Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
A thoughtful person wrote asking to understand more clearly about the two covenants: What is the "everlasting covenant" (Gen. 9:16; Heb. 13:20)? And, what does it mean for us to live under the New Covenant today?
May the Lord save us from controversy and confusion!
Obviously, "the everlasting covenant" of Genesis 9:16 and Hebrews 13:20 has to be the same, for "God is not the author of confusion" (1 Cor. 14:33). And Genesis 9:16 makes clear that it is a promisethat God makes to "every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth," symbolized by the rainbow. God's covenants are never bargains He strikes with man; they are unilateral promises He makes.
But we humans are in love with the idea that we can make bargains with God; we want to be able to help save ourselves. It is too humbling to our proud souls to realize that we are dependent 100 percent on God fulfilling His promise to save us. The rainbow is a "promise" from God to every human being, good or bad. Because of that promise, God is able to treat every human with grace, as though he or she had never sinned. The grace in that "everlasting covenant" makes it possible for Him to make "His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and [to] send(s) rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matt. 5:45).
The same "everlasting covenant" is God's promise to every human being on earth to "make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever" (Heb. 13:21). That's why the Father gave His Son that "whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).
Christ loves the world,He died for the world,He redeemed the world, He died the world'ssecond death (Heb. 2:9), "made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21), the "us" being "every man." He wants "all mento be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" (1 Tim. 2:3, 4; if we had the courage to tell "every man" that "knowledge of the truth," the full truth, more would believe).
But everyone has freedom of choice, and many resist and reject what Christ has already done for them, promised them, and given them because acceptance includes deep humbling of heart before God. They deny and nullify His grace for them and so they condemn themselves.
Thus the "Old Covenant" is always based on man'spromise; the "New Covenant" is always God'spromise. Come, get under the "New."
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 5, 2006.
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