Sabbath: God’s Covenants With Us
Image © Pacific Press
Sabbath Afternoon
Read for This Week’s Study: Matthew 10:22, John 6:29, Deuteronomy 28:1-14, Proverbs 3:1-10, Malachi 3:7-11, Matthew 6:25-33.
Memory Text: “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 28:1-2, , NKJV).
Amazingly enough, God has made contracts (or covenants) with us. Most are bilateral, which means that both parties (God and humans) have a part to perform. An example of a bilateral covenant is “If you will do this, then I will do that.” Or “I will do this if you will do that.”
A rarer type of covenant is unilateral. “I will do this whether you do anything or not.” A few of God’s covenants with humanity are unilateral. For example,
“He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45, NKJV). Whatever we do or don’t do, we can count on God for sunshine and rain. Following the Flood, God promised humanity and “every beast of the earth” that there would never be another flood to cover all the earth (see Genesis 9:9-16), regardless of our actions. He also promised: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22, NKJV). The seasons will come and go, regardless of what we do.
This week we will study some very significant bilateral covenants between God and His children. Let’s pray that, by the grace of God, we shall “uphold our end of the bargain.”
Study this week’s lesson to prepare for Sabbath, January 14.
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I read James Michener's book, "The Covenant" - a novelized history of South Africa. One of the themes of this book was the Afrikaan/Dutch Reform Church's view of their covenant relationship with God. It was their motivation for the apartheid policies of their government. They thought they were fulfilling God's covenant in what they were doing.
I read the book in the early 1980s, before the end of the Apartheid policy. It was scary to read how the Afrikaan/Dutch Reform Church justified its position by claiming their covenant relationship with God. And I could not help but compare them with our own claims about our covenant relationship with God. Why is it that both them and us, can claim that our beliefs are biblically based and that we are doing the will of God, yet one group can be so very wrong?
I don't want to turn this discussion into a political history of South Africa, but I do want us to think carefully about how we apply our interpretation of "the covenants" to ourselves.
By the way; Do you realise that 2% of 2023 has already slipped into history? Goes quick eh!
I would like to offer the following for consideration.
While there are multiple covenants within Scripture, at the same time there is an overarching, eternal 'covenant' in operation. Because God alone is I AM - the self-existent One - only God is functionally able to 'possess' and distribute all that is needed to perpetually foster life and living. And because created beings cannot be self-existent - that is, the created can never be nor become the Creator - created beings are by nature inherently, eternally 'dependant' upon One who is self-existent.
In light of this reality, the most overarching covenant essentially is "I will be your God, and you will be my people" (eg Exodus 6:7). Unpacking this a bit in light of what is mentioned above we see that God, the only Creator and Sustainer (eg Isaiah 45:4-6), is beneficently committing to provide everything that you will need in order to enable you to live the only life that is actually viable: a life based on and characterised by that same other-focused beneficence.
Being the overarching eternal covenant, all other covenants involving God will therefore inherently share the same essential nature and character of authentic beneficence: God relating to us in a way that authentically promotes our best good through inviting us to share in that same way of being towards others (eg 1 John 4:7-8,16).
Phil, I wonder if instead of "enable" would "allow us to choose" be a more accurate description? I agree God does enable us if we choose to accept his offering.
Hi Myron
Thanks for your input. If hilighting the choice aspect helps you or someone else better understand the concept/s being raised, then by all means feel free to reword what I have presented. I do this frequently in the margins of books I read (only the one's I own - I don't do this in books I occasionally borrow from others!).
Why I used the term "enable" is because, although I agree with you that "allow us to choose" is a vital sub-component, I find that there are other equally vital sub-components necessary for the totality of what is needed to 'enable' a person to actually live abundant life.
Dear Phil,
What I think I hear you saying is that, in a way, all covenants with God are unilateral. God is the benefactor, even to the extent of drawing us to Himself and enabling us to receive His help.
Some gifts God gives all people, with or without consent, like rain on the just and unjust, or breath and bodies for all. Other gifts of God require that we merely submit to being "eternally dependent"...we're not really doing anything other than giving up control. In both types, God's the actor and we're merely the receivers.
Makes me think of a time I was with my best friend and her toddler at the beach. Little Mia was tired and needed to go home. However, she would not relax her body to be fitted into the car seat. She stiffened up her legs like a board and cried and hollered for about half an hour before she finally collapsed in exhaustion, allowing herself to be buckled in. Jacob reluctantly gave up his struggle too. Not until Christ disabled his hip was he ready to submit to entering a covenant relationship with God.
We humans can never keep our side of an agreement because we're like stubborn and exhausted little children. Jesus knows this so He says, "I'm going to do it all from my side." (Proverbs 9:4 NASV; Is. 66:12-13; Luke 18:17) God's care is always on the childlike ones....aren't we silly when we try to be "big" instead of surrendering to being "little".
Last week's lesson was all about being God's child. This comes first. Even Jesus started His ministry with His heavenly Father, His Abba (Daddy, Papa), assuring Him that He was God's beloved Son. We have to know to our core how much we are loved by our Papa in order to want to diligently obey His voice and let His blessings overtake us.
The gospel story, at the core of each Bible person's story, shows us that we can't promise God anything. Peter promised to stick with Jesus in time of crisis (Matt. 26:35); the children of Israel promised to be perfect for God (Ex. 19:8 ESV). In contrast to Peter and Israel and so many of us who naively sign on the dotted line to faithfully "do things" in agreement with God, Jesus' blood signalled a "new" covenant of surrender for those who know they can't do anything good (Matt. 26:28 NKJV) without the only good One living inside (Matt. 19:17). I'm thinking of the beautiful symbolism in God's covenant with Abram (Gen. 15:17). Abram does not pass between the animal halves; only God does, via the symbolism of the pot and flame. The promise God has made here is entirely dependent on His will and His work.
Songs like "I would be like Jesus" I always translate to "I would be with Jesus" because the only good that can come out of me has to be Jesus Himself! So technically, I would agree that pure, unearned grace and obedience is always a unilateral covenant with God, our infinite Love Source. Our part is just to say, "Yes!" to Him doing it all.
Dear Esther, thank you the beautiful illustration of the love and patience of our wonderful heavenly Abba, Whose love melts our hearts daily.
For me, God’s Covenants with man have always been a source of great amazement and insight in the developing relationship between mankind and his Creator-God. When Israel was finally chosen to be His people to introduce the True God – I AM – God Supreme - to the world, the purpose for the bilateral Covenants became more clear – redeeming/enfolding man unto their Creator - Himself.
The purpose: ‘addressing the problems lying at the heart of the matter’ - the offer to end man’s estrangement from their Creator, and explaining the ‘work’ anticipated when man accepts the offer and Him as their God.
Before Israel became a nation, the man-made religions were designed to do this ‘their way’, but the ‘religion’ introduced by the ‘Supreme God’, was established by the Supreme God Himself; based on and engaged in by faith in His Word. The Covenants, when accepted and lived by, promised man that he can receive God’s Salvation by faith in His Word.
With sin entering this world, man suffers from his body’s proclivity toward sinning. From the Beginning until the end, God’s Covenants with man establishes their ‘righteousness’ by faith. His Son incarnate became our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His life by faith in the Word of God proved to all that man can trust the Creator-Father’s Covenant - that He faithfully fulfills His Covenant ‘obligations/promises’ made with man.
Hi, Brigitte. What you are saying is certainly true. However, when you speak of man's "body's proclivity toward sinning," that seems to carry echoes of Greek dualism, in which everything material is considered evil, and only the ethereal can be good.
While Paul often uses "the flesh" as a metaphor for our carnal nature, Seventh-day Adventist Christians have generally found it more wholesome to view the body as an inherently good gift from God. Jesus taught that the evil that defiles a person comes from the heart (i.e. the mind). Matthew 15:18 And Paul taught, in Romans 12:2, that we are transformed by the renewing of our mind.
Of course, the unintended consequences of teaching that our proclivity toward sinning resides in our physical constitution would be to discourage us from ever really attempting, by God's grace, to overcome those proclivities now, in this life, while we still reside in this body. In my view, that could easily lead to the forfeiture of our soul's salvation.