Covenant of the Old Testament - Literature review Example

Covenant of the Old Testament Table of Contents Introduction 3 Thesis ment 3 Meaning of Covenant 3 The Covenant with Adam 5 Noahic Covenant 5 The Covenant with Abraham 6 The Covenant through Moses 7 Covenant to David 7 Covenant with Israel 7 God’s Creation 8 Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 Introduction Concerning the period of its inception throughout the path of human history, Bible has been advocating that God is dynamically and consciously directing people towards him by means of faith, integrity and wisdom. God’s procedure of dealing with humans has been thus to create agreements with them. Thesis Statement Based on this conceptions, the objective of the study has been thus to evaluate numerous covenants that have been offered in the Old Testament of Bible. Meaning of Covenant Covenant is considered as an agreement taking place between two people as a method to relate with the God. The term ‘covenant’ has been derived from Hebrew roots which refers the action ‘to cut’. With concern to the meaning of covenant as specified in the Holy Bible’s Old Testament, it has often been categorised as the most significant term defining the relationship between God and His people. In a Biblical sense, a covenant means much more than a contract or a mere concurrence taking place between two parties. The term ‘covenant’, in the Old Testament, offers an additional insight to the meaning of God’s expectation from humans. The act of covenant, in particular tends to demonstrate the tradition, where two people with agreement attempted to pass through the cut bodies of assassinated animals as a method to get closer to the divine soul. However, other acts of covenant were learnt to have possibly taken place in terms of circumcision and also by sprinkling animal blood on the people engaged in the agreement. Such a ceremony escorted the making of the agreement in the Old Testament. It is worth mentioning in this context that the Old Testament comprises of numerous instances of agreement between the people having certain similarities and being considered as equals. For instance, David and Jonathan entered into a covenant as they had love for each other where the agreement intended to bind each one of them to certain accountability. One of the most noteworthy aspects in this context depicts that God is holy, omniscient as well as all-powerful. However, it has been noted that He approves of entering into an agreement with the man who tends to be weak, sinful as well as flawed in order to direct them in the path of wisdom and peace (Schulten, “Legal Models For The Old Testament Covenants: An Issue of Contract or Real Property Law”). While entering into relationship with man, God was found to possess unilateral freedom. Therefore, He began, defined as well as confirmed each of the agreement not depending upon the human merits but completely according to His own elegance as well as clemency. Consequentially, the role of human beings has been to act as a recipient rather than acting as a contributor. People did not bargain, barter or dared to contradict with God. However, it was found that man beheld his power to decide upon whether to keep with the promises made to the God or to reject them; to obey Him or to transgress. Hence, stating precisely, God was completely accountable to look after covenantal security. The role of man was thus restricted to believe and obey (Weinfeld, “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient Near East”). There are nearly six covenants in the Old Testament. The Covenant with Adam It is worth mentioning that the first covenant enacted in the Garden of Eden was in agreement with Adam and Eve where the Holy Spirit explicitly directed them stating, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat it, you will surely die”. According to the description given in the Old Testament, Eve was the first sinner as she had contradicted the order of the Holy Spirit. Consequentially, when Adam followed the same path making a sin, the agreement led to an end. Hence, Adam was entitled to several punishments rather than Eve, as it was Adam’s sin which ultimately broke the covenant. Hence, according to the New Testament all the men who do wrong things are entitled to punishments and death similar to Adam (Raddish, “The Relevance of the Abrahamic Covenant to the Israel and the people of God based on its Form and Function as Viewed from the Old Testament”). Noahic Covenant The second agreement as described in the Old Testament, took place was with Noah. The Biblical narrations further depict that Noah was a virtuous man and was scrupulous among the people of his time. He was favoured by God, and it was through him that God made an effort to destroy the evil by means of natural disasters (flood), which served as an indication to the everlasting annihilation of the evil. It was further noted that God saved Noah that served as evidence of God’s grace to the Christian conversion. It was after that God created an agreement with Noah and blessed him with prosperity. The boons offered by God to Noah through covenant depicted that he shall “increase in numbers”, shall be able to eat fruits and meat excluding blood. God also narrated to “murder punished by death” along with the non occurrence of any destruction by means of water on earth (New International Version, “Genesis 9:1”). The Covenant with Abraham The other agreement of covenant that was narrated in the Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament, depicted the agreement with Abraham, a citizen of Babylonia. This covenant is considered to be the most significant agreement of the Old Testament. It is worth mentioning that Abraham demonstrated authenticity in abiding by the commands that made by God. Furthermore, the vow of the agreement was actually offered by Abraham prior to God, with the intention of making an agreement with Him. It was after Abraham met Melchizedek, a formal agreement through covenant was made between Abraham by God. With the agreement, Abraham realised that he himself would not be capable of availing the blessings of the agreement, but his offspring would. Consequentially, the agreement was forwarded to Isaac and Jacob, the descendents of Abraham. Where the obedience to the covenant would result in new covenants with the descendents of Abraham, contradictorily, disobedience to the same would cause in the discontinuation of the agreement (Charlesworth, “The Covenants of the Old Testament”). The Covenant through Moses The next four agreements that can be learnt from the Scripture were actually offered through Moses which were covenant of Ten Commandments, covenant of the Sabbath, covenant of Laws and the covenant of Levitical priesthood (Charlesworth, “The Covenants of the Old Testament”). Covenant to David The last agreement described in the Old Testament age was made to David with various terms such as anointed, exalted, respect towards God and boon of numerous descendants among others. However, no records regarding how this covenant was formalised has been noted in the Old Testament. Similar to the Abraham agreement, this agreement was also completely promissory. A vow was made with David with confirmation by means of oath (Charlesworth, “The Covenants of the Old Testament”). Covenant with Israel The covenant was not made with Israel directly as she was found to be righteous. However, the agreement involved her children who resided in the region which was named after Israel and were further known as Israelites. Furthermore, it was noted in the description that an agreement was required since the nation was evil. .The term Israel has been identified from Hebrew roots which imply that Holy Spirit shall rule as God. The name reflects the chief objective of God’s covenant. It has been found that Israel failed to administer the agreement with God as a result of which most of the Israelites were found to have less belief and faith upon God. The punishment imposed on the people residing in Israel deliberated that the Israelites possessing disbelief and inadequate belief on God would not be permitted in the Promised Land. Rather their children would be allowed to the Promised Land. While going through the narration of Bible, it can be observed that the overall history of Israel in the Old Testament demonstrates an era of blessing rewarded by God when the Israelites were found to be obedient. Conversely, the people of Israel had to witness the wrath of God in terms of disasters, imprisonments and dominations when they turned themselves into foreign Gods disregarding His commands. Furthermore, numerous people in Israel were found to fall into the wilderness via noncompliance. Although gospel sermonised them, they were found to lack faith on the agreement which still prevailed; and hence, the covenant was considered to be not yet fulfilled (Boadt 20-82). God’s Creation After the creation of the heaven and earth, God made an attempt to view everything that he had prepared and identified the result as quite pleasing. According to the Biblical narrations, God’s creation had been the manifestation of His love as well as His grace. Among all the creation of God, mankind has been considered in the image and likeness of God. The blessing that was bequeathed upon human has been an expression of God’s love and grace. Furthermore, among all the living creatures created by the God, only men and women were made to offer and obtain love in the most intimate as well as personal way (Padfield, “Bible Covenants”). Through the description of the covenants, the Old Testament characterised God on the basis of a few fundamental traits in terms of being furious, cursing and revengeful at times when humans deciphered their opposing behaviour to the laws made by Him. On the other hand, God was also demonstrated to be merciful and graceful to them who abided by His laws (Moore, “The Character of the God of the Old Testament”). Conclusion Covenant is referred to an agreement taking place between two people in order to strengthen their relationship with God. The Old Covenant, in this context was often misnamed as the Old Testament has been dependent upon material blessings for Israel keeping into consideration the law made by God Himself. However, it was noted that Israel failed to comply with the law. The various covenants that were described in the Old Testament, such as covenant to Adams, covenant to Abraham, covenant to David, Noahic covenant, the covenant through Moses and covenant with Israel, depicted the characteristics of God to be merciful and also to be revengeful depending on the response of humans towards His laws. Works Cited Boadt, Lawrence. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. United States: Paulist Press, 1984. Print. Charlesworth, Matthew SJ. The Covenants of the Old Testament. Introduction, 2012. Web. 13 September. 2012. Moore, Charles. The Character of the God of the Old Testament. Character, 2009. Web. 13 September. 2012. New International Version. God’s Covenant with Noah. Genesis 9:1, 2011. Web. 13 September. 2012. Padfield, David. Bible Covenants. Introduction, 2009. Web. 13 September. 2012. Raddish, Rondell, Mark. The Relevance of the Abrahamic Covenant to the Israel and the people of God based on its Form and Function as Viewed from the Old Testament. Abstract of the Thesis, 1990. Web. 13 September. 2012. Schulten, Cordell P. “Legal Models for the Old Testament Covenants: An Issue of Contract or Real Property Law”. TMJS. 18.1 (2007): 165-180. Print. Weinfeld, M. “The Covenant of Grant in the Old Testament and in the Ancient near East”. Journal of the American Oriental Society. 90.2 (1970): 184. Print. Read More