For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. | 2 Corinthians 1:20
I was having lunch with a friend last week, when he asked an odd question: see all of those people holding signs over there; if you HAD to make one, what would yours say? His question was really: what do you find important enough to be the one message you stand behind?
My answer was to paraphrase 2 Corinthians 1:20, saying: all of our longings find their yes in Him. While this message on a piece of posterboard would need some further explanation, that was the point. I would rather draw someone into a conversation than blast them with an ideology. Everyone is searching for some sort of meaning and truth in this life, but we aren’t meant to find it alone. Truth is most often found, with others, over time, through a shared journey. Meaning in life takes more than just statements, it requires a journey.
I was thinking about this on Sunday as I preached through the fourth act of the story or redemption. As we work through Creation and the Fall in Genesis, we are spending our outdoor services walking through Redemption initiated (most of the Old Testament), Redemption Fulfilled (the Gospels), and Restoration (from the ascension to Jesus’ return). One of the strands that I connected on Sunday was that Jesus was the fulfillment of all of the promises of the OT – or as Paul puts it above: all the promises of God find their Yes in him.
God’s promises are organized into covenants. A covenant is simply a formal agreement between two parties (in this case God and His people), which have expectations and stipulations so that the terms can be fully understood. God writes His relationship through these covenants to clearly define His promises to His people. While some people will think of this as nothing more than a theological category, the covenants help us to understand who we are, who God is, and how we can be in relationship with the eternal God of the universe. I want to (very quickly) point out the main Biblical covenants and show how all of them find their yes in Jesus.
The six major covenants in the Old Testament are: Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and the New Covenant in Jeremiah 31. In each of these, God promises something to His people and Jesus is the key to God’s people receiving it. Let me show you what I mean:
Adamic Covenant
When God creates Adam and puts him in the garden it comes with one simple rule: do not eat from the tree in the middle of the garden.This comes with a promise: you will be blessed and dwell with God as long as the rule is obeyed. This covenant, sometimes called the covenant of works (or creation, or Eden) describes the state of the world as God made it. He is Creator and should be treated as Creator – His creation will receive everything they need as long as they remember that they are creation. In the Biblical narrative, this falls apart very quickly as Adam and Eve sin and bring a curse into the world that includes disharmony with God, self, others and the world.
In the incarnation (God made flesh), Jesus enters into human form to represent His people. In the same way Adam failed to live up to His end of the covenant, Jesus is tempted by Satan, but prevails. He lives a perfect life to the end, declaring on His last day: not my will but Yours be done. In this, He lives out obedience and is able to intercede for us. Paul points to Jesus as this second Adam in Romans 5:17:
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
The original covenant sets up a problem that is solved in the life of Jesus Christ.
Noahic Covenant
The flood is a picture for us of what sin has done to God’s good creation and what sin deserves. As Noah and his family emerge from the Ark, God promises not to destroy the world again, even though everyone since Noah has deserved it. God then reinstates the cultural mandate (be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it) and gives the framework for human authority to help govern a world that will be tainted by sin. In a way, this covenant restates aspects of the first while acknowledging that sin will always be present.
When God decides NOT to destroy the world by flood again, He does it for a reason. The reason is so that His righteousness and grace could be put on display. The Bible makes this connection for us in Romans 3:23–26:
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
All are worthy of the same fate as the people in the time of Noah. In His ‘divine forbearance’ He passed over sins so that history could move forward and Jesus could come. While the rainbow represents the promise to Noah, it is a promise that exists because of Jesus’ future sacrifice. By dying in our place, Jesus puts both God’s holiness and mercy on display.
The covenant with Noah exists so that Jesus can rescue God’s people.
Abrahamic Covenant
God calls Abraham out from all of the people on earth and makes a covenant with him that includes a promise of: descendants, land, and that through his lineage God would bless the whole world. While there was an ‘immediate’ fulfillment of these through the birth of Isaac (and eventually the nation of Israel), the land of Canaan, and God working through His people to bring His truth to bear on earth; we also see that this covenant pointed to a future reality. There was a promise beyond the bloodline descendants of Abraham.
In Romans 9, Paul makes it clear that the offspring of Abraham are those who believe, saying:
This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. | Romans 9:8
aaHebrews 11 tells us that Abraham looked past the earthly Promised Land to a city set apart by God:
For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (10)
The means to being brought into this family and getting to live in this city is the offspring of Abraham through whom the whole world would be blessed. Jesus is the promise of Abraham in human form and He makes it possible to receive the blessings of the promise. Paul says it this way in Galatians 3:29:
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.
Mosaic Covenant
As God frees His people from Egypt and brings them through the Red Sea, He leads them to the base of Mount Sinai. It is here that He establishes their identity as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5). The nation of Israel would reveal who God is to the rest of the world through adherence to His law. This law laid out how to act toward one another and toward God, setting up the means to love God and love neighbor. God’s people, living this out, were meant to be a light in this dark world.
Jesus not only keeps the law perfectly, but He reveals the nature of God fully. He both follows the law, but even more, He embodies what it means to be an ambassador for God on earth. It is possible for Him to do this because He is God – through this, He perfectly lives out the purpose of the Mosaic covenant, described to us in the opening to the book of Hebrews:
Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. | Hebrews 1:1–3a
While the nation of Israel failed to live out their role, Jesus was the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of His nature, and He holds the universe together.
Davidic Covenant
Once Israel is established in the Promised Land, they want a king and a kingdom like the other nations. God grants this request and after the first king, Saul, shows them the damage a sinful king can do, God anoints David. He is not without sin, but He does keep coming back to God to be restored (Psalm 51). Even more than his earthly rule, David is promised that an eternal king and kingdom will be established through his offspring. The covenant with David is about a future king who will rule forever. The prophets build on this idea of the Messiah who will come as a just ruler: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).
When Jesus comes into Jerusalem in a triumphal entry, He is affirming that He is the king. But His kingship doesn’t look triumphal for long. Before the week is up, He is arrested, tried, and crucified. On the cross hangs a sign that mockingly says: King of the Jews. In a twist, Jesus shows His eternality and authority by conquering death and walking out of the grave. As he ascends, He goes to rule from His throne. We are told that He will return in glory and that moment, every knee shall bow and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Philippians 2:10-11). There will be no doubt about who the king is.
New covenant
At the end of the Old Testament, we are presented with a ‘New Covenant’ which is more of a restating than it is something new. What I mean is: this covenant is what all of the other covenants were presenting. It says:
“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. For 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. | Jeremiah 31:31–33
What makes this covenant stand out is that God acknowledges the failure of His people to uphold their part of the agreement and assures that He will do the work of fulfilling it. The law will no longer be an external measure, but it will be placed within them.
Jesus comes to finish the work of redemption. He secures a people with His sacrificial payment. As he gets ready to leave, He promises that the Holy Spirit will come to dwell within His people. Those who belong to God have been purchased and sealed. They are His people and He is their God.
What we see in all of this is that God has made promises to His people in reference to: blessing, place, belonging, identity, community, purpose, future, legacy, and peace. All of the ends that human beings strived for have been promised to us by God. With this, Jesus has been revealed as the answer to all of these. He is the key for us to have life and life abundant (John 10:10).
Knowing the covenants is not just about having a theological framework for understanding the Bible. It shows us how God has worked through thousands of years to provide all that human beings need to thrive. All that people search for in this life has already been planned for and provided by Him. It shows us that His promises are not just about immediate desires, but an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). More than anything, it opens our lives up to realities much bigger than the temporary things we are told that we should care about. Those who belong to God have been invited into a story that spans eternity and the cosmos. Not only invited, but the Creator of all is blessing us to show off His goodness and grace.