The Covenant Between God And The Isrealites

compact is a word that seems compound to analyze and discuss by so many large number and this is the spring why many people fail to keep obligation among them, in so far back in the overage volition of the bible written 2000BC, the Israelites oft sequences fail in the contract amongst them and matinee idol and further divinity who is perfect n eer fails.The distance between immortal and the creature is so enceinte, says the Westminster Confession (VII. I), that although rea give-and-takeable creatures do owe obedience unto him as t heritor Creator, yet they could neer yield any fruition of him as their c on the whole downedness and reward, merely by some voluntary condescension on immortals office, which he hath been cheery to express by way of bargain. ExactlySo biblical doctrine, prototypical to last, has to do with obligational whollyiances between beau ideal and man biblical ethics has to do with expressing theologys powder compactal relationshi p to us in arrangemental relationships between ourselves and separates and rescuerian religion has the temperament of covenant life, in which God is the direct object of our trustfulness, hope, fill in, worship, and service, each fairylike by gratitude for embroider.Our theme is the life-embracing bedrock reality of the covenant relationship between the Creator and Christians, and it is high time we defined exactly what we atomic number 18 public lecture ab bulge step up. A covenant relationship is a voluntary mutual trueness that binds each party to the other. Whether it is negotiated, like a modern business swap or a marriage contract, or unilaterally imposed, as all Gods covenants are, is irrelevant to the committedness itself the reality of the relationship depends simply on the accompaniment that mutual obligations live with been accepted and pledged on some(prenominal) sides.Luther is held to have s attending that Christianity is a matter of per discussional pronouns, in the sense that everyaffair depends on knowing that rescuer died for me, to be my Savior, and that his Father is my God and Father, personally affiliated to love, nurture, uph oldish, and glorify me. This already is covenant thinking, for this is the es displaceial substance of the covenant relationship Gods covenant is precisely a matter of these personal pronouns, used in this way, as a basis for a life with God of friendship, two-eyed violet and communicated love.Going back to the white-haired volition of the Bible, when God tells Abraham, I leave arrive at my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants subsequentlyward you . . . to be your God . . . I leave al matchless be their God (Gen. 176-8), the personal pronouns are the key lyric poem God is committing himself to Abraham and Abrahams seed in a way in which he does non commit himself to others. Gods covenant commitment expresses eternal election his covenant love to individuals sinners flows from his choice of them to be his for ever in the peace of justification and the joy of glorification.The verbal commitment in which electing sovereignty thus shows itself has the nature of a cry, the fulfillment of which is guaranteed by Gods absolute fidelity and trustworthiness the quality that David Livingstone the explorer celebrated by describing God as an honorable gentleman who never breaks his word. The covenant tell itself, I forget be your God, is an unconditional undertaking on Gods part to be for us (Rom. 831), on our side (Ps. 1241-5), using all his resources for the furthering of the ultimate good of those (us) to whom he thus pledges himself.I pull up stakesing take you as my own people, and I will be your God (Ex. 67), the covenant promise constantly repeated throughout twain testaments (Gen. 176-8 Ex. 202, 2945 Ezek. 1120, 3430 f. , 3628 2 Cor. 616-18 Rev. 212 f. etcetera ), may fairly be called the pantechnicon promise, inasmuch as every particular promise that God desexualizes is packed into it fellowship and communion firstly (I will be with you, I will dwell among them, I will red-hot among you, etc.), and and so the supply of every real need, here and here afterwards. Sovereignty and salvation, love and largesse, election and enjoyment, affirmation and assurance, fidelity and fullness thus appear as the spectrum of themes (the second of each partner off being the fruit of the first as its root) that combine to form the white light, glowing and glorious, of the gracious self-giving of God to sinners that covenant theology proclaims.The God- accustomed covenant carries, of course, obligations. The life of faith and repentance, and the obedience to which faith leads, constitute the covenant-keeping through which Gods people receive the fullness of Gods covenant blessing. I carried you on eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, and then out of all natio ns you will be my treasured possession (Ex. 194 f. ).Covenant faithfulness is the condition and means of receiving covenant benefits, and there is energy arbitrary in that for the blessings flow from the relationship, and valet de chambre rebelliousness and unfaithfulness vacate the flow by disrupting the relationship. Israels infidelity was constantly doing this throughout the Old testament story, and the freshfangled Testament licks it plain that churches and Christians will lose blessings that would otherwise be theirs, should covenant fidelity be lacking in their lives.The very first covenant that could be read in the bible is that of our first engender and mother who destroyed the covenant just because of a fruit deed overn to them by a camouflaged Satan. This original covenantal arrangement, usually called the Covenant of Works, was one whereby God undertook to prolong and augment for all subsequent humanity the felicitous state in which he had make the first human p air provided that the man observed, as part of the humble obedience that was then indispensable to him, one prohibition, specified in the narrative as non eat a forbidden fruit.The d detestation, presented as a serpent, seduced Adam and Eve into disobeying, so that they fell under the penal sanctions of the Covenant of Works (loss of good, and corruption of nature). plainly God at once revealed to them in embryo a saving(a) economy that had in it both the covering of sin, and a prospective mastery for the fair sexs seed (a human Savior) over the serpent and his malice.The redemptive purpose of this bracing arrangement became clearer as God called Abraham, made a nation from his descendants, save them from buckle downry, denoted himself not only their God except also their exponent and Father, taught them his police (the family code), drilled them in sacrificial liturgies, disciplined their disobedience, and sent messengers to hold up before them his holiness and his pr omise of a Savior King and a saving kingdom which in due course became reality.The Westminster Confession summarizes what was freeing on in and through all this. Man, by his fall, having made himself unable(predicate) of life by (the first) covenant, the superior was pleased to make a second, unremarkably called the covenant of grace wherein he freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. . .This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all fore signifying Christ to come, which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the process of the Spiri t, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation and is called the old Testament.nether the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lords Supper . . . in them, it is held forth in more fullness, evidence and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles and is called the new Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same, under various dispensitions (VII. iii. v. vi).So the unifying strands that bind together the books of the Bible are, first, the one covenant promise, sloganized as I will be your God, and you shall be my people, which God was fulfilling to his elect all through his successive sound outings of covenant faith and life second, the one messenger and mediator of th e covenant, Jesus Christ the God-man, prophet and king, priest and sacrifice, the Messiah of Old Testament prophecy and New Testament proclamation third, the one people of God, the covenant community, the company of the elect, whom God brings to faith and keeps in faith, from Abel, Noah and Abraham through the remnant of Israel to the gentlemans gentlemanwide New Testament church of believing Jews and Gentiles and fourth, the one pattern of covenant piety, consisting of faith, repentance, love, joy, praise, hope, hatred of sin, bank for sanctity, a spirit of prayer, and readiness to battle the world, the flesh, and the devil in order to glorify God . . . a pattern displayed most fully, perhaps, in Luthers minuscular Bible, the Psalter, but seen also in the lives of Gods servants in both Testaments and reflected more or less fully in each single one of the Old and New Testament books.Covenant theologians insist that every book of the Bible in effect asks to be read in terms of the se unities, and as contribute to the exposition of them, and is actually misunderstood if it is not so read. Some of the major(ip) covenant between God and man in the old testament would be discussed to show the importance and effect of a covenant as an agreement. THE plight BETWEEN GOD AND THE ISREALITES According to the Bible the history of Israel began when Abraham was called by God to leave his family and his home and settle in Canaan. His son Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob, lived there until Jacob was forced by famine to flee to Egypt with his remaining sons, where one of them, Joseph, already held a position of prominence after a grass to grace encounter. The descendants of Jacob were enslaved in Egypt.God charged Moses with the deliverance of his people from bondage. This he did with the aid of God, who dried up the Red Sea so that the Israelites could cross in safety, while the pursuing Egyptian army drowned. Moses and his people continued to Mount Sinai, where a covenant was concluded nominateing God as the Lord of his chosen people, Israel. The conditions of the covenant were laid down in a law including the Ten Commandments. However, because of the peoples disobedience their march toward the Promised Land turned into forty age of wanderings in the wilderness. Finally, after the death of Moses, the people of Israel entered Canaan from the east, crossing the River Jordan.Under the leadership of Joshua they sacked Jericho after the city walls came tumbling down rather miraculously, and then went on to chasten the relaxation of Canaan. THE COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND THE ABRAHAM Now Sarai, Abrams wife, bore him no nipperren. She had an Egyptian slave-girl whose name was Hagar, and Sarai utter to Abram, You see that the lord has pr nonethelessted me from bearing squirtren go in to my slave-girl it may be that I shall obtain children by her. And Abram listened to the articulatio of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the primer of Cana an, Sarai, Abrams wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her slave-girl, and gave her to her husband Abram as a wife. Hagar bore Abram a son and Abram named his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael.Abram was octady-six years old when Hagar bore him Ishmael. When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram, and say to him, I am God Almighty walk before me, and be blameless. And I will make my covenant between me and you, and will make you extremely numerous. and then Abram fell on his face and God said to him, As for me, this is my covenant with you You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham for I have made you the ancestor of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your issuing after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your government issue after you. And I will give to you, and to your event after you, the land where you are now an alien, all the land of Canaan, for a perpetual holding and I will be their God. God said to Abraham, As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your upshot after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight geezerhood old, including the slave born in your home base and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your suffer and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. each uncircumcised male who is not circumci sed in the flesh of his foreskin shall be thump off from his people he has broken my covenant. God said to Abraham, As for Sarah your wife, you shall not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her. I will bless her, and she shall give rise to nations kings of peoples shall come from her. so Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, Can a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God, O that Ishmael might live in your hatful God said, No, but your wife Sarah shall bear you a son, and you shall name him Isaac. I will establish my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. As for Ishmael, I have heard you I will bless him and make him fruitful and exceedingly numerous he shall be the father of twelve princes, and I will make him a colossal nation. hardly my covenant I will establish with Isaa c, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this season next year. And when he had finished talking with him, God went up from Abraham.Then Abraham took his son Ishmael and all the slaves born in his house or bought with his money, every male among the men of Abrahams house, and he circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very day, as God had said to him. Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. That very day Abraham and his son Ishmael were circumcised and all the men of his house, slaves born in the house and those bought with money from a foreigner, were circumcised with him. . The LORD dealt with Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as he had promised.Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had verbalize to him. Abraham gave the name Isaac to his son whom Sarah bore him. And Abraham circu mcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. Now Sarah said, God has brought laughter for me everyone who hears will laugh with me. And she said, Who would ever have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age. The child grew, and was weaned and Abraham made a great feast on the day that Isaac was weaned. But Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, playing with her son Isaac.So she said to Abraham, Cast out this slave woman with her son for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac. The matter was very distressing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, Do not be distressed because of the son and because of your slave woman whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for it is through Isaac that offspring shall be named for you. As for the son of the slav e woman, I will make a nation of him also, because he is your offspring. So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water, and gave it to Hagar, putting it on her shoulder, along with the child, and sent her away. And she departed, and wandered most in the wilderness of Beer-sheba.When the water in the skin was gone, she axial motion the child under one of the bushes. Then she went and sat down reversal him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot for she said, Do not let me look on the death of the child. And as she sat opposite him, she fancy uped up her voice and wept. And God heard the voice of the son and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven, and said to her, What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Come, lift up the boy and hold him fast with your hand for I will make a great nation of him. Then God unresolved her eyes and she saw a well of water. She went, and filled the skin with water, and gave the boy a drink.God was with the boy, and he grew up he lived in the wilderness, and became an expert with the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran and his mother got a wife for him from the land of Egypt. THE COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND THE NOAH Centuries before the time of Abraham, God made a covenant with Noah, assuring Noah that He would never again destroy the world by flood (Gen. 9). Noah lived at a time when the whole kingdom was filled with violence and corruption yet Noah did not allow the evil standards of his day to rob him of fellowship with God. He stood out as the only one who walked with God (Gen. 69), as was also true of his great-grandfather Enoch (Gen. 522). Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations (Gen. 69).The Lord singled out Noah from among all his contemporaries and chose him as the man to accomplish a great work. When God saw the wickedness that prevailed in the world (Gen. 65), He told Noah of His intention to destroy the anci ent world by a world(a) flood. God instructed Noah to build an ark (a large barge) in which he and his family would survive the universal deluge. Noah believed God and according to all that God commanded him, so he did (Gen. 622). Noah is listed among the heroes of faith. By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, travel with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith (Heb. 117).With steadfast confidence in God, Noah started building the ark. During this time, Noah continued to preach Gods judgment and mercy, warning the ungodly of their attack doom. Peter reminds us of how God did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly (2 Pet. 25). Noah preached for 120 years, seemingly without any converts. At the end of that time, when the longsuffering of G od waited in the days of Noah eight souls were saved through water (1 Pet. 320). People continued in their evil ways and ignored his pleadings and warnings until the flood overtook them.When the ark was ready, Noah entered in with all kinds of animals and the Lord shut him in (Gen. 716), cut off completely from the rest of mankind. Noah was grateful to the Lord who had delivered him from the flood. After the flood, he built an altar to God (Gen. 820) and made a sacrifice, which was accepted graciously, for in it the Lord smelled a soothing aroma (Gen. 821). The Lord promised Noah and his descendants that He would never destroy the world again with a universal flood (Gen. 915). The Lord made an everlasting covenant with Noah and his descendants, establishing the rainbow as the sign of His promise (Gen. 91-17). Another part of the covenant involved the sanctity of human life, i. e., that whoever sheds mans blood, by man his blood shall be shed for in the encounter of God He made man (Gen. 96). Every time we see a rainbow today we are reminded of that agreement this covenant has not been done away with. As long as God appease sends rainbows after a storm, capital punishment will still be a part of Gods law for the human race. THE MOSAIC COVENANT The Israelites travel to Egypt during the time of Joseph. A new Pharaoh came upon the scene and turned the Israelites into common slaves. The people cried out to the God of their forefathers. So God heard their groaning, and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob (Exo. 224).After a series of ten plagues upon the land of Egypt, God brought the Israelites out of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand (Exo. 3211). collar months after leaving the land of Egypt, the children of Israel camped at the base of Mount Sinai (Exo. 191). God promised to make a covenant with the Israelites (Exo. 193-6). Before they even knew the conditions of the contract, the people agreed to abide by whatever God said (Exo. 198). This covenant was between God and the people of Israel you and I are not a party in this contract (and never have been). The Ten Commandments are the foundation of the covenant, but they are not the sum of it.After giving the first ten commands, the people asked the Lord to speak no more (Exo. 2018-20). Moses then drew near to the presence of God to hear the rest of the covenant (Exo. 2021). After receiving the Law, Moses spoke the words of the covenant to all of the people, and the people agreed to obey (Exo. 244). Moses then wrote the conditions of the covenant down, offered sacrifices to God, and then sprinkled both the book and the people with blood to tender the covenant (Exo. 248). This covenant between God and the people of Israel was acting(prenominal) God promised a day when He would make a new covenant, not only with Israel but also with all mankind.Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Isra el and with the house of Judah not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord I will put my law in their minds, and write it on their black Maria and I will be their God, and they shall be My people (Jer. 3131-34). The old testament of the Bible, from Genesis to Malachi, are, as was said earlier, Gods own record of the industrial unfolding of his purpose to have a people in covenant with himself here on earth. The covenantal character of Gods relationships with human beings, first to last, has already been underlined, and is in fact reflected one way and another on just about every page of the Bible.The transition in Eden from the covenant of work to the covenant of grace, and the further transition from all that w as involved in the earlier (old) form of that covenant to its final (new) form, brought in through the death of Jesus Christ and now administered by him from his throne, are the key events in the covenant story. The signifi send wordce of the fact that God caused his book of instruction to mankind to be put together with the history of his covenant as its backbone can hardly be overestimated. Covenant relationships between God and men, established by Gods initiative, bringing temporal and eternal blessings to individuals and creating community among them, so that they have a corporate identity as Gods people, are in fact the pervasive themes of the whole Bible and it compels thoughtful readers to take note of the covenant as being central to Gods concern.Finally, with all these examples and explanations on the covenant in the old testament of the bible, it would be seen that covenant is not just a thing to be handled slightly, if you know you have no capacity to involve in a coven ant is better you refrain so that you will not spend years in the wilderness for disobedience. SOURCES Old Testament of the King James Version of the Holy bible. The Five Great Bible Covenant by David Padfield God of Promise Introducing Covenant Theology by Michael Horton Truman G. Madsen and solidifying Ward (2001). Covenant and Chosenness in Judaism and Mormonism. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. People of the Covenant an Introduction To the Hebraic Bible (4TH 96 Edition) by Henry J. Flanders and Robert W. Crapps and David A. Smith