Modus operandi

Clearly, God’s promise to give the whole earth to Abraham and his descendants was based not on his obedience to God’s law, but on a right relationship with God that comes by faith. If God’s promise is only for those who obey the law, then faith is not necessary and the promise is pointless. For the law always brings punishment on those who try to obey it. (The only way to avoid breaking the law is to have no law to break!)

So the promise is received by faith. It is given as a free gift. And we are all certain to receive it, whether or not we live according to the law of Moses, if we have faith like Abraham’s. For Abraham is the father of all who believe. That is what the Scriptures mean when God told him, “I have made you the father of many nations.” This happened because Abraham believed in the God who brings the dead back to life and who creates new things out of nothing.

(Romans 4:13-17, NLT)

Paul writes here about two of the covenants, Abraham's and the Sinai, and his purpose is to show that God always works the same way. I like to say that God's modus operandi is grace.

God chose Abraham and made a covenant with him before Abraham did a thing. Even before God gave the rite of circumcision he considered Abraham righteous. What mattered was that Abraham trusted God to do all he promised. It was the same with the law of Moses, given as part of the Sinai covenant. All the law brings, says Paul, is punishment. The covenant's promised blessings are given freely to everyone who shares Abraham's faith.

God's MO is grace. He chooses to bless people just cause he feels like it. The only proper response is that we trust him to do just that. It's always been this way. And if it ever seems like someone earned God's favour then we must investigate more because that's also not how God works.

Covenant Theology is based on the concept of the Covenant of Grace. Although they mean much of the same, the use of covenant language is unhelpful and confusing. The Covenant of Grace is an ahistorical one, being made outside of time between God and the fuzzy group of all his people. I don't know if in the Ancient Near East's understanding that would be recognised as a covenant, but I suspect it would not. It's true that God always acts by grace, but I question what value there is in proposing an ahistorical "theological" covenant (ie, one not mentioned by the Bible explicitly.)