We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

God as Covenant Keeper
Covenant lies at the heart of the biblical understand of God’s relationship to the world. Simply put, a covenant stands in contrast to a contract where parties enter into a quid pro quo arrangement. With a contract an agreement is made to protect oneself. With a covenant, one commits oneself with promises to another for the sake of the other. This concept of covenant is nothing less than the bridge between the Trinity ad intra and the self-communication of the Trinity ad extra. Scott Swain argues that all of God’s communication is “covenantal self-communication.” It is “by means of covenant…[that] God binds himself to creation in a relationship of sovereign care and commitment and binds creation to himself in a relationship of obedient service.” “By his covenantal word, God creates, redeems, and consummates the world.” [1]
The concept of covenant permeates, and largely structures, the entire biblical narrative. One could say that the rich variety of linguistic forms found in Scripture are all ultimately put in service to one thing: covenant. Kevin Vanhoozer concurs when he notes that “[c]ovenanting is both the substance and the form of God’s characteristic communicative action.”[2] All Scripture must therefore be understood as covenantal discourse. God authorizes agents to speak for him, and “[b]y means of his prophets and apostolic word, God binds himself to his people and his people to himself.”[3] In accordance with this, our reading of Scripture must also be understood as a Spirit-led covenantal activity.
The covenantal self-communication of the triune God culminates, and is fulfilled in, Jesus Christ. In Christ, Paul says, all of God’s promises are “Yes” (2 Cor. 1:20). Nothing is more crucial for a proper understanding of biblical revelation than appreciating the centrality of covenant and understanding Christ as the exhaustive “Yes” of this covenant. And Christ is the “Yes” of this covenant between God and humanity both from the side of God and from the side of humanity.
By becoming the first and only faithful human covenant partner while yet suffering the deserved punishment for all of us who have been unfaithful, Jesus becomes our new representative—our new “Adam” (1 Cor 15:45). When we place covenantal trust in him and pledge our covenant fidelity to him—when we exercise “faith”—we are incorporated into Christ and pronounced “righteous,” which in covenantal terms means we are put in a right relationship with God because we are made participants of Christ’s right-relatedness.
At the same time, in the process of fulfilling the covenant from the human side, Jesus also fulfilled the covenant from God’s side, for Jesus is not only human; he’s the human who is the eternal Word made flesh (Jn 1:14). Hence, in humbling himself to become a human, in living a life of perfect, other-oriented love, and especially by choosing to suffer the death-consequences of our covenant-breaking, Jesus demonstrated God’s loving faithfulness as our covenant partner (Rom. 5:8).
Jesus is thus the definitive “Yes” of both God and humanity within the new covenant that was inaugurated with his self-sacrificial death and was confirmed by his resurrection from the dead. And the fact God is the ultimate keeper of the covenant through the cross becomes the framework within which our thinking about all of God’s self-communication and activity in the world must take place. The meaning, purpose and character of every aspect of God’s covenantal activity must be understood in light of this culminating point.
[1] Swain, Trinity, Revelation and Reading: A Theological Introduction to the Bible and its Interpretation, 6-7, 4, 19, 32.
[2] Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine, 301.
[3] Swain, 40.
Photo via Visualhunt.com
Category: General
Tags: Covenant, Salvation, Trinity
Topics: Attributes and Character
Related Reading

Podcast: Does the Narrow Gate Mean that Few are Saved?
Greg gives insight into Matthew 7:13-14. What does Jesus mean about the path to destruction being wide and the gate to life being narrow? http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0125.mp3

When God Abandoned God
On the cross, Jesus’ cried out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mt. 27:46). These are arguably the most shocking, beautiful, and profoundly revelatory words found in Scripture. The cry reveals that on Calvary, the all-holy Son of God experienced God-forsakenness as he bore the…

If salvation depends on our free choice, how are we saved totally by grace?
Question: I’m an Arminian-turned-Calvinist, and the thing that turned me was the realization that if salvation hinges on whether individuals choose to be saved or not, as Arminians and Open Theists believe, then we can’t say salvation is 100% by grace. If we have to choose for or against God, then the credit for our…

Did the Father Suffer on the Cross?
When I argue that the cross is a Trinitarian event (See post), some may suspect that I am espousing Patripassionism, which was a second and third century teaching that held that God the Father suffered on the cross. While this view was often expressed as a form of heretical Modalism, and while the Patristic fathers…

Would a Perfectly Loving God Limit Salvation to Jesus? (podcast)
Greg talks about the scandal of particularity. Episode 604 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0604.mp3

How can I feel secure in my salvation?
Question: I constant worry about whether I’m saved or not. Do I lose my salvation every time I sin? How can I feel secure that I’m saved? Answer: It seems to me you’re framing your “salvation” within a legal paradigm rather than a relational paradigm. It’s like God is an angry judge and your a…