Covenants, contracts, treaties, and pacts were common in the ancient world. Such agreements, which began with civilization itself, were necessary for commerce and government. They normally arose out of a promise or set of promises. From such sets of promises came the Old and New Covenants.

From ancient times, a covenant consisted of a binding and solemn agreement made by two or more parties to do or keep from doing a specified thing. An ancient agreement, like a modern one, originated out of an offer, made and accepted, that was voluntarily entered into by parties with the legal capacity to contract. God, according to the apostles, chose through Jesus of Nazareth to offer such an agreement to humankind as the New Covenant.

The apostles contended that this New Covenant consisted of a unique agreement between God and the individual Christian containing all the rights, duties, and obligations of each party. The individual had to repent of sin (Acts 2:38), accept Jesus Christ as his or her Lord and Savior, and undergo ritual baptism as a demonstration of repentance and acceptance of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth on their behalf.

These were the elect and saints�the members of the body of Christ (I Peter 2:9). Collectively, according to the apostle Paul, they became spiritual Jews (Colossians 3:11; Romans 2:28-29) and the new "Israel of God" (Galatians 6:16). Thus, the understanding of the early Church of God was that under the terms of the New Covenant, with a promise of an "eternal inheritance" (Hebrews 9:15), individuals, rather than a national ethnic group, became children of Abraham and heirs of the promise (Galatians 3:29). The apostles regarded entry into this New Covenant relationship with God as a very personal and individual matter. For the Christian in the postmodern world, an understanding of both the Old and the New Covenants is not only critical to comprehend the history of the church but also to the know the meaning of the Christian faith.

Page last edited: 01/26/06 07:12 PM

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