The Importance of Covenants

What is a covenant? A covenant is a formal agreement or promise. Sometimes it is a contract or other legal instrument concerning finance, sale of merchandise, or service, often containing promises, requirements, and commitments. There are also biblical covenants.

Bible students are generally familiar with two covenants in the Bible: The Old Covenant and the New Covenant. But there are more covenants in the Bible than one might think.

In the New King James Version of the Bible the word covenant appears 315 times. There are covenants between individuals, such the one Abram made with Abimelech. The covenant concerned a well of water that Abimelech’s servants had seized from Abram. Abram gave Abimelech seven ewe lambs as the sign of their covenant and gave the place the name Beersheba—beer meaning “well” and sheva being the number “seven,” although it can also mean “swear an oath.”

But more important are the covenants between God and individuals or groups. Covenants often contain promises, requirements, and commitments, as mentioned above. Some covenants are conditional where the promises or parts of the agreement are based on performance by a party. There are also unconditional covenants where the promises are not based on future performance but are granted regardless of merit going forward.

Covenants in the Bible are important, and some of the covenants are vital to our future.

From the very beginning, God began offering covenants to individuals, as well as covenants to their families grown into large tribes or entire nations. This continued through the time of Jesus’ first coming. God gave Adam a job and a commission to multiply, fill, and subdue the earth and have dominion over it. He gave Adam wonderful food and a wife, and He even gave them the instructions about not eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil or they would die—a simple conditional covenant.

God saved Noah and his family from the great flood by instructing them to build an ark, afterwards giving the rainbow as the sign of the covenant that He would never again destroy all of mankind by flooding.

God made a covenant with Abram to make him a great nation, a great name (who hasn’t heard of Abraham?), and to give him blessings and the land of Canaan. God promised to give Abram a son through his wife Sarai. God waited until they were both old and then gave them the promised son. Nothing is too hard for God.

Genesis 17:1–11 speaks of the covenant between God and Abram, God changing his name to Abraham and making the covenant everlasting and to his descendants after him.

God through Moses made the conditional covenant (that is now referred to as the Old Covenant) with ancient Israel. The covenant offered blessings for obedience, and curses for disobedience to the commandments and statutes.

God also made an unconditional covenant with David the son of Jesse to establish a throne, a kingly line of descendants and a kingdom forever. It is David’s throne to which Jesus Christ, born physically as a descendant of David, will sit upon at His return to rule the whole world (see Luke 1:32).

The most important covenant is the one introduced by Jesus Christ to His disciples at the Passover before His crucifixion. The New Covenant had been prophesied by Jeremiah where he described God putting His law in our minds and writing them in our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31–33). Jesus gave the cup of wine, “My blood of the new covenant,” as the sign of the New Covenant (Matthew 26:27–28).

The New Covenant is a vital key to mankind’s future existence—eternal life in God’s family. God will offer that same new covenant to all of mankind according to His great plan of salvation. For more understanding on this topic, read the Tomorrow’s World article “A New Covenant?” and order your free copy of the study guide Is This the Only Day of Salvation?