What’s A Covenant?

What’s A Covenant?

Did you know that the words “covenant” and “testament” mean the same thing, that the Old Testament and New Testament could also be just as accurately called the Old Covenant and New Covenant? My dictionary says the two words refer to the same thing – “the promise of God.”

Did you know that we divide the Christian Bible into the Old and New Testaments because the Old Testament’s central theme is God’s old covenant relationship with Israel that pointed to the promised Messiah, while the New Testament’s is God’s new covenant relationship with all who accept Jesus as their Messiah?

Did you know that, although the Old Testament is identical in content (not order) to the Jewish Bible, the Jews do not use the word “Old” because to do so implies acceptance of the “New Testament” or “New Covenant” – that Jesus is the fulfillment of the promised Messiah?

Did you know that the term “Old Testament” was first used by Paul in the New Testament when he wrote that “the children of Israel” were “blinded” because “the veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ” (2 Cor. 3:14)?

Did you know that the term “New Covenant” first appeared in the Old Testament in Jeremiah’s prophecy about the coming Messiah (Jer. 31:31)? It was then quoted in Hebrews 8, concluding this way: “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ God has made the first one obsolete” (Heb. 8:13).

Did you know that from primitive times serious covenants were sealed by blood? Our Savior shed His blood for our sins, so that we may have eternal life; He asks us to express our identification with His sacrifice symbolically in this way: “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me” (1 Cor. 11:25).

We hope you learn much from our Features on the covenants of Scripture.

By Larry Ondrejack