Being around Christians, we’ve probably heard of the idea of having a personal relationship with God, which could mean different things in the Bible. Having God as a friend or your father or maybe your teacher. But there’s one particular way that the Bible talks about this relationship that we find all over, the idea of a partnership with God. A partnership like working alongside someone to accomplish a goal together. God creates this good world full of all of this potential and then God appoints these unique creatures, humans, as his partners in bringing more and more goodness out of all that potential. But the humans don’t wanna partner with God. They rebel and try to create a world on their own terms.
This broken partnership is the Bible’s explanation for why we’re stuck in a world of corruption and injustice and the tragedy of death. In the Bible, everyone has abandoned the partnership with God, so what God does is, he selects a smaller group of people out of the many. God makes a new partnership with them called a covenant. In a covenant, God makes promises and then in exchange, asks his partner to fulfill certain commitments. The purpose of all of this is to use this covenant relationship, to renew his partnership with everybody else. There are actually four times in the Old Testament that we’re told God initiates a covenant relationship, with Noah, Abraham, the nation of Israel and King David, it’s through these that God is forming a covenant family into which all people will eventually be invited.
Noah, God has just brought the flood to cleanse the world of human’s corruption and Noah and his family are the only ones left. God makes a covenant with Noah, God knows that humans will continue to be evil, but despite that, he’s not going to destroy it like this again. Instead, the earth will be this reliable place for us to work together. What does Noah have to do? Nothing. God is promising to be faithful even though he know’s humans won’t be. God makes a covenant with a man named Abraham, promises to bless him, give him a large family, lots of land where they can flourish. In return, God asks Abraham to trust him and train up his family to do what is right and just. The whole reason for this covenant, God’s going to bring his blessing to all families of the world through this one family.
When Abraham’s family grows into the tribe of Israel, God makes a covenant with the whole tribe. God asks them to obey a set of laws, which are these guidelines for living well as a community of God’s partners. If they do this, then God promises to bless them and they will become a people, who represents him to the rest of humanity. The tribe of Israel has become this large nation ruled by David and God asked David and his descendants to partner with him by leading Israel in obeying the laws and doing what is right and just. God promises that one day, one of David’s sons will come and extend God’s Kingdom of peace and blessing over all the nations. So, those are the four covenants that God makes in order to restore his partnership with the whole world, but Israel breaks the covenant, they worship other gods, they allow horrible injustice and so they lose their land and are forced off into exile.
It seems hopeless, but during this time, Israel’s prophets talked about a day when God would restore these covenants in spite of Israel’s failure. They called it the New Covenant, Jesus is the one who fulfills all of these covenant relationships. Jesus is from the family of Abraham and he will bring the blessings of that family to the whole world. Jesus is the faithful Israelite, who is able to truly obey the law and he’s the King from the line of David and he goes about extending God’s Kingdom of justice and peace to all. Perhaps the most surprising claim of all, made about this man, that Jesus is no mere human, but rather God become human, and God did this in order to be that faithful covenant partner that we are all made to be, but have failed to be. So through Jesus, God has opened up a way for anyone to be in a renewed partnership with him. Jesus calls people to follow him and become part of this New Covenant family, despite their failures. Jesus is committed to making them into partners, who are becoming more and more faithful. The Bible ends with a vision of a fully renewed world, full of goodness and peace and there’s this renewed humanity there, partnering together with God to expand the goodness of his creation, a new beginning.
This broken partnership is the Bible’s explanation for why we’re stuck in a world of corruption and injustice and the tragedy of death. In the Bible, everyone has abandoned the partnership with God, so what God does is, he selects a smaller group of people out of the many. God makes a new partnership with them called a covenant. In a covenant, God makes promises and then in exchange, asks his partner to fulfill certain commitments. The purpose of all of this is to use this covenant relationship, to renew his partnership with everybody else. There are actually four times in the Old Testament that we’re told God initiates a covenant relationship, with Noah, Abraham, the nation of Israel and King David, it’s through these that God is forming a covenant family into which all people will eventually be invited.
Noah, God has just brought the flood to cleanse the world of human’s corruption and Noah and his family are the only ones left. God makes a covenant with Noah, God knows that humans will continue to be evil, but despite that, he’s not going to destroy it like this again. Instead, the earth will be this reliable place for us to work together. What does Noah have to do? Nothing. God is promising to be faithful even though he know’s humans won’t be. God makes a covenant with a man named Abraham, promises to bless him, give him a large family, lots of land where they can flourish. In return, God asks Abraham to trust him and train up his family to do what is right and just. The whole reason for this covenant, God’s going to bring his blessing to all families of the world through this one family.
When Abraham’s family grows into the tribe of Israel, God makes a covenant with the whole tribe. God asks them to obey a set of laws, which are these guidelines for living well as a community of God’s partners. If they do this, then God promises to bless them and they will become a people, who represents him to the rest of humanity. The tribe of Israel has become this large nation ruled by David and God asked David and his descendants to partner with him by leading Israel in obeying the laws and doing what is right and just. God promises that one day, one of David’s sons will come and extend God’s Kingdom of peace and blessing over all the nations. So, those are the four covenants that God makes in order to restore his partnership with the whole world, but Israel breaks the covenant, they worship other gods, they allow horrible injustice and so they lose their land and are forced off into exile.
It seems hopeless, but during this time, Israel’s prophets talked about a day when God would restore these covenants in spite of Israel’s failure. They called it the New Covenant, Jesus is the one who fulfills all of these covenant relationships. Jesus is from the family of Abraham and he will bring the blessings of that family to the whole world. Jesus is the faithful Israelite, who is able to truly obey the law and he’s the King from the line of David and he goes about extending God’s Kingdom of justice and peace to all. Perhaps the most surprising claim of all, made about this man, that Jesus is no mere human, but rather God become human, and God did this in order to be that faithful covenant partner that we are all made to be, but have failed to be. So through Jesus, God has opened up a way for anyone to be in a renewed partnership with him. Jesus calls people to follow him and become part of this New Covenant family, despite their failures. Jesus is committed to making them into partners, who are becoming more and more faithful. The Bible ends with a vision of a fully renewed world, full of goodness and peace and there’s this renewed humanity there, partnering together with God to expand the goodness of his creation, a new beginning.