A Covenant God

Psalms 25:14, “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him; and He will show them His covenant.”



The story the Bible tells is one of human rebellion and divine redemption. Already this dual theme has surfaced in the Eden narrative, for there we encounter God who patiently and lovingly haunts the human creatures, a Redeeming God who seeks sinners with the poignant question, “Who are you?”



Again, the question might seem almost ludicrous, coming from an Omnipotent and Omniscient God- but perhaps that is just the point. The Omni doctrine pay all kinds of metaphysical compliments to God but seem to miss the central Biblical affirmation that other than Himself and intimately sustains it precisely in its otherness. The apex of this otherness in creation, as far as one can tell, is the human race. In human beings we find creatures that can both seek God and flee God, who can cooperate with God or rebel against God, who can reflect upon God or categorically deny God. In human beings we find those creatures who exercise the power of conscious choice, which is the greatest evidence of our otherness from God.



And this, says the story line, is as God wills it. He calls the other into being as the other, for this sense of human agency grounded in distance from Him is essential to relationship. I cannot be in true relationship to that which is not other than myself; it was the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber that had this to say: “I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou. All real living is meeting.” Buber is not speaking here only or even primarily of relationship to God, other people, and the works, that we either give or receive the grace of relationship. So also it is with God: God the sole Power, the Omnipotent Creator, empties Himself of the prerogatives of Absolute Being in order to enter into relationship with beings of His own making. This self-emptying, in turn, makes it possible for Him to ask of human beings the question, “Where are you?” and mean it. God does not control us- He calls us; god does not manipulate us- He beckons to us. Before God is anything else, God is love- the Love who creates us, sustains us, and longingly seeks us out, all for the sake of relationship.



These ideas about relationship are no better demonstrated than in the Bible’s stories of covenants that God initiates. This idea that God is the God of covenants, of pacts or agreements, is much too often ignored in theology to its own detriment. To say that God is a covenantal God is to suggest a divine interest in our cooperation, a divine commitment to partnership, a divine power that is empowering and affirming of the other. A Biblical theology of covenant relationships would suggest that God is not interested in performing solos. Instead, He invites our participation, our cooperation, in the task of creation and redemption. Of course, God’s very act of creating the universe as other, and of creating us as others from Himself, is what makes covenant relationship possible.



God has covenanted himself to the human race. Even in man’s rebellion God pursues him. It is out of His love and righteousness that He holds true to His covenant with human beings. It is man that He desires relationship with and he will reveal to man the power and victory of the covenant if he will seek after truth. Note 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit.” We are informed from the apostle Peter of God’s love for the human race, but also of His commitment to covenant. God never ignores sin, but He judges it. And for man to be restored into right relation with god, he made provision through His Son, Jesus Christ. The penalty for sin has always been death. Therefore Christ died for our sins in order that the created could be restored to a right relation with the Creator. And it is because of God’s desire for relationship with man that He pursues Him. Also His faithfulness to His Word, He covenanted with man and god has always worked to fulfill the covenant.