The Covenant stream pt.1
One Covenant or many? Peter Sammons unpacks a key concept that so many get so wrong.
Our Saviour God is a covenantinitiating and a covenant-sustaining God. On that basis we praise Him every day, and receive full assurance that, in spite of the fact that we too often break our side of the relationship, God never breaks His.
Why is all this important? There are numerous covenants in the Bible – the One New Man Bible lists some twenty in its glossary. There are four, however, that express God’s over-arching saving purpose. It seems that some Christians are confused by this, and others who hold that the “New” covenant somehow extinguishes the earlier covenants. Your author recalls receiving a stroppy email from a Christian bookshop manager who had taken exception to David Pawson’s splendid “Defending Christian Zionism” which explores the key covenants. My stroppy correspondent said “there’s just one covenant – the new one !” His view is probably widespread amongst a Christian generation that seems ill at ease with God’s unfolding Salvation plan, and instead want to “cut to the chase” and make room only for their New Covenant.