Sinai

The covenant God made with the Israelites at Mt Sinai is both one of the most important and most controversially interpreted concepts of the Bible. While having much continuity with Abraham's covenant I believe that the Sinai covenant must be considered very distinct from it. I had been working on a series of studies on Biblical Theology, and chose these two passages to show what I consider the essence of Sinai. These probably aren't the best passages, but I think they are good representatives of the covenant.

The first comes from the middle of Exodus, exactly two months after God brought the Israelites out of Egypt.

Then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. Yahweh called to him from the mountain and said, “Give these instructions to the family of Jacob; announce it to the descendants of Israel: ‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth; for all the earth belongs to me. And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation.’ This is the message you must give to the people of Israel.”

So Moses returned from the mountain and called together the elders of the people and told them everything Yahweh had commanded him. And all the people responded together, “We will do everything Yahweh has commanded.” So Moses brought the people’s answer back to Yahweh.

(Exodus 19:3-8, NLT)

God's salvation of the people is entirely an act of mercy and grace, but at the same time Israel's special status is contingent on their obedience. This is their choice though, one which the people accept. Very soon in chapter 20 God gives them the Ten Commandments, a short expression of what the people had promised to obey, the first of which is to worship no other God than Yahweh. At the beginning of the Israelite nation the people bound themselves to worship God alone and obey his instructions. Andrew Brown recently gave a definition of "covenant" as being "a binding agreement/contract between two parties that defines the conditions of their relationship." Under such a definition the Sinai agreement is most definitely a covenant, where Israel becomes Yahweh's special people and Yahweh their sole god.

I think the Bible suggests that it would have been possible for them to reject God's covenant at that time, though I won't speculate on what the consequences would have been. But the people did accept God's covenant, and the Bible then goes on in many places to explain what the consequences would be if they ever broke it. One short passage I chose was this one from Deuteronomy, from shortly before the Israelites entered Canaan:

In the future, when you have children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time, do not corrupt yourselves by making idols of any kind. This is evil in the sight of Yahweh your God and will arouse his anger. Today I call on heaven and earth as witnesses against you. If you break my covenant, you will quickly disappear from the land you are crossing the Jordan to occupy. You will live there only a short time; then you will be utterly destroyed. For Yahweh will scatter you among the nations, where only a few of you will survive. There, in a foreign land, you will worship idols made from wood and stone—gods that neither see nor hear nor eat nor smell.

But from there you will search again for Yahweh your God. And if you search for him with all your heart and soul, you will find him. In the distant future, when you are suffering all these things, you will finally return to Yahweh your God and listen to what he tells you. For Yahweh your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon you or destroy you or forget the solemn covenant he made with your ancestors.

(Deuteronomy 4:25-31, NLT)

Although breaking any of God's instructions and laws was serious, there were contingencies: the sacrificial system. But idolatry is different, for it goes against the entire basis of the covenant itself. If Israel breaks the covenant by choosing other gods, then Yahweh will in effect revoke their special status, displacing them from the land. If the people want idols God will let them have them, but without his blessings.

But in an amazing act of grace, God promises to forgive them if they repent and search for him again. I do not think that the 'solemn covenant of their ancestors' refers to the Sinai covenant from just a generation before, but to Abraham's of several hundred years before. Despite their sin, there is hope for those who still desire God.

God's promises to Abraham

In my first post I looked at Hebrews 6:13-19, which notices that God gave Abraham both a promise and an oath, so that he would be entirely sure that God would do what he said. But it has only occurred to me recently that one consequence of God giving multiple promises is that he would not necessarily have promised the same stuff each time. This is a new idea for me! I have always thought that each time God made a promise to Abraham he promised the same thing, but is that what the Bible actually shows? Obviously other people think the same, for whenever I have studied the promises God made to Abraham with others, we have never comprehensively looked at every time God made promises. (Sometimes God's covenant has been discussed without even reading when he gave it!) So I will briefly now look at God's promises to Abraham as recorded in Genesis, the plurality referring not to the objects of his promises, but to the times of giving. For simplicity's sake I will refer to Abram as Abraham, and I'll say Yahweh when יהוה is used.

12:1-3: In this the first, and in many ways stereotypical, occasion Yahweh promises many things to Abraham, which include: land, guidance, that his descendants will become a great nation, blessing, fame, reciprocal blessings/cursings, and to bless all other people of the earth through Abraham.

12:7: Yahweh promises to Abraham's descendants the land in which Abraham lives.

13:14-17: Yahweh promises to give the land which Abraham sees and walks through to his descendants forever. He promises to give Abraham as many descendants as there is dust on the earth. This passage shows that Yahweh truly did promise Abraham the physical land of Canaan, the one he had walked through kicking up dust, forever. Those who say it was only a temporary promise which would be replaced with the promise of heaven can't do this promise justice.

15:1-5: Yahweh promises Abraham a true son of his own blood. He promises to give Abraham as many descendants as there are stars. He also promises to reward Abraham greatly.

15:7-21: Yahweh makes (or 'cuts') his covenant with Abraham, promising to give to him and his descendants the land of Canaan, from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates: the lands of the Kenite, Kenizzite, Kadmonite, Hittite, Perizzite, Rephaim, Amorite, Canaanite, Girgashite and Jebusite. However before then his descendants will be enslaved in another land for four hundred years. But Yahweh will judge judge that nation and Abraham's descendants will raid their possessions as they are leave. He also says that he will give Abraham a good and long life.

17:1-21: Wow okay, this one is big. Yahweh again gives his covenant, and says he will give Abraham many descendants, so many in fact that they will form many nations and will even have kings! Yahweh's covenant to all of these people for all time is that Yahweh will be their God and that he will give them the land of Canaan as an 'everlasting possession.'

God then gives Abraham an instruction, as part of this covenant, that he and all his descendants must follow: they must circumcise all the males in the households, even those who are not descendants of Abraham. Anyone who is uncircumcised must be removed from God's people, as they have broken the covenant.

God then renames Sarah and says he will bless her and give her a son. She will be the mother of many nations and kings. God tells them to name their son Isaac and says he will inherit the covenant. Their son Ishmael, though he will not inherit the covenant, will still be greatly blessed and will be the father of a great nation and twelve princes.

18:10-14: Yahweh says he will return the next year and that Sarah will have a son.

21:12-13: God reminds Abraham that through Isaac will God keep his covenant, and that he will still make a nation of Ishmael's descendants.

22:15-18: Yahweh swears by his own name, as Hebrews quotes, that Abraham will have as many descendants as there are stars or grains of sand on the beach! His descendants will conquer their enemies. And because Abraham has obeyed Yahweh, all other nations will be blessed through Abraham's descendants.

And in 24:1 we have the lovely note that in Abraham's old age Yahweh had blessed him in every way.

From looking at these texts the situation is still quite complicated! God makes promises, cuts covenants and swears an oath by his name. He repeatedly promises to give Abraham many descendants and to give them the land he lives in. He makes those promises explicit, specifying the borders of the land and the only son he would continue his covenant with. But other promises are only given once, like that of a famous name and kingly descendants. I haven't looked at the contexts yet. Are there reasons why God repeats certain promises at certain times?

If nothing else we can say that Yahweh was entirely serious from the moment he first spoke to Abraham in Haran till Abraham's last day, one hundred years later. How great would it be to know God's faithfulness for such an immense time!

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.)

When God swore by himself

For example, there was God’s promise to Abraham. Since there was no one greater to swear by, God took an oath in his own name, saying “I will certainly bless you, and I will multiply your descendants beyond number.”

Then Abraham waited patiently, and he received what God had promised.

Now when people take an oath, they call on someone greater than themselves to hold them to it. And without any question that oath is binding. God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us. This hope is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls.

(Hebrews 6:13-19a, NLT)

This is one of the most fascinating parts of the Bible. In the midst of proving the incomparability of Christ the writer adds a few words about God's covenant with Abraham. Everything he says is really quite simple, and yet so profound!

We know, as Abraham did, that every word from God is true, every message reliable, every promise unbreakable. So why would God go so far beyond that and bind himself with an oath too? Well because people suck, and although just a single one of God's promises should be enough, it so very often isn't. With God's oaths, and covenants, there's no excuse to a lack of faith.

I believe that many Biblical teachers today do not give these covenants the prominence they deserve. All of us acknowledge they are important, but many put them second when explaining how we should understand the scriptures. Sure, they are only a small part of the full text and God's other promises far outnumber them, but well, when God binds himself we should take notice! I believe that the Biblical covenants should form the basis of our Biblical meta-narrative. Any framework or model formed around anything else is unhelpful and doing us a disservice, if not outright heretical. I suspect that two popular models, Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism, do this, with the former putting the Covenant of Grace ahead of the Biblical covenants, and the later with the dispensations.

I hope to put aside some time to study the Biblical covenants, and post my findings on this blog. I want to investigate what exactly the terms of the covenants were, and more generally, find out what "covenant" meant for those in the Ancient Near East. I want to study how the covenants interact together, and how they fit into the wider scriptures. And I'll try to find what is the most helpful and faithful meta-narrative, or hermeneutic, that we can develop.

Please join me! All comments, suggestions and ideas will be greatly appreciated.