Covenant and God's Purpose for the World E-Book

Thomas R. Schreiner

• Herausgeber: Crossway
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Short Studies in Biblical Theology
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 196

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

"Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations." —Genesis 17:4 Throughout the Bible, God has related to his people through covenants. It is through these covenant relationships, which collectively serve as the foundation for God's promise to bring redemption to his people, that we can understand the advancement of his kingdom. This book walks through six covenants from Genesis to Revelation, helping us grasp the overarching narrative of Scripture and see the salvation God has planned for us since the beginning of time—bolstering our faith in God and giving us hope for the future. Part of the Short Studies in Biblical Theology series.

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“As one of the preeminent biblical scholars of our day, Thomas Schreiner is well qualified to write on the critically important biblical theme of covenant. This short volume is a clear, concise, biblically grounded, and balanced presentation of the biblical covenants, ideal as a resource for both the church and the academy.”

Mark L. Strauss, professor of New Testament, Bethel Seminary

“Simply brilliant! Thomas Schreiner manages to capture both the fine detail and the broad sweep of the covenantal shape of the Bible concisely, faithfully, and irenically. This book may be short, but it is fresh and deeply profound. I know of no better introduction to this vital area of biblical theology. There are, of course, specific areas where readers may disagree with his conclusions, but that doesn’t detract from the unique usefulness of this book.”

Gary Millar, principal, Queensland Theological College; author, Calling on the Name of the Lord and Saving Eutychus

“There is nothing like an understanding of the covenants that God makes with his people to open one’s eyes to the way God deals with his image bearers. It at once unlocks the whole Bible and makes plain God’s way of salvation. Thomas Schreiner brings his theological and biblical acumen to bear upon this topic with the precision of an expert. The result is a fresh and stimulating study of this all-important subject. If you want to grow in faith as you face the future in God’s world, then put on your thinking cap and read this book!”

Conrad Mbewe, pastor, Kabwata Baptist Church; chancellor, African Christian University, Lusaka, Zambia

“For twenty-first-century evangelicals, Thomas Schreiner is one of the most trusted names in the field of biblical studies. Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World is yet another stellar contribution to the church by Schreiner, and it will benefit all who are seeking to better understand the covenants of Scripture.”

Jason K. Allen, president, Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary & College

“Schreiner makes his case with evidence and not theatrics. Ideas are not smuggled in and imposed on texts; rather, Schreiner brings out what a reader can see from Scripture. Is there more to say than this book contains? Of course. And not all readers will affirm all of Schreiner’s claims, but given Schreiner’s view of old and new covenants in which discontinuity triumphs over continuity, it is hard to imagine a more methodical and succinct presentation.”

Robert W. Yarbrough, professor of New Testament, Covenant Theological Seminary

“Thomas Schreiner’s book on the covenants is a beauty of accuracy, brevity, clarity, and simplicity. While Schreiner makes his own contribution, it communicates the main thesis of Kingdom through Covenant in a better way to a broader

audience: the covenants are the key to the plot structure of Scripture and the means for putting the whole Bible together.”

Peter J. Gentry, Donald L. Williams Professor of Old Testament, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; coauthor, Kingdom through Covenant

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World

Thomas R. Schreiner

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt, series editors

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World

Copyright © 2017 by Thomas R. Schreiner

Published by Crossway1300 Crescent StreetWheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law. Crossway® is a registered trademark in the United States of America.

Cover design: Jordan Singer

First printing 2017

Printed in the United States of America

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked HCSB have been taken from The Holman Christian Standard Bible®. Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-1-4335-4999-1ePub ISBN: 978-1-4335-5002-7PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-5000-3Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-5001-0

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schreiner, Thomas R., author.

Title: Covenant and God’s purpose for the world / Thomas R. Schreiner.

Description: Wheaton : Crossway, 2017. | Series: Short studies in biblical theology | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016057671| ISBN 9781433549991 (tp) | ISBN 9781433550010 (mobi) | ISBN 9781433550027 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Covenant theology—Biblical teaching. | Covenants—Biblical teaching. | Kingdom of God. | Jesus Christ—Kingdom.

Classification: LCC BT155 .S37 2017 | DDC 231.7/6—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016057671

Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

2019-02-06 04:03:34 PM

To my fellow elders at Clifton Baptist.

“How good and pleasant it is

when brothers dwell in unity!”

—Psalm 133:1

Short Studies in Biblical Theology

Edited by Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

The City of God and the Goal of Creation, T. Desmond Alexander (2018)

Covenant and God’s Purpose for the World, Thomas R. Schreiner (2017)

From Chaos to Cosmos: Creation to New Creation, Sidney Greidanus (2018)

The Kingdom of God and the Glory of the Cross, Patrick Schreiner (2018)

The Lord’s Supper as the Sign and Meal of the New Covenant, Guy Prentiss Waters (2019)

Marriage and the Mystery of the Gospel, Ray Ortlund (2016)

The Son of God and the New Creation, Graeme Goldsworthy (2015)

Work and Our Labor in the Lord, James M. Hamilton Jr. (2017)

Contents

Series Preface

Introduction

 1  The Covenant of Creation

 2  The Covenant with Noah

 3  The Covenant with Abraham

 4  The Covenant with Israel

 5  The Covenant with David

 6  The New Covenant

For Further Reading

General Index

Scripture Index

Series Preface

Most of us tend to approach the Bible early on in our Christian lives as a vast, cavernous, and largely impenetrable book. We read the text piecemeal, finding golden nuggets of inspiration here and there, but remain unable to plug any given text meaningfully into the overarching storyline. Yet one of the great advances in evangelical biblical scholarship over the past few generations has been the recovery of biblical theology—that is, a renewed appreciation for the Bible as a theologically unified, historically rooted, progressively unfolding, and ultimately Christ-centered narrative of God’s covenantal work in our world to redeem sinful humanity.

This renaissance of biblical theology is a blessing, yet little of it has been made available to the general Christian population. The purpose of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to connect the resurgence of biblical theology at the academic level with everyday believers. Each volume is written by a capable scholar or churchman who is consciously writing in a way that requires no prerequisite theological training of the reader. Instead, any thoughtful Christian disciple can track with and benefit from these books.

Each volume in this series takes a whole-Bible theme and traces it through Scripture. In this way readers not only learn about a given theme but also are given a model for how to read the Bible as a coherent whole.

We have launched this series because we love the Bible, we love the church, and we long for the renewal of biblical theology in the academy to enliven the hearts and minds of Christ’s disciples all around the world. As editors, we have found few discoveries more thrilling in life than that of seeing the whole Bible as a unified story of God’s gracious acts of redemption, and indeed of seeing the whole Bible as ultimately about Jesus, as he himself testified (Luke 24:27; John 5:39).

The ultimate goal of Short Studies in Biblical Theology is to magnify the Savior and to build up his church—magnifying the Savior through showing how the whole Bible points to him and his gracious rescue of helpless sinners; and building up the church by strengthening believers in their grasp of these life-giving truths.

Dane C. Ortlund and Miles V. Van Pelt

Introduction

Covenant is one of the most important words in the Bible since it introduces one of the central theological themes in Scripture. Some scholars have even argued that covenant is the center of Scripture, the theme that integrates the message of the entire Bible. I am not convinced that covenant is the center of Scripture. Indeed, the idea that the Scriptures have one center is probably mistaken. Still, we can rightly say that covenant is one of the most important notions in the Bible.

The Importance of Covenant

The many scholars who have made covenant their integrating motif or central theme demonstrate how crucial it is. Indeed, covenant has played a vital role in theology from the beginning. Early church fathers, such as Origen, Irenaeus, and Augustine, assigned covenant a significant place in their writings. Covenant also came to prominence among the Reformers and their successors. Johannes Oecolampadius (1482–1531), Johannes Cocceius (1609–1669), and Herman Witsius (1636–1708) advanced the importance of covenant in interpreting the Scriptures.

In the modern period the importance of covenant was set forth by a number of scholars, perhaps most notably by the great Old Testament scholar Walther Eichrodt (1890–1978). More recently, the landmark book by Peter Gentry and Stephen Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant, which uses covenant as a framework or a substructure to elucidate the storyline of the Bible, has been published.1At the same time, systematic theologians in the Reformed tradition, such as Michael Horton, have made the covenant an organizing motif in their dogmatic work.

Although such an approach is surely illuminating at a number of levels, it isn’t necessary to insist that covenant is the central theme of biblical theology or the key for doing systematics. Even if one disagrees with those claims, we can say without exaggeration that we can’t truly understand the Scriptures if we don’t understand the covenants God made with his people. For even if covenant isn’t the central theme of Scripture, it is still one of the central themes in biblical revelation. We can safely say, along with Gentry and Wellum, that the covenants are the backbone of the storyline of the Bible; they help us to unfold the biblical narrative. All careful readers of the Scriptures want to comprehend how the Bible fits together so that they can grasp the overarching narrative and theology of the Bible. We can’t really apply the Scriptures wisely to our lives if we don’t understand “the whole counsel of God” (Acts 20:27), and we can’t grasp how the Scriptures fit together if we lack clarity about the covenants God made with his people.

If we have a nuanced understanding of covenants, we will gain clarity as to how the Old and New Testaments relate to each other. Such an endeavor is necessary since God didn’t limit himself to one covenant, for we find in the Scriptures a covenant with Noah, a covenant with Abraham, a covenant with Israel, a covenant with David, and a new covenant. And many think God also made a covenant with Adam.

To understand the Scriptures well, we need to understand how these covenants are interrelated, and we need to see how they advance the story of God’s kingdom in the Scriptures. The covenants help us, then, to see the harmony and unity of the biblical message. They also play a vital role in tracing out the progress of redemptive history, which centers on the promise that God will bring redemption to the human race (Gen. 3:15).2 Understanding the covenants is also essential for understanding the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist. Both of these signs are covenantal in nature and must be apprehended in that context.3

Definition of Covenant

Before launching into the study, we need to ask other vital questions. What is a covenant? What are we talking about when we use the word covenant, and how do we define it? Covenants can contain several elements, but here we want to look at what is required at minimum. Covenant can be defined as follows: a covenant is a chosen relationship in which two parties make binding promises to each other. Several things can be said about this definition.

First, a covenant is a relationship, and that sets it apart from a contract. Contracts also contain promises and obligations, but they are impersonal and nonrelational. Covenants stand apart from contracts because the promises are made in a relational context. We are not surprised to learn, then, that marriage in the Scriptures is described as a covenant (Prov. 2:17; Mal. 2:14). In marriage a husband and a wife choose to enter a covenant relationship, and they make binding promises to each other, pledging lifelong loyalty and faithfulness.

Second, a covenant is a chosen or elected relationship. Once again, marriage serves as a good illustration. A husband and a wife choose to enter into the marriage covenant. By way of contrast, children and parents don’t enter into a covenant with one another, for they are already bound together by their natural relationship, by their family bond. A covenant is a chosen relationship with defined responsibilities made with those who aren’t already in a kinship relationship.

Third, a covenant relationship includes binding promises and obligations. We see this again in marriage, where spouses pledge themselves to each other. They promise to be faithful until death, living out the specific conditions and responsibilities in a covenant relationship. Each party in the relationship pledges to carry out the stipulations or the requirements of the covenant. Covenants, in other words, are mutual.

Still, not all covenants were alike in the ancient world. In some covenants a person with more authority made a covenant with those having less authority and power. Such was the case when a king made a relationship with his subjects. Readers of the Bible immediately think of God entering into covenant with human beings, for in this case we have a superior entering into covenant with an inferior. All covenants, then, aren’t precisely the same, and we need to keep this in mind while studying the covenants in the Bible.

Examples of Covenants

We see a number of covenants between human beings in Scripture, and it should prove helpful to survey them briefly so that we can see how covenants operated in the biblical world. Both Abraham and Isaac had disputes with residents in Canaan over wells since water for flocks was in short supply. In one case, Abraham made a covenant with Abimelech over a well so that he could use the well without conflict (Gen. 21:24–32). Abraham and Abimelech made promises to one another and sealed their promises with an oath (v. 31). Abraham also gave seven lambs to Abimelech to serve as a witness of the covenant enacted. Isaac also disputed with the residents of Canaan over wells for his flocks (Gen. 26:14–33), so a covenant was made between Isaac and Abimelech,4 which was sealed with an oath. They pledged not to harm each other and ratified the covenant with a meal. In both cases, we see that two parties entered into a formal relationship in enacting a covenant. They also made binding promises to each other, which were ratified with oaths. The covenant, then, was conditional, and each party promised to abide by its stipulations.

When Jacob fled from Laban accompanied by flocks, servants, and his wives (who were also Laban’s daughters), Laban pursued Jacob in order to harm him (Gen. 31:17–55), but God appeared to Laban in a dream, warning him not to hurt Jacob in any way (v. 24). The meeting between Jacob and Laban was by no means friendly, as old family hurts and wrongs were voiced. Finally, they decided to conclude their complaints with a covenant (v. 44). They set up a heap of stones and a pillar, which served as a witness to the stipulations (vv. 45–48, 51–52). In the covenant, Jacob pledged to faithfully take care of Laban’s daughters, and both Jacob and Laban promised to respect the boundary markers established by the stones and pillar (vv. 50–52). Neither would transgress the boundary and plunder the other. Jacob took an oath, and presumably Laban did as well, to observe the covenant stipulations (v. 53). The covenant was then sealed with a meal (v. 54). A formal relationship was thereby established between Jacob and Laban.

In the book of Joshua the Gibeonites deceived Israel and made a covenant with them to avoid being destroyed like the other inhabitants of Canaan (Josh. 9:3–27). Israel entered into the covenant relationship with the Gibeonites, pledging to let them live and promising peaceful relations. The covenant was ratified with an oath (v. 16). When Israel discovered that the Gibeonites had deceived them, some in Israel wanted to destroy them, but the Israelite leaders protested that they could not break the covenant since they had sworn oaths to the Gibeonites. If they transgressed the covenant stipulations, they would face the Lord’s wrath (vv. 18–20).

The seriousness of the covenant is evidenced much later in Israel’s history, when Saul violated its provisions by slaying the Gibeonites (2 Sam. 21:1). The Lord’s anger was satisfied only after seven of Saul’s descendants were put to death in exchange for the evil inflicted on the Gibeonites (vv. 2–9). Here we see all the elements of a covenant—a chosen relationship with promises ratified by an oath. We also see here that transgressing the covenant requirements led to judgment, which anticipates a theme we shall see later. Those who failed to keep covenant requirements were cursed.

Some scholars have said that covenants always presuppose an already existing relationship. The Gibeonite story shows that this is not the case, for Israel didn’t have any relations with the Gibeonites before entering into a covenant with them. We can say the same thing about marriage in the ancient world. Typically, those who were married in Israel didn’t “date” before getting married, and thus there wasn’t a preexisting relationship. In other situations, of course, a relationship did preexist. We think of the covenants between Jacob and Laban, Abraham and Abimelech, and Jonathan and David. What we see, then, is that there was no distinctive pattern regarding the relationships between covenant parties, and thus it would be a mistake to conclude that a preexisting relationship was essential for establishing a covenant.

Jonathan and David made a covenant (1 Sam. 18:3–4; 20:8, 16–17; 22:8; 23:18). We don’t expect Jonathan to support David, for David was the greatest threat to Jonathan’s succeeding his father as king. Nevertheless, we see Jonathan’s love in his relationship with David. Jonathan gave to David his robe, armor, sword, bow, and belt as signs of his covenant with David. It is evident that Jonathan pledged to protect David’s life, even from the hand of Jonathan’s own father, Saul. Jonathan formalized the covenant by swearing his loyalty to David (20:17).5

Political alliances or covenants were apparently common. We read that the general Abner, who had aligned himself with Ish-bosheth, defected from Ish-bosheth and proposed to make a covenant with David so the latter could reign as king over all Israel (2 Sam. 3:12, 13, 21). So, too, the people of Hebron entered into a covenant with David and crowned him as their king (2 Sam. 5:3). King Solomon and King Hiram of Tyre also made a covenant with each other (1 Kings 5:12). King Asa of Judah made a covenant with Ben-hadad so that Ben-hadad would break his covenant with Baasha, king of Israel, and enter into a covenant with Asa instead (1 Kings 15:18–20; see also 1 Kings 20:34).6 In every instance, those making a covenant entered a formal relationship in which promises were made.

The story of the covenant enacted in Jeremiah 34 is most interesting. The people of Jerusalem had made a covenant to set free all their Hebrew slaves (34:9–10). Unfortunately, the people changed their mind and took back their slaves (vv. 11–12), and thus they violated the covenant requirements they had promised to uphold. The covenant they transgressed was not merely a private one, for they had pledged before God, when he made his covenant with Israel, to free any Hebrew after six years of slavery (vv. 12–14; cf. Ex. 21:2; Deut. 15:12). The covenant to free Hebrew slaves was made in Yahweh’s temple, and yet they repudiated what they had pledged to do (vv. 15–17).

Jeremiah then tells us something fascinating, for we learn more about the ritual that inaugurated the covenant (vv. 18–20). Israel ratified the covenant by cutting a calf in two and walking between the parts of the dead animal. This signified the curse that would come upon them if they broke the covenant—they would be sacrificed and slain for violating its provisions. This is often called a “self-maledictory oath,” which means that one calls evil upon oneself for violating the provisions of the covenant.

Conclusion

We have seen that covenant is a major theme in the Scriptures, warranting an examination of its role in the biblical narrative. If we understand God’s covenants, we will have a solid grasp of the storyline and theology of the Scriptures. We defined covenant as a chosen relationship in which two parties make binding promises to each other. Those binding promises are often accompanied by oaths, and there are often signs (the pillar and stones in the case of Jacob and Laban) and ceremonies (covenant meals) as well. We have also seen that not all covenants are accompanied by sacrifices, and thus sacrifices and the spilling of blood are not required to enter into a covenant. A preexisting relationship is not a prerequisite for establishing a covenant, as is evident in the case of Israel’s covenant with the Gibeonites. Some covenants in Scripture are personal (Jacob and Laban, David and Jonathan); there are also political covenants (Asa and Ben-hadad, David and Judah), marriage covenants, and legal agreements within a nation (freeing of Hebrew slaves). In every instance, two parties enter a formal relationship in which they make promises to the other.

1. Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012).

2. Genesis 3:15 isn’t part of the covenant itself, but it does play a significant role in the unfolding narrative.

3. In this book, however, I will not explain how baptism and the Lord’s Supper relate to the new covenant.

4. Abimelech is a dynastic name, so this person is not necessarily the same person Abraham dealt with.

5. By way of contrast, see Psalm 55:20.

6. Sometimes it seems that the word covenant simply means a solemn agreement or vow. Job “made a covenant with my eyes” (Job 31:1), so that he would not see a virgin. Similarly, the Lord mocks the idea that human beings could make a covenant with Leviathan (Job 41:4).

1

The Covenant of Creation

This chapter is perhaps the most controversial in the book, for the chapter title says there is a covenant at creation, but we don’t find the word covenant