Covenants, Are They Conditional?

[Pastor Larry]

It would appear to me that your explanation is incoherent.

It’s not. It is the standard explanation.

If a covenant has two promises attached, one for obedience and one for disobedience, why is it not clearly conditional? Can a covenant be made that has not either a promise of blessing or curse attatched? This covenant obviously has two, not one, promised ends.

The AC does not have two promises attached. The Mosaic covenant does, and that one is generally regarded as conditional. You are confusing the AC and the MC apparently.

In order for a covenant to be made, which is an agreement between two or more parties, all parties have to be in agreement at least at such a time as the covenant is made to enjoy the blessing promised. If the agreement between the two parties can be broken, and the promised outcome of it will be changed if the other to which the covenant is made disobeys, the covenant is indeed conditional. If the covenant states do this and live, do this and ye shall die, and one disobeys, you still have a covenant, but now the certain hope of that covenant becomes death not life, punishment not fellowship and blessing.

Yes, pretty much though it is oversimplified.

You admit that one can ‘forfeit’ participation in it which for all practical purpose makes the covenant, while one is in a state of forfeiting, of no good or beneficial effect, for it has been broken, disannulled, and ceased.

Totally incorrect. Not participating is not the same as the covenant being broken. (BTW, disannulled means not annulled). I can say, I promise to take all the people who come to my house at 11:00 PM out for a steak dinner. The fact that you don’t show up doesn’t mean the promise is broken. It means you don’t participate.

Again, I think you are confusing the AC and the MC.

It specifically states that if one fails to keep covenant, the blessing the covenant established would be disannulled and a curse would stand it its place between God and the man who broke covenant.

In the MC yes, but not the AC. The man who fails to practice circumcision does not break the covenant. He simply is cut off from his people. He is exiled, as it were so that he does not participate in the blessings of it.

The covenant we are addressing promises two, not one, consequents depending on their obedience or disobedience does it not? Do this and ye shall live, and do this and ye shall die is about as conditional as the mind can possibly consider. Why would you deny such a clear fact as this?

You are apparently talking about the wrong covenant. You quote Gen 17 about the AC but then act like you are talking about the MC. You have to decide which you are talking about. The AC is unconditional, though participation in it is tied to the MC.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Pastor Larry: The AC does not have two promises attached.

HP: Ge 17:10 “This IS my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you Ge 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” ………
Larry, there are two promises staring us in the face. No circumsision in the flesh, no covenant. Do this and ye shall live, fail to do this and ye shall be cut off.

What do you mean that the AC does not have two promises attached?

 

[Pastor Larry]

Ge 17:10 “This IS my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you Ge 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” ………
Larry, there are two promises staring us in the face. No circumsision in the flesh, no covenant. Do this and ye shall live, fail to do this and ye shall be cut off.

What do you mean that the AC does not have two promises attached?

The Mosaic covenant had two promises: blessing and cursing. The AC actually had three: land, seed, and blessing. By "one" I mean they were all positive.

What you are referring to is not the covenant itself. The passage makes that clear if you will simply read it. It clearly says that those who do not practice circumcision will be cut off from his people. That's not a covenant under the biblical/ANE definition of covenant. And it does not make the land, seed, and blessing conditional. It will happen to Abraham's descendants just as God promised.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Pastor Larry: What you are referring to is not the covenant itself. The passage makes that clear if you will simply read it.

HP: Pardon me? I believe I did read it and it states “Ge 17:10 “This IS MY COVENANT, which ye shall keep, between me and you Ge 17:13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant. and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised.” ………

I would think that when God uses the words “this is my covenant” and that “my covenant shall be in your flesh” it would be clear to any that circumcision was indeed the sign of the covenant that man was required to keep. It was the condition that God placed on the covenant, without which there was no covenant in effect. How can you miss, overlook, or ignore that clear condition of the covenant?

Pastor Larry: It clearly says that those who do not practice circumcision will be cut off from his people. That's not a covenant under the biblical/ANE definition of covenant.

HP: Please Larry, by all means give us the ‘biblical’ definition of a covenant.

Pastor Larry: And it does not make the land, seed, and blessing conditional. It will happen to Abraham's descendants just as God promised.

HP: You will have a whole eternity to explain that to all the Jews that died and or were exiled from their land, or the over six million Jews killed in the holocaust.

It must be nice to be God’s counselor and guide, informing Him what He can and cannot offer as conditional or withhold from one who breaks covenant. Whatever happened to God being Sovereign? Did not God state clearly that He divorced Israel? Jer 3:8 And I saw, when for all the causes whereby backsliding Israel committed adultery I had put her away, and given her a bill of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah feared not, but went and played the harlot also.

Does God need to be instructed, 'once a covenant always a covenant' and told that the conditions He placed upon them are not in keeping with the ‘ANE’ definition of a covenant, whatever that is?

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Pastor Larry: The fact that there are none given, and the fact that at the confirmation of the covenant in Gen 17, only God walked between the animals. If you study ANE covenants you will understand the significance of that.

HP: What denotes that God walking between the animals by Himself means that the other party is passive and therefore there are no conditions expressed of implied? This seems to me to be Pastor Larry’s position. If I am wrong, please set me straight.

If I were to take this position, how can such be established? Are we to simply assume that if covenants in the ANE are consummated in a certain way between men, and that proves that God must follow the same pattern and with the same implications? That assumes that ANE tradition always follows God’s set pattern as proved by ANE traditions. If one does not get dizzy in such circular reasoning as that, they are not exercising their minds to follow the designated circle. Such a method of establishing truth makes a mockery of sound reasoning.

God is not held to the notions and practices of ANE covenants, nor does ANE practices limit a Sovereign God in making a covenant any way He so desires to make it, consistent with or in opposition to any or all ANE practices. Does anyone else on the list understand as I am beginning to understand how the tactics of those always claiming the Sovereignty of God the loudest seem to over rule it at any juncture they so desire if it is needed to do so in order to support their notions?

What if God decided, for whatever reasons He so desired, to walk between the pieces Himself? Why could that simply not be significant in that it shows that it is God alone that is making this covenant apart from man, and man can simply choose after the covenant is made to either accept the conditions God sets forth or not.

My question would simply be, why is a Sovereign God limited to the practices of what might be termed ANE practices? The ANE was full of heathen rituals was it not? Why can we stand so firm upon what man was doing in the ANE, and force the rituals of man, and his understanding of what might have been understood in their own society as the meaning of them, upon a Sovereign God? What gives man the right to determine by his own devices and practices what God intends to be presenting to us in Scripture? That would be interpretation by reverse osmosis to me. It would be in effect establishing an 'ANE man made presupposition' by which all of God's covenants must be seen through without the least shred of hard evidence from God or Scripture confirming such to be true.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

Pastor Larry: It clearly says that those who do not practice circumcision will be cut off from his people. That's not a covenant under the biblical/ANE definition of covenant.

HP: Possibly Pastor Larry has gotten too busy to respond. While we wait for his response, would there be a brave soul (s) on the list that would like to play the devils advocate, or in fact would agree with Pastor Larry, that would take a shot at explaining why the clear conditions set forth by God in His covenant that required circumcision could not be a covenant in what Pastor Larry calls the “biblical/ANE definition of covenant?”

 

[billwald]

The Mosiac Covenant was a conditional covenant for living in Israel. It has nothing to do with the next life or gentiles in NYC.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

BW: The Mosiac Covenant was a conditional covenant for living in Israel. It has nothing to do with the next life or gentiles in NYC.

HP: One question that puzzles me would be knowing if in fact there was there any other way to have a right relationship with God outside of that covenant once it was instituted and being part of that people known as God’s children?

If one would have walked up to God and asked, what must I do to enherit eternal life in the OT subsequent to the covenant God made with Moses, what possibly might have been God's response to them ? Any thoughts?