Invited Into Covenant With God!

The more we understand God’s true religion compared to all other religions, the more we will be awed by what our Creator God offers us lowly human beings! God’s true religion is, of course, the one that is accurately based on His revelation to mankind—the Bible.

Psalm 103 lists many of the magnificent benefits God offers us. His love, mercy and generosity are astounding! King David pondered: “I often think of the heavens your hands have made, and of the moon and stars you put in place. Then I ask, ‘Why do you care about us humans? Why are you concerned for us weaklings?’” (Psalm 8:3-4, Contemporary English Version).

What is even more astounding is how God humbly offers us a covenant by which He obligates Himself to lovingly and thoroughly take care of us—now and throughout the future—as long as we remain faithful to Him and continue to repent when we fall short.

Do we appreciate what it means to live in a covenant relationships with God?

Early biblical covenants

Covenants are mentioned many times in the Bible. The English word “covenant” appears in the New King James Version 313 times! The Old Testament reveals several covenants, especially those God made with the patriarchs.

But just what is a covenant? It’s generally a formal legal contract or agreement between two or more parties—one that spells out what each participant agrees to do or supply, detailing promises and responsibilities.

Since God has supreme authority and power, what prevents Him from reneging on the covenants He makes and retracting His promises? His pure holy character, which includes the fact that He will never lie and will always live up to His promises. The Bible affirms this over and over!

One of the covenants God made with people was the Sabbath Covenant, wherein God said His Sabbaths would be a “perpetual covenant” and a “sign” between Him “and the children of Israel forever” (Exodus 31:16-17). Even today, the Sabbath continues to be an important sign that helps to identify the people of God.

Before the ministry of Jesus Christ, Jewish worship had continued under the terms of the broader covenant that God had made with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai, referred to as the Sinai Covenant or the Old Covenant—Hebrews 8:13 declaring it “old” with the introduction of the new.

This article focuses more on the New Covenant that Jesus Christ, the “Mediator of the new covenant,” instituted and introduced (Hebrews 12:24). To thoroughly understand the New Covenant and the many controversial claims made about it, we recommend our free Bible study guide, The New Covenant: Does It Abolish God’s Law?

The former covenant was valuable and wonderful in countless ways. In fact, all that God taught with the Old Covenant—including the Ten Commandments and many other principles—serves as the essential foundation and introduction for the New Covenant (see the companion article “Tablets of Stone”). Even the many “blood sacrifices”—the sacrifice of animals by the shedding of their blood—were deeply meaningful, as they were prophetic and symbolic of Jesus Christ dying by the shedding of His blood.

The Old Covenant established a special relationship between God and His people, with God committing Himself to take care of the nation of Israel as long as Israel was faithful to Him. God offered the Israelites awesome blessings that would follow their continued obedience.

In fact, God was not just to be the Ruler of Israel as their King. For He even referred to His covenant relationship with His people as a marriage, in spiritual terms, saying that He “was a husband to them” (Jeremiah 31:32). But they grievously broke the covenant (same verse). He viewed the nation of Israel—later split into the kingdoms of Israel and Judah—as a faithless wife committing adultery with false gods and foreign political powers.

Hebrews 8:7-8 explains that the “fault” of the Old Covenant was not with the rules God gave but the people’s inability to faithfully continue in God’s ways due to spiritual weakness. They did not have the “heart” in them to believe, trust and obey God (see Deuteronomy 5:29 and Deuteronomy 9:24). The Old Covenant also did not offer the opportunity for ultimate forgiveness of sins or the receiving of God’s Holy Spirit empowering obedience and the granting of eternal life.

A better covenant—providing forgiveness and help to obey

God said that He would ultimately “make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 31:31). It was “a better covenant . . . established on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6). Under the terms of this covenant, God would not do away with His laws, as many imagine, but would write them into His people’s hearts and minds—and He would forgive their lawbreaking, remembering their sin no more (Jeremiah 31:33-34).

It would be a new marriage agreement. One of Jesus’ Kingdom parables compared God’s Kingdom with a marriage (Matthew 22:1-14). Revelation 19:6-9 reveals that the Church is engaged to marry Jesus Christ at His return! Ephesians 5:22-33 emphasizes the profound parallels between human marriage and the marriage of the Church to Christ. The Church as a spiritually renewed Israel is a forerunner in the relationship God intends to have with the rest of Israel and those of all nations who will submit to becoming part of it.

Jesus initiated this New Covenant with Israel among His disciples, offering them a cup of wine the night before His death, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20). The purchase price for His spiritual Bride would be steep, as only His actual shed blood in death could provide atonement for sin.

This covenant depends on God totally forgiving us! A fundamental part of God’s plan of salvation is His provision for forgiving people of their sins. When a person called by God repents and is baptized, all of the sins of his past life are forgiven, no matter how evil some of them were (Acts 2:38).

Paul quoted God as saying, “For this is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins” (Romans 11:27).

When the Bible speaks of God’s forgiveness, it means total forgiveness. Isaiah 1:18 quotes God as saying, “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow . . .” Once God has forgiven us, He regards us pure and sinless!

A psalm of David says: “The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy . . . He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” (Psalm 103:8-12).

This amazing grace, this amazing mercy and forgiveness, is based on Jesus Christ’s willingness to suffer and die to pay the penalty for all of our sins.

To maintain our harmonious covenant relationship with God, we must live by God’s “instruction manual,” the Bible, and repent and ask for God’s forgiveness whenever we sin (see Luke 4:4; 1 John 1:9). The Bible tells of numerous people who had been guilty of great sins and then God forgave them after they repented. Amazing grace, indeed!

Please understand that God’s requirement that we live in obedience to Him is not promoting salvation by works. We could never earn salvation! But God’s commandments define the character of God, and our passionate desire must be for our character to be more and more like God’s character. God’s grace is not “cheap grace”—the counterfeit grace that promotes permission to keep sinning (see Jude 4).

Moreover, we can’t succeed on our own. We must have God’s help and empowerment. The New Covenant offers the indwelling gift of the Holy Spirit, again described as having God’s laws written on our hearts and minds instead of on tablets of stone. This will give us the heart needed to remain faithful. We commit to this process at repentance and baptism to then receive the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2:38).

Yet we should understand that remaining faithful does not mean we will not sin any more in this life. No human being except for Jesus Christ lived a perfectly sinless life. Converted Christians still commit sins at times (see Romans 7 and 1 John 1:8). Thankfully, under the terms of the New Covenant God offers, He forgives those who sincerely repent, regarding them as sinless through Christ’s sacrifice. And He helps us to grow in spiritual conversion and obedience through the rest of our lives, as long as we continue to yield to Him.

Taking on Christ’s “yoke”

In contemplating this covenant relationship, it’s clear that what God offers us and what we can offer God are far from equal! To illustrate, imagine someone promising to give you a million dollars every week if you simply mow his yard! Preposterous, right?!

But what God offers us is more amazing than that! He offers “exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). He offers us everlasting life as glorified spirit beings in His divine family and Kingdom!

And what does He require of us? He does not require, as many religions do, a life of asceticism and extreme self-denial. Rather, we are to “love God and keep His commandments . . . and His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:2-3). And He will even help us to do that and will forgive us on repentance when we stumble. The result is our being blessed with happy and wholesome lives filled with love, joy, peace and other elements of godly character (Galatians 5:22-23).

In fact, Jesus said: “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:10-11). Our Good Shepherd lays down His life for us—the weak little sheep—while we have so little to offer Him by comparison!

A covenant can be compared to animals being yoked together so they are together helping to pull a plow. Amazingly, God’s covenant pictures our being yoked with Jesus Christ into a partnership, a team! Obviously, Christ supplies the real power in this team!

Notice what Jesus said to encourage us so we won’t be frightened by this responsibility: “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30).

When Jesus said His yoke is easy, He was referring to our part in bearing it. Jesus has shouldered the difficulty and heaviness of the yoke! Christ has sacrificed for us in countless ways and continues to help us!

Human life is often hard because we have the downward pull of selfish human nature, and we are surrounded by many temptations and sometimes persecutions in today’s world that is still ruled by Satan the devil. Jesus warned that the gate is narrow and the path is difficult that leads to eternal life (Matthew 7:13-14).

Always remember this promise from the apostle Paul: “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Jesus warned His present and future followers that we can anticipate many trials, temptations and persecutions in the future. And then He comforted them with these words: “He who endures to the end will be saved” (Matthew 10:22). And He further gave assurances of success as long as we continue to draw near to God through Him.

God’s true religion is utterly unique

Compare true, biblical religion with any other worship system. In some religions, the god offers no benefits, only threats of punishments, perhaps averted through appeasement. In other religions, a deity may capriciously grant some benefits, yet with worshipers having no assurance of consistently and continually receiving those benefits. The god may be seen as granting them to enhance his or her own reputation, not out of genuine care for the people. In pagan religions, the god doesn’t love the people and doesn’t ask the people to love him—only to obey, serve and worship.

In contrast, the true God has humble, sacrificial love that surpasses our comprehension! Consider the fact that the Bible is God’s book of love—expressing His love for people and how people must learn to love God!

The main point is this: In no other religion does the god offer to enter a covenant to forever obligate himself (or herself) to take good care of the people—even if the people remain faithful to that god. And, certainly, even with pagan myths of dying and saving gods, in no other religion does the god make such a willing sacrifice for the people—certainly not a monumental sacrifice such as God the Father sacrificing His Son and Jesus Christ sacrificing Himself!

Clearly, God the Father and Jesus Christ passionately desire to share Their joy with others! To accomplish this, They have a great master plan of salvation for producing Their divine family, who, as we saw, will share in Their divine nature! What will that be like? King David wrote, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11).

God is calling relatively few in this age to understand and live by His ways today. Yet these are firstfruits in a great spiritual harvest of mankind, as God desires to ultimately offer salvation to everyone (compare James 1:18 and 2 Peter 3:9).

If you are already part of the spiritual people of God, the Bride of Christ, having accepted the terms of the New Covenant, rejoice with great joy and remain faithful! If you have not yet, turn to God with all your heart and seek to be brought into this most magnificent covenant relationship with God and Jesus Christ!