INTRODUCTION

Author: Pastor Johan du Toit

Overview

Meaning of the word covenant: (Strongs # 1285)

Hebrew = Berîyth (be‐reeth): to cut; a compact; passing between pieces of flesh; a confederacy. It is usually celebrated with a meal and sealed with blood. Many times, the covenant partners would cut their wrists, rub their arms together to mix the blood, or let it drip into a glass of wine or drink, then drink it together, by which they were made blood brothers. A memorial is provided as a sign of remembrance, or a souvenir. This memorial could be trees that were planted, stones that were piled up, a monument that was erected, etc…

Read Genesis 21:22‐34.

A covenant is a treaty or an alliance between two individuals with conditions and obligations that bind the two parties together as one. Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech of the Philistines in Genesis 21:22‐34. The ewes he gave Abimelech were the memorial of that covenant: as the flock grew, it would serve as a continual reminder of the covenant that had been cut between them.

Isaac made a covenant with Abimelech king of the Philistines in Genesis 26:26‐31 after they quarreled over the wells that Isaac’s herdsmen had dug.

Genesis 26:28‐31 NKJV 
But they said, “We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you. So we said, 'Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us; and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace.  You are now blessed of the Lord.'” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. Then they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace. 

The purpose of a covenant was to stand together and not against each other; to protect, to provide and share ‐ to serve one another’s interests.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

DEFINITIONS

Terms	Definitions
Covenant	The term “covenant” is of Latin origin (con venire), meaning a coming together. It presupposes two or more parties who come together to make a contract, agreeing on promises, stipulations, privileges, and responsibilities.
Blood Covenant	The old covenant, between God and Abraham, was sealed by circumcision. The new covenant, between God and every believer, is sealed with the blood of Jesus Christ.
Mediator	A person who attempts to make people involved in a conflict come to an agreement; a go-between.
Advocate	A person who puts a case on someone else’s behalf.

THE COVENANT BETWEEN DAVID AND JOATHAN

Read I Samuel 18:1‐4.

As a memorial of the covenant between them, Jonathan, king Saul’s son, gave his robe, armor, bow, belt and sword to David. After that everyone who saw David in the robe of the king’s son, with his weapons and sword, knew he was in covenant with Jonathan. Whoever touched David, would touch Jonathan, because they were blood‐brothers.

This is the benefit and the reason for a covenant.   This covenant was so strong that Jonathan even went against his father, the king, when it came to the protection and safety of David. When Saul sought to kill David, Jonathan protected him against his father.

Read I Samuel 20:1‐8.

A covenant could never be broken. Any attempt to break a covenant was punishable by death:

I Samuel 20:8 NKJV
“...Nevertheless, if there is iniquity in me, kill me yourself, for why should you bring me to your father?”

David was in great danger as king Saul, his covenant partner’s father, was desperately seeking to kill him. But Jonathan realized his father had left the ways of the Lord, and that David was anointed to be king in his place. So he too had reason to confirm his covenant with David.

Read I Samuel 20:12‐17.  Note verses 14 & 15:
I Samuel 20:14‐15 NKJV
“And you shall not only show me the kindness of the Lord while I still live, that I may not die; but you shall not cut off your kindness from my house forever, no, not when the Lord has cut off every one of the enemies of David from the face of the earth.” 

Covenants extended to the descendants down the line, even long after the original covenant‐makers had died. David continued to honor his covenant with the house of Jonathan long after Jonathan’s death. Many years after Jonathan died with his father on the battlefield, after David had been established as king over all Israel, David still remembered his covenant with Jonathan:

II Samuel 9:1 NKJV 
Now David said, “Is there still anyone who is left of the house of Saul, that I may show him kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” 

Read II Samuel 9:2‐13

David restored to Mephibosheth all that belonged to Saul’s house, and gave him his own servant Ziba to work on the fields for him to bring in his harvest. But Mephibosheth himself ate at the king’s table all his life, like one of the king’s sons. He enjoyed the benefits of his father’s covenant with David.

GOD’S COVENANT WITH NOAH

When Adam abdicated his rulership over the earth to Satan, God lost His legal right to intervene in the earth.   Adam was God’s steward/servant on the earth, appointed to do His will, and through whom God wanted to fulfil His purposes on the earth. Adam was the instrument through which God ruled as King over the earth.

When Adam sinned by choosing to obey Satan instead of God, he became the devil’s instrument.

Romans 6:16 NKJV 
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness? 

II Peter 2:19 NKJV
...For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. 

John 8:34 NKJV 
Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.” 

That is why the devil is called ‘the god of this world’:

II Corinthians 4:3‐4 NKJV
But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

The devil cheated Adam out of his stewardship. God lost His man to the devil, who now has the lease of the earth and does his own will of killing, robbing and destroying.

But God decided to enter into covenants with man and so regained the legal right to intervene in the affairs of the earth. Man has a legal right to be here, and God could work out His plan to redeem mankind and restore His rulership on the earth through His covenant partners.

Read Genesis 6:8‐18.

God told Noah that He would cut a covenant with him, then He destroyed all the wicked men and everything else so that a form of righteousness could be restored on the earth through His covenant partner and his family. After the ark was opened again, God cut that covenant.

Read Genesis 8:20‐9:17

The covenant was sealed by the blood of the sacrifices.

Noah’s obligations are found in Genesis 9:1‐7, a continuation of God’s original instructions to Adam.

God’s undertakings are found in Genesis 8:21‐22 and 9:11‐17. For a memorial God gave the rainbow in the sky.

GOD’s COVENANT WITH ABRAHAM

God called Abraham to leave his father’s house and his country to go to a country which He would show him. He also gave him some promises of a great future, of protection and many blessings. We find these promises in Genesis 12:1‐3.

Note the covenant language that God spoke to him. The blessings covered three areas:

1. Personal ‐ “I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing…”
2. National ‐ “I will make you a great nation…”
3. Global ‐ “In you all families of the earth shall be blessed…”

The Abrahamic covenant constitutes an important link in all that God began to do, has done throughout history and will continue to do until the end. It is the purpose of God for humans, into which all of His programs and works fit.

The personal aspects of this covenant, which include us, who are born again and have become heirs of Abraham after the faith (and not blood), are fourfold:

1. To be the father of a great nation ( we are a part of it);
2. To receive personal blessing (Abraham was very rich);
3. To receive personal honor and reputation (he sat down with kings);
4. To be the source of blessing to others.

The global aspects of the covenant are threefold:

1. Blessings for those who blessed Abraham and the nation that came forth from him;
2. Cursing’s upon those who cursed him and his descendants;
3. Blessings on all the families of the earth through the Messiah, who, according to the flesh, is
4. Abraham’s Son, Who provides salvation for the entire world.

The lowest level of Christianity is to be blessed The highest level of Christianity is to be a blessing

-Ray McCauley-

Read Romans 4 attentively, with special attention to verses 10‐16.

Galatians 3:13‐14 NKJV 
Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. 

Read Romans 2:28‐29.

Galatians 3:29 NKJV 
And if you are Christ’s, then you Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. 

The covenant God made with Abraham was not only to his descendants after the flesh, but his descendants after his faith ‐ those who took up the life of faith, living not after the flesh but by faith, just as he did. Therefore, the blessings that were incorporated in that covenant belong to his descendants, and it is an everlasting covenant that cannot be broken! We are covenant people who walk in a covenant with Almighty God! He is our Covenant Partner Who blesses, protects and provides!

The sign that accompanied God’s covenant with Abraham was circumcision. It was a memorial given to remind Abraham and his descendants that they were in covenant with Almighty God. Blood was shed that sealed that covenant. But God went a step further to authenticate this covenant.

Read Genesis 15:8‐18.

We have seen the word covenant also means “passing between pieces of flesh”. In this ritual, Abraham prepared the pieces of flesh from the animals described in Genesis 15:9‐10. He cut the animals in two, and placed the pieces opposite each other. He then fell into a deep sleep, and in verse 17 it records that he woke up to see a smoking oven and a burning torch passing between those pieces

of flesh. God was performing the covenant ritual by Himself, proving to the mind of someone who understood the power of covenant that He was entering into a covenant with man that could never be broken.

This covenant is what gave us Christ, the One who came to bless all the nations of the world; to bring them all into the family of God by opening the door through which all may enter in. He is the One who brought us freedom. He took away the sin that pressed as a burden on our backs and separated us from God for so long. In Christ Jesus the blessings of Abraham become real and practical to us today. He brought us the Word of truth that sets us free.

When the Israelites served as slaves in Egypt for 400 years, they cried out to God, and He heard them and was reminded of His covenant with them:

Exodus 6:4‐5 NKJV 
“I have also established My covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, in which they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel whom the Egyptians keep in bondage, and I have remembered My covenant.” 

God honored the covenant that cannot be broken, and sent Moses to deliver them and take them to the promised land. He is the covenant‐keeping God. God and Israel were bound together. He honored that covenant.

As long as Israel kept the covenant, there were no sick amongst them. God revealed Himself in a covenant relationship as Jehovah‐Rapha ‐ The Lord your Healer. It was a national miracle that kept 3 million Jews free from sickness!

Read Psalm 105 to see God's undertakings and I Chronicles 11:10‐23 to see the valiant hearts of covenant‐men in battle.

As long as Israel honored the covenant, they never suffered a defeat in any war ‐ no casualties at all, because God Almighty was their covenant partner. All the nations feared them because they saw God was with them in everything.

In the desert, God provided water and manna because He was in covenant with them. He gave a cloud by day to provide shade against the hot desert sun and a pillar of fire by night against the cold.   God will do whatever He has to do in order to honor His covenant. He preserved them against all the threats of moving through the desert as a nation. And because of His covenant actions on behalf of His partners, the nations in the region feared them ‐ a mere bunch of slaves that had never fought a battle before.

God gave them miraculous physical protection against their many enemies in the desert, against the pestilence and diseases. The miracles that God did in those days still stagger the mind of today. He met their every need.

THE LAW OF MOSES AND THE PRIESTHOOD

As Israel entered freedom, God gave them the law of Moses, which was based on the covenant they had with God. It included some offerings for them to make to atone after they had broken the law, to

cover their sins. An animal was slaughtered and its blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat to cover the sins of the people ‐ for one year. As the life is in the blood, that life was sprinkled over spiritually dead Israel to cover them before God so that they could stand in His presence.

The high priest would serve the blood sacrifice in the Holy of Holies to atone for the people. He was their hope because he stood between the people and God. Once a year he would go into the Holy of Holies to make the blood covering for the people, and then would transfer their sins (by the laying on of his hands) on the head of the scapegoat, before sending it out into the wilderness to be destroyed by wild animals. If he failed in this high priestly function, their hope of atonement would be gone.

As long as the sins of the people were covered, God was under obligation to protect and provide for them because He was locked in a covenant with them. It was because of this covenant that David was able to defeat the giant Goliath:

I Samuel 17:26 NKJV
“...For who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?”

To be uncircumcised, in David’s mind, was to be out of covenant with God ‐ an enemy of God. This Philistine’s great stature and strength made no impression on David at all, because he knew that God was Goliath’s enemy. Goliath had the physical strength, the weapons, the experience as a warrior, the intimidating speech ‐ but he was out of covenant with God and that became his defeat. David understood his covenant with God; he had the memorial of that covenant in his flesh. God was bound by it and had to deliver them from their enemies. That is why David was such a mighty warrior; he understood ‐ and walked ‐ in the covenant he had with God. A young man in covenant with God is more than a giant without covenant!

There were times when the people of God forgot their covenant and sinned against Him. Then the rains stayed away; the enemy came and they suffered defeat in battle. Their enemies robbed them, made slaves of them and took them into exile. But when they called upon God, He remembered His covenant and restored them.

THE NEW COVENANT

The Bible consists of two covenants, recorded in the Old and New Testaments, respectively. The first, old, covenant was between God and Abraham.   This covenant was sealed by the blood of those animals that Abraham sacrificed and he and God walked between. He walked through those pieces of flesh as a smoking oven and a burning torch. The ritual of circumcision was given to Abraham and his descendants as a reminder of this covenant.

The old covenant had the law of Moses to administer it, and to guide the people in their relationship with God. The law defined the Israelites responsibilities in the covenant, and it provided the sacrifices of atonement to cover their sins (failure to live up to their covenant duties), so they could stand in the presence of God and receive their covenant rights.

In the new covenant, the blood of Jesus takes away the necessity for continuous atonement because it not just covers sin, but it takes away completely. The old covenant was a shadow of the new that was to come in Christ; it was to be fulfilled and then vanish. The old covenant pointed to the new; it held a promise of eternal life, but not the substance. Its sacrifices had to be repeated year after year, as a rehearsal of the truth that was to come in Christ. This new covenant is sealed, not by the blood of animals, by the blood of Jesus, God’s own Son.   He became our High Priest, Who went into the heavenly Holy of Holies with His own blood to take away the sins of the world forever.

Hebrews 9:11‐12 NKJV 
But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. 

When Mary saw Jesus on the day He rose from the dead, she fell down at His feet to worship Him, but He did not allow her to touch Him:

John 20:17 NKJV 
Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'” 

Eight days later, Jesus appeared to His disciples where they were gathered behind shut doors. This time He invited Thomas to touch Him:

John 20:27 NKJV 
Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 

He had been to the Father to present His own blood (Heb. 9:11‐12) in the heavenly tabernacle as the eternal atonement for our sins, and then came back to be with them.

Jesus is a High Priest that knows what it is to be tempted, but He never failed. He has sympathy with our sufferings, because He was tempted in all things just as we are. He did not go in to the heavenly Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrificed animal, but with His own blood ‐ the seal of the New Covenant. And He gave us a memorial in the communion table, the covenant meal:

Matthew 26:26‐28 NKJV 
And as they were eating, Jesus took the bread, blessed and broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”  Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you.   For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” 

Jesus Himself became the surety of the new covenant. Every time we sit at the table of the Lord, we commemorate this covenant that we have with God through Jesus Christ. We remind ourselves that it is a better covenant than the old, built on better promises, and that we can enjoy those promises because our sins are not just covered, but taken away by His blood. And when He took away our sin, He took away with it also the consequences of sin.

Jesus carried His own blood in to the heavenly tabernacle to take away our sin, and God accepted it as the full and final payment for it. That made Jesus our Mediator ‐ the One who goes before the Father on our behalf, just as the priest in the Old Testament stood before the mercy seat with the blood of an animal to mediate between God and man.

I Timothy 2:5 NKJV 
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. 

The great news of the gospel is that Jesus did not come to only cover up our sins, but to wash them away. This He did by taking our sin upon Himself, and receiving the death penalty for it. When His innocent blood gushed out of His side, it took away the sins of the world, and opened the door to the heart of the Father for the first time since Adam fell. We have become new creations, free from a consciousness of sin and with an open door to the Father.

 Read Hebrews 7:20‐28 & 10:15‐23.

THE PRESENT-DAY MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST

Jesus did not end His ministry to us when He ascended to the Father, and when the Holy Spirit came to live in us. He went to take His position at the right hand of the Father from where He now continues His ministry. He now ministers to us as the One who conquered Satan and death, our fiercest enemies. All power and dominion were put under His feet. He is the great Conqueror. He watches over our inheritance. He backs up the Word and serves as the Surety of the new covenant.

Jesus our High Priest

Jesus does not serve in the manner of the High Priests of the old covenant, who had to be replaced all the time, since He is High Priest forever (Heb. 6:20).   He is ever there as the One who put away our sins. There is a continuity. He was High Priest when He took His own blood into heaven, and He is High Priest now, and will be forever.

Jesus our Mediator

Hebrews 8:6 NKJV 
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. 

Jesus fully satisfied the demands of Justice, having paid the debt for the sin of the world. He acted on our behalf and earned Himself the right to be our Mediator before the Father. He can do this because of who He is and what He has done.

Jesus closed the gap between God and man:

Philippians 2:6‐8 NKJV 
Who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. 

As such He is the only one qualified to mediate between God and man.

Secondly, He alone is qualified because:

II Corinthians 5:18‐19 NKJV 
Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the Word of reconciliation.  

Jesus reconciled us by turning the wrath of God away from us and onto Himself when He hung on the cross, bearing the burden of our sins. He could act on our behalf because He was sinless, and could approach God.

Now that we are reconciled and our sins have been removed, we may enter into the Holy of Holies ourselves, and do so boldly:

Hebrews 4:14‐16 NKJV
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. 

Let us therefore… Someone once said that for every therefore there is a wherefore. The wherefore is what Jesus did for us ‐ an open door to the throne of grace. Do you need something? Enter into the throne of grace, you will find grace, mercy and help there.

Grace is: God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense:

Grace is receiving the goodness of God which we do not deserve, because He deserved it for us. Mercy is not receiving what we do deserve ‐ the rightful punishment for our sins. Jesus died for our sins: past, present and future!

Jesus our Intercessor

Hebrews 7:22‐25 NKJV 
By so much more Jesus has become a surety of a better covenant. Also, there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore, He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. 

Although we have been made free and have been given most precious promises by the Father in His new covenant with us, the devil still takes advantage of the ignorance of our unrenewed minds. We do not fully grasp what happened to us when we were made new creations by the Spirit of God.   And what you don’t know is dangerous! The enemy attacks us because we have become a threat to his kingdom of darkness; he wants to eliminate us from the race, remove us from the war. But then Jesus intercedes for us. He interceded for Peter for his faith to be strong:

Luke 22:31‐32 NKJV 
And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon!   Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat.   But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail...” 

We are still growing and learning, which means we do not have the knowledge we should have to walk in the fulness of our freedom and victory in Christ. We are getting there more and more as we spend time with Him and His Word.

When we stumble, Jesus intercedes for us ‐ it is His present-day ministry to intercede for us.

Jesus our Advocate

I John 2:1 NKJV 
My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. 

The Greek word used for “Advocate” here is “paracletos”; the same word used for the Holy Spirit as Helper. If we sin, Jesus the righteous is our helper. Jesus is our defender, not our accuser as religion has taught us. He is there to plead our case. That is why we have this most wonderful verse:

I John 1:9 NKJV
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Don’t allow sin to break your fellowship with the Father‐ Jesus our Advocate will take up your case and remove that sin as if it never happened. He died for all our sins ‐ including the future sins!

Read Romans 8:31‐39.

And when we have confessed our sins, we boldly accept His complete forgiveness and cleansing on the ground of His eternal Word. He made provision for it. Don’t allow sin to become a separating wall between you and the Father ‐ don’t wait for it to grow old ‐ confess it immediately and receive forgiveness and cleansing.

Jesus our Surety

The high priest of the old covenant was the surety of the people: as long as he could go before God to cover their sins, they could live.   They depended on him to act as a go‐between; he was their surety. No one else but the high priest could perform that sacrifice ‐ they needed him. If he failed, they all failed.

Jesus is the Surety of the new covenant; the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek ‐ forever. He has no end. He will always be there, so we have a better Surety now than they had under the old covenant.  He cannot fail. Our covenant is sure!

Let us become more effective now!

When Jesus instituted the covenant meal, the communion table, He indicated that we are to become one with Him:

John 6:56 NKJV 
"He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” 

When those men of old drank one another’s blood to signify their covenant with one another, they became as one. They became as strong as the stronger of the two. You are as strong as your Covenant Partner! Christ lives in you!

We have become one with the One who conquered Satan and death. All the principalities are under His feet, and we are one with Him. We are as invincible as He is because we are one with Him. We are complete in Him, because He is complete:

Colossians 2:10 NKJV 
And you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. 

We are as one with Him as a vine and its branches ‐ you cannot separate one from the other. We need to get this revelation, and then we will go out and be ruthless in our exploits for Him. Nothing can stop us anymore! We are in covenant with Almighty God Himself through the blood covenant that He initiated. He executes His will through us; it is through us that He has the legal right to establish His Kingdom on the earth.

Those who can catch this will never be the same again (some things are taught while other things are caught!). They will be like David who walked toward Goliath fully knowing his covenant rights with God. He was just doing God’s work on the earth because God had a covenant with him. They were taking care of one another’s affairs in terms of the covenant: David went out against the giant and God provided the power to take him out.

Paul knew this when he said “I don’t live anymore, for Christ lives in me” ‐ his life became one with the life of Christ. This is why we read:

I Corinthians 1:30 NKJV 
But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God ‐ and righteousness and sanctification and redemption 

God is looking for men and women in these last days that will recognize their covenant partnership with Him, and walk in it as valiantly as David did; men and women who will know they cannot fail because they are locked in a covenant with Almighty God. He is looking for people who will do great exploits as they fearlessly march on with Him towards the greatest victory the world has ever seen. This new covenant is the better covenant with better promises and much greater power.

It’s about the culmination of the ages; the revelation of the glory of God in the very lives of His covenant partners. The glorious church is about to be revealed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Copeland, K. (n.d.). Covenant of Blood.

Hgin, K. (n.d.). The Blood Covenant.

Kenyon, E. (n.d.). The Blood Covenant.

Nelson, T. (1982). The New King James Version Bible. Thomas Nelson.