Colleen and Nikki discuss the covenants of the Bible including those that go on forever and one that ended already. Podcast was published March 4, 2020. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Hi, and welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: Today we’re going to continue a series of Bible studies that we have been doing. A few weeks back we did the nature of man and the new birth, and then we discussed again the state of the dead, the security of the believer, and also judgment and works done in the flesh and in the Spirit.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: And today we’re going to begin a series on the covenants. Well, first, let me just ask you, Colleen: What did you think the covenants were as an Adventist? What did you know about them?
Colleen: Not much. I had learned that there was only one covenant, that God reiterated it in different ways to different people, but that every covenant that the Bible mentions was really just another way of expressing the same big covenant. What did you think?
Nikki: Well, I had read the word “new covenant” in the Bible before, and so I knew that there was a new covenant.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: But I thought that the only ones who really had that were the Adventists because, the way I understood it – and I don’t know where I got it from, but since I was a kid – we were the only ones that had the bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament. We were the true people of the Bible –
Colleen: Yeah.
Nikki: – because we valued the whole Bible, and so in a sense I understood that the new covenant included the old covenant.
Colleen: Yes, I thought that too. I had actually a similar view, and you said that so well. I hadn’t thought of it quite like that, but I do remember thinking that we really were the inheritors of whatever the new covenant was.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And I did think it included the old covenant. I thought it was just a redefinition.
Nikki: Kind of like a renewed covenant, which I’ve since heard people actually use that phrase.
Colleen: Oh, yes.
Nikki: I don’t remember being taught that, but I must have been.
Colleen: But that’s how I thought about it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But that is not a biblical concept, and I have read that, and not just from Adventism, I might add. But that is what I had thought the biblical covenants were.
Nikki: And I will say this, I don’t know that Adventism failed me here or if this was just me not paying attention – [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: But I did not know that there were a lot of covenants in the Bible. I only thought there were an old covenant and a new covenant. I wasn’t aware of the fact that there were more. I knew that there was a covenant between God and Noah –
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: – but I didn’t – I guess I just wasn’t a good Bible student.
Colleen: Well, we weren’t really taught it. We were taught, basically, that there was a covenant. And I remember also believing that whatever the covenant was for me, I had to keep my end of it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: That that was always true. Israel had to keep their end of it; I had to keep my end of it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Jesus’ coming was just like an incidental, extra information, but I still had to keep my end of the bargain with God. I also didn’t understand the connection between covenants and God’s promises. How did you understand God’s promises, Nikki? Who would benefit from them? Who received them? Who were they for?
Nikki: The way I understood it, they were for the people who deserved them. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: They were for the obedient, the righteous.
Colleen: Uh-huh.
Nikki: The people who did their – well, like we talked about the covenants being kind of like a deal.
Colleen: Oh, right.
Nikki: The people who held up their end of the deal would receive God’s promises.
Colleen: Yes. And I guess that’s actually how I grew up thinking of it too. I remember being somewhere in my pre-teen years, junior high-ish, at that awkward age where, you know, you start to ask questions, and the Bible classes at school were getting a little bit more into Adventist doctrine, and I remember driving home from somewhere one evening with my parents, and I have no memory of what the question or the promise was that my Mom referred to in the car, but I remember her saying that God said such and such, we could expect such and such, and I remember saying, “But He said that to so-and-so,” and she said, “Anytime God made a promise, that’s for everyone.”
Nikki: Mmmm.
Colleen: And I had never thought of that before, but it changed the way I thought about His promises. So if there’s a promise in the Bible, it was for me, because that’s who God is, and we can just look through the Bible and find those promises and apply them to ourselves, and you know, actually a lot of Christians do that too.
Nikki: Yeah. I was just thinking about the prayer of Jabez. That was a big deal –
Colleen: It was a big deal.
Nikki: – for a long time, claiming that.
Colleen: And it was never intended for me. [Laughter.]
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And I also remember my shock several years ago when I heard Gary Inrig say in a sermon, “Now, Jeremiah 29:11, ‘I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you, not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future,'” he said, “That is a wonderful promise of God, but people just take that out of context and apply it to themselves.” And he said, “That promise is in context. It’s a covenant promise to Israel, and while we can have an application to ourselves as God’s people, that promise, as it stands in the Bible, has a specific context, and we can’t just yank the promise out and say, ‘I know God will do what I need,’ because it’s not intentionally for us; it was for Israel. And the things we can know about God we can know from looking at that promise, and we can know those things are true for us. But that promise was not made to us.” That was a shock to me.
Nikki: The things in that promise can be supported in the New Testament. Those promises were made to believers –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – as well, in a different context, and I think when you pull something out of context and apply it to you, the first thing you do is remove it from its first application and give that no thought.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: And then, you can have people who are now replacement Israel because –
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: – that doesn’t matter anymore, that was a dead context.
Colleen: Yes. That’s such a good point, Nikki. It’s really important to remember – and this is one of the rules of hermeneutics that I had to relearn – the first thing I have to do when I read the Bible is not to say, “What does this say to me?”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Because I am not in the Bible, contrary to the way some people teach Scripture. The Bible is a revelation of God’s interaction with man, and it was intended for a first audience. We have to know who that audience was and what the context was. Only after we look at that can we ask ourselves, “What’s the application for me?”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And an application will never be wildly different than it was for the first audience. It may have a different specific application, but it won’t have a different meaning. So that’s really an important thing to know. We have to know the first audience and what it meant to them before we can even hope to look at how it applies to us. I always had God’s promises and the covenants all mixed up in a mishmash in my head that didn’t make a lot of sense. It was almost like the Bible was a book of incantations and magic promises from God, and if I was obedient, like you said, I could expect Him to bless me in every way He said.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It was quite a shock to me to start learning, when we came to a Christian church, that there actually are specific covenants in the Bible, and here’s the big kicker: I had never been taught that there are both unconditional and conditional covenants. I had understood that all of God’s promises were conditional upon my obedience.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Like you said, if I’m good, He’ll do it.
Nikki: Yeah. Um-hmm.
Colleen: In the Bible, what’s the first covenant that you know of, Nikki?
Nikki: So the first one I can think of is between God and Noah after the flood.
Colleen: That’s correct, in Genesis 9.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Now, it’s worth mentioning, there are people, including Christians who are not Adventist, who have a view of the covenants that differs, in my opinion, from what the Bible actually says. And you will find, if you talk to Christians, that there are different views of the covenants. There are things called Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism and New Covenant Theology, and I’m just here to say, we don’t subscribe to any specific theology of covenants. We are taking the covenants as listed in the Bible and explaining what they say.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So there are some people who say there was a covenant within the Trinity before the creation of the world. There are some who say God had a covenant of works with Adam, but that’s never stated in Scripture.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: And we can’t actually imply or take as fact that there were these existing covenants if the Bible doesn’t tell us. We have to go on what the words of Scripture say, and the first time Scripture talks about God making a covenant is to Noah after the flood, but it wasn’t just for Noah.
Nikki: Yeah, He promised that He would never again destroy the world with a flood, and the sign was the rainbow in the sky.
Colleen: Which I still think of as a promise from God when I see a rainbow.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s a reassurance to me. He’s still on His throne. He’s reminding us that even though that’s a promise that He’ll never destroy the world with a flood, that was His specific sign, and we are to remember, He keeps His promises.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And I love that when I see a rainbow because I know He’s keeping His promises.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: So it is also really interesting in Genesis 9, where we learn about God making this covenant, that God makes the covenant with the earth. He says He is making the covenant with the people, with everything that moves, and with the earth. So it’s a promise to humanity, to all the creatures, to the world itself that He will not destroy it with water again. And just by the way, we who came out of Adventism need to know that in Genesis 9:3 God gave everything that moves for food. In fact, it says, “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give it all to you as I gave the green plant.” Now, you know, Adventists are good at saying, “God gave us a vegetarian diet in Eden,” and now God is saying, “I’m giving you everything.”
Nikki: I have to say, I was told that that was judgment on man.
Colleen: I was too. In what way?
Nikki: By allowing us to eat whatever we want, we were going to die younger.
Colleen: That is a connection that Adventists have taught us. But it never says that in Scripture.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: It says that God limited the length of man’s life, but it doesn’t say it had a thing to do with food, and when we come to the New Testament we have Jesus declaring all foods clean. So we have to say, the Bible is telling us God gave us meat to eat, and it’s not about shortening the lifespan. I personally suspect it had more to do with the earth being really different from its condition before the flood.
Nikki: It’s worth mentioning that the lifespan since Jesus declared all foods clean is now older.
Colleen: That’s true.
Nikki: So the correlation is just not there.
Colleen: That’s true. That’s a really good point. In this overview, we’re just going to mention the covenant with Noah, symbolized by the rainbow, is the first covenant mentioned in Scripture. Now, I just have to ask: Would you say this covenant that God made was conditional or unconditional?
Nikki: There are no conditions given in this. This is unconditional.
Colleen: Noah did not have to do anything. He didn’t say, “I will not destroy the earth with a flood if everybody obeys me.” It was unconditional.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: God spoke, and it is so. Nobody had made that distinction for me as an Adventist.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: I did not understand that it made a difference if God was asking for a response or not. And He did not ask for a response. He made an unconditional covenant. Okay, so we don’t have to move very far in Genesis after the flood and the covenant with Noah to find the second covenant that God makes that’s recorded in Scripture. Do you remember what it is?
Nikki: It’s His covenant with Abraham.
Colleen: In Genesis 12 God first calls Abraham from the land of Ur. Now what did you understand, Nikki, about God calling Abraham?
Nikki: That Abraham was a righteous man, and that’s why God called him.
Colleen: That he had resisted worshipping the idols of his fathers.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We can’t go on without mentioning what the Bible actually says about Abraham, and it’s recorded in Joshua 24: 2 and 3. Do you want to read that, Nikki?
Nikki: Sure. “And Joshua said to all the people, ‘Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, “Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac.”‘”
Colleen: In the context, is there any hint that Abraham was worshipping anybody but the gods of his fathers?
Nikki: No.
Colleen: Not at all. He was worshipping them.
Nikki: Yeah. It says, “And they were worshipping other gods.”
Colleen: And God took Abraham out of the idol worship, out of the land dedicated to whatever the gods were. He took him out and called him to a new land. So it’s just worth knowing that when God called Abraham, He called him out of paganism, not out of some sort of inherent righteousness. God’s call on our lives is never because we are good or worthy. His call on everybody He calls is a call out of spiritual darkness. He calls us, and He changes us, and that’s what He did with Abraham. So He called him into this new land, and then in Genesis 15 we find the passage where God actually makes a covenant with Abraham. I’d read this, I’d heard about it, but I didn’t really understand its significance. What do you understand about the covenant with Abraham, Nikki, at this point? What did God promise him?
Nikki: He promised him land, a seed –
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: – and blessing.
Colleen: A three-part promise.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And sometimes, to help me remember it, I remember it from small to big: Seed, land, blessing! [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: But those are the three elements of the promise that God made him. And then He did what every ruler in the ancient Near East did when they made a covenant with another person, with another ruler. And then God did with Abraham the typical thing that rulers did in the ancient Near East when they made covenants with one another. He used the human form of making a deal with Abraham, but with a twist. So in Genesis 15 we find it. He took Abraham outside. It’s in Genesis 15. Do you want to read 1 to 6, Nikki? This is so important.
Nikki: “After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: ‘Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.’ But Abram said, ‘O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?’ And Abram said, ‘Behold, you have given me no offspring, and a member of my household will be my heir.’ And behold, the word of the Lord came to him: ‘This man shall not be your heir; your very own son shall be your heir.’ And He brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he believed the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness.”
Colleen: That is one of the central verses in the entire Bible, the first description of how people are made right with God. Abraham believed in the Lord, believed God, and God reckoned it to him as righteousness. His belief in God was what God credited to him as righteousness. He has made the promise, but then He goes through the whole physical reality, because Abraham is a man, and He makes a covenant with him, but there’s a very unique thing that happens. The rest of chapter 15 describes God making this covenant with Abraham, and He asked Abraham to prepare the covenant sacrifices. This was typical. This was not just unique for Abraham. This was what ancient Near East kings did with one another when they made agreements between their nations. They would literally walk together among the sacrificial pieces and make a self-maledictory oath: “If I break the covenant, let it be unto me as it is with these animals.” And they would say that to each other and pledge that to each other. God has Abraham get the animals ready. Look at verse 9, Nikki, and could you read verses 9 to 11.
Nikki: “He said to him, ‘Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.’ And he brought Him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. And when the birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.”
Colleen: What’s interesting is that God had Abram prepare all the sacrificial animals just like in any kind of covenant that any kind of Near Eastern ruler would make with another, but Abram’s by himself. And he’s even shooing the birds away from the sacrifices, because where’s God? Where’s the other party to the covenant?
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: And then we find this most amazing thing in verse 12. The sun was going down, and what happened to Abram?
Nikki: A deep sleep fell on Abram.
Colleen: Terror and darkness fell upon him. And then God shows up. And what does He say, in verse 13?
Nikki: “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. And I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Ammonites is not yet complete.”
Colleen: And then, when the sun had set and it was very dark, there appeared the most amazing thing. What appeared?
Nikki: A smoking firepot and a flaming torch.
Colleen: And what did they do?
Nikki: They passed between the pieces.
Colleen: Now, what is one of the classic symbols of the presence of God in the Bible?
Nikki: A consuming fire.
Colleen: Even at the Day of Pentecost, it was flames of fire that landed on the heads of those who were praying. These symbols of God, two symbols of God, possibly representing the Father and the Son – it’s not specifically stated, but I think it’s a fair application – came and passed between those pieces. Where was Abraham?
Nikki: He was asleep.
Colleen: Did he participate in ratifying that covenant?
Nikki: No.
Colleen: Not at all. He was not allowed to. God caused a deep sleep to fall on him, but let him see that He Himself was making that covenant and keeping it. And Abraham’s feeble human promises were never going to be able to stop the fulfilment of this covenant. This is an unconditional covenant of God. And it’s so interesting to me when I read this. I never saw this as an Adventist. So what does God say will happen to those descendants?
Nikki: Well, they’re going to be sojourners in a land that’s not theirs. They’d be servants there for 400 hundred years.
Colleen: It’s interesting because in 14 what does it say: They’ll serve, and they will come out with what?
Nikki: Great possessions.
Colleen: Isn’t that interesting? Remember how when the Israelites left Egypt they went and they were commanded to ask the Egyptians for money and for jewelry –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – and the Egyptians plied them with it. So they left with money and wealth to sustain them. God foretold that. And then, in verse 16, after leaving with great possessions, what would happen?
Nikki: They shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet completed. The first time I read “Ammonites,” but the Amorites.
Colleen: Yeah, you know, as our pastor often says, “Amorites, Ammonites, termites, Jebusites…” [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: But it’s all in the covenant God made with Abraham. The entire history of the Israelites’ slavery and taking the land was promised.
Nikki: And the judgment that He would pour out on the nation that they served.
Colleen: Yes. Yes, exactly. And the nations of the land whose place they would take. They would inhabit the land of these pagans. But it’s also interesting that in verse 16, God isn’t going to do it prematurely. He doesn’t arbitrarily destroy the wicked. He says He’s not doing this until the fourth generation of Abraham’s descendants because at that time the iniquity of the Amorites was not yet complete. He was letting them have time to repent as well.
Nikki: Wow.
Colleen: It’s such an amazing thing. I never understood how completely sovereign God is. When Abraham woke up, he was the beneficiary of an unconditional covenant from God that promised, in essence, the first thing: seed.
Nikki: Seed. Land. And blessing.
Colleen: Land. And blessing. And this was a thing that would not be undone. Nobody can undue a unilateral, unconditional promise of God. And even if it takes time to see it all come about; if God said it, we know it will happen. Did He require anything of Abraham?
Nikki: Nothing.
Colleen: Nothing. That’s how we know it’s unconditional. He even had him put to sleep so he couldn’t mess up the promise by saying, “Oh, oh, yes, Lord, and I’ll serve you all my life.” Nothing like that. He was asleep.
Nikki: Another part of the covenant, which I never thought about ever as an Adventist, down in verse 18, “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.'”
Colleen: And there are the termites again. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.] Yeah. That was fun. So He’s giving him that land, and that’s a part of His unconditional promise. And as surely as God kept the promises that He told him about above, that the people would go, and they’d be slaves in a land for 400 years, we saw all that come true.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: God keeps His promises, and this is just as true. It hasn’t happened yet.
Colleen: That’s true.
Nikki: But it’s a part of this unconditional covenant.
Colleen: And we know that if God says it will happen, it will happen.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: We know that Abraham’s going to have descendants who are going to be in a land that isn’t theirs, they’re going to be servants for 400 years, and then they’re going to be brought out. So we move ahead to the next covenant listed in Scripture, and what is that?
Nikki: The Mosaic covenant.
Colleen: Yes. And that is the covenant that we all learned so well, except we didn’t learn how it was given or to whom.
Nikki: No.
Colleen: We thought it was for us. God brought Israel out of Egypt, and shortly after He brought them out of Egypt, He made a covenant with the nation. He called their leader, Moses, up into Mt. Sinai, and He made a covenant with them that he was to present to the people. What do we generally call this covenant?
Nikki: This is the Mosaic covenant.
Colleen: Exactly. It included the really obvious piece of it that we’ve struggled so much with as Adventists. What was the actual core of the covenant called? What do we call it now?
Nikki: We call it the Decalogue.
Colleen: Yes, the Ten Commandments. In fact, Exodus 34:28 calls the Ten Commandments “the words of the covenant.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And all the rest of the covenant, all the ceremonial laws, the civil laws, the don’t mix linen and wool, the don’t cook your calf in its mother’s milk, they were all part of the law. This covenant is what Israel called “The Law,” and it was given to Moses for Israel. And remember? After He gave it to them, Moses came down the mountain and read all the terms, and what did the people say?
Nikki: “All that you’ve said we will do.”
Colleen: They made a promise. So God said, “If you keep my covenant, I will bless you. If you disobey, there will be curses.” And they said, “All you’ve said we will do.” So God made promises, and the people made promises. What kind of covenant was that?
Nikki: That was a conditional covenant.
Colleen: Conditional. Two-way. God made promises, the people made promises. If they obeyed, they’d be blessed. If they disobeyed, they’d be cursed. They’d be exiled. That was a conditional covenant. And Nikki, you were pointing something out about the book of Deuteronomy. I did not understand this as an Adventist either. When God first gave the covenant to the generation that left Egypt, that’s recorded in the book of Exodus. After they disobeyed God, after they worshipped the golden calf, after they apostatized in the desert, God punished them by making them wander in the desert for 40 years, and then before they went in to take the land, finally with the next generation, Moses renewed the covenant with them, and the book of Deuteronomy is the book in which Moses renews the covenant with the people that are actually going to take the land. There is something really interesting you were pointing out to me in Deuteronomy 5.
Nikki: Yeah. This was a big deal for me as I was studying my way out of Adventism because, you know. You know what we hear.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: So now we can just go and murder and whatever, commit adultery, and covet and it’s okay.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: But you know, and I was also told a lot that the Ten Commandments are separate from the rest of the law.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: It was all separated and that the Ten Commandments were for everyone.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: So then I read this, “And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, ‘Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. The Lord our God made a covenant with us at Horeb. Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. The Lord spoke with you face to face at the mountain, out of the midst of the fire, while I stood between the Lord and you at that time, to declare to you the word of the Lord.'” We see here that this covenant was new at Sinai.
Colleen: Yes.
Nikki: It was not given to Abraham.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: It was not given to Adam and Eve, as the Adventists like to say.
Colleen: Right!
Nikki: It was not in eternity past in heaven –
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: – as Ellen White says it was.
Colleen: And when the Bible talks about the fathers in the context of Israel, like it does in verse 3, “He did not make this covenant with our fathers,” that term “fathers” refers to the patriarchs –
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: – to the people who came before Israel was a nation, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then the sons of Jacob, for whom the tribes were named.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Those were the patriarchs. And this covenant was not made with them.
Nikki: Uh-uh.
Colleen: It was made with the people of Israel, the nation of Israel. And it was conditional. A conditional covenant is bound to be broken because it involves human promises, and we never keep our promises perfectly. It was flawed.
Nikki: And He made provision for that by giving them the sacrificial system.
Colleen: He knew they would break their covenant with Him. We also know, from Galatians, that this covenant had an endpoint. If it began at Sinai, as Moses reiterates to the wilderness generation before they take the land, Galatians 3 explains when this covenant was completed, when it became done. Galatians 3:19 – actually it starts with 17 – Paul is unpacking what the purpose and the timing of the covenant with Israel was. He is explaining the Mosaic covenant, and he’s saying that the law came 430 years after Abraham, and it came until, verse 19, “until the Seed would come to whom the promise had been made.” The Mosaic covenant had a beginning, confirmed both in Deuteronomy, Exodus, and in the New Testament in Galatians, and it had an ending, when the Seed, or Jesus, would come. So the Bible is very, very clear: This conditional covenant, which included the fallible promises of the Nation of Israel, could not be permanent. It was intended only for a time and only for the nation. One other covenant occurred during the time of Israel. This is also a covenant I never learned about as an Adventist, but it’s a really significant one, and it shows up in 2 Samuel 7, 2 Samuel 7:8-17, and God is talking to David. Now, I think most of us as Adventists learned that Jesus is the Son of David, and David was like a foreshadowing of Christ. Did you learn that?
Nikki: Yeah.
Colleen: Kind of, whatever.
Nikki: I knew Jesus was going to be a son of David.
Colleen: Right. Right.
Nikki: So from his lineage.
Colleen: From his lineage. We didn’t really learn much about the significance of David, did we?
Nikki: Probably not, because it doesn’t come to mind.
Colleen: Exactly. David had a covenant made to him by God, and this came after David had decided he had built himself a palace; he wanted to build a tabernacle or a temple for God. He had established the City of Jerusalem as the Israelite capital, as the capital of the Nation of Israel when he became king, and the Ark of the Covenant was still living in a tent, the tabernacle. And David said, “You know, I’ve built myself a house, I want to build a house for God.” And I think most of us, even as Adventists, knew the story, that God did not allow him to build the temple, but said his sonwould build the temple. But God did something for David that far surpassed the privilege of building God a temple. David, wanting to build this house for God, asked the prophet Nathan what he thought about it. First Nathan thought it was a good idea, but then God talked to the prophet Nathan and told him, no, that wasn’t the way it was going to happen, and He sent Nathan to David with the message and the promise from God. Do you want to read what it says in 2 Samuel 7:8-13, Nikki?
Nikki: “Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of Hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people, Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and I will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.'”
Colleen: God makes David a promise of an eternal throne, an eternal kingdom, and a dynasty. He promises to make a house for David. David is not going to make a house for God; God is going to make a house for David. And He’s assuring him that someone from his own body will take the throne. The immediate fulfillment of that, of course, is Solomon, who did build the temple. But in the big picture, it was the Son of David that Israel was looking for when Jesus came. Jesus is that promised Son, and I never understood as an Adventist that this was a covenant God made with David. Now, would you say this was conditional or unconditional?
Nikki: This is unconditional.
Colleen: God just declares it.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: “Go, Nathan, and tell my king, David, I will make a house for him.”
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And He did; and He has. Jesus is on the throne reigning. And even though we don’t see a physical kingdom at this time, He has already ushered in the Kingdom of God, and we are part of the fruit of that.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: And then, years later, God makes another covenant. He makes it with Israel, but as we learn, it’s a covenant into which other people besides Israel are grafted, if they believe. It’s in Jeremiah 31:31-34, and this the New Testament calls the new covenant. Do you want to read those verses, Nikki?
Nikki: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
Colleen: This covenant is completely different from the Mosaic.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: Now, is He asking for any promises from anybody?
Nikki: No, no. And He’s even saying that this covenant is a different kind of covenant from the ones that they were able to break.
Colleen: Yes. Yes. So is this, would you say, conditional or unconditional.
Nikki: This is unconditional.
Colleen: This, God is doing. And it doesn’t depend on anybody’s promises or anybody’s actions or obedience. This is the unilateral promise of God. Interestingly, as we look back over the covenants, because these are the four major covenants in Scripture that are called covenants, we see that the Abrahamic covenant is eternal. The promises God made to Abraham will never stop because God is God, and He is still doing what He promised Abraham. The promises of the Mosaic covenant came to an end, just as Scripture said they would, when Jesus came. The Mosaic covenant was conditional, and it required promises from God and promises from the people. The people couldn’t keep their end of the covenant, and God punished them, as He said He would. But the Mosaic covenant was not an addition to the Abrahamic covenant, as I was taught as an Adventist. I was taught that the Ten Commandments were, like, added on and became part of the covenant. No. It was a completely separate covenant, so if you think about the Abrahamic covenant being like a big umbrella that overarches the rest of history and the Mosaic covenant being a small thing under the umbrella that existed for a period of time, you’ll get an idea of how the Mosaic covenant functioned. It functioned parallel with the Abrahamic covenant, but it did not replace it or add to it. It was a separate covenant underneath the promises of God made to Abraham. And when Jesus came, it was over. Now, this new covenant is another eternal covenant because it’s based on God’s promises that cannot be broken. No human was involved. He says, as you pointed out, it’s a different kind of covenant.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: What makes it different, from our perspective?
Nikki: It’s unconditional.
Colleen: And it’s not dependent upon a law that we have to obey. It’s dependent – and it’s not stated how this will happen, but what do we know at this point it’s based on?
Nikki: Well, it’s based on believing God, faith in Jesus Christ.
Colleen: Exactly.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: It’s based on understanding that Jesus Christ came, and when that Mosaic covenant ended, He became thefulfillment of that law, and it’s now Jesus that we trust instead of looking to the law. And now the New Covenant is showing us in even more detail how God is fulfilling His promises to Abraham.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: These are eternal, they are permanent.
Nikki: Now, we’re going to go into each of these covenants in a deeper way over the next several episodes of the podcast, so hang in there with us. I know I always want to encourage our listeners who are hearing this for the first time, no, we are not saying that there are not more laws for us to keep.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: There’s a lot more to this we can’t cover in one episode, so hang in there. Please be sure that you subscribe to our podcast. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can email us at formeradventist@gmail.com, and you can go to our website, proclamationmagazine.com. You will find back issues of the magazine there, there are lots of great articles that talk about these things if you want to read up on it while you wait for our episodes. There is also a button there for donations, if you’d like to come alongside the ministry and support us. And again, just please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review.
Colleen: Thanks for hanging in with us in this overview of the covenants, and we will come back to it and look at each one in more detail.
Nikki: And we’ll see you again soon.
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