Abrahamic Covenant

By: Justin Angelos | April 7, 2022

The purpose of the Genesis is to begin the story of the of the Covenant. Everything that God created He created perfect, sin marred creation and drew people away from God— “So much that they no longer had an accurate idea of what God is like.”[1] God chooses Abraham, and his family, and the relationship of the covenant was to allow Him to use Israel to give people an accurate picture of who God is.[2] God did not choose Abraham because he was morally superior, Abraham was more faithful. God’s Choosing Abraham and his family was an act of grace. There are two types of covenants, conditional and unconditional, a conditional covenant is where two parties agree to meet certain requirements, and if one party does not fulfill their end of the covenant, then that voids the covenant. An unconditional covenant is an agreement between two people but only one person is having to honor the agreement. God tells Abraham, “Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation.” (Gen 12:1-3) God establishes a covenant with Abraham that is unconditional, the blood involved in this covenant, as with any blood covenant, signifies the life from which the blood comes.[3] The Old Testament Law was a temporary expression of an eternal truth, or foreshadows of better covenant. (Hebrews (9:23) These foreshadows became realties in Jesus Christ who is the fulfillment of the Old Testament covenants with the shedding of His own blood.[4] “The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel it will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them out of the land of Egypt because they broke my covenant.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34) Christians do not practice circumcision because Christians are not under the Old Testament Law, it is faith in Jesus Christ and His finished works on the Cross that saves a person. Paul says, “Mark my words, I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all.” (Galatians 2:5) “Know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 2:16) Salvation is through faith alone, through Christ and Christ only and through His finished works on the Cross. Jesus was born under the law, the one who originated the law and was the Lord of it, became subject to the law fulfilling the entire law. By becoming subject to the law, Jesus was able to redeem those who are under the law.[5]  There was some debate in the early church about Christians, should they become Jews first then Christians? The book of Acts is the story of how the early church transitions from an all-Jewish Church to a mixture of Jews and Gentiles. This is known as the Jerusalem Counsel in Acts chapter 15, “that the gentiles could become part of the people of God had been accepted earlier as a result of Peter’s ministry in the home of Cornelius.”[6]  The Apostle Paul was not in agreement with making gentile Christians become Jews, and some Christian Jews felt that gentile Christians needed to keep the law and get circumcised.[7] At the Counsel James the half-brother of Jesus, James appeals to the Old Testament passage, Amos 9:11-12 ¹¹ “In that day “I will restore David’s fallen shelter—I will repair its broken walls    and restore its ruins—and will rebuild it as it used to be, ¹² so that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations that bear my name,^[a]”declares the Lord, who will do these things. (NIV) As James became the leader of the Church in Jerusalem James and Peter both agreed and declared, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the gentiles who are turning to God.” (Acts 15:19)

The Jerusalem Council then proceeded to give four “rules” that Gentile Christians should live by. These were not rules that the Gentiles had to follow to be saved. “Rather, the rules were to build harmony between Jewish and Gentile Christians in the first century. The four rules the Jerusalem Council decided upon were that Gentile Christians should abstain from food polluted by idols, sexual immorality, the meat of strangled animals, and blood. These rules were not intended to gain or earn salvation but to promote peace within the early church.”[8] Christians then and Christians today, are not bound to the requirements of the Old Covenant including circumcision. Jesus Christ fulfilled all the requirements of the old covenant laws. Salvation is through Faith in Christ and Christ alone. “If you declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.” (Rom 10:9-10 NIV)

About the Author

As one of the newest members of Bellator Christi, Seattle native Justin Angelos brings a passion for evangelism and discipleship along with theology and apologetics. He has studied at Biola University and Liberty University. Justin focuses on providing help for those who suffer from emotional and anxiety issues.

Notes

[1] Andrew E. Hill, and John H. Walton, A Survey of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1991),77-80

[2] lbid,77-80

[3] GotQuestions.org. “Home.” GotQuestions.org, February 18, 2013. https://www.gotquestions.org/blood-covenant.(date accessed 03/05/22)

[4] GotQuestions.org. “Home.” GotQuestions.org, February 18, 2013. https://www.gotquestions.org/blood-covenant.(date accessed 03/05/22)

4 lbid, p.247.

5 Tanner, J Paul, Journal of the Evangelical Theological society Acts15 55, no. 1

[7] lbid, no 55, p.65-85 (accessed 03/5/22)

[8] GotQuestions.org. “Home.” GotQuestions.org, September 16, 2010. https://www.gotquestions.org/Jerusalem-Council.html. (Accessed 03/05/22)

Copyright, 2022. BellatorChristi.com.