Covenant, grace, and works

“I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth . . . . I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.” (Genesis 9:13,15)

A covenant is a solemn agreement between God and man. The covenant made after the flood is unconditional and unilateral. God unconditionally obligated Himself to bring to pass definite blessings and conditions for His people. This covenant is characterized by the formula: I will which declares God’s determination to do as He promises. There may be conditions in the covenant by which God requests the covenanted one to fulfill out of gratitude, but they are not themselves the basis of God’s fulfilling His promises. He does it by grace, and the people involved believe Him by faith.

God also made a covenant with Abraham. This happened long before God’s Law was given to Moses.

“Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many, but referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ who is Christ. This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” (Galatians 3:15–18)

This is the difference between salvation by grace and so-called salvation by works. Believing in the promise of God results in salvation; keeping the law does not. The law was given because of sin and defines sin, but no one can keep it 100%.

"Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise." (Galatians 3:23–29)

This description was given to those early Christians in Galatia who mistakenly thought that once they were saved by faith they had to keep the law or they would lose their salvation. This error is believed by people today and is written in the doctrinal or faith statements of several denominations. It confuses those who attend their churches and confuses those who are interested in Christianity.

The Bible says we are not saved by doing works of righteousness, yet says we are supposed to do this and that as we live as Christians. Is keeping those commands equivalent to doing good works to be saved? Not at all. Instead, they are the result of being saved, or at least they should be.

I find it difficult to discern if someone is doing good things out of a heart filled with love for God, or out of a fearful heart that assumes they will lose any ground gained if they don’t measure up. The only way that I can figure this out is by examining my own motives for what I do, and by carefully listening to those who talk more about their good works than they do about the saving power of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament also needs to be read carefully and with the understanding that genuine Christians do good things because the Holy Spirit lives in them and Christ is directing their lives. Without Jesus, I cannot do anything without it being selfishly motivated. With Jesus, my increasing desire is to glorify God.

The book of Galatians is a strong warning to avoid slipping into the mindset that “I must do . . .  or I cannot please God.” Grace does not work like that. Grace puts me in good stead with God because of what Jesus Christ has done. As humbling as that is, grace is all I have. Everything I do apart from the Lord Jesus motivating and empowering me is useless. Any mere human goodness falls short of the glory of God. 

As Chambers says, “When I have really transacted business with God on His covenant and have let go entirely, there is no sense of merit, no human ingredient in it at all, but a complete overwhelming sense of being brought into union with God, and the whole thing is transfigured with peace and joy.”

Covenant and Correction

Genesis 9 – 11

The major themes in Genesis are: creation, sin, judgment and promise. These themes extend throughout the entire biblical narrative. They are historically depicted in the Old Testament to help us see the big picture of what God is doing. Then His will is brought to focus in the NT.  

I have trouble with both seeing the big picture and focusing on one thing at a time. Traditionally, devotionals are supposed to concentrate on one main point, but God speaks to me about many things. Today, I must summarize these three chapters before I even know which main thought He is trying to bring to my attention!

In this section, there is instruction about food and the command to multiply and fill the earth. God also makes society responsible for individual behavior by enforce His prohibition against murder. He values people because we are made in His image. Also in these chapters are genealogies describing the descendants of Noah and his sons, and more references to how sin was affecting each generation as they rebelled against God.

Besides this, God makes a promise; He will never again destroy the world with water and gives the rainbow as a reminder of His faithfulness. This promise is called a covenant. In business a covenant was a contract. In personal relationships it was a commitment. Most are two-party agreements, but God’s covenant to Noah was pure promise, without any “ifs.” The rainbow reminds us of His character and the nature of our relationship with Him. God reaches out to His people with promises, not demands. He makes commitments that do not depend on our performance. While we fail God, God will never fail us.

In the gospel of Jesus Christ, God makes a new covenant that is based on the same one-sided promise. In Christ, we are promised eternal life by grace through faith. Like the Genesis promise, the New Covenant is not about what we do, but about what God has done. Each time I see a rainbow, I am reminded that the God who promised to never again destroy all life with a flood is the God of promise, the God of grace. The commitments that He makes to us in Christ are promises that will never fail.

A second section that impresses me is the story of the tower made at Babel in Genesis 11:1-9: “Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.’ And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’”

Remember, God told them to multiply and fill the earth, but they didn’t want that. Some have thought that “with its top in the heavens” implies some sort of idolatrous worship, yet the text suggests a different sin. The tower symbolized their idea of solidarity, even racial unity. They didn’t want to be “dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” This command may seem like a little thing, but all His God’s are important.

God redirected them in an amusing way. He “confused their language.” My devotional reading says, Can you imagine the next morning, one of the workers saying, “Hand me another brick, will you?" And his friend hearing, “Xpul Kodlyeme kakkadoke, seppulvista?"

Each person probably searched for other speakers that understood them. They formed groups with different languages and each group drifted away, settling in new territories. In gentleness, “the Lord scattered them over all the earth.”

I’ve watched God redirect my life many times. Some didn’t seem gentle at the time nor were they humorous. However, I can look back and see His grace. His redirection has always been to teach me more about Him, or show me areas of sin that also needed redirection. How good that He does not use a 2 x 4 when I stray, but is able to redirect me without harming me. Actually, some of that redirection has felt more like a hug than a correction!

A quote from Irenaeus is another of today’s blessings from the Lord: “God did not make the first human because He needed company, but because He wanted someone to whom He could show His generosity.  God did not tell (me) to follow Him because He needed (my) help, but because He knew that loving Him would make (me) whole.”

Blessed because of Jesus

Deuteronomy 28:1–68, 2 Corinthians 7:1–7, Psalm 41:1–13

In the Old Testament, the covenant God made with His people was about their faith in Him and their obedience because of that faith. In other words, if they genuinely believed, they would behave accordingly — and God would bless them for it. These verses give a general idea of how this was communicated. The first one is about the blessings . . .

“And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.” (Deuteronomy 28:1)

After more description of blessings for obedience, such as good crops and protection from their enemies, the text describes the curses for disobedience . . .

“The Lord will send on you curses, confusion, and frustration in all that you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and perish quickly on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken me . . . . The Lord will strike you with madness and blindness and confusion of mind, and you shall grope at noonday, as the blind grope in darkness, and you shall not prosper in your ways. And you shall be only oppressed and robbed continually, and there shall be no one to help you.” (Deuteronomy 28:20, 28–29)

In the new covenant, God still promises blessing for obedience, but the blessings are not necessarily about power or protection from harm. Instead, the reward for obedience is a deeper knowledge of God, a greater righteousness, and a richer holiness in our relationship with God and with others. In contrast, obedience to the old covenant could easily slip from a loving response to God into a “if I do it, I’ll be blessed” – which is not what God had in mind. His people are supposed to obey Him because He is who He is, not for selfish reasons.

Obedience in the new covenant is motivated by love for Jesus Christ. A quote from God found in the OT says, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.” (2 Corinthians 6:16–18)

The very next verse is the response to those words: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.” (2 Corinthians 7:1)

God’s redemptive power is at work. Because of Jesus Christ, Christians are being restored to the image of God in which human beings were created. The ruin of sin has been forgiven and is being reversed by the power of God. We have the life of Christ and the Holy Spirit living in us. Our minds are changed; we don’t want to sin as we used to, but want to be holy people. This isn’t about escaping a curse, but about serving a loving Lord who took our curse upon Himself and died for us. He is worthy of our praise and our very lives. The new covenant is new because it isn’t about what we do, but about what God has done for us, and about the fact that He has changed our lives so we want to do His will.

The psalmist said, “By this I know that you delight in me: my enemy will not shout in triumph over me. But you have upheld me because of my integrity, and set me in your presence forever.” (Psalm 41:11–12)

For him, the old covenant was a reality. For me, the new covenant is about God delighting in His Son. He also delights in His children because of what Jesus has done. He protects us because of Jesus, upholds us because of Jesus, and sets us in His presence forever — because of Jesus. The old covenant had a threat of curses. The new covenant set us free from that curse and gave us Jesus so we can faithfully obey the voice of our God.

Signs and Assurances

God sometimes takes me places that I might not have searched out on my own. One of them involved a short study on the concept of ‘signs’ and I say short, so don’t quote me. I could have easily missed something vital.

First a definition; in the Bible a sign is something that designates an important reality or is a reminder of that reality. Remember, the sign is not the reality, only a sign that points to it. Likely many of the debates about signs would be settled if both sides remembered the difference.

In the Genesis reading, my attention stopped at this verse: “You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you.” (Genesis 17:11)  The covenant was God’s commitment to His people. It sometimes depended on their cooperation and sometimes not.

Circumcision was a sign of the covenant. The ark was also a sign of the covenant, as was the rainbow. People and other things were also called signs of God’s covenant with His people. The Jews considered the Sabbath a sign of the covenant also. Remember, the sign points to an agreement or a reality. The sign is only a sign. God’s power, authority, and presence were what mattered.

God wanted to make clear this distinction between a sign and what it represented because Abraham was not circumcised when he believed, but later, and Isaac his son was circumcised before he believed not after. The sign was not about their faith, but about God’s decision and promises for those who walk in faith . . .

“(Abraham) received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.” (Romans 4:11–12)

In other words, this man’s faith was the reality. The sign only pointed to it. Others might be circumcised and not believe, signifying that the sign is worthless apart from the reality it points to.

The second reading is about the assurance of our destiny. In the OT, this was strong for some, like Job. He said, “And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26) yet Solomon was not as positive. He said, “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” (Ecclesiastes 3:20–21)

Throughout the day, I’ve been reading a textbook about the issue of God being knowable. Some say not, but God says knowing Him is the essence of eternal life. Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3) John also said, “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life.” (1 John 5:13)

Do we need a sign for that? Jesus said only one as He talked with some of the scribes and Pharisees who were looking for a sign to verify His identity. But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” (Matthew 12:38–39)  This is a reference to Him also being buried three days and emerging alive – His death and resurrection.

Many people seek signs for all sorts of reasons. Some say they will not believe what they cannot see. That is, they want a visible sign. Others ask God for a sign to show them what to do, or what He wants from them. But rather than signs, He gives us the death and resurrection of His Son, and of course His Word. Both point us to the reality of who He is and the power He has to reveal His will and guide us through life.

Instead of seeking signs that point me where I think I should go, or where I want to go, I need to humbly seek the reality of Jesus Christ and pay attention to what He has already revealed.

That very first prayer . . .

My first prayer happened when a kitten named Pudgy disappeared. After looking for what seemed like hours to my pre-teen mind, I sat on the edge of my bed and tried to bargain with God. I said if He produced my kitten, I’d do whatever He wanted.

The kitten showed up. She was sleeping inside a small bookshelf. The Lord kept His part of my bargain, but I didn’t keep mine. It was many years later before I even thought about obeying God.

The first and most vital prayer happens at salvation, which is God’s invitation, His presenting of a ‘bargain’ to us. He says, “For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13) This promise (a better word than bargain) is repeated throughout the Bible . . .

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. (Titus 2:11–14)

In the former days, most of God’s covenants were not like this one. He promised using words like, “If you do this, I will do that . . .” but because no one would or could keep their side of it, He sent His Son who would keep the covenants. Jesus did the will of God perfectly, but He did far more by also paying the penalty for our failure and disobedience. This ‘Messiah’ was hinted at and outright declared throughout biblical history, telling God’s people to trust in this promise and hope for His redemption.

Because Jesus came, “everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21) This is God’s desire. He wants to spend eternity with us, but our sin prevents that, so He provided a way to deal with that problem. The price is paid and the way is open to whosoever will believe in Jesus.

In that regard, God’s people are told to pray for everyone, not just that our lives would be blessed, but that people would be saved:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1–4)

When I was a child worrying about my lost kitten, I had no idea that my sin was a serious barricade between me and God. For it I deserved death, but Jesus took my sin upon Himself and died that death. In an incredible trade, He then gave me His righteousness. I’m often slow to live out that gift, but it is mine, not because I asked for it, but because He is a God of grace and promise . . .

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

As I now pray for others, including leaders and those in high places, I often wish His answers would come as quick as those I prayed to find Pudgy, but “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)

In the right time, God is more than able to enlighten eyes and grant faith to those on my prayer list and anyone else. I am convinced that nothing is impossible for Him. Because He saved me, I am certain He can bless and save whoever He wants.