God’s covenant, at every point of its unfolding, is a covenant of grace. By grace He saves us, and by grace He grows us in peace and joy. It’s always been this way, as we can see in His covenant with Moses. Today’s reading from The Joy and Rejoicing of My Heart is found on page 38:
“At Mt. Sinai, God formalized His covenant relationship with His people in the simplest of terms: ‘Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
“Let’s note a few significant covenantal aspects of this declaration. First, it comes after God had already delivered His people from captivity in Egypt. That is, it follows His act of grace in saving them unto Himself. They were already His people, by an act of His sovereign grace; now He was simply setting forth His expectations for them as His people – as He had done with Adam and Eve, Noah, and Abram.
“Second, God referred to His covenant people as a Kingdom, thus reaching back to a statement from the period of the Abrahamic covenant in which God promised to give a king to His people, and to make them a Kingdom over all the nations of the earth. Even this promise was but a more formal statement of what God had said to Adam and Noah in commanding them to have dominion over the earth and its creatures. This Kingdom terminology, as we shall see, becomes a sub-arch linking Jacob, Israel, and David with the coming Kingdom of God later along the bridge of revelation, during the time of the New Covenant.
“Third, as our text indicates, this act of entering covenant with Israel represented a continuation of God’s covenant with Abraham, which God ‘remembered’, that is, attended diligently unto, when He sent Moses to lead the people out of Egypt. And, by continuing the covenant with Abraham into this new stage of covenant unfolding, God was also continuing the covenant with Adam and Eve and with Noah – His covenant, that is, a covenant of grace and of the promise of peace.
“This simplified statement of God’s covenant would be reduced to a formula, ‘I will be your God, and You will be my people,’ that would be repeated and invoked over and over in the Old Testament as well as the New. The formula itself becomes a kind of sub-arch binding both the Old and New Testaments together under the one overarching covenant of promise, which provides the story and structure of the entire Bible.”
For reflection or discussion
1. How did you first come to know the saving grace of God?
2. How has that grace changed your life since then?
God’s covenant is all of grace, but not only of grace. He has saved us to know His precious and very great promises, and we live toward those promises with hope as we walk the path of obedience to God that Jesus did. God saves us, then He unpacks the fuller glory of His salvation as He draws us on toward His promises, which are fully realized in Jesus. Share today’s podcast with a friend, then get together to share your personal testimonies. You can download a free copy of The Joy and Rejoicing of My Heart by going to The Ailbe Bookstore.
T. M. Moore
