Clergy/Leaders’ Mail-list No. 0-179 (Theology)

Living Words of the New Testament, by Rev Dr Leon Morris

COVENANT

In antiquity a covenant was a serious agreement like that between Jacob and Laban (Gen. 31:43-54). It was always an agreement that meant benefit to one or both parties and it was a solemn religious undertaking with a sacrifice offered (Gen. 31:54).

There were covenants between people, but in the Bible the important covenants were those with God, like his covenant with Noah (Gen. 9:9ff.). There is a very important covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15), a covenant which is all of grace (Abraham did not promise to do anything; the promise is God’s), and which is of continuing force (cf. Luke 1:72-73). Another important covenant is that with the people of Israel (Exod. 24), in which the people twice said that they would obey God (Exod. 24:3, 7). This covenant made Israel the people of God and it was the centre of religious life thereafter; it set Israel apart from every other nation.

But the people did not live up to the promises they made. Again and again they broke the covenant. What would happen when a covenant- keeping God confronted a covenant-breaking people? Jeremiah faced the problem and said that God would make a new covenant (Jer. 31:31- 34). And Jesus said that his death was the sacrifice that established that new covenant (Matt. 26:28; 1 Cor. 11:25).

The word the New Testament writers use for ‘covenant’ is the same as that used for ‘a will’, ‘a testament’. In a passage in Hebrews we have the word used in both senses. Jesus is ‘the mediator of a new covenant’ and this is followed by a reference to a ‘will’ and then a reminder that ‘a will takes effect only at death’ (Heb. 9:15- 17). The death of Jesus is absolutely necessary for the bringing in of the new covenant, a covenant based on forgiveness (Jer. 31:34; Heb. 8:12).

It is from this word that we get the names ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’. Would it better to translate ‘Covenant’? These are the writings of the old covenant, and of the new covenant that God has now made in the death of Jesus Christ, a covenant of forgiveness.

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Rev Dr Leon Morris is an internationally recognised New Testament scholar, theologian and author, from Melbourne Australia.

This feature series of ‘Living Words of the New Testament’ appeared in ‘Daily Notes’, published by Scripture Union.