The Abrahamic covenant was not made with a holy
people, nor did its validity depend upon a contractual fulfillment of its
conditions on the part of Abraham and his descendants. It was a
unilateral covenant which depended for its fulfillment upon the unconditional
grace of God and the unrelenting purpose of reconciliation which he had
pledged to work out through Abraham/Israel for all peoples. In this post I
would like to build on this concept of a "(biblical) unilateral covenant";
herein we shall look not only at the status of the covenant itself
but begin a look back at it from the side of its fulfillment in and
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Two Types of Covenants:
There were two kinds of covenants into which God
entered with Israel: bilateral and unilateral. In a bilateral
covenant, that which was covenanted depended on the recipient of the covenant
for its fulfillment, not on the one making the covenant. Certain obligations
or conditions would need to be kept by the recipient of the covenant before
the giver of the covenant would be obligated to fulfill what was promised.
This type of covenant takes the form of a conditional nature; i.e., it has an
"if" attached to it (we shall look at a particular covenant of this sort in
due course below).
In a unilateral covenant, on the other hand, that
which was covenanted depended for its fulfillment solely on the one making the
covenant. That which was promised was given to the recipient of the covenant
on the authority and integrity of the one making the covenant, entirely apart
from the merit or response of the receiver. A unilateral covenant is
unconditional in its nature; it has no "if" attached to it
whatsoever.
To safeguard our thinking on this point, we
should observe that an unilateral or unconditional covenant, which binds the
one making the covenant to a certain course of action, may have blessings
attached to it that are conditioned on the response of the recipient. Though
these blessings grow out of the original covenant, they do not change the
unconditional status of the covenant itself. In other words, while
unconditional in nature, a unilateral covenant may call forth or prescribe
unconditional obedience. When we fail to recognize that an unilateral
covenant may have certain conditioned blessings attached to it, we are likely
to make the mistake of thinking that conditioned blessings
necessitate a conditional covenant, which then distorts, even
perverts, our understanding of the nature of Israel's determinative covenants,
the produce of which develops into a misunderstanding of the Gospel
itself.
The Unilateral Covenant:
Perhaps it would be timely, since my desire
is to communicate and not confuse, to begin our conversation by listing a
couple things that the unilateral covenant is not:
- The unilateral covenant is not
universalism. I have been sensing a reluctance on the part of some
to consider this concept due to a concern that the term implies
universalism. This is not about universalism. Even though
the fulfillment of the covenant depended entirely upon its giver, the
blessing contained therein could be rejected by its recipients. This was
true before its fulfillment; it is true now on the side of fulfillment.
- The unilateral covenant is not a
license to sin. I see this one over and over again: O, well, if
its fulfillment had nothing to do with Abraham's or Israel's or our actions,
then we can sin all we want to and still be in good standing with our Lord.
No! A comment like this demonstrates ignorance on the part of the
antagonist. It is not the unilateral covenant that provokes people
to sin -- although there was a covenant alongside the covenant
which did provoke and consolidate sin -- nor does it condone sin
when it has been provoked. When one apprehends and then embraces
the unilateral nature of the covenant it provokes a response of awe and
worship, yes, even obedience -- but not sin.
With those concerns sent packing, never again to
return :>), let us move now to ponder the possibility of unilateral
covenant.
The question as to whether the Abrahamic covenant
was bi-lateral or uni-lateral is at the heart of any discussions relating to
its fulfillment; this, it seems to me, is a reasonable assertion. That
said, if we are to gain a full and true apprehension of what Christ
accomplished in his life, death, resurrection, ascension, it also seems
prudent that we wrestle through this question. As I have argued in
previous posts, it is my contention that Abraham was a recipient, not a
participant, in the ratification of the covenant. The promises
contained in the covenant depended upon God alone, not on human ability to
make them happen or to earn them. In like manner the fulfillment of the
covenant could happen only in and through one man, the God-man Jesus
Christ.
Jesus Christ is the Seed to whom the covenant
pointed and by whom it would be fulfilled. Galatians 3.16 -- "Now the promises
were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, 'And to seeds,' as
referring to many, but rather to one, 'And to your seed (singular),' that is,
Christ."
Back when I was posting regularly I encouraged
the membership to read the OT with a view to the Seed (in Hebrew a masculine,
singular noun) promised in the garden. Trace the Seed, this male offering
who would crush Satan's head, and you will find the thrust of the OT, an
unsevered line leading from Eve to the Messiah, conceived
in the womb of Mary. Throughout the OT, and sometimes in
fascinating ways, God preserved the bloodline, thus preserving the Seed from
corruption. This same Seed passed through Abraham to Isaac, and from
Isaac through Jacob to Judah.
Abraham himself was a descendant of Shem, the Son
of Noah (Gen 11.10, 26). In Hebrew the word Shem means the Name. Shem was of
the line of the Seed. And so, when God went into Mesopotamia (Gen 11.28), he
was not looking for just any male with whom to covenant; he was looking for a
specific male: the only one through whom the Seed could pass. He found
this male in the son of an idol worshiper (Acts 7.1-4). It was this
Abram through whom God would advance his Seed-promise via a set-apart
nation (a "chosen people") that would mediate salvation to the world and
restore his kingdom (Acts 3.25; Heb 11.10).
When we take seriously the promise given to Woman
in the garden, we begin to realize that the fulfillment of this promise dare
not be made contingent upon the actions of humans. Throughout OT history we
see those who through faith in God sought the advancement of his kingdom;
we also see in the actions of those who rejected him a violent effort to
thwart God's activity on earth; whether knowingly or not, theirs was an effort
to prevent the advent of the Seed. Underlying the efforts of these men was the
scheming activity of Satan, whose goal it was to thwart his own judgment ("He
will crush your head"): destroy the bloodline and the proto-promise will fail
to see the light of day.
If you or anyone will give me the
proto-evangel, the promise of the Seed in the garden, and agree with me that
that promise was contingent not upon human activity but God for its
fulfillment in and through the Christ, then I will ask you how, in the
middle of this program, can you now claim that its fulfillment through the
Abrahamic covenant can be anything but unilateral. It was God who preserved
the Seed throughout the entire history of the Old Testament. It was via
the preserving activity of God alone that the covenant came to fulfillment.
To question that the Father may not have sent Jesus had not Abraham
been willing to sacrifice his own son (see Izzy, 11/22), is to introduce
uncertainty into the program through the means of speculation, a hypothetical
question. Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness,
but it was not Abraham whose credited righteousness fulfilled the
covenant; it was the true righteousness of the Christ: "[W]e know that a
person is not declared 'righteous' by works of the Jewish law,
but through the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah" (Gal 2.16,
taking into view Paul's use of the subjective genitive). Sure
the law came 430 years after the covenant with Abraham, yet
the truthfulness of Paul's statement stands. Abraham did not fulfill
the covenant. He could not fulfill the covenant: it was impossible for him to
cause his wife to conceive. Only God could give life to a womb that was
"dead." Yet the Seed passed through Abraham's circumcision (the mark of
God's faithfulness to preserve and perpetuate the Seed. Get the picture?) to
and through Sarah's womb to Isaac. Indeed it was via the faithful, preserving
activity of God alone that the Seed passed from Abraham to Isaac, that his
unilateral covenant might pass to fulfillment.
A Bi-lateral Covenant Alongside THE
Covenant Itself.
I should like to return now to my opening
statement and pick up on the idea that the covenant was not made with a holy
people. Way back, yes, even to the garden, sin brought with it the promise of
a colossal battle. A war would be waged between God's Seed and the seeds
of humanity, now under the headship of Satan. In order that sin might be
destroyed it had to be confined and consolidated into a place where victory
over it would be decisive. It is here that I may get myself into trouble with
my Jewish brothers, as I am not sure their thoughts concerning the status of
the Mosaic covenant, but I believe it was the giving of the law that brought
sin to the Nexus.
I view the Mosaic covenant as not an
eternal, unilateral covenant, but a temporal, bi-lateral covenant. At its core
was a very specific and narrow purpose (and again if I may to Slade and
Jeff say I do not know for sure how you view this. I know that you consider
the Torah to be eternal, but I am not sure as to your view of the
covenant aspect of Torah. Please hang with me on this one and see how
I set it forth. If I am weak here please take advantage of this
invitation to help see me straight).
The Abrahamic covenant set the framework
whereby Christ's showdown with the tyrants -- sin, death, and the devil
-- might have a place to take place. The promise to Abraham
was three-fold; it included land, seed, and blessing (Gen 12.1-3; 6-7;
13.14-17; 15;1-21; 17.1-4; 22.15-18). Via the covenant with Abraham God would
establish a nation -- in contrast to all the other nations of the world --
through which to accomplish his plan to restore humanity to himself and bring
judgment to the tyrants. God gave that nation a specific geographic
location, a land to occupy "forever." He promised to bless those that bless
the nation and curse those that curse it. And he promised that a royal
descendent of Abraham would conquer all God's enemies forever. Through
Abraham's Seed, people from all nations would receive God's eternal blessing.
But how was God to bring about this showdown? I
would like to suggest that it was through the giving of the Law that God gave
sin a name, consolidating it within the structural matrix of Israel, and that
it was via this localization that he brought about its demise. The
Mosaic-covenant partnership of God with Israel had the effect of intensifying
the conflict of Israel with God. So long as the cords of the Abrahamic
covenant were not drawn tight, and God remained at a distance, so to speak,
the conflict was not very sharp, but the closer God drew near (via the Mosaic
covenant), the more the human self-will of Israel asserted itself in
resistance to its divine vocation. Thus the more fully God gave himself to his
people, the more he forced this people to be what it actually was,
what we all are, in the self-willed isolation of fallen humanity. And so, the
movement of God's reconciling love toward Israel through the Mosaic covenant
not only revealed Israel's sin but intensified it. God gave Moses the Law
not to make Israelites holy, but to make them sinners.
But why then a bi-lateral covenant? What was God
doing in the heart of his program, introducing a covenant alongside his
covenant with Abraham? What relationship
can exist between an unconditional covenant and a conditional covenant? Simply
put, the unilateral, unconditional Abrahamic covenant had conditional
blessings attached to it. These blessings would be obtained through faithful
obedience. But obedience to what? Obedience to the Mosaic covenant. In other
words, the Mosaic covenant was added alongside the Abrahamic
covenant: "Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions,
having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the
seed should come to whom the promise had been made" (Gal 3.19). The Mosaic
covenant was given in order to define and delineate the obedience that was
required in order to obtain the blessings promised by the Abrahamic covenant.
The Abrahamic covenant -- not the Mosaic
covenant -- was the source of these blessings, and the Abrahamic covenant
was still unconditional; it was entirely dependent on God for its eventual
fulfillment, that day when "the seed" (singular) would come "to
whom the promise had been made." And so we see that the unconditional,
unilateral covenant had the effect of calling the Israelites to an
unconditional obedience; in other words, their obedience had no bearing on the
fulfillment of the covenant. And that it did; however, it did so through
participation in a conditional/bilateral covenant: the Mosaic
covenant.
I should like to state, here, that I view it
as vitally important to realize/remember that the Law of Moses was given to
a redeemed people, not to redeem a people. The preacher to the
Hebrews said of Moses: "By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of
blood, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of
Israel," and of the Israelites he said, "By faith the people passed
through the Red Sea as on dry land" (Heb 11.28-29).
With that said, the Law revealed the holiness
of God. The fact that God is a holy God was made abundantly clear to
Israel in the Law of Moses. But lest we be confused at this
point, the holiness of God is not first a
static morality; it is first a relationship between the Father and the Son in
and through the Holy Spirit. Holiness speaks to the quality of that
relationship: the purity, the harmony, the beauty of that relationship. Out of
those qualities comes the basis for morality. It is in this light that the
great commandments shine brightest: Love God and love your neighbor and you
will fulfill the law -- in other words, you will be holy (and that, my
friends, is the basis of relational theology).
All the
requirements laid on the nation of Israel had in view this holy character of
God. The holiness of God as revealed in the Law became the test of human
thoughts, words, and actions; and anything that failed to conform to the
revealed holiness of God was sin. This is exactly what Paul had in mind when
he wrote, "For all have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom
3.23). God's desire was to draw his creation into the kind of relationship
that he had (has) throughout eternity with his Son. In order for that to
happen (in the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant) that which separated his
creation from him and prevented that relationship from occurring had to be
isolated and destroyed. In their failure to meet the conditions as laid out in
the Mosaic covenant, that which prevented the Israelites from entering into
holiness -- that right kind of God-like relationship -- was exposed for
what it was. While it could not make the Israelites holy, the Mosaic
covenant could make them sinners. This it did. And so we see that the
movement of
God's reconciling love toward Israel not only revealed Israel's sin but
intensified it.
That intensification, however, is not to be
regarded simply as an accidental result of the covenant, but rather as
something God deliberately took into full design of his reconciling activity,
for it was the will and the way of God's grace to effect reconciliation
with Israel (and, by Representation, humanity) at its very worst: "The
law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased,
grace increased all the more, so that as
sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rom 5.20-21). In his marvelous
wisdom and love God worked out in Israel a way of reconciliation which did not
depend on the worth of men and women, but made their very sin in rebellion
against his holiness the means by which he bound them for ever to himself and
through which he reconstituted their relations with him in such a way that
their true end was fully and perfectly realized in communion with him, in his
Son, through the Holy Spirit -- with holiness being the express quality
of that relationship.
Through the Mosaic covenant God drew Israel near
to himself in such a manner that the covenant, with its way of response set
out in the liturgy of atoning sacrifice, was translated into Israel's very
existence as the elected servant of the Lord. We see in the Isaianic servant
songs Israel as the suffering servant of the Lord drawn into close proximity
to God as "the Holy one of Israel." The servant songs point ahead to the
Incarnation where the Holy One of Israel and the suffering servant actually
coincide. Within the structural matrix of Israel we witness the birth of
Messiah, i.e., the Incarnation as God and humanity so near to each
other that they are perfectly one in Jesus Christ. There in Jesus, son of Mary
in Israel, the Son of God gathered up the prehistory of reconciliation in the
interaction of God with Israel and the intensifying conflict of Israel with
God. There in the Incarnation the fearful
contradiction between God and humanity representationally embodied in Israel's
conflict with God reached its climax in Jesus Christ. Throughout his earthly
life Jesus embodied this fearful tension, warring against the root of
evil in the human heart in enmity toward God, uncovering and decisively
overcoming it in life and in atoning sacrifice on the cross.
In the most remarkable turn of events God used
Israel's rebellion, its rejection of God's Messiah, as the very means by which
to accomplish his final purpose of reconciliation in Jesus Christ. Here God
dealt with human sin at the point of its ultimate denial of the saving will of
God. God used Israel's rejection as the very means by which to bind humanity
to Christ; "that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them, ... For He made Him who knew no
sin, sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in
Him" (II Cor 5.19,21). Indeed, the Incarnation represents the coming of
God to save Israel, and thereby humanity, in the heart of its fallen
and depraved condition, where humanity was at its wickedest in its enmity and
violence against the reconciling love of Christ. This he did within the matrix
he established in Israel through the Mosaic covenant. Immanuel.
By making Israel utterly sinful through the Law,
Messiah defeated sin at its worst, and in so doing crushed Satan's head. There
at the cross the promised Seed did the unthinkable. There he died for
Israel's, and by extension humanity's, transgressions, in substitution meeting
upon himself the curse of the Law. Therefore, when Jesus cries "It is
finished," it is finished indeed. In resurrection the tyrants are defeated and
the unilateral covenant which depended for its fulfillment upon the
unconditional grace of God which he had pledged to work out through Abraham
and Israel for all peoples, is now fulfilled. By the faithfulness of Jesus
Christ to the reconciling love of the Father in his unrelenting purpose
of reconciliation, humanity is restored. Will we in our unilateral inclusion
in Christ now live faithfully within the covenant community established by
Christ himself or will we reject him, thereby throwing ourselves against the
covenant love of our Father? That, it seems to me, is the (next)
question.
