A Covenant is an agreement or relationship between two people or between God and man. It includes a promise, a condition, a penalty and a provision. It also involves obligations and benefits for performance. In general there are three types of Covenant:

A Covenant imposed upon one party by a superior party

When God wants to govern, relate to or establish a relationship with human beings he does it through a Covenant.

When the Bible uses the word "Covenant" to describe the relationship between God and man, it indicates a gracious responsibility that God has entered into for our benefit and God will bless those who will receive the promises due to their faith and who commit themselves to the obligations which this task involves.

In this assignment I will concentrate on Gods Covenant with man, in particular I will be looking at Gods Covenant with Adam, Noah, Abraham and Israel and emphasise why Covenants are an important theme for Biblical studies and Christianity as a whole.

"And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. (21) And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from youth; never will I again smite anymore every living thing, as I have done".

We should remember, "God's promises are not about the worthiness of the recipient. They are not even about the immediate evidence of God's pledge. Covenants are always about the faithfulness of the one making the promise" (WIB, 12).

As God predicted the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt, however God called upon Moses, a common man raised as an Egyptian prince to lead his people to freedom. With the help of God Moses persuaded the Pharaoh to let his people go, however soon after the Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued the Israelites, trapping them against the sea. God parted the sea and the Israelites crossed on dry land, the Egyptians followed but once the Israelites had crossed the sea closed over killing all the Egyptians. They then travelled on to Mount Sinai where God used Moses to present a list of laws to the Israelites. The laws were designed to cover every aspect of their life together as a community so that they could serve God and enjoy his blessings; they were given to Moses by God on the top of Mount Sinai, this took forty days and forty nights. The Covenant was put into writing, which gave it permanence and great authority.

As we have seen from the previous examples of biblical covenants made by God with man. God has used the covenants to form relationships with humanity while at the same time using the covenant as a basis to govern.

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Approximate Word count = 2845
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)