot covenant
and contract have obligations, but with this difference. The conditions set out in
a contract require fulfillment of terms; the obligation of covenant is one of loyalty.

2
Bavinck. 2.569.
3
Donald Bloesch, God the Almighty, 107.
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A covenant, commonly, is for ever; a contract for a specified period. A ticking off
of terms in check-list fashion can reveal a broken contract, and the point of
brokenness can be clearly identified. A covenant, too, can be broken, but the
point at which this transpires is less clear, because here the focus is not on
stipulations, one, two, three, but on a quality of intimacy. Of all the differences
between covenant and contract, the place in covenant of mutual loyalty is the
most striking.”4

C. Covenant events are constitutive and formative

They are events that must be acknowledged and lived within from their inception.
E.g., the Garden rebellion
1. Eve’s appropriation of 2:16-17 in 3:1-5.
2. Adam is treated as the responsible representative in 3:8-13.
3. All of the descendants of Adam and Eve receive the same consequences of their
expulsion in 3:22-24.
4. The earth also lives in the consequence of Adam’s rebellion (3:17).

D. Covenant episodes evidence both continuity and discontinuity

4
Elmer Martens, God’s Design, 72-73.