The Covenant Principles 2nd Edition: What it Means To Be In Covenant With God

By Helen Jordan Davis

There can be no relationship with God apart from covenant. This book gives a clear understanding of the commitment we have made with God and He has made with us. It will deepen the reader's relationship with God. Comments are: "Articulated brilliantly!" "An inspirational journey no one should miss!" "This incredible book has increased my faith."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Principle Books Publishers
• Release date: Jun 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9780984841073

Book preview

Preface

Dr. Livingstone, I presume

Dr. David Livingstone was a Scottish medical missionary who went to Africa in 1841 to give medical help to those in need and to evangelize. He found he also liked to explore. He sent reports of his explorations back home where they were published in newspapers in Scotland and abroad, and many people eagerly followed his work through these reports. At one point he had gone exploring, trying to find the mouth of the Nile, and hadn’t been heard from in a long time. People back home wondered what had happened to him.

The editor of the New York Herald saw this as a prime opportunity.¹ He could send a reporter out to search for Livingstone who could send back continuous reports of his progress. This would without doubt increase the paper’s readership.

Enter Henry Stanley, reporter.

The editor got some backers to help fund the venture and sent Stanley on the search in 1871. He carried 191 men with him.² After several months, Stanley found Dr. Livingstone and greeted him with the phrase, Dr. Livingstone, I presume?³

They explored some together, then Stanley returned to America. After Livingstone died in 1874, Stanley returned to Africa to continue the exploring Livingstone had begun. This time he only had three white men with him, but he employed 300 natives to accompany them.⁴ As he traveled, he kept a goat with him for goat’s milk, which he needed because of stomach ulcers.⁵

At one point he got to know a powerful tribal chief who decided he wanted to cut a covenant with him. Covenant is a term that has pretty much disappeared from the language of our civilization, so this was a new thing for Stanley. He didn’t understand covenant, but this was a powerful chief, so he agreed to go through with the procedure. He learned this was to be a blood covenant, the most serious and binding kind.

Simply put, it is a mutual understanding between two or more parties, each binding himself to fulfill specific obligations. A solemn agreement to do or not to do a certain thing.⁶

The Ceremony

It was a very impressive ceremony, held in a large opening with Stanley’s men watching on one side and the chief’s tribe watching on the other. The two men stood in the center, cut their wrists, and let the blood drip into a common goblet. Then both men drank from the goblet, symbolizing they were taking into themselves the life of the other man, because the life is in the blood. The two lives were becoming one.

They then rubbed sand into the cuts to cause big, noticeable scars to form, so everyone would always know these two were in covenant. This was a permanent arrangement. Blood covenants were to be broken only by the death of one of the parties, or the one who broke it would forfeit his life.

The Terms

They stated to each other the terms of the covenant: Everything I have and everything I am, I give to this covenant relationship. If you ever need help against an enemy, call me. I will bring my whole tribe to defend you. Your enemy will be my enemy. If you ever need food, I’ll supply it. If you ever need a home, you have one with me. Whatever your need, if I’m able, I’ll meet that need. If I fail to do all I can for you, you have permission to take my life.

They then were to exchange gifts. The chief wanted Stanley’s goat. He took it and gave to Stanley a seven-foot spear, with copper coiled around it. Stanley wondered, ‘What will I ever do with this old spear?’⁷ It looked like little more than a stick to Stanley, and he needed his goat, so he felt he had been gypped. (The origin of the statement He got my goat, no doubt.) The chief was a powerful man, though, so he went along with it.

Then the two participants plus the witnesses all ate a covenant meal together to seal the deal.

Covenant Value

Sometime later Stanley and his men moved on beyond the village and eventually encountered another tribe. This group was very unfriendly, and Stanley thought they might attack and he and the men with him might be killed. Suddenly the strange tribe of warriors began to bow to Stanley and treat him like a great, honored personage.⁸ Stanley was puzzled until he saw they were looking at the spear he was carrying and at the scar on his wrist. They recognized the spear of the great chief with whom Stanley was now in covenant and knew the significance of the scar.

Stanley then began to have some understanding, to realize how valuable the spear and scar were and what they represented. No one would dare bother him as long as he was in covenant with this great chief. They treated him just like they would treat the great chief himself. The natives he encountered would give him anything he wanted. He soon ended up with a whole herd of goats.

Because he saw the great benefit to himself, Stanley went on to cut covenants with 50 tribal leaders in Africa.⁹ Can you imagine how secure he must have felt? How all his needs must have been met everywhere he went? How victorious his life must have seemed? Every time he lifted his arm with all those covenant scars, everyone could see what a protected man he was.

Covenants

There are three kinds of covenants, each progressing in intensity beyond the previous kind. They are verbal, written, and blood.

Verbal Covenant

A verbal contract or covenant can be something as simple as a dinner date. If the other party agrees to meet you for dinner at a certain time and place and doesn’t show up, you might be aggravated and offended because they’ve failed to keep their word. You may have some curt words for them, but that’s probably all you would do. It was only a verbal agreement.

Written Covenant

If someone failed to live up to a written contract, though, you would have more recourse and might follow through with it. The terms are spelled out in the signed, written contract, a Money-back Guarantee, detailing the service to be rendered or the goods offered. You might withhold your money or want it back if they failed to deliver, and you might even take them to court.

Blood Covenant

A blood covenant is much, much more serious. It is meant to last until the death of one of the parties, so it is a pledge to the death.¹⁰ Still today in some cultures if someone violates a blood covenant, his blood must be shed. That sounds dangerous, doesn’t it? The split animals we’ll see in the Abrahamic covenant represent the curse the covenant-maker calls down upon himself if he should fail to live up to the commitment which he has made in a blood covenant.

Tribal Covenants

Tribes in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere have always cut covenant with other tribes that could be of benefit to them. Weak tribes always seek to cut covenant with stronger tribes for protection. The stronger tribe agrees to come to the aid of the weaker in battle. Maybe the weaker tribe is good at using herbs to doctor wounds, or maybe they have some other special skill that will help the physically stronger tribe, so that the stronger tribe can see a benefit of being in covenant with them. They need each other.

Isolated tribes in different parts of the world today still cut covenant like this. They may have some variations, but the basics are the same, though they have never seen or heard from the other tribes to copy from them.

How did they all learn to cut covenant?

A Covenant Partner

Wouldn’t it be great to be in covenant with someone powerful like that chief or with 50 chiefs? Maybe in our society someone with political power would be a good covenant partner. Maybe a Mayor or Governor, or even the President.

Our President is considered to be the most powerful man in the world today. What if you could get him to cut covenant with you? Think of all the resources he has at his disposal that he could use to meet your needs. The Military could protect you. The Treasury Department could certainly fund all of your expenses. The State Department could introduce you to any important people with whom you needed to confer. There would be almost no limit to what you could have.

The only problem is, the President is only the most powerful man in the world as long as he is President. When he goes out of office, the power stays in the office. Your covenant would be of no use then.

Any politician could be voted out of office, or he could die before you, then your covenant would be at an end. You need to find a powerful someone who won’t die and who will always retain his power.

Since all men die, that leaves only God. What if you could get God to cut a blood covenant with you, to make a commitment to you like that chief made to Stanley? But God’s the Chief of the Chiefs, the strongest of the strong, the wisest of the wise. How could you ever persuade God to enter into such a binding agreement with you?

Discussion

1. Describe the situation that caused Henry Stanley to go to Africa.

2. What is a covenant?

3. Describe the covenant ceremony of Stanley and the chief.

4. What were the terms of their covenant?

5. What gifts were exchanged?

6. How did Stanley learn the value of the spear?

7. Name and define the three kinds of covenants.

8. If you want a covenant partner who won’t die and won’t lose his power, with whom do you need to cut covenant? Why?

Introduction

The Originator

I have good news for you: God desperately wants to be in covenant with you. Fortunately for you, God is a covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. In fact, God only deals with man on the basis of covenant. He always has. There can be no relationship with God apart from covenant,¹¹ say Kevin Conner and Ken Malmin in their book, The Covenants.

This is the first principle of God’s kingdom we need to understand:

Principle #1:

God deals with man on the basis of the covenant

He has with him.

Covenant-making originated with God. It was all His idea. That’s why isolated tribes in the jungle know about cutting covenant; their maker instilled the knowledge in them when He created man in His own image. He knew we would need the security of being in a committed relationship with Him most of all. He knew we would need the security of being in a committed relationship with each other, too. He said, It is not good for man to be alone (Gen. 2:18), so He gave him a wife and intended for him to be in covenant with her forever. God would initiate the covenants that were between Him and man, and He instilled in mankind the desire to initiate covenants with others.

Not only does He want a covenant, but God values covenant so much that once He has made it, He won’t break it. In Psalm 89:34-35, God said: I will not violate my covenant or alter what my lips have uttered. Once for all, I have sworn by my holiness, and I will not lie….

Principle #2:

God will not break covenant.

It is critical for us to understand that God sees His commitment as permanent. He even says He is married to the backslider: "‘Return, O backsliding children,’ says the Lord; ‘for I am married to you’" (Jer. 3:14a). This doesn’t mean that man can’t break covenant with God and become apostate, but God is always faithful to His commitment.

Whatever the covenant terms include, His covenant partner can always have; God would never deny something He had pledged in covenant to deliver. He would never break covenant. If you’re in covenant with Him and something you need is included in the terms of the covenant, you can always have it. If it’s not in the terms of the covenant, though, God has no obligation to grant it to you.

God so loved the world, He wanted man to understand how deep and everlasting His love is, so He cut a blood covenant, committing Himself in a binding relationship to man (Jn. 3:16).

We as Christians often live beggarly lives, while all the time having a blood covenant that provides abundant provision and protection, stored up and wasting, labeled with our names. All because we don’t understand covenant. Paul explains in Eph. 2:12-13 how we came to be in covenant with God, then in Eph. 1:15-18, he prays that we will come to understand what a privilege we’ve been granted: I…do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that…the eyes of your understanding be enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. He sums