Growing
Covenant
In plain words
A covenant is a binding promise that creates a relationship, like God's promises to His people.
A covenant is more than a contract. A contract is about goods and services. A covenant is about a relationship. Marriage is the closest everyday picture: two people bind themselves to each other with promises, for life. They belong to each other, not just do business together.
In the Bible, God makes covenants with people. He promised Noah, Abraham, Moses and David that He would be faithful. Then at His last meal, Jesus said the cup was "the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20). That is the covenant every Christian lives in.
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The Bible's story is held together by covenants. God promised Abraham a land and a family (Genesis 15:18). Later, through Jeremiah, He promised a new covenant: "I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts" (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Jesus fulfilled that promise.
A common misunderstanding is that the old covenant was about earning God's favour and the new about grace. Grace was there from the start. The difference is that in the new covenant God gives His Spirit to change hearts, and Jesus is the perfect mediator (Hebrews 8:6). You can rely on God because He binds Himself to His word.
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The Hebrew berit and the Greek diatheke both mean covenant. Ancient covenants often had a sacrifice, signs, promises and obligations. God's covenants follow this pattern, but God takes the heaviest part on Himself, as when He alone passed between the pieces in Genesis 15.
Christians differ on how the covenants relate: covenant theology sees one covenant of grace in many forms, dispensational and other views stress more distinct stages, and this affects views on baptism and Israel. All agree that every covenant promise finds its yes in Christ.
My verses
On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates.
Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt— a covenant they broke, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD. I will put My law in their minds and inscribe it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they will be My people.
In the same way, after supper He took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.
Now, however, Jesus has received a much more excellent ministry, just as the covenant He mediates is better and is founded on better promises.