Tag Archives: New Covenant

Updating our Covenant

Christmastide

December 30, 2021

Scripture Reading: Ephesians 1:3-14

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and insight he has made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. –Ephesians 1:3-10

English is a complicated language with the same word sometimes having several usages. For example, the term “bless” is a verb the word “blessed” can be either an adjective or noun. When I read the above scripture, a weird question popped into my mind: who could bless God? So, I checked dictionaries and got way in over my head. However, I was pleased to read in Merriam-Webster, when used as an adjective, blessed could mean worthy of adoration. God certainly is. The first word of the scripture quoted above, translated as “Blessed,” is derived from the Greek word eulogētós, and this is its only use in Bible.

2128 /eulogētós (“blessed”) is only used of God the Father and Christ (God the Son), showing the Godhead is worthy of all our commitment. Indeed, only God is inherently praiseworthy, deserving every “good acknowledgment“!

We are a blessing to God when we fulfill our commitments to God to the very best of our ability. We attain that by first making a commitment to God. In our world, we might think of that as a contract. In such instances, one entity agrees to do this if the other does something in return. God, however, prefers to work in covenant with people.

Covenant: the promises of God as revealed in the Scriptures conditioned on certain terms on the part of humanity (as obedience, repentance, and faith): such as

a: an agreement regarded as having been made between God and Israel whereby Israel was to be faithful to God and God was to protect and bless his faithful people

b: a promise regarded as having been enacted by God and granting redemption and salvation to humanity through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ***

With Jesus Christ, we entered into a New Covenant, a promise of redemption by God to people as individuals rather than as a nation and on the basis of God’s grace rather than a person’s adherence to the law***.

As we prepare for a new year, let us take the time to make and review our commitments to God, map out our way to meet those commitments, and follow through with the plan while maintaining a close relationship with the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us through the whole process.

Prayer: Lord, here am I send me. Amen.

*https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/blessed

**https://biblehub.com/greek/2128.htm

***https://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/covenant

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.

New Covenant

Lent 
March 12, 2018

 Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 31:31-34
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

 What does it mean when we make a commitment to God? How long does it last? Is our sense of commitment to God reflected in our commitments to all of God’s children? What is a covenant? In a world where it seems agreement are carefully created to be broken, it is hard to envision a binding covenant with God.

In secular terms a covenant is an agreement that is usually formal, solemn, and intended as binding.*

In Judeo-Christian terms, Merriam-Webster describes covenant as

the promises of God as revealed in the Scriptures conditioned on certain terms on the part of humanity (as obedience, repentance, and faith): such as

a:  an agreement regarded as having been made between God and Israel whereby Israel was to be faithful to God and God was to protect and bless his faithful people

b:  a promise regarded as having been enacted by God and granting redemption and salvation to humanity through the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ*

 Binding may be the key word here. The Greek word often translated as covenant likens it to a will or testament. ** Jeremiah, in our scripture today, talks about a new covenant is coming where Gods laws are written on our hearts, which would indicate some type of permanent change in our whole being. This describes God’s intentions in the gift of Jesus Christ.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the gift of your Son. Guide us in understanding the role we are to play in furthering your ways in our world. Amen.

*http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com/unabridged/covenant
**http://biblehub.com/greek/1242.htm

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.