5 Beautiful Covenants in the Bible and What They Mean

When you hear the word “covenant,” what do you think of? Some may think it means a contract between God and yourself; you do certain requests to appease God, and in return God fulfills His obligations for what you have done. Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology explains:

“The biblical words most often translated "covenant" are berit in the Old Testament (appearing about 280 times) and diatheke in the New Testament (at least 33 times). The origin of the Old Testament word has been debated; some have said it comes from a custom of eating together (Gen 26:30 ; 31:54); others have emphasized the idea of cutting an animal (an animal was cut in half 15:18); still others have seen the ideas of perceiving or determining as root concepts. The preferred meaning of this Old Testament word is bond; a covenant refers to two or more parties bound together.”

Some may view covenant like a contract, where you both sign on the dotted line and get your rewards for doing your part. However, a covenant in God’s mindset is more than just each party doing his or her part. A covenant with God is a promise that builds a lasting relationship between the Creator and His creation while redeeming those that were lost back to the Father who loves them.

2 Types of Covenants in the Bible

A covenant with God goes even further in specifics, categorized into two types: Suzerain-Vassal covenant and Royal Grant covenant. A Suzerain-Vassal covenant represented legal treaties set between kings and their subjects, or between two kings, that established what the king would do for the subjects and how they were to respond back to his government.

According to reasonabletheology.org, a Royal Grant covenant is an agreement where one person in the covenant makes an unconditional promise to the other, with the other person not having to do anything in return.

Within the Christian Bible are characterized five covenants. Four are named from recognized figures of the Bible that embody one (or both) of these two covenant types. These display God’s never-ending quest to be reunited with His people that eventually leads to Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross.

5 Covenants God Made with His People

The first recorded covenant God made with His people was through His loyal servant Noah, who followed God’s instructions to build an ark that ultimately saved him and his family when God flooded the earth.

The Noahic Covenant resembled the Royal Grant covenant in that God gave Noah His promise to not destroy the earth with a flood again, thus representing an unconditional promise from God to Noah (Gen. 9:11). The Flood had caused the end of mankind, and life on earth itself, outside of Noah’s family and the animals gathered in the ark. As many may recall, Noah sent out a dove to see if there was any land (really life) left on the earth and in time, the dove returned to Noah with an olive leaf to signify that the water was receding and plant life had emerged again.

Another leader in the book of Genesis, Abraham, symbolizes the next covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant. God extended an impossible command to Abraham when he told him to leave all that he knew and follow God to a land He would show him. That land that would eventually be inhabited by Abraham’s lineage (Gen. 12:1-3).

This covenant is a combination of both types of covenants, as God promises to make Abraham and his lineage a great nation and give them countless blessings (Royal Grant). He does ask Abraham to leave his home and follow the Lord to the new land He will give him, which creates the agreement of actions by both parties (Suzerain-Vassal).

Moses’s dedicated relationship with God also determined a covenant between him and God, the Mosaic Covenant. Seeing the Israelites becoming restless and disrespectful in the wilderness, God gave Moses the Law (the Ten Commandments) and wanted Moses to share this with his people in order for them to be governed properly (Exod. 19:5-7). If they responded well to the commandments given by Moses, God would richly bless them as His chosen people (Suzerain-Vassal).

A man after God’s own heart, David established a covenant with God as well. It became the Davidic Covenant and stemmed from the Israelites’ refusal to follow the Ten Commandments (resulting in several never seeing the Promised Land). God’s pursuit to redeem His people and bring them back into a loving relationship with Him inspired this covenant with David. God promises unconditionally (Royal Grant covenant) to ensure King David and his lineage would rule over Israel forever (2 Sam. 7:8-11).

This covenant with King David and his lineage foreshadowed the appointing of the greatest of God’s covenant with His people, the New Covenant, which ushers in Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross to save all people and reunite them with God. First expressed in Jeremiah 31:31-34 as the reason God chose this form of covenant over others that required action from His people, the Davidic Covenant blends with the New Covenant as Jesus is a descendent from King David and fulfills the understanding of David’s household (Jesus) ruling over Israel forever.

The New Covenant represents God’s promise to be His people’s God, forgiving their sins, and allowing them to choose, through their will, whether to follow Him (Royal Grant). In return, it is up to His people to make the decision to accept God, to take up their new lives in Christ, and to share with others around them the life-changing knowledge they have learned through Jesus.

Why Should We Take the New Covenant to Heart?

In reviewing all of the covenants God has formed with His people, the unchanging truth is that all are connected to God’s desire to be in relationship with His people and help them reach potentials that are not possible through human strength alone. In each covenant, He chooses someone many wouldn’t look twice at to be the mouthpiece for establishing the covenant with God. This is done in the hope that people will see God doesn’t want to form relationships with gods or supernatural beings, but with real, flesh-and-blood people who also want a relationship with Him.

What does that mean in considering the New Covenant in our lives today? Just as He established these covenants with regular people who did extraordinary feats through Him, God wants to do the same in our lives. When we accept Jesus into our hearts, that gives God free reign to reveal our talents, skills, and hidden capabilities to us, and place us in situations where we are strengthened by Him to do impossible tasks.

The New Covenant also shows that God is not forcing Himself on us, or giving us an ultimatum to follow Him or die instantly. He is a God who wants you to come to Him through loving thankfulness, through awareness of what Jesus did on the cross, and through a desire to leave behind the life you once knew for a life that is filled with endless possibilities and freedom from sin.

A covenant might seem like just an agreement between two people, but in God’s eyes, it is the opportunity He has waited for (and tried so much to offer) to welcome you back into His family and prepare you for living out your faith like never before.

Blair Parke is a freelance writer for BibleStudyTools.com and editor for Xulon Press. A graduate of Stetson University with a Bachelor's in Communications, Blair previously worked as a writer/editor for several local magazines in the Central Florida area, including Celebration Independent and Lake Magazine in Leesburg, Florida and currently freelances for the Southwest Orlando Bulletin.

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