Greetigns
A Covenant with a One-sided disposition
God is now continuously wooing each and every person to Himself. He did this for all that have ever lived and He will do this for all who are yet to live. God is active in revealing the work of Jesus to sinners and wooing (bringing) them into a covenantal relationship with Himself. The principle image and overarching framework for this revelation and atoning redemption comes through the biblical covenants. Its primary meaning is developed from the Hebrew word berith (brit = covenant).
The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; and he will shew them his covenant. Psalm 25:14
Through a series of covenants, God has laid down the means to establish a divine-human relationship. As the initiator, God supplies one side (the biggest part) of the covenantal relationship. At the same time, God desires a return of covenant love and obedience from His covenantal partners. God is with His people through the covenant. But now that we’ve talked about a covenant, what is it?
In general a covenant “presents the solutions to all of life’s deep problems, including cleansing from sin and an intimate relationship with the God of the universe.” The genius for the covenant is The Trinity. The divine-human covenant relationship is a natural outflow of the relationship between the members of the Godhead.
A covenant is a sovereignly administered bond in blood with a pledge to death. A normal covenant arrangement with two humans involved the process of cutting animals into halves. The halves would be arranged to that the two covenantal partners would walk between the slain animals declaring that as it was done to the animals so shall it be done to the one who breaks the covenant. The two partners were thus acting out the solemnity of the bond in blood. A covenant commits people to one another. Our fellowship with God is not based upon the human faithfulness of spiritual growth toward perfect – but on covenant. Covenant is a legal word with many of the normal ideas of contracts and weddings.
Christ’s completed atoning work on the Cross was a fulfillment of the covenant between the Father and the Son in which the plan of redemption was conceived.
In the NT, God used the word diaqhvkh to reveal His intentions. The usual Greek word for covenant was sunqhvkh. Since the usual word sunqhvkh denotes equality between two contracting parties God choose diaqhvkh to emphasize that the disposition of the covenant is distinctly one-sided from God to humans. He is the prime mover in the covenant arrangement.
Genesis 15 provides a vivid description of the initiation of the Abrahamic covenant. God had Abraham slay some animals and birds (9) and divide the pieces into two parts (10). When the sun went down, Abraham fell into a deep sleep (12). In that sleep, God appeared to him and made great promises to Abraham (13-16). Then God, as a smoking furnace (17), passed through the slain pieces. It is very important to notice that God went through the slain pieces ALONE. Since God alone went through the slain pieces, God bound Himself to Abraham to fulfill His promises given then and reaffirming the promises of Gen 12 regarding a nation, land, and a world-wide blessing. Since Abraham was asleep he was not bound to do anything.
The NSNS view would take this one-sided covenant (diaqhvkh) and make it a two way venture between equal parties. It is easy to show the one-sided nature of God’s New Covenant. God gave us four versions of the New Covenant. They are found in Jeremiah 31:31-34, Ezekiel 11:19-20, Ezekiel 36:26-30, and Hebrews 8:8-13. The Hebrews 8 version is really a quotation of Jeremiah 31. The clauses of this eternal, wonderfully lopsided (but for us), grace packed, new covenant are:
1. I [God] will put my laws into their mind
2. I will write them in their hearts
3. I will be to them a God
4. They shall be to me a people
5. They shall all know me
6. I will be merciful to their unrighteousness
7. I will not remember their sins and iniquities!
There is no hint of impossible human obedience or responsibility in these seven legally binding clauses! This is substantial difference from the nature of the suzerain/vassal Hittite treaties that formed the basis of the Pentateuch.
The new covenant is an everlasting covenant (Jeremiah 32:40, Ezekiel 37:26, Hebrews 13:20). The nature of this new contract/treaty is such that once we successfully “sign” the contract by placing our faith in Jesus Christ, then we cannot fail! The disposition of the Covenant is truly one-sided as all of the responsibility resides with God – not humans. This means that it cannot be annulled, negated, voided, canceled, stopped, disregarded, undone, or terminated – unless God is not faithful.
But the NSNS view claims that God is unfaithful! If they are right, how can we believe God’s Word? It is a terrible shame that so many buy this God denying belief.
The NSNS view also makes a catastrophic error by insisting that we are an equal party with God. They would exchange God’s faithful responsibility for fickle human faithfulness. The Bible and its covenants declare just the opposite. The new covenant is a one-sided disposition of God toward humanity. Stauffer is an NSNS advocate who makes human responsibility one of the foundational criticisms of OSAS. His fifth criticism shows this misunderstanding of biblical covenants when he writes:
When you accept the gift you come into a covenant relation with God. A covenant implies a twofold responsibility. A covenant is a voluntary agreement, or it is no covenant at all.
As usual, some small truth is contained in this gross error. The small truth is that humans have the responsibility to enter into a voluntary covenantal relationship with God. The gross error is the ignorance of the one-sided disposition of the covenant. In this aspect, it is sort of like rat poison that is 97% wholesome food. Should the rat be concerned about a trifling 3% poison? But here, since there are only two concepts and eternity is the outcome, the poison is much stronger. Stauffer totally ignores that the initiation of the covenant - its formation, its execution, and its free offer - is all of God’s doing.
There is no firmer guarantee of legal security, peace or personal loyalty than the covenant.
A covenant tells how God offers salvation to sinners. As a case in point, God offered His covenant to Abraham without regard to deeds or self merit. Most people do not realize that the Abrahamic covenant was sealed while Abraham was sleeping (Gen 15:12). While Abraham was asleep, God appeared as a smoking furnace and passed through the slain animal parts (Gen 15:17). In the OT, parties bound themselves to the covenant by passing through the slain body parts signifying that death be to the one who failed to keep the stipulations of the covenant. Thus, God bound Himself to the covenant and Abraham was not bound to do anything. Hence the Abrahamic covenant is another one-sided covenant where the responsibilities lie totally and wholly with God.
This one-sided covenant was expanded through Isaac and Jacob as God pledged Himself to them in spite of their consistent sin. God delivered undeserving Israel out of Egypt, because He remembered the covenant that He had made with their forefathers. The Psalmist confidently cried to the Lord for help because of the enduring covenantal relationship.
The Mosaic covenant was given to Israel and Israel alone. As God’s representatives, as recipients of God’s oracles, and as a peculiar people set aside unto God, they had responsibilities to live up to the character of the God Who choose them. The Law must be carefully handled in order to prevent either legalism or antinomianism.
The one-sided covenants culminated in the New Covenant first given to Ezekiel and Jeremiah and later used by the author of Hebrews. As shown above, there is no pronoun devoted to human responsibilities. The covenant is all of God – only to be passively received as a gift by believers.
Eternal Security is grounded in a proper understanding of one-sided covenantal theology.
