God’s covenant faithfulness must mean UR!

[TotalVictory]

For as long as I’ve been paying attention to spiritual matters, I’ve been hearing that God is a “COVENANT GOD”. But what does that mean? By saying that, what have I said? What emerges usually runs along lines something like this:

God does HIS part in promising to care for us, and we must likewise keep OUR part of the covenant. But this is deeply problematic isn’t it? For if that’s the case, my salvation depends on MY keeping my “half” of the covenant – when in reality don’t we speak of salvation being by GRACE which is NOT of ourselves, but is a gift from God!

Now here’s a really troubling story we considered in study at church today; the story of Rizpah in 2 Sam 21. The story goes that there was a famine in the land and finally, King David inquired of the Lord and God tells David that there is bloodguilt in the house of Saul (who is already dead by now!) It seems Saul had tried to annihilate the Gibeonites and nearly succeeded. But this was very offensive to God because Joshua had extended a covenant of protection to them 400 years earlier! (albeit extended because of their deceit) So now, all these years later, that covenant apparently long forgotten, God brings punishment upon the land (the famine) for the offense of failure to keep their covenant promise.

God obviously takes this covenant thing quite seriously.

Then it occurred to me; where in scripture is there record of ANYONE who fully kept (or keeps) their covenant with God? Sure there are brief bits where the people seem to do pretty well, but they always slip back and break it. So it seems then that this is a description OF our innate condition as sinners. We stand incapable of fully keeping our covenant with God!

So yes; the notion of being faithful to covenant is incredibly important to God. Central even. But our faithfulness is not the issue at all. Rather, it is God’s faithfulness! We should not then speak of our own response or faithfulness as somehow turning on or activating God’s faithfulness so that our acts in some way cause God’s faithfulness to engage and become effective. That would be pagan - wouldn’t it? Rather, the idea being that God will always be our God and our failure to allow Him to be that is what makes our lives miserable. We are thus saved by God’s covenant faithfulness; not our own. That seems to fit best with the Eph 2 idea that it’s ALL salvation by Gods Grace. It is His gift to us.

If then God is telling us in the record of scripture that our nature of fallenness renders us covenant breakers, but the reason to not despair is because of His total faithfulness to HIS covenant, this should logically lead one to conclude that Universal Reconciliation will be the eventual outcome of God’s Covenant of Grace.

What do you think??

TotalVictory
Bobx3

[Bob_Wilson]

Bob, just a note to say that I think your reasoning well captures the implications of the overarching O.T. story, especially concerning how God keeps plugging at realization of the covenants’ promises, despite the obvious reality of the apparent human inability to live up to our end of it. I will seek to post an attachment of my account of the O.T. next week.

[Alex_Smith]

I think that’s a very strong argument. God is extraordinarily patient and keeps persevering despite almost continually being let down. It also reminds me of His amazing covenant He made with everything after the Flood:

Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

He basically repeats Himself over and over again to ram home the point that He is making a covenant with everything not to completely destroy them, “even though every inclination of the human heart is evil”!

[pilgrim]

Universal Reconciliation will be the eventual outcome of God’s Covenant of Grace.

What do you think??

What scripture are you invoking when you suggest that God’s covenant of grace is universal?

[TotalVictory]

What scripture are you invoking when you suggest that God’s covenant of grace is universal?

ALL of it; the entire story of God’s interactions with we humans and our home, this earth. There are themes, and trajectories, and overarching elements that keep repeating themselves over and over. And I think that the vast majority of Christians have focused far too much on our response instead of upon the God who drew us to Himself and caused that response in the first place. And God does that work of drawing us because it’s in the nature of His covenant with us. He will be faithful - has been faithful - to us.

It’s everywhere!

Just two quick examples pop into my head;

See Is 19 – esp v22 – The Lord will strike Egypt, striking but healing; so that they will return to the Lord, and He will respond to them and will heal them.

Egypt??? Aren’t they a symbol of rebellion and paganism and oppression???

And Romans 8 – esp v 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs (I’m reading that, here, to suggest it’s not a matter of how well WE keep the covenant!) but ON GOD WHO HAS MERCY.

That’s where I’m coming from pilgrim…

TotalVictory
Bobx3

[JasonPratt]

It does at least mean that we can trust God to persist to save.

However, a Calvinist (who affirms the persistence) would deny that God has made a salvation covenant with everyone.

I would be glad to see evidence otherwise, but I can’t think of any myself that would count (not as a covenant promise). And none of the examples given so far look to me like they count.

The Genesis Flood covenant was more specific than not to completely destroy them. It was not to do so with water. The citations given from Paul’s epistles, important though they are, aren’t about God keeping covenant promises per se. Isaiah 19 isn’t about a covenant treaty with Egypt that God promises He’ll keep.

Even if there isn’t specific covenant promise of salvation from God for all people, however, that doesn’t mean there isn’t something greater than covenant promises. Indeed there is!–the ground without which those covenant promises wouldn’t be faithful: God’s love and grace and goodness. Is 19, for example, isn’t about God keeping a covenant treaty with Egypt; but it is about God promising that His punishment of Egypt is intended to lead them into covenant with Him! And it’s about God promising that He’ll succeed at this.

[Alex_Smith]

The Genesis Flood covenant was more specific than not to completely destroy them. It was not to do so with water.

I think it depends on how symbolic the story of the Flood is…

[TotalVictory]

However, a Calvinist (who affirms the persistence) would deny that God has made a salvation covenant with everyone.

I would be glad to see evidence otherwise, but I can’t think of any myself that would count (not as a covenant promise). And none of the examples given so far look to me like they count.

Jason:
I think maybe you’re missing my point???

I’m suggesting that a simple and magnificent and summary depiction of God’s extended covenant is exemplified, say, in Jer 31:33, that last part which says simply I will BE your God and you be My people. God doesn’t need permission or clearance or impetus or motivation to simply BE who He is anyway. God WILL be who He is, and that’s His covenant promise. And in the course of God being God we see things like Is 19 and Rom 8 and on and on. Every one of those little pieces of covenant (Incl Genesis) when put together as a whole reflect the reality of God’s overarching promise to be true to His nature. And it is simply in God’s nature to save; and redeem; and heal; and restore. And to some eyes that is seem as punishing and severe. But the end result of God being Himself is that eventually all are reconciled back to HIm. Just another way of saying God’s covenant faithfulness. Which, I’m seeing in the “big picture”, must mean UR.

TotalVictory
Bobx3

[JasonPratt]

The Genesis Flood covenant was more specific than not to completely destroy them. It was not to do so with water.

I think it depends on how symbolic the story of the Flood is…

Symbolic or mythical or legendary or historical or whatever: the fact is that the text repeatedly qualifies the promise in terms of destruction by water.

Whatever destruction by ‘water’ is supposed to mean, I take it from the details of the text that the covenant is a promise not to destroy the world again by ‘water’. Not to not destroy the world again by some other way. (By fire, specifically the fire of His presence, seems to be the preferred mode next time, based on later texts.)