A Brief Introduction to Covenant Theology

We all are humans, therefore we all have relationships. We are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, friends and enemies. All these words are relational, because they express a relationship between two or more people. These different relationships also bring with themselves different degrees of commitment and responsibilities. You have duties that bind you to your parents that are not the same as those that bind you to your brother. You have some privileges and responsibilities in your relationship with your spouse that you don’t have even with your best friend! Relationships are different depending on the person whom you are related to and the kind of bond that connects you together. Some relationships are consensual, such as marriage; others are natural, such as parents and children.

We are relational beings because we were created by a relational God. God is a personal being, since in the unity of his being he subsists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The three persons of the Trinity always existed in perfect communion with each other. When this triune God made us in his image and likeness, he created us with a deep longing for a relationship with himself and with other human beings. God did not make us to be islands, isolated from him and each other, but he made us for communion and community. When we are far from God, our hearts hurt with an infinite void, which only God can fill. An old Christian writer gave words to this feeling when he said, “You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”

But if God has made us for communion with him, how can we have communion with God? How does a just and holy God relate to us, fallen human beings? The short answer is: God relates to us by means of a covenant. In this introductory text, I will give an overview of covenant theology.

The first obvious question then is: “What is a covenant?” As with almost every important topic in theology, the word covenant has been defined in different ways by different authors. But I don’t want to bother you with many definitions, so let’s see how two Reformed theologians define covenant. Michael Horton says that a covenant is “a relationship of ‘oaths and bonds’ and involves mutual, though not necessarily equal, commitments.”¹ Another theologian, O. Palmer Robertson, defines covenant as “a bond in blood sovereignly administered”, and he adds that, “when God enters into a covenantal relationship with men, he sovereignly institutes a life-and-death bond. A covenant is a bond in blood, or a bond of life and death, sovereignly administered.”²

As we will see in the future lessons, both Horton and Robertson are trying to summarize with a simple definition the rich usage of the word covenant in the Old and New Testaments. It is important to note that a biblical covenant involves two aspects that cannot be ignored.

Relationship

First, there is a relationship that is made possible by the covenant. It is impossible to have a relationship with God apart from a formal context provided by a covenant, since the distance between God and the creatures is insurmountable.³ This was the case even before the fall of mankind in sin. A covenant is the proper context for the full development of a relationship, even between unequal beings as God and his creatures. That’s why we find in so many places in the Bible God’s relationship with us compared with human relationships. God is said to be a father, a husband, and a lord. Our relationship with him is not an illusion, but is a real bond of love between rational beings who love each other, even though not in the same manner or intensity. We love him because he loved us first.

Commitment

Beyond the aspect of a relationship, a covenant brings with it the notion of commitment that goes beyond everything we find in human relationships. We see around us many relationships that are marred by all kinds of imperfections. We constantly break our promises, are unfaithful to our words, disobey our parents, and refuse to love those who are worthy of our love and esteem. God’s covenant with us could not be based on and depend on such unsteady creatures as we are. There is an element of commitment in God’s covenants, which Horton describes in terms of oath and Robertson by adding the idea of bond in blood. Many times in the Bible we find the covenants connected with oaths. An oath is a solemn expression to ensure that what we say is true. It’s usually made before an authority and it brings with it the possibility of sanction or penalty in case someone breaks his oath. It is, therefore, a legal term, showing how serious God takes his relationship with his creatures. As Robertson’s phrase expresses, God’s covenant with us is not casual, but is a life and death commitment.⁴ It is as important as life and death.

God made us as covenant creatures. Even before his special revelation in the Bible, we know that human beings made covenants with each other. But ultimately, as the Reformed theologian Louis Berkhof observes, human covenants are only a faint copy of the covenant life found in the trinitarian being of God.⁵ He adds, “God so ordered the life of man that the covenant idea should develop there as one of the pillars of social life, and after it had so developed, He formally introduced it as an expression of the existing relation between Himself and man. The covenant relationship between God and man existed from the very beginning, and therefore long before the formal establishment of the covenant with Abraham.”⁶ We were created by a covenantal God in a covenant relationship with him. This is our inevitable reality. Every single one of us is in a kind of relationship with God, whether it is a relationship of blessing or of curse.

Reformed Covenant Theology

We have seen what the word covenant means and how we should understand in general the biblical concept of covenant. But how important is it to study covenant theology? Isn’t it one of those abstract and boring subjects that only theologians like to discuss but that to everyone else seems too metaphysical? The short answer is no, covenant theology is not a subject only for professional theologians, but it’s one of the most useful doctrines of our faith. When we have a sound knowledge of covenant theology, we can make sense of many otherwise obscure parts of the Bible, including the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments. Many Christians have doubts about how to interpret the Bible because they can’t see how its many parts fit together in a unified whole. Many people are confused about the relationship between law and gospel, or justification and sanctification. A good understanding of covenant theology will help us to learn and teach these biblical doctrines with more confidence.

Covenant theology has always had a prominent place in Reformed theology. When they hear about Calvinism some people usually think that the doctrine that best defines us is predestination or the sovereignty of God. As important as these doctrines are in our theology, they in fact are not our starting point or “central idea.” It’s even debatable if Reformed theology has a “central idea,” such as the absolute sovereignty and glory of God. As Horton puts it, what unites all the main themes of the Bible together is “an architectonic structure, a matrix of beams and pillars that hold together the structure of biblical faith and practice.”⁷

The Kinds of Covenant

What are the biblical covenants? We have many different kinds of covenants in the Bible, which were established in the history of God’s dealings with human beings. We have the covenant with Adam in the garden, with Noah, with Abraham, with Israel at the Sinai, with David, and we have the New Covenant, which is predicted in the Old Testament and inaugurated by Jesus Christ. Beyond these historic covenants, we have two biblical covenants that by good and necessary consequence we deduce from the teaching of the Bible, namely, the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace. It is necessary to study each one of these covenants to understand their relationship to each other and to the biblical teachings in general.

Covenants in the Biblical World

As we said before, the idea of covenant is not exclusive to the Bible. The nations around Israel used covenants in their diplomatic agreements with other nations. Archaeology has discovered some of these documents and it’s interesting to see how they resemble biblical covenants in their form and content. These pacts or agreements were like the ones we see in Medieval times. A covenant usually involved a suzerain, who was a king, and a vassal, who was another king who had to submit to the suzerain because of a lost battle or simply to be under his protection against a common enemy. The parts, then, would arrange a written agreement, in which the suzerain would impose his conditions upon the vassal.

The covenant had some common features that we can describe as:

• Preamble: It served to identify the king who was making the treaty.
• Historical Prologue: The history of the relationship between the great king and the lesser king was remembered, so that everyone might know why the agreement was being made.
• Stipulations: These were the obligations imposed upon the vassal king and his subjects.
• Sanctions: In case the vassal king failed to keep his promises and the stipulations of the agreement, there would be consequences that were set forth in the document.
• Deposit of the treaty: The document had to be guarded in the most sacred places of both parties.

Covenants in the Bible

When we look at some biblical covenants, such as the covenant God made with Israel at the Sinai (Exodus 20), we can see that all these elements are present. We have God as the great king and his people Israel as his vassal. He identifies himself as “I am the LORD your God” and gives the historical background of the covenant, “who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Then we have the stipulations in the Ten Commandments, with some sanctions in case of disobedience and blessings in case of obedience. In Exodus 24 we see a ceremony of confirmation of the covenant, when God commands Moses (v. 12): “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.” God commanded Moses to keep inside the ark of the covenant the testimony, which is a reference to the two tables of the law (Ex 25:21).

However, we should also acknowledge that not all biblical covenants share the same exact characteristics. For instance, some covenants, such as the covenant of nature with Adam in the garden, before the Fall, depended on his obedience to the stipulations given by God. He said to the first man (Gen 2:16–17): “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” There was a principle behind this covenant that we will call principle of works that put on man’s shoulders the full responsibility for keeping the terms of the covenant. When he broke them, God applied on him and on those he represented the sanctions of the covenant.

We can find the same principle of works in operation in the covenant of God with the nation of Israel at the mount Sinai, with the obvious difference that now the people was not in a state of innocence, as Adam and Eve were. There are other elements in this covenant that we will discuss when we get to it, in Lesson 7. For now, it’s enough to say that, according to Paul’s letter to the Galatians, this covenant can not be confounded with a previous one, namely, the covenant with Abraham, which was based in a different principle, the principle of faith. Horton makes a useful distinction of the two kinds of covenants, identifying one as conditional and the other as unconditional.⁸

That’s the place where we should do our utmost to understand the unfolding of God’s plan of salvation through history. And we cannot lose sight in all that process, it’s God who comes after man. As the Westminster Confession puts it, he condescends with us, he stoops from heaven towards earth to meet fallen human beings like you and me, and he meets us in our sad condition, giving us a new life in Christ. The study of God’s covenant with man, especially the covenant of grace, will paint before our eyes a beautiful portrait of an offended God who, out of love for poor sinners, comes to their rescue.

In the former times, there was a great expectation as to how God would save his people. Angels were looking forward to glancing at the unfolding of his plan. And he executed everything so carefully, that, in the fullness of time, when his counsel was made visible both on heaven and on earth, one of Christ’s ministers said astonished: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.” (Romans 11:33)

Conclusion

In conclusion, we must remember that the covenant is a reality in our Christian lives, whether we know about its details or not. In all our human relationships, we make every effort to know better the person with whom we are related. We are never satisfied with a hasty or superficial knowledge of our wife or husband. We are eager for deeper intimacy and familiarity. We want to know every detail about our loved ones. We avoid saying or doing the things they dislike. We note carefully the things that make them happy, so that we may please them somehow. It shouldn’t be different with God, the love of our souls. When we study God’s covenants, we are going deeper in the history of his relationship with us. We learn things about him that fill our hearts with admiration and humility. We cannot help to give him all the glory due to him for so great salvation. It is not an empty intellectual exercise. To know and heard about God and his ways will be as honey to our mouths, as a beautiful melody to our ears. So let us know him! Let us press on to know the Lord. (Hosea 6:3)

1. Michael Horton, Introducing Covenant Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2006), 10.
2. Palmer O. Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1980), 4.
3. See the Westminster Confession of Faith 7.1: “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, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.” The Confession of Faith and Catechisms of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with Proof Texts (Willow Grove, PA: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2005), 29.
4. Robertson, The Christ of the Covenants, 7.
5. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, 4th rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1938), 263.
6. Ibid., 263–264.
7. Horton, Introducing Covenant Theology, 13.
8. Horton, Introducing Covenant Theology, 33.