Covenant

A contract, or agreement between two or more parties on certain terms. The terms are made use of in the Scriptures for covenant in Hebrew and Greek. The former signifies choosing, or friendly parting; as in covenants each party, in a friendly manner, consented, and so bound himself to the chosen terms; the latter signifies testament, as all the blessings of the covenant are freely disposed to us. The word covenant is also used for an immutable ordinance, Jer 33:20. a promise, Exo 34:10. Is. 59: 21. and also for a precept, Jer 34:13-14. In Scripture we read of various convenants; such as those made with Noah, Abraham, and the Hebrews at large. Anciently covenants were made and ratified with great solemnity. The Scriptures allude to the cutting of animals asunder; denoting that, in the same manner, the perjured and covenant-breaker should be cut asunder by the vengeance of God, Jer 34:18. The covenants which more especially relate to the human race, are generally called the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

The covenant of works is that whereby God requires perfect obedience from his creatures, in such a manner as to make no express provision for the pardon of offences, committed against the precepts of it on the repentance of such offenders, but pronounces a sentence of death upon them, Gen 2:1-25: Gal 4:24. Psa 89:3-4. The covenant of grace is generally defined to be that which was made with Christ, as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed, Isa 42:1-6. 1Pe 1:20. Is. 52: 13.

I. the covenant of works was made with Adam; the condition of which was, his perseverance during the whole time of his probation; the reward annexed to this obedience was the continuance of him and his posterity in such perfect holiness and felicity he then had while upon earth, and everlasting life with God hereafter. The penalty threatened for the breach of the command was condemnation; terminating in death temporal, spiritual, and eternal. The seals of this covenant were, the tree of knowledge and the tree of life; and, perhaps, the Sabbath and Paradise, Gen 2:3: Gal 6: 24; Rom 5:12; Rom 5:19. This covenant was broken by Adam’s eating of the forbidden fruit, whereby he and his posterity were all subject to ruin, Gen 3:1-24: Rom 5:12; Rom 5:19; and without the intervention of the divine grace and mercy, would have been lost for ever, Rom 3:23.

The Divine Being, foreseeing this, in infinite wisdom and unspeakable compassion planned the covenant of grace; by virtue of which his people are reinstated in the blessings of purity, knowledge, and felicity, and that without a possibility of any farther defalcation.

II. The covenant of grace. Some divines make a distinction between the covenant of redemption and that of grace; the former, they say, was made with Christ in eternity; the latter with believers in time. Others object to this, and suppose it a needless distinction; for there is but one covenant of grace, and not two, in which the head and members are concerned; and, besides, the covenant of grace, properly speaking, could not be made between God and man; for what can man restipulate with God, which is in his power to do or give him, and which God has not a prior right unto? Fallen man has neither inclination to yield obedience, nor power to perform it. The parties, therefore, in this covenant, are generally said to be the Father and the Son; but Dr. Gill supposes that the Holy Ghost should not be excluded, since he is promised in it, and in consequence of it, is sent down into the hearts of believers; and which must be by agreement, and with his consent.

If we believe, therefore, in a Trinity, it is more proper to suppose that they were all engaged in this plan of the covenant, than to suppose that the Father and Son were engaged exclusive of the Holy Spirit, 1Jn 5:6-7. As to the work of the Son, it was the will and appointment of the Father that he should take the charge and care of his people, Joh 6:39. Heb 2:13, redeem them by his blood, Joh 17:1-26: Heb 10:1-39: obey the law in their room, Rom 10:4. justify them by his righteousness, Dan 9:24, &c., and finally, preserve them to glory, Is. 40: 11. Jesus Christ, according to the divine purpose, became the representative and covenant head of his people, Eph 1:1-23; Col 1:18. They were all considered in him, and represented by him, Eph 1:4. promises of grace and glory made to them in him, Tit 1:2. 1Co 1:20. he suffered in their stead. 2Co 5:21. He is also to be considered as the mediator of the covenant by whom justice is satisfied, and man reconciled to God.

See art. MEDIATOR.

He is also the surety of this covenant, Heb 7:22. as he took the whole debt upon him, freed his people from the charge, obeyed the law, and engaged to bring his people to glory, Heb 2:1-18. Is. 49: 5, 6. He is called the testator of the covenant, which is denominated a Testament, Heb 7:1-28. Heb 9:15. He disposes of his blessings according to his will or testament, which is unalterable, signed by his hand, and sealed by his blood. In this covenant, as we before observed, the Holy Spirit also is engaged. His assent is given to every part thereof; he brings his people into the enjoyment of its blessings, 1Pe 1:2. 2Th 2:13. He was concerned in the incarnation of Christ, Mat 1:18. and assisted his human nature, Heb 9:14. He takes of the things of Christ, and shows them unto us; cleanses, enlightens, sanctifies, establishes, and comforts his people, according to the plan of the covenant, Rom 8:15-16.

See HOLY GHOST.

III. The properties of this covenant are such as these:

1. It is eternal, being made before time, Eph 1:1-23; 2Ti 1:9.

2. Divine as to its origin, springing entirely from free grace, Rom 11:5-6. Psa 89:1-52

3. It is absolute and unconditional, Eph 2:8-9.

4. It is perfect and complete, wanting nothing, 2 Sam. xxiii 5.

5. It is sure and immoveable, Isa 54:10. Isa 55:3.

6. Called new in opposition to the old, and as its blessings will be always new, Heb 8:6; Heb 8:8.

IV. These two covenants above-mentioned agree in some things, in others they differ.

1. "In both, " says Witsius, "the parties concerned are God, and Man 1:1:

2. In both, the same promise of eternal life.

3. The condition of both is the same, perfect obedience to the law prescribed; for it is not worthy of God to admit man to a blessed communion with him but in the way of holiness.

4. In Both is the same end, the glory of God.

But they differ in the following respects:

1. In the covenant of works, the character or relation of God is that of a supreme lawgiver, and the chief good rejoicing to communicate happiness to his creatures. In the covenant of grace he appears as infinitely merciful, adjudging life to the elect sinner, agreeably to his wisdom and justice.

2. In the covenant of works there was no mediator: the covenant of grace has a mediator, Christ.

3. In the covenant of works, the condition of perfect obedience was required to be performed by man himself in covenant. In the covenant of grace the same condition is proposed, but to be performed by a mediator.

4. In the covenant of works man is considered as working, and the reward as to be given of debt. In the covenant of grace the man in covenant is considered as believing; eternal life being given as the merit of the mediator, out of free grace, which excludes all boasting.

5. In the covenant of works something is required as a condition, which being performed entitles to reward. The covenant of grace consists not of conditions, but of promises: the life to be obtained; faith, by which we are made partakers of Christ; perseverance, and, in a word, the whole of salvation, are absolutely promised.

6. The special end of the covenant of works was the manifestation of the holiness, goodness, and justice of God; but the special end of the covenant of grace, is the praise of the glory of his grace, and the revelation of his unsearchable and manifold wisdom."

7. The covenant of works was only for a time, but the covenant of grace stands sure for ever.

V. The administration of the covenant of grace.

The covenant of grace, under the Old Testament, was exhibited by promises, sacrifices, types, ordinances, and prophecies. Under the New it is administered in the preaching of the Gospel, baptism, and the Lord’s supper; in which grace and salvation are held forth in more fulness, evidence, and efficacy to all nations, 2Co 3:6-18. Heb 8:1-13: Mat 28:19-20. But in both periods, the mediator, the whole substance, blessings, and manner of obtaining an interest therein by faith, are the very same, without any difference, Heb 11:6. Gal 3:7; Gal 3:14. The reader, who may wish to have a more enlarged view of this subject, may peruse Witsius, Strong, or Boston on the Covenants, in the former of which especially he will find the subject masterly handled. CONVENANT, in ecclesiastical history, denotes a contract or convention agreed to by the Scotch, in the year 1638, for maintaining their religion free from innovation. In 1581, the general assembly of Scotland drew up a confession of faith, or national covenant, condemning episcopal government, under the name of hierarchy, which was signed by James I. and which he enjoined on all his subjects. It was again subscribed in 1590 and 1596. The subscription was renewed in 1638, and the subscribers engaged by oath to maintain religion in the same state as it was in 1580, and to reject all innovations introduced since that time.

This oath, annexed to the confession of faith, received the name of Covenant, as those who subscribed it were called Covenanters. Solemn league and covenant, was established in the year 1643, and formed a bond of union between Scotland and England. It was sworn to and subscribed by many in both nations; who hereby solemnly abjured popery and prelacy, and combined together for their mutual defence. It was approved by the parliament and assembly at Westminister, and ratified by the general assembly of Scotland in 1645. King Charles I. disapproved of it when he surrendered himself to the Scots army in 1646; but, in 1650, Charles Ii. declared his approbation both of this and the national covenant by a solemn oath; and, in August of the same year, made a farther declaration at Dunfermline to the same purpose, which was also renewed on occasion of his coronation at Scone, in 1651. The covenant was ratified by parliament in this year; and the subscription of it was required by every member, without which, the constitution of the parliament was declared null and void. It produced a series of distractions in the subsequent history of that country, and was voted illegal by parliament, and provision made against it. Stat. 14. Car. 2, 100:4.

The Scripture sense of this word is the same as in the circumstances of common life; namely, an agreement between parties. Thus Abraham and Abimelech entered into covenant at Beersheba. (Gen. xxi. 32.) And in like manner, David and Jonathan. (1Sa 20:42.) To the same amount, in point of explanation, must we accept what is related in Scripture of God’s covenant concerning redemption, made between the sacred persons of the GODHEAD, when the holy undivided Three in One engaged to, and with, each other, for the salvation of the church of God in Christ. This is that everlasting covenant which was entered into, and formed in the council of peace before the word began. For so the apostle was commissioned by the Holy Ghost, to inform the church concerning that eternal life which was given us, he saith, in Christ Jesus, "before the world began? (Tit. i. 2. 2 Tim. i. 9.) So that this everlasting covenant becomes the bottom and foundation in JEHOVAH’S appointment, and security of all grace and mercy for the church here, and of all glory and happiness hereafter, through the alone person, work, blood - shedding, and obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is on this account that his church is chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world. (Ephes. i. 4.) And from this appointment, before all worlds, result all the after mercies in time, by which the happy partakers of such unspeakable grace and mercy are regenerated, called, adopted, made willing in the day of God’s power, and are justified, sanctified, and, at length, fully glorified, to the praise of JEHOVAH’S grace, who hath made them accepted in the Beloved.

Such are the outlines of this blessed covenant. And which hath all properties contained in it to make it blessed. It is, therefore, very properly called in Scripture everlasting; for it is sure, unchangeable, and liable to no possibility of error or misapplication. Hence, the patriarch David, with his dying breath, amidst all the untoward circumstances which took place in himself and his family, took refuge and consolation in this: "Although (said he, ) my house be not so with God, yet hath he made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." (2 Sam. 33. 5.) In the gospel, it is called the New Testament, or covenant, not in respect to any thing new in it or from any change or alteration in its substance or design, but from the promises of the great things engaged for in the Old Testament dispensation being now newly confirmed and finished. And as the glorious person by whom the whole conditions of the covenant on the part of man was to beperformed, had now, according to the original settlements made in eternity, been manifested, and agreeably to the very period proposed, "in [what is called] the fulness of time, appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself, " it was, therefore, called Covenant, in his blood. But the whole purport, plan, design and grace, originating as it did in the purposes of JEHOVAH from all eternity, had all the properties in it of an everlasting covenant; and Christ always, and from all eternity, "was considered the Lamb slain from thefoundation of the world." (Rev. 13. 8.)

The Greek word διαθηκη occurs often in the Septuagint, as the translation of a Hebrew word, which signifies covenant: it occurs also in the Gospels and the Epistles; and it is rendered in our English Bibles sometimes covenant, sometimes testament. The Greek word, according to its etymology, and according to classical use, may denote a testament, a disposition, as well as a covenant; and the Gospel may be called a testament, because it is a signification of the will of our Saviour ratified by his death, and because it conveys blessings to be enjoyed after his death. These reasons for giving the dispensation of the Gospel the name of a testament appeared to our translators so striking, that they have rendered διαθηκη more frequently by the word testament, than by the word covenant. Yet the train of argument, where διαθηκη occurs, generally appears to proceed upon its meaning a covenant; and therefore, although, when we delineate the nature of the Gospel, the beautiful idea of its being a testament, is not to be lost sight of, yet we are to remember that the word testament, which we read in the Gospels and Epistles, is the translation of a word which the sense requires to be rendered covenant. A covenant implies two parties, and mutual stipulations. The new covenant must derive its name from something in the nature of the stipulations between the parties different from that which existed before; so that we cannot understand the propriety of the name,

new, without looking back to what is called the old, or first. On examining the passages in Galatians 3, in 2 Corinthians 3, and in Hebrews 8-10, where the old and the new covenant are contrasted, it will be found that the old covenant means the dispensation given by Moses to the children of Israel; and the new covenant the dispensation of the Gospel published by Jesus Christ; and that the object of the Apostle is to illustrate the superior excellence of the latter dispensation. But, in order to preserve the consistency of the Apostle’s writings, it is necessary to remember that there are two different lights in which the former dispensation may be viewed. Christians appear to draw the line between the old and the new covenant, according to the light in which they view that dispensation. It may be considered merely as a method of publishing the moral law to a particular nation; and then with whatever solemnity it was delivered, and with whatever cordiality it was accepted, it is not a covenant that could give life. For, being nothing more than what divines call a covenant of works, a directory of conduct requiring by its nature entire personal obedience, promising life to those who yielded that obedience, but making no provision for transgressors, it left under a curse “every one that continued not in all things that were written in the book of the law to do them.” This is the essential imperfection of what is called the covenant of works, the name given in theology to that transaction, in which it is conceived that the supreme Lord of the universe promised to his creature, man, that he would reward that obedience to his law, which, without any such promise, was due to him as the Creator.

No sooner had Adam broken the covenant of works, than a promise of a final deliverance from the evils incurred by the breach of it was given. This promise was the foundation of that transaction which Almighty God, in treating with Abraham, condescends to call “my covenant with thee,” and which, upon this authority, has received in theology the name of the Abrahamic covenant. Upon the one part, Abraham, whose faith was counted to him for righteousness, received this charge from God, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect;” upon the other part, the God whom he believed, and whose voice he obeyed, beside promising other blessings to him and his seed, uttered these significant words, “In thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” In this transaction, then, there was the essence of a covenant; for there were mutual stipulations between two parties; and there was superadded, as a seal of the covenant, the rite of circumcision, which, being prescribed by God, was a confirmation of his promise to all who complied with it, and being submitted to by Abraham, was, on his part, an acceptance of the covenant.

The Abrahamic covenant appears, from the nature of the stipulations, to be more than a covenant of works; and, as it was not confined to Abraham, but extended to his seed, it could not be disannulled by any subsequent transactions, which fell short of a fulfilment of the blessing promised. The law of Moses, which was given to the seed of Abraham four hundred and thirty years after, did not come up to the terms of that covenant even with regard to them, for, in its form it was a covenant of works, and to other nations it did not directly convey any blessing. But although the Mosaic dispensation did not fulfil the Abrahamic covenant, it was so far from setting that covenant aside, that it cherished the expectation of its being fulfilled: for it continued the rite of circumcision, which was the seal of the covenant; and in those ceremonies which it enjoined, there was a shadow, a type, an obscure representation, of the promised blessing, Luk 1:72-73.

Here, then, is another view of the Mosaic dispensation. “It was added, because of transgressions, till the seed should come to whom the promise was made,” Gal 3:19. By delivering a moral law, which men felt themselves unable to obey; by denouncing judgments which it did not of itself provide any effectual method of escaping; and by holding forth, in various oblations, the promised and expected Saviour; “it was a schoolmaster to bring men unto Christ.” The covenant made with Abraham retained its force during the dispensation of the law, and was the end of that dispensation.

The views which have been given furnish the ground upon which we defend that established language which is familiar to our ears, that there are only two covenants essentially different, and opposite to one another, the covenant of works, made with the first man, intimated by the constitution of human nature to every one of his posterity, and having for its terms, “Do this and live;” —and the covenant of grace, which was the substance of the Abrahamic covenant, and which entered into the constitution of the Sinaitic covenant, but which is more clearly revealed, and more extensively published in the Gospel. This last covenant, which the Scriptures call new in respect to the mode of its dispensation under the Gospel, although it is not new in respect of its essence, has received, in the language of theology, the name of the covenant of grace, for the two following obvious reasons: because, after man had broken the covenant of works, it was pure grace or favour in the Almighty to enter into a new covenant with him; and, because by the covenant there is conveyed that grace which enables man to comply with the terms of it. It could not be a covenant unless there were terms,— something required, as well as something promised or given,—duties to be performed, as well as blessings to be received. Accordingly, the tenor of the new covenant, founded upon the promise originally made to Abraham, is expressed by Jeremiah in words which the Apostle to the Hebrews has quoted as a description of it: “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people,” Heb 8:10:—words which intimate on one part not only entire reconciliation with God, but the continued exercise of all the perfections of the Godhead in promoting the happiness of his people, and the full communication of all the blessings which flow from his unchangeable love; on the other part, the surrender of the heart and affections of his people, the dedication of all the powers of their nature to his service, and the willing uniform obedience of their lives. But, although there are mutual stipulations, the covenant retains its character of a covenant of grace, and must be regarded as having its source purely in the grace of God. For the very circumstances which rendered the new covenant necessary, take away the possibility of there being any merit upon our part: the faith by which the covenant is accepted is the gift of God; and all the good works by which Christians continue to keep the covenant, originate in that change of character which is the fruit of the operation of his Spirit.

Covenants were anciently confirmed by eating and drinking together; and chiefly by feasting on a sacrifice. In this manner, Abimelech, the Philistine, confirmed the covenant with Isaac, and Jacob with his father Laban, Gen 26:26-31; Gen 31:44-46; Gen 31:54. Sometimes they divided the parts of the victim, and passed between them, by which act the parties signified their resolution of fulfilling all the terms of the engagement, on pain of being divided or cut asunder as the sacrifice had been, if they should violate the covenant, Gen 15:9-10; Gen 15:17-18; Jer 34:18. Hence the Hebrew word charat, which properly signifies to divide, is applied allusively in Scripture to the making of a covenant. When the law of Moses was established, the people feasted in their peace-offerings on a part of the sacrifice, in token of their reconciliation with God, Deu 12:6-7. See CIRCUMCISION.

The word testamentum is often used in Latin to express the Hebrew word which signifies covenant; whence the titles, Old and New Testaments, are used to denote the old and new covenants. See TESTAMENT.\par A covenant is properly an agreement between two parties. Where one of the parties is infinitely superior to the other, as in a covenant between God and man, there God’s covenant assumes the nature of a promise, Isa 59:21 Jer 31:33,34 Gal 3:15-18 . The first covenant with the Hebrews was made when the Lord chose Abraham and his posterity for his people; a second covenant, or a solemn renewal of the former, was made at Sinai, comprehending all who observe the law of Moses. The "new covenant" of which Christ is the Mediator and Author, and which was confirmed by his blood, comprehends all who believe in him and are born again, Gal 4:24 Heb 7:22 8:6-13 9:15-23 12:24. The divine covenants were ratified by the sacrifice of a victim, to show that without an atonement there could be no communication of blessing and salvation form God to man, Gen 15:1-8 Exo 24:6-8 Heb 9:6 . Eminent believers among the covenant people of God were favored by the establishment of particular covenants, in which he promised them certain temporal favors; but these were only renewals to individuals of the "everlasting covenant," with temporal types and pledges of its fulfilment. Thus God covenanted with Noah, Abraham, and David, Gen 9:8,9 17:4,5 Ps 89:3,4, and gave them faith in the Savior afterwards to be revealed, 1Ch 3:25 Heb 9:15 .\par In common discourse, we usually say the old and new testaments, or covenants-the covenant between God and the posterity of Abraham, and that which he has made with believers by Jesus Christ; because these two covenants contain eminently all the rest, which are consequences, branches, or explanations of them. The most solemn and perfect of the covenants of God with men is that made through the mediation of our Redeemer, which must subsist to the end of time. The Son of God is the guarantee of it; it is confirmed with his blood; the end and object of it is eternal life, and its constitution and laws are more exalted than those of the former covenant.\par Theologians use the phrase "covenant of works" to denote the constitution established by God with man before the fall, the promise of which was eternal life on condition of obedience, Hos 6:7 1Ch 3:27 Gal 2:19 . They also use the phrase, "covenant of grace or redemption," to denote the arrangement made in the counsels of eternity, in virtue of which the Father forgives and saves sinful men redeemed by the death of the Son.\par

Covenant. The Hebrew berith means primarily "a cutting", with reference to the custom of cutting or dividing animals in two and passing between the parts in ratifying a covenant. (Genesis 15; Jer 34:18-19. In the New Testament, the corresponding Greek word is diatheke, which is frequently translated testament, in the Authorized Version. In its biblical meaning two parties, the word is used --

1. Of a covenant between God and man; for example, God covenanted with Noah, after the flood, that a like judgment should not be repeated. It is not precisely like a covenant between men, but was a promise or agreement by God.

The principal covenants are the covenant of works -- God promising to save and bless men on condition of perfect obedience -- and the covenant of grace, or God’s promise to save men on condition of their believing in Christ and receiving him as their Master and Saviour.

The first is called the Old Covenant, from which we name the first part of the bible the Old Testament, the Latin rendering of the word covenant. The second is called the New Covenant, or New Testament.

2. Covenant between man and man, that is, a solemn compact or agreement, either between tribes or nations, Jos 9:6; Jos 9:15; 1Sa 11:1, or between individuals, Gen 31:44. By which each party bound himself to fulfill certain conditions and was assured of receiving certain advantages.

In making such a covenant, God was solemnly invoked as witness, Gen 31:50, and an oath was sworn. Gen 21:31. A sign or witness of the covenant was sometimes framed, such a gift, Gen 21:30, or a pillar or heap of stones erected. Gen 31:52.

Hebrew berit, Greek diatheekee. From baarah "to divide" or" cut in two" a victim (Gesenius), between the parts of which the covenanting parties passed (Gen 15:9, etc.; Jer 34:18-19). Probably the covenanting parties eating together (which barah sometimes means) of the feast after the sacrifice entered into the idea; compare Gen 31:46-47, Jacob and Laban.

"A COVENANT OF SALT," taken in connection with the eastern phrase for friendship, "to eat salt together," confirms this view. Salt, the antidote to corruption, was used in every sacrifice, to denote purity and perpetuity (Lev 2:13; Mar 9:49). So a perpetual covenant or appointment (Num 18:19; 2Ch 13:5). The covenant alluded to in Hos 6:7 margin is not with Adam (KJV "men" is better, compare Psa 82:7), for nowhere else is the expression "covenant" applied to Adam’s relation to God, though the thing is implied in Rom 5:12-19; 1Co 15:22; but the Sinaitic covenant which Israel transgressed as lightly as "men" break their every day covenants with their fellow men, or else they have transgressed like other "men," though distinguished above all men by extraordinary spiritual privileges.

"Covenant" in the strict sense, as requiring two independent contracting parties, cannot apply to a covenant between God and man. His covenant must be essentially one of gratuitous promise, an act of pure grace on His part (Gal 3:15, etc.). So in Psa 89:28 "covenant" is explained by the parallel word "mercy." So God’s covenant not to destroy the earth again by water (Genesis 9; Jer 33:20). But the covenant, on God’s part gratuitous, requires man’s acceptance of and obedience to it, as the consequence of His grace experienced, and the end which He designs to His glory, not that it is the meritorious condition of it. The Septuagint renders berit by diatheekee (not suntheekee, "a mutual compact"), i.e. a gracious disposal by His own sovereign will. So Luk 22:29, "I appoint (diatithemai, cognate to diatheekee, by testamentary or gratuitous disposition) unto you a kingdom."

The legal covenant of Sinai came in as a parenthesis (pareiselthee; Rom 5:20) between the promise to Abraham and its fulfillment in his promised seed, Christ. "It was added because of the (so Greek) transgressions" (Gal 3:19), i.e. to bring them, and so man’s great need, into clearer view (Rom 3:20; Rom 4:15; Rom 5:13; Rom 7:7-9). For this end its language was that, of a more stipulating kind as between two parties mutually covenanting, "the man that doeth these things shall live by them" (Rom 10:5). But the promise to David (2 Samuel 7; Psalm 89; 2; 72; Isaiah 11) took up again that to Abraham, defining the line, the Davidic, as that in which the promised seed should come.

As the promise found its fulfillment in Christ, so also the law, for He fulfilled it for us that He might be "the Lord our righteousness," "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth" (Jer 23:6; 1Co 1:30; Rom 10:4; Mat 3:15; Mat 5:17; Isa 42:21; Isa 45:24-25). In Heb 9:15-18 the gospel covenant is distinguished from the legal, as the New Testament contrasted with the Old Testament "Testament" is the better translation here, as bringing out the idea of diatheekee, God’s gracious disposal or appointment of His blessings to His people, rather than suntheekee, mutual engagement between Him and them as though equals.

A human "testament" in this one respect illustrates the nature of the covenant; by death Christ chose to lose all the glory and blessings which are His, that we, who were under death’s bondage, might inherit all. Thus the ideas of "mediator of the covenant," and "testator," meet in Him, who at once fulfills God’s "covenant of promise," and graciously disposes to us all that is His. In most other passages "covenant" would on the whole be the better rendering. "Testament" for each of the two divisions of the Bible comes from the Latin Vulgate version. In Mat 26:28, "this is My blood of the new testament" would perhaps better be translated "covenant," for a testament does not require blood shedding. Still, here and in the original (Exo 24:8) quoted by Christ the idea of testamentary disposition enters.

For his blood was the seal of the testament. See below. Moses by "covenant" means one giving the heavenly inheritance (typified by Canaan) after the testator’s death, which was represented by the sacrificial blood he sprinkled. Paul by testament means one with conditions, and so far a covenant, the conditions being fulfilled by Christ, not by us. We must indeed believe, but even this God works in His people (Eph 2:8). Heb 9:17, "a testament is in force after men are dead," just as the Old Testament covenant was in force only in connection with slain sacrificial victims which represent the death of Christ. The fact of the death must be "brought forward" (Heb 9:16) to give effect to the will. The word" death," not sacrifice or slaying, shows that "testament" is meant in Heb 9:15-20. These requisites of a "testament" here concur:

1. The Testator.

2. The heirs.

3. Goods.

4. The Testator’s death.

5. The fact of His death brought forward. In Mat 26:28 two additional requisites appear.

6. Witnesses, His disciples.

7. The seal, the sacrament of the Lord’s supper, the sign of His blood, wherewith the testament is sealed. The heir is ordinarily the successor of him who dies, and who so ceases to have possession. But Christ comes to life again, and is Himself (including all that He had), in the power of tits now endless life, His people’s inheritance; in His being heir (Heb 1:2; Psa 2:8) they are heirs.

a mutual contract or agreement between two parties, each of which is bound to fulfill certain engagements to the other. In Scripture it is used mostly in an analogical sense, to denote certain relations between God and man. (See Danville Review, March, 1862.)

I. Terms. — In the Old Test. בְּרַית, berith’ (rendered “league,” Jos 9:6-7; Jos 9:11; Jos 9:15-16; Jdg 2:2; 2Sa 3:12-13; 2Sa 3:21; 2Sa 5:3; 1Ki 5:12; 1Ki 15:19, twice; 2Ch 16:3, twice; Job 5:23; Eze 30:5; “confederacy,” Oba 1:7; “confederate,” Gen 14:13; Psa 83:5), is the word invariably thus translated (Sept. διαθήκη; once, Wisdom of Solomon 1:16, συνθήκη; Vulg. faedus, pactum, often interchangeably, Genesis 9, 17; Numbers 25; in the Apocrypha testamentum, but sacramentum, 2Es 2:7; sponsiones, Wisdom of Solomon 1:16; in N.T. testamentum [absque foedere, Rom 1:31; Gr. ἀσυνθέτους]). The Hebrew word is derived by Gesenius (Thes. Heb. p. 237, 238; so First, Hebr. Handzw. p. 217) from the root בָּרָה, i. q. בָּרָא, “he cut,” and taken to mean primarily “a cutting,” with reference to the custom of cutting or dividing animals in two, and passing between the parts in ratifying a covenant (Genesis 15; Jer 34:18-19). Hence the expression “to cut a covenant” (כָּרִת בְּרַית, Gen 15:18, or simply כָּרִת, with בְּרַיתunderstood, 1Sa 11:2) is of frequent occurrence. (Comp. ὅρκια τέμνειν, τέμνειν σπονδάς, icere, ferire, percuterefoedus. See Sicvogt, De more Ebraeor. dissectione animalium foedera ineundi, Jen. 1759.) Professor Lee suggests (Heb. Lex. s.v. בְּרַית) that the proper signification of the word is an eating together, or banquet, from the meaning “to eat,” which the root בָּרָהsometimes bears; because among the Orientals to eat together amounts almost to a covenant of friendship. This view is supported by Gen 31:46, where Jacob and Laban eat together on the heap of stones which they have set up in ratifying the covenant between them. It affords also a satisfactory explanation of the expression “a covenant of salt” (בְּרַית מֶלִח, διαθήκη ἁλός,, Num 18:19; 2Ch 13:5), when the Eastern idea of eating salt together is remembered. If, however, the other derivation of בְּרַית. be adopted, this expression may be explained by supposing salt to have been eaten or offered with accompanying sacrifices on occasion of very solemn covenants, or it may be regarded as figurative, denoting, either, from the use of salt in sacrifice (Lev 2:13; Mar 9:49), the sacredness, or, from the preserving qualities of salt, the perpetuity of the covenant. (See below.)

In the New Test. the word διαθήκη is frequently, though by no means uniformly, translated testament in the English Auth. Vers., whence the two divisions of the Bible have received their common English names. This translation is perhaps due to the Vulgate, which, having adopted testamentum as the equivalent for διαθήκη in the Apocrypha, uses it always as such in the N.T. (see above). There seems however, to be no necessity for the introduction of a new word conveying a new idea. The Sept. having rendered בְּרַית(which never means will or testament, but always covenant or agreement) by διαθήκη consistently throughout the O.T., the N.T. writers, in adopting that word, may naturally be supposed to intend to convey to their readers, most of them familiar with the Greek O.T., the same idea. Moreover, in the majority of cases, the same thing which has been called a “covenant” (בְּרַית) in the O.T. is referred to in the N.T. (e.g. 2Co 3:14; Hebrews 7, 9; Rev 11:19); while in the same context the same word and thing in the Greek are in the English sometimes represented by “covenant,” and sometimes by “testament” (Heb 7:22; Heb 8:8-13; Heb 9:15). In the confessedly difficult passage, Heb 9:16-17, the word διαθήκη has been thought by many commentators absolutely to require the meaning of will or testament. On the other side, however, it may be alleged that, in addition to what has just been said as to the usual meaning of the word in the N.T., the word occurs twice in the context, where its meaning must necessarily be the same as the translation of בְּרַית, and in the unquestionable sense of covenant (comp. διαθήκη καινή, Heb 9:15, with the same expression in 8:8; and διαθήκη, 9:16, 17, with Heb 9:20, and Exo 24:8). If this sense of διαθήκη be retained, we may either render ἐπὶ νεκροῖς, “over, or in the case of, dead sacrifices,” and ὁ διαθέμενος, “the mediating sacrifice” (Scholefield’s Hintsfor an improved Translat:on of the N.T.), or (with Ebrard and others) restrict the statement of Exo 24:16 to the O.T. idea of a covenant between man and God, in which man, as guilty, must always be represented by a sacrifice with which he was so completely identified that in its person he (ὁ διαθἐμενος, the human covenanter) actually died (comp. Mat 26:28). SEE TESTAMENT.

II. Their Application. — In its Biblical meaning of a compact or agreement between two parties, the word “covenant” is used —

1. Properly, of a covenant between man and man; i.e. a solemn compact or agreement, either between tribes or nations (1Sa 11:1; Jos 9:6; Jos 9:15), or between individuals (Gen 31:44), by which each party bound himself to fulfill certain conditions, and was assured of receiving certain advantages. In making such a covenant God was solemnly invoked as witness (Gen 31:50), whence the expression “a covenant of Jehovah” בְּרַית יְהוָֹה, 1Sa 20:8; comp. Jer 34:18-19; Eze 17:19), and an oath was sworn (Gen 21:31); and accordingly a breach of covenant was regarded as a very heinous sin (Eze 17:12-20). A sign (אוֹת) or witness (עֵד) of the covenant was sometimes framed, such as a gift (Gen 21:30), or a pillar, or heap of stones erected (Gen 31:52). The marriage compact is called “the covenant of God,” Pro 2:17 (see Mal 2:14). The word covenant came to be applied to a sure ordinance, such as that of the shew- bread (Lev 24:8); and is used figuratively in such expressions as a covenant with death (Isa 28:18), or with the wild beasts (Hos 2:18). The phrases בִּעֲלֵי בְרַית, בְרַית אִנְשֵׁי, “lords or men of one’s covenant,’ are employed to denote confederacy (Gen 14:13, Oba 1:7). SEE CONTRACT.

2. Improperly, of a covenant between God and man. Man not being in any way in the position of an independent covenanting party, the phrase is evidently used by way of accommodation. SEE ANTHROPOMORPHISM. Strictly speaking, such a covenant is quite unconditional, and amounts to a promise (Gal 3:15 sq., where ἐπαγγελία and διαθήκη are used almost as synonyms) or act of mere favor (Psa 89:28, where חֶסֶדstands in parallelism with בְּרַית) on God’s part. Thus the assurance given by God after the Flood that a like judgment should not be repeated, and that the recurrence of the seasons, and of day and night, should not cease, is called a covenant (Genesis 9; Jer 33:20). Generally, however, the form: of a covenant is maintained, by the benefits which God engages to bestow being made by him dependent upon the fulfillment of certain conditions which he imposes on man. Thus the covenant with Abraham was conditioned by circumcision (Act 7:8), the omission of which was declared tantamount to a breach of the covenant (Genesis 17); the covenant of the priesthood by zeal for God, his honor and service (Num 25:12-13; Deu 33:9; Neh 13:29 Mal 2:4-5); the covenant of Sinai by the observance of the ten commandments (Exo 34:27-28; Lev 26:15), which are therefore called “Jehovah’s covenant” (Deu 4:13), a name which was extended to all the books of Moses, if not to the whole body of Jewish canonical Scriptures (2Co 3:13-14). This last- mentioned covenant, which was renewed at different periods of Jewish history (Deuteronomy 29; Joshua 24; 2 Chronicles 15, 23, 29, 34; Ezra 10; Nehemiah 9, 10), is one of the two principal covenants between God and man. They are distinguished as old and new (Jer 31:31-34; Heb 8:8-13; Heb 10:16), with reference to the order, not of their institution, but of their actual development (Gal 3:17); and also as being the instruments respectively of bondage and freedom (Gal 4:24). Consistently with this representation of God’s dealings with man under the form of a covenant, such covenant is said to be confirmed in conformity with human custom by an oath (Deu 4:31; Psa 89:3), to be sanctioned by curses to fall upon the unfaithful (Deu 29:21), and to be accompanied by a sign (אוֹת), such as the rainbow (Genesis 9), circumcision (Genesis 8), or the Sabbath (Exo 31:16-17). Hence, in Scripture, the covenant of God is called his “counsel,” his “oath,” his “promise” (Psa 89:3-4; Psa 105:8-11; Heb 6:13-20; Luk 1:68-75; Gal 3:15-18, etc.); and it is described as consisting wholly in the gracious bestowal of blessing on men (Isa 59:21; Jer 31:33-34). Hence also the application of the term covenant to designate such fixed arrangements or laws of nature as the regular succession of day and night (Jer 33:20), and such religious institutions as the Sabbath (Exo 31:16); circumcision (Gen 17:9-10); the Levitical institute (Lev 26:15); and, in general, any precept or ordinance of God (Jer 34:13-14), all such appointments forming part of that system or arrangement in connection with which the blessings of God’s grace were to be enjoyed.

Covenant. An agreement or mutual contract made with great solemnity. The Hebrew word bireth, for covenant, means "a cutting," having reference to the custom of cutting or dividing animals in two and passing between the parts in ratifying a covenant. Gen 15:1-21; Jer 34:18-19. In the New Testament the corresponding word is diathékç, which is frequently translated testament in the Authorized version. In the Bible the word is used: 1. Of a covenant between God and man; as God’s covenant with Noah, after the flood. The Old Covenant, from which we name the first part of the Bible the Old Testament, is the covenant of works; the New Covenant, or New Testament, is that of grace. 2. Covenant between tribes, Jos 9:6; Jos 9:15; 1Sa 11:1, or between individuals, Gen 31:44. In making such a covenant God was solemnly invoked as witness, Gen 31:50, and an oath was taken. Gen 21:31. A sign or witness of the covenant was sometimes framed, such as a gift, Gen 21:30, or a pillar or heap of stones erected. Gen 31:52. God’s covenants, from the beginning, have been with his people and their seed—with Adam, Gen 2:17; Rom 5:12; 1Co 15:22; with Noah, Gen 9:9.; with Abraham, Gen 17:7; Gen 22:18; with the Jews, Exo 6:4; Exo 19:5; Exo 20:6; Exo 34:27; Lev 26:9; Lev 26:42; Lev 26:45; Deu 4:9; Deu 4:37; with Christians, Act 2:39; Eph 6:2. A covenant of salt, Num 18:1-32; Num 19:1-22; 2Ch 13:5, was a compact in which salt was used in its ratification.

The Hebrew word for covenant is always Berith (ברית). this word is rendered διαθήκη in the LXX in every passage where it occurs, except Deu 9:15, where it is rendered μαρτύριονtestimony, and 1Ki 11:11, where it is rendered ἐντολή, commandment.

The word διαθήκη is confined to this one use in the LXX, with the exception of four passages, namely, Exo 31:7 and Lev 26:11, where it may represent a different Hebrew reading from that which we now possess; also Deu 9:5, where it stands for a ’word;’ and Zec 11:14, where it is used of the ’brotherhood’ (אחוה, Ass. akhutu) between Judah and Israel.

Translators have found much difficulty in giving a uniform rendering to the word beritheven in the O.T. Expressions answering to the words alliance, bond, compact, covenant, disposition, treaty, have been resorted to, but none of them are perfectly satisfactory, and for this reason, that while they represent the nature of a covenant between man and man, none of them are adequate for the purpose of setting forth the nature of God’s gracious dealings with man. The translators of the LXX evidently felt the difficulty, and instead of using συνθήκη, which would be the natural word for a covenant, used διαθήκη, which means a legal Disposition, and hence a Testament. [Testamentum, literally something attested or borne witness to, but always used of a will whereby we dispose of our goods.] The Syriac version transliterates the Greek word. The Arabic substitutes ahad, a compact. The Spanish translator De Reyna, after discussing in the Preface to his Bible the words Concierto, Pacto, and Alliança, comes to the conclusion that none of them are good, because what is needed is a word which signifies an agreement ’made in conjunction with the ceremonial death [The idea of bloodshedding in connection with the Abrahamic covenant was sustained in the memory of Israel by the rite of circumcision. See Act 7:8.] of an animal’ (hecho c on solemne rito de muerte de algun animal). on the whole, however, he thought it better to use a word which was an imperfect representation of beriththan to reproduce the word and thus convey no sense at all.

The Lord Jesus is called the mediat or of the new Covenant, because He is the medium where in the Disposition of God is carried into effect, whether as regards the individual or the race as a whole (Heb 8:6; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24). The inheritance which was given by promise to Christ (Gal 3:16) was conveyed by covenant (through his blood-shedding) to all believers (Gal 3:17; Gal 3:29), who are made one with Him by faith; and it is this union of God with man, and of man with God, in Christ, which is summed up in the N.T. sense of the word berith.

The crucial passage in the N.T. is Heb 9:17, which the R. V. renders, ’A testament is of force where there has been death: for doth it ever avail while he that made it liveth?’ this rendering does not go far to reduce the difficulty. The real point which the passage brings out is that the victim represents the makers of the covenant, i.e. the contracting parties, and they could only be united representatively in the victim by means of its death. So in the death of Christ man and God are made one. It is a covenant, not a last will and testament, which is in the writer’s mind.

To this subject as spoken of in scripture there are two branches:

1. man’s covenant with his fellow, or nation with nation, in which the terms are mutually considered and agreed to: it is then ratified by an oath, or by some token, before witnesses. Such a covenant is alluded to in Gal 3:15; if a man’s covenant be confirmed it cannot be disannulled or added to. When Abraham bought the field of Ephron in Machpelah, he paid the money "in the audience of the sons of Heth" as witnesses, and it was thus made sure unto him. Gen 23:16. In the covenant Jacob made with Laban, they gathered a heap of stones to be witness between them, and "they did eat there upon the heap." Gen 31:46. When the Gibeonites deceived Joshua and the heads of Israel, "the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord, and . . . sware unto them." Jos 9:14-15. So to this day, if a stranger in the East can get the head of a tribe to eat with him, he knows he is safe, the eating is regarded as a covenant. In 2Ch 13:5 we read of ’a covenant of salt;’ and to eat salt together is also now regarded as a bond in the East.

2. The covenants made by God are of a different order. He makes His covenants from Himself, without consulting man. With Noah God made a covenant that he would not again destroy the world by a flood, and as a token of that covenant, He set the rainbow in the cloud. Gen 9:8-17. This kind of covenant takes the form of an unconditional promise. Such was God’s covenant with Abraham, first as to his natural posterity, Gen 15:4-6; and secondly, as to his seed, Christ. Gen 22:15-18. He gave him also the covenant of circumcision, Gen 17:10-14; Act 7:8, - a seal of the righteousness of faith. Rom 4:11.

The covenant with the children of Israel at Sinai, on the other hand, was conditional: if they were obedient and kept the law they would be blessed; but if disobedient they would be cursed. Deu 27, 28.

In the Epistle to the Galatians the apostle argues that the ’promise ’ made by God - "the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ" - could not be affected by the law which was given 430 years later. Gal 3:16-17. The promise being through Christ, the apostle could add respecting Gentile believers, "If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to promise." Gal 3:29.

God’s promise of blessing to be fulfilled on the performance of a condition, as of obedience

Being Mindful Of The Lord’s Covenant

Deu_4:23; 1Ch_16:14-15.

The Covenant Of Peace

Isa_54:10; Eze_34:25-31.

The Covenant With Abraham

Gen_17:1-22; Neh_9:7-8; Psa_105:7-10.

The Covenant With Noah

Gen_6:18-22; Gen_8:21; Gen_9:8-17; Isa_54:9.

The LORD Being Mindful Of His Covenant

Gen_9:12-16; Deu_4:31; Deu_7:6-8; Jdg_2:1; Psa_89:26-34; Psa_105:7-8; Psa_111:2-9.

The LORD Making A Covenant With Israel

Deu_5:1-3; Psa_105:7-10; Isa_61:1-9; Jer_11:3-5.

The New Covenant With The LORD

Deu_6:5-6; Deu_30:1-6; Psa_37:31; Psa_40:8; Isa_51:3-7; Isa_55:1-3; Isa_59:21; Jer_3:14-18; Jer_24:1-7; Jer_31:31-34; Jer_32:37-40; Eze_11:16-21; Eze_36:22-27; Rom_11:26-27; Heb_8:6-13; Heb_10:16-18; Rev_21:1-4.

The Reward For Transgressing The Covenant Of The LORD

Deu_29:19-25; Deu_31:16-17; Jos_23:15-16; Jdg_2:20-23; 2Ki_18:11-12.

Those That Keep The Covenant Of The LORD

Psa_25:10; Psa_103:17-18; Isa_56:4-7.

Who Made A Covenant With Death

Isa_28:14-15.

Who Not To Make A Covenant With

Exo_23:31-32; Exo_34:11-16; Deu_7:1-2.

Who The LORD Keeps Covenant With

Lev_26:1-9; Deu_7:6-9; Deu_7:11-12; 1Ki_8:23; 2Ch_6:14; Neh_1:5; Isa_55:1-5; Dan_9:4.

Who The LORD Will Show His Covenant To

Psa_25:14.

COVENANT.—In order to a correct apprehension of the term ‘covenant,’ as it is used by our Lord in the Gospels, a brief survey of the OT usage is necessary.

The covenant conception is of frequent occurrence in the OT. Used at first in connexion with single transactions and partial aspects of the religious intercourse between God and man, it later becomes the formula designating the entire structure and content of the religion of Israel in its most comprehensive sense. This latter representation occurs as early as Gen 17:1-14, Exo 19:5; Exo 24:7-8, and often in Deuteronomy. The earlier covenants belonging to the time of Noah and Abraham (Gen 6:18; Gen 9:8-17; Gen 15:18) do not yet possess this comprehensive character, but appear as solemn religious rites whereby some particular promise of God is made sure. Whether the word b^erith (בְּרִית) originally meant ‘enactment,’ ‘appointment,’ ‘law,’ a meaning which it undoubtedly has in several instances, or did from the beginning signify a two-sided agreement, cannot be determined with certainty, It seems easier to conceive of the former sense as developed out of the latter than the reverse. At any rate, the comprehensive signification in which it stands for the whole religious relationship between God and Israel, rests on the idea of the covenant as a two-sided agreement. It should be remembered, however, that the two-sidedness never extends so far that God and Israel appear on an equal footing in the determination of the covenant. The planning and proposing of the covenant belong exclusively to God. Still the fact that Israel voluntarily accepts the covenant is as strongly emphasized (Exo 19:5; Exo 24:3; Exo 24:7, and elsewhere). Indeed, the covenant idea serves primarily to express the free, ethical, historically originated bond that exists between God and Israel. Its covenant character marks off the religion of Israel as a religion of real, conscious, spiritual fellowship between God and His people, in distinction from the religions of paganism, in which either the Deity and the creature are pantheistically fused, or the God-head after a deistic fashion is so far removed from the creature as to render true communion impossible, and where the relation between a national god and his worshippers is not a matter of choice but of necessity on both sides.

In the early Prophets the conception of the covenant is not particularly prominent. With Hosea, the figure of marriage, probably not viewed as yet by the prophet as a species of covenant, serves the same purpose. There is no reason, however, for denying that Hosea knew the covenant conception in its comprehensive religious sense, and on this ground to call in question the genuineness of 8:1. Greater prominence the covenant idea obtains from the age of Jeremiah onwards. Besides the emphasis thrown on the ethical-historical character of Israel’s religion, two other important principles attach themselves to the term, partly developing out of the principle just stated. On the one hand, the covenant idea begins to express the continuity of God’s dealings with His people; as it is a bond freely established, so it is the fruit of design and the fountain of further history, it has a prospective reference and makes Israel’s religion a growing thing; in a word, the covenant idea gathers around itself the thoughts we have in mind when speaking of a history of redemption and revelation. On the other hand, inasmuch as God is the originator of the covenant and has solemnly bound Himself not merely to fulfil His promises to Israel, but also to carry out His own purposes contemplated in the covenant, the same bond which originally expresses the freedom of the relation between God and Israel can also become the pledge of the absolute certainty, that God will not finally break with His people, Israel’s infidelity notwithstanding. In Isaiah 40-66, and especially in Jeremiah, the covenant thus stands to express the continuity and sureness of the accomplishment of the Divine purpose with reference to Israel. Out of the combination of these two ideas arises the Messianic or eschatological significance which the covenant idea obtains in both these prophets. In Isaiah 40-66 it is more than once introduced to emphasize the infallible character of the Divine promise given of old (Isa 54:9-10; Isa 55:3; Isa 59:21; Isa 61:8). In two passages (Isa 42:6; Isa 49:8) the servant of Jehovah is designated as בּרִית עָם, a somewhat obscure phrase, of which the two most plausible interpretations are, either that the servant will be the instrument of realizing the future covenant between God and Israel, or, placing the emphasis on עָם, that he will be the means of establishing a people ^e, a ^e in which Israel, in contrast to its present scattered condition, will once more become a unified, organized nation. These two passages are of importance, because they bring the idea of the covenant into connexion with the “figure of the Servant of Jehovah, which, assuming that the latter was Messianically interpreted by our Lord and applied to Himself, would explain that He represents Himself as the inaugurator of a new covenant.

In Jeremiah the covenant idea appears as a Messianic idea in two forms. In so far as the promise given to the house of David was a promise pledged in solemn covenant, the Messianic blessings are a covenant gift (Jer 33:20-21; cf. Psa 89:28, Isa 55:3). This is an instance of the old application of the idea to a concrete promise, which, however, in the present case, owing to the wide scope of the promise involved, would easily become identified in the mind of later generations with the expectation of an eschatological covenant in the comprehensive sense. The latter is the other form in which Jeremiah uses the covenant with reference to the future (Jer 31:31; Jer 31:34). This is the only place where the notion of a new covenant occurs explicitly, although the thought itself is not foreign to the older prophets. Hosea has it in the form of the new marriage which Jehovah will contract with Israel. Jeremiah conceives of the new covenant as the outcome of the covenant character of the relation between God and Israel in general. To the prophet’s mind religion and the covenant have become so identified that the covenant idea becomes the stable, permanent element in the historical development; if in its old form the covenant disappears, then in a new form it must reappear. The newness will consist in the twofold feature, that the sin of the people will be forgiven, i.e. the former sin, and that the law of Jehovah, instead of being an outward, objective covenant obligation, will become an inward, subjective covenant reality, written on the heart in consequence of the universal and perfect knowledge of Jehovah which will prevail. This passage in Jeremiah lies at the basis of the NT use of the phrase ‘the new covenant.’

Two further passages in the prophets, to which a Messianic application of the covenant idea could easily attach itself, are Zec 9:11 and Mal 3:1. In the former passage the original reads: ‘Because of the blood of thy covenant, I have sent forth thy prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water’; the LXX Septuagint has, in the second person of address to Jehovah, ‘Because of the blood of thy covenant, thou hast sent forth,’ etc. On the former rendering the covenant is the covenant made with Israel, or, since this interpretation of the suffix ‘thy’ is deemed impossible by some, we may refer the suffix to the compound phrase ‘covenant blood,’ and understand the phrase ‘thy covenant blood’ of the sacrificial blood by means of which Israel continually upholds and renews the covenant with Jehovah. On the rendering of the LXX Septuagint the covenant is represented as the covenant made and maintained by Jehovah. In the Malachi-passage the coming of the ‘angel’ or ‘messenger of the covenant’ is predicted. This ‘angel of the covenant’ is not identical with the Lord, but as a distinct person he accompanies the coming of the Lord to His temple. He is called ‘the angel of the covenant,’ either because he realizes the covenant, or because his coming is in virtue of the existing covenant. It is easy to see how on either view a significant connexion could be established between the Messiah and the covenant.

The LXX Septuagint regularly renders b^erith by διαθἡκη, the later Greek versions prefer συνθήκη. The latter term better expresses the idea of a two-sided agreement; but probably this was precisely the reason why the LXX Septuagint translators, desiring to emphasize the one-sided Divine origin and character of the covenant, avoided it. It should also be remembered that in not a few instances b^erith in the original meant not a covenant but an authoritative disposition, which, as stated above, is according to some scholars even the primary meaning of the word. On the side of the Greek, also, there were considerations which explain the choice of διαθήκη, in preference to συνθήκη. It is true, in classical Greek the former meant usually a testamentary disposition, and might in so tar have seemed unsuitable as a rendering for b^erith. But occasionally at least διαθήκη could stand for a two-sided agreement (Aristoph. Av. 432). The verb διατιθεσθαε was not bound to the notion of ‘testament,’ but signified authoritative arrangements generally. And above all things it should be noted that the testamentary διαθήκη among the Greeks before and at the time of the LXX Septuagint translation differed in many respects from our modern Roman-law ‘testament,’ and possessed features which brought it into closer contact with the Hebrew b^erith. The διαθὴκη was a solemn and public transaction of a religious character, by which an irrevocable disposition of rights and property was made, and which for its effect was not dependent on the death of the διαθέμενος, but immediately set in operation certain of the duties and relationships established. Thus conceived, the διαθἡκη could all the more easily become the equivalent of the b^erith between God and Israel, because already in the OT the idea of ‘the inheritance’ had significantly attached itself to that of the covenant.

In the NT the noun used is always διαθηκη, but the cognate forms of συνθήκη appear in the verb (Luk 22:5) and the adjective (Rom 1:31). διαθήκη occurs in the NT 33 times. The word retains the one-sided associations of the LXX Septuagint usage, yet in most cases the NT writers show themselves aware of the peculiar covenant-meaning descended with it from the OT. An additional possibility of interpreting it in the sense of testament was furnished by the fact that the blessings of the Messianic era were derived from the death of Christ. Hence in Heb 9:16-17 the new covenant is represented as a testament bestowing upon believers the eternal inheritance, because the death of Christ had to intervene to make the bestowal effectual. As Ramsay has pointed out (Expositor, Nov. 1898, pp. 321–330), this representation is based on Roman law, according to which a testament has no force until the death of the testator. On the other hand, the Pauline representation of Gal 3:17-18 is based on the Graeco-Syrian law of the earlier period, under which the διαθήκη, once made, could not be subsequently modified, and took effect in certain directions immediately. No reflexion is here made on the death of the testator. Still, that διαθἡκη, does not here have the unmodified OT sense of ‘covenant,’ but means ‘testamentary disposition,’ is plain from the fact that ‘sonship’ and ‘heirship’ are connected with it in the course of the argument. These two passages in Hebrews and Galatiana are the only NT passages which explicitly refer to the testamentary character of the διαθἡκη. In how far in other instances the associations of the testament idea lay in the speaker’s or writer’s mind cannot be determined with certainty (cf. Act 3:25 υἱαὶ τῆς διαθήκης; Gal 4:24 διαθήκη γεννῶσα εἰς δουλείαν)

In the Authorized Version of the NT διαθήκη is in 14 instances rendered by ‘testament’ (Mat 26:28, Mar 14:24, Luk 22:20, 1Co 11:25, 2Co 3:6; 2Co 3:14, Heb 7:22; Heb 9:15 bis. Heb 9:16-18; Heb 9:20, Rev 11:19). As a marginal alternative ‘testament’ is also offered in Rom 9:4, Gal 3:15; Gal 4:25, Heb 8:6; Heb 12:24; Heb 13:20. In all these cases, except in Heb 9:16-17, the Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 has replaced ‘testament’ by ‘covenant,’ offering, however, the former as a marginal alternative in Mat 26:28, Mar 14:24, Luk 22:20, 1Co 11:25, 2Co 3:6; 2Co 3:14, Gal 3:15; Gal 3:17, Heb 7:22; Heb 8:6-9 bis., Heb 8:10; Heb 8:13; Heb 9:15 bis., Heb 9:20, Rev 11:19. In the American Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 the marginal reading ‘testament’ has in all these cases been dropped, except in Heb 9:15; Heb 9:20. The principle by which the Revisers were guided is plain. The only question can be whether, in view of what was stated above, they were right in rendering ‘covenant’ and not ‘testament’ in Gal 3:15; Gal 3:17. The point to be determined in each case is not whether the associations of ‘testament’ were present to the speaker’s or writer’s mind, but whether those of ‘covenant’ were absent: only where the latter is the case ought ‘covenant’ to be abandoned, and Gal 3:15; Gal 3:17 seems to belong to this class. What motives in each case underlie the choice of ‘testament’ and ‘covenant’ in Authorized Version is not so plain. Possibly these motives were not always exegetical, but derived from the usage of earlier (English and other) versions. The following explanation is offered tentatively: wherever the contrast between the old and the new διαθηκη is expressed or implied, ‘testament’ was chosen, because ‘testament’ had long since, on the basis of the Latin Bible, become familiar as a designation of the two canons of Scripture, in the forms ‘the Old Testament,’ ‘the New Testament.’ This will explain Mat 26:28, Mar 14:24, Luk 22:20, 1Co 11:25, 2Co 3:6; 2Co 3:14, Heb 7:22. In Heb 9:15-20, of course, the import of the passage itself required ‘testament.’ Heb 8:6. (‘a better covenant’) Heb 8:7. (‘that first covenant’) Heb 8:8. (‘a new covenant’) Heb 8:9-10; Heb 8:13 (‘a new covenant’), Heb 9:1 (‘the first covenant’), Heb 12:24 (‘the new covenant’), seem to run contrary to the explanation offered, but in each of these instances the context furnished a special reason for favouring ‘covenant’: in Heb 8:6-13 the discourse revolves around the quotation from Jeremiah, which had ‘covenant’; Heb 9:1 is still continuous with this section, and in Heb 12:24 the contrast between the mediatorship of Moses and that of Jesus, and the reference to the transaction of Exodus 24, suggested ‘covenant.’ In 2Co 3:6; 2Co 3:14 ‘testament’ was especially suitable, because here the idea of διαθἡκη might seem to approach that of a body of writings (2Co 3:14 ‘the reading of the Old Testament’). Strange and unexplained is Rev 11:19 (‘the ark of his testament’), cf. Heb 9:4 (‘the ark of the covenant’).

It seems strange at first sight that a conception so prominent in the OT is so little utilized in the NT. Perhaps the main reason for this was the intensity of the eschatological interest in that age, which made other terms appear more suitable to describe the new order of things felt to be approaching or to have already begun. On the whole, the covenant idea had not been intimately associated with eschatology in the OT. The consciousness that the work of Christ had ushered in a new state of things for the present life of the people of God, distinct and detached from the legal life of Judaism, for which latter the word ‘covenant ‘had become the characteristic expression, dawned only gradually upon the early Church. The phrase ‘Kingdom of God,’ while emphasizing the newness of the Messianic order of things, leaves unexpressed the superseding of the Mosaic institutions by the introduction of something else.

With this agrees the fact that the conception of Christianity as a covenant is most familiar to precisely those two NT writers who with greatest clearness and emphasis draw the contrast between the Mosaic forms of life and those of the Christian era, viz. St. Paul and the author of Hebrews. Even with St. Paul, however, the contrast referred to finds only occasional expression in terms of the covenant: as a rule, it is expressed in other ways, such as the antithesis between law and grace, works and faith. The Epistle to the Hebrews is the only NT writing which gives to the covenant idea the same central dominating place as it has in the greater part of the OT.

In the Gospels the word ‘covenant,’ in a religious sense, occurs but twice, in Luk 1:72, and in the words spoken by our Lord at the Supper. In the former passage the covenant with Abraham is referred to, and the Messianic salvation represented as a fulfilment of the promise of that covenant. The emergence of the idea here is in harmony with the best OT traditions: it expresses the consciousness of the sovereign grace and undeserved faithfulness of God which pervades the prophetic pieces preserved for us in the gospel of the incarnation according to St. Luke. Of course, in a broad sense the idea of the relation between God and Israel embodied in the word ‘covenant’ underlies and pervades all our Lord’s teaching. Notwithstanding the so-called ‘intensive universalism’ and the recognition of religion as a natural bond between God and man, antedating all positive forms of intercourse, our Lord was a thoroughgoing supernaturalist, who viewed both the past relationship of God to Israel and the future relationship to be established in the Kingdom not as the outcome of the natural religion of man, but as the product of a special, historic, supernatural approach of God to man, such as the OT calls ‘covenant.’ While probably the legalistic shade of meaning which the word had obtained was less congenial to Him, He must have been in full accord with the genuine OT principle expressed in it. Mar 8:38 and Mat 12:39 speak of the Jews as an ‘adulterous generation,’ and probably the later prophetic representation of the covenant as a marriage-covenant lies at the basis of this mode of statement.

The words spoken at the Supper were, according to St. Matthew (Mat 26:28) and St. Mark (Mar 14:24), τοῦτό ἐστιν τὸ αἷμά μου τῆς διαθήκης (AD in Matthew and A in Mark τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης); according to St. Luke (Luk 22:20) and St. Paul (1Co 11:25) τοῦτο τὸ ποτήριον ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη ἐν τῷ αἵματί μου [in 1 Cor. ἐμῷ αἵματι]. There is some doubt, however, about the genuineness of the context in St. Luke in which these words occur. In ^{D [Note: Deuteronomist.]} and some other MS^{S [Note: SS Manuscripts.]} , Luk 22:19 b (beginning with τὸ ὑπὲρ ὑμῶν) and Luk 22:20 are lacking. The textual-critical problem is a very complicated one (cf. Westcott and Hort, Notes on Select Readings in the Appendix, pp. 63–64; Haunt, Ueber die ursprüngliche Form und Bedeutung der Abendmahlsworte, pp. 6–10; Johannes Weiss, Das älteste Evangelium, pp. 294–299; Johannes Hoffmann, Das Abendmahl im Urchristenthum, pp. 7, 8 [all of whom adopt the shorter text]; Schultzen, Das Abendmahl im Neuen Testament, pp. 5–19; R. A. Hoffmann, Die Abendmahlsgedanken Jesu Christi, pp. 7–21 [who are in favour of the T^{R [Note: R Textus Receptus.]} ]. It ought to be remembered, though it is sometimes overlooked, that the rejection of Luk 22:19 b, Luk 22:20 as not originally belonging to the Gospel is by no means equivalent to declaring these words unhistorical, i.e. not spoken by Jesus. Wendt, e.g. (Die Lehre Jesu ^{2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , p. 496), assumes the originality of the shorter text in St. Luke, and yet believes, on the basis of the other records, that Jesus spoke the words which St. Luke, for reasons arising out of his ‘combination-method,’ omitted. (Similarly Haupt, p. 10). Still, as a matter of fact, with some writers the adoption of the shorter text is accompanied by the belief that it represents an older and more accurate tradition of what actually took place. On the other hand, it remains possible, even in retaining the T^{R [Note: R Textus Receptus.]} as originally Lukan, to believe that St. Luke’s source supplied him with a highly peculiar version of the occurrence preserved in Luk 22:15-19 a, and that he assimilated this to the other more current representation by borrowing Luk 22:19 b, 20 from St. Paul. On the whole, however, the acceptance of the genuineness of the longer text naturally tends to strengthen the presumption that a statement in regard to which all the records agree must be historical. Contextual considerations also seem to speak in favour of the genuineness of the disputed words. If Luk 22:19 b, Luk 22:20 do not belong to the text, St. Luke must have looked upon the cup of Luk 22:17 as the cup of the Sacrament, for it would have been impossible for him to relate an institution sub una specie. But this assumption, viz. that the cup of Luk 22:17 meant for St. Luke the cup of the Sacrament, is impossible, because Luk 22:18 comes between this cup and the bread of Luk 22:19. Further, Luk 22:18 so closely corresponds to Luk 22:18 as to set Luk 22:15-18 by themselves, a group of four verses with a carefully constructed parallelism between the first and the third, the second and the fourth of its members respectively; and inasmuch as Luk 22:17 belongs to this group, it cannot very well have been connected by the author with Luk 22:19 in such a close manner as the co-ordination of the cup and the bread in the Sacrament would require. In general, the advocates of the shorter text do not succeed in explaining how the author of the Third Gospel, who must have been familiar with the other accounts, and can hardly have differed from them in his belief that the Supper was instituted as celebrated in the Church at that time, could have regarded Luk 22:15-19 a as an adequate institution of the rite with which he was acquainted. It is much easier to believe that a later copyist found the cup of the Sacrament in Luk 22:17, and therefore omitted Luk 22:20, than that a careful historian, such as St. Luke was, should have deliberately entertained this view, even if he had found a version to that effect in one of his sources.

Altogether apart from the textual problem in St. Luke, the historicity of the words relating to the covenant-blood has been called in question. Just as the saying about the λύτρον in Mar 10:45 and Mat 20:28, so this utterance has been suspected since the time of Baur on account of its alleged Paulinizing character. Recently this view has gained renewed advocacy by such writers as W. Brandt, Die Evangelische Geschichte, pp. 289 ff., 566; Bousset, Die Evangeliencitate Justin des Märtyrers, p. 112 ff.; Wrede, ZNT^{W [Note: NTW Zeitschrift für die Neutest. Wissen. schaft.]} , 1900, pp. 69–74; Hollmann, Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, p. 145 ff. The principal arguments on which these writers rest their contention are, that whilst to St. Paul the idea of the new covenant is familiar, no trace of it appears elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus; that it is expressive of an antithesis to the OT religion and its institutions out of harmony with Jesus’ general attitude towards these; that in Justin Martyr’s version of the institution the disputed words do not occur (so Bousset); that the structure of the sentence in Matthew and Mark still betrays the later addition of the genitive τῆς διαθήκης (so Wrede). The mere fact, however, that a certain conception occurs with a degree of doctrinal pointedness in Paul, does not warrant us in suspecting it when it occurs in the mouth of Jesus. With St. Paul himself the shade of meaning of the word is not in every passage the same. It cannot be proved that the Apostle read into what were to him the words of the institution an anti-Judaistic significance, such as belongs to the conception in Gal 4:24 and 2Co 3:6. Even the characterization of the διαθήκη as καινή does not require us to assume this. Even to St. Paul, we shall have to say, the phrase καινὴ διαθήκη has in the present instance the more general soteriological associations, in view of which the antithesis of the new to the old and the superseding of the old by the new recede into the background. The new covenant is the covenant which fulfils the OT promises, rather than the new covenant which abrogates the OT law. With still more assurance we may affirm this of the words as ascribed to Jesus in Mark and Matthew. Here (apart from the hardly original reading of A and ^{D [Note: Deuteronomist.]} in Matthew and A in Mark) the explicit designation of the διαθήκη as καινή is not found. While the thought of the substitution of one covenant for another is undoubtedly the logical correlate of the statement even in this form, yet such an inference, if present at all, can have lain in the periphery only, not in the centre of the consciousness of Him who thus spoke.

It ought to be observed that the literal rendering of the words is not: ‘This is my covenant-blood,’ with the emphasis on the pronoun, but: ‘This is my blood, covenant-blood.’ The enclitic μου is too weak to bear the stress the former rendering would put upon it. Accordingly, μου belongs neither to διαθήκη nor to the compound idea ‘covenant-blood,’ but to the noun ‘blood’ only, as is also required by this, that τὸ αἷμά μου should be the exact correlate of τὸ σῶμά μου. The other construction, ‘my covenant,’ could only mean either ‘the covenant concluded with me,’ as in the original of Zec 9:11, or ‘the covenant made by me as a contracting party,’ as in the LXX Septuagint rendering of that passage, hardly ‘the covenant inaugurated by me between God and you.’ And yet the last it would have to mean here, if μου went with διαθήκη. By these considerations we are led to adopt the rendering ‘this is my blood, covenant-blood’; and this rendering makes it appear at once, that our Lord does not in the first place contrast His covenant-blood with the Mosaic covenant-blood, but simply speaks of His blood as partaking of the character of covenant-blood after the analogy of that used by Moses. But even if the comparison with the Mosaic covenant bore more of an antithetical character than it does, it would still be rash to assert that such an antithesis between the relation to God inaugurated by Himself and that prevailing under the Mosaic law could find no place in our Lord’s consciousness, especially towards the close of His life. His attitude towards the Mosaic law, as reflected in the Gospels, presents a complicated problem. This much, however, is beyond doubt, that side by side with reverence for the Law there is, both in His teaching and conduct, a note of sovereign freedom with regard to it. From the position expressed in such sayings as Mar 2:21-22; Mar 7:15-23 to the conception of a new covenant superseding the old there is but one step.

We take for granted that the words were actually spoken by Jesus. In view of the fact that He uttered them in Aramaic, the question, whether the rendering of Matthew and Mark or that of Paul and Luke more nearly reproduces the original, becomes difficult to decide and also of minor importance. Zahn (Evan. d. Matt. p. 686, note 52) suggests that from the Aramaic form רמי דדיתקא both renderings might, without material modification of the sense, have been derived. That the thought is in both forms essentially the same will appear later, after we have inquired into the content of Jesus’ statement.

The intricate problems connected with the institution of the Supper can here be touched upon in so far only as they bear upon the meaning of the words relating to the covenant. We give a brief survey of the various interpretations placed upon those words.

First we may mention the interpretation according to which the covenant spoken of by Jesus stands in no real connexion with His death. Most modern writers who detach the original significance of the act of Jesus from His death, assume that the reference to the covenant is a later addition. Thus Johannes Hoffmann makes Jesus say no more than ‘This is my body,’ ‘This is my blood,’ and interprets this as meaning, that the disciples must be closely knit together as members of one body, Himself forming the centre. The meal is a meal of friendship. The Saviour even at this eleventh hour did not expect to die, but confidently looked forward to the immediate glorious appearance of the Kingdom of God. With this thought in mind He asked the disciples to unite themselves symbolically into the little flock for which the Kingdom was appointed.

Dismissing this and similar views, because they leave the covenant words out of consideration, we note that Spitta has developed a hypothesis which, while cutting loose the Supper from the death of Christ, nevertheless interprets its symbolism as a covenant symbolism (Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristenthums, i. pp. 207–337). According to Spitta, the covenant is none other than the Davidic-Messianic covenant promised by the prophets, and inasmuch as this covenant had been frequently represented under the figure of a great feast, our Lord could by means of the Supper give to the disciples a symbolic anticipation of its approaching joys, the more so since the figure of a banquet to describe the eschatological Kingdom occurs also elsewhere in Jesus’ teaching. The partaking of this Messianic least could be represented as a partaking of the Messiah (‘This is my body,’ ‘This is my blood’), because the Messiah was the Author and Centre of these future blessings. Jesus, while knowing that His death was at hand, yet in faith projected Himself beyond death into the time of the Kingdom: the Supper was to Him a feast of joy, not a memorial of death. It was a single triumphant anticipation of the great feast of victory, not intended to be repeated as a rite. The present description of the covenant as a new covenant in the Pauline-Lukan record is, according to Spitta, a later modification of the conception in an anti-Judaistic direction. So far as its understanding of the term ‘covenant’ is concerned, this hypothesis has a certain OT basis to rest upon. To be sure, the Davidic covenant, to which Spitta makes Jesus refer, is in the OT a past covenant, a covenant made with David, the pledge and basis of future blessings, not a name for the blessings of the Messianic age themselves. But this might easily become blended with the prophetic prediction of a new covenant in the Messianic time, and then actually the covenant of David could become equivalent to the Messianic blessedness (cf. Isa 55:3 ‘the sure mercies of David’). There is, however, no prophetic passage which joins together the conceptions of the Messianic covenant and of a feast, so that no explanation is offered of the association of the one with the other in the mind of Jesus. The account of Exodus 24 far more plausibly explains the combination of these two ideas, for here the covenant and the feast actually occur together. And if this be the more direct source of our Lord’s reference to the covenant, then it follows that the blood and the covenant stand in a much more direct connexion with each other than Spitta assumes. According to Spitta, it is the blood which represents the personality of Jesus, who is the Author and Centre of the covenant. According to Exo 24:8 it is the blood directly inaugurating the covenant. Apart from every reference to Exodus 24, when the blood is brought into connexion with the covenant (‘this is my blood of the covenant’), it becomes entirely impossible to think of anything else than a covenant based on sacrificial blood: every other mode of joining these two terms is artificial. Spitta’s further assumption, that the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine stand for a partaking of the Messiah’s body and blood, as a symbol of the eating of the Messiah, altogether apart from His death, is highly improbable. The feast as a whole might be the symbol of a participation in the Messiah, though even the examples quoted by Spitta of this mode of speaking are not sufficient to prove a current usage, if the sacrificial meal be left out of account. Assuming, however, that the general phrase ‘eating the Messiah’ was familiar to Jesus and the disciples outside of every connexion with the sacrificial meal, the distributive form in which the records present the thought, that of eating the Messiah’s body and drinking His blood, could hardly have possessed such familiarity, and compels us, while not rejecting the idea of appropriating the Messiah, to think of Him as appropriated in His sacrificial capacity.

We turn next to the theories which recognize that the covenant stands through the blood in connexion with the death of Jesus. When the blood is called ‘covenant-blood,’ this undoubtedly implies that Jesus’ death is instrumental in introducing the covenant. Justice is not done to this when merely in some indirect way the death is supposed to prepare the way for the covenant, viz., in so far as it forms the transition to a higher life which will enable Jesus to bestow upon His disciples the covenant-blessings. Thus the direct nexus between the blood and the covenant is severed. The view stated is that of Titius (Die neutestamentliche Lehre von der Seligkeit, i. p. 150 ff.). According to this writer, the Supper is to be explained not from the idea of the forgiveness of sin, but from that of the communication of life. Titius does not identify this covenant with the consummate eschatological state; it is something intermediate between that and the communion with God into which Jesus introduced His disciples before His death. The new covenant is made possible by the death of Jesus, because through this death He will be raised into heaven, whence the powers of eternal life can descend upon His Church through the gift of the Holy Spirit. It may be justly objected to this construction, that in it the death of Jesus appears not as a source of blessing by itself, but as a more or less accidental entrance into the life of glory, from which the blessing flows. As Titius himself admits, in the abstract it would have been quite possible to procure the new covenant and the perfected communion with God without the intervention of Jesus’ death, viz., if it had pleased God to exalt the Messiah in some other way. Thus it becomes difficult to understand how so much emphasis can be placed by Jesus upon the appropriation of His death, or how He can require the disciples to drink His blood. The appropriation symbolized certainly cannot relate to the accidental form in which the blessing is prepared, it must have reference to the substance of the blessing itself. If the death is the object of appropriation, then it must possess a direct and intrinsic significance for the covenant in which the disciples are to share.

This is recognized by Wendt (Lehre Jesu ^{2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , p. 502 ff.), according to whom Jesus regarded His death as a covenant-sacrifice, standing in the same relation to the new covenant predicted by Jeremiah as the sacrifice brought by Moses sustained to the Sinaitic covenant. In his opinion, the record of Exodus 24 shows that the Mosaic sacrifice had nothing to do with atonement, but consisted of burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, meant as a gift to God expressing the people’s consent to His revealed law, and hence became a seal of covenant relation. The sacrifice pledged both God and the people. In analogy with this, Jesus represents His death as a gift dedicated to God, for the sake of which God will establish the new covenant, i.e. the state of salvation in the Kingdom of God, not, to be sure, on any strictly legal principle of recompense, but in harmony with His inexhaustible goodness and grace. Wendt’s interpretation is wrong, not so much in what it affirms as in what it denies. That Jesus regarded the sacrifice of His life as a gift to God, and ascribed to it saving significance because it was an act of positive obedience, may be safely affirmed. The confidence, however, with which He appropriates the effects of this act to the disciples does not favour Wendt’s assumption, that He made these effects dependent on a gracious will of God, imparting to the sacrifice a value which intrinsically it did not possess. But, apart from this, the analogy with the Mosaic sacrifice leads us to believe that Jesus did not confine Himself to viewing His death under the aspect of a gift. The prominence here given to the blood forbids us to interpret the sacrifice as exclusively, or even primarily, a symbol of gratitude or consecration to God. Even though the sacrifices brought were not specific sin-offerings, but burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, this does not eliminate from them the element of expiation. The Law itself speaks of expiation in connexion with the burnt-offerings (Lev 1:4), and the Passover-sacrifice, closely akin to the peace-offerings, certainly had expiatory significance. It may even be doubted whether the idea of a gift to God, except in the most general sense in which every sacrifice is a gift, was present to the mind of the author of Exodus 24. When Moses calls the blood sprinkled on the people ‘the blood of the covenant which Jehovah has made with you,’ this can scarcely mean ‘the blood by the dedication of which God is induced to make the covenant.’ It must mean either ‘the blood by whose expiatory power the covenant is inaugurated,’ or ‘the blood by which, as a bond of life between God and the people, the covenant is established and maintained.’ Perhaps it may express both of the thoughts just mentioned, since the ideas of expiatio and communio were often united in the conception of sacrifice. Besides this, the association in the mind of Jesus between the new covenant and the forgiveness of sine is rendered highly probable by the joint-occurrence of the two ideas in the Jeremiah-passage, where the forgiveness of sins is named as the great blessing of the new covenant. Now, if Jesus had this thought in mind, and spoke at the same time of the sacrificial pouring forth of His blood, then it was almost impossible for Him not to unite the two thoughts, so as to conceive of the blood as a blood of expiation securing forgiveness. It is by no means necessary to rest this argument on the words in Matthew ‘unto the forgiveness of sins.’ Supposing that these words are a later interpretation of the thought, we shall still have to recognize them as an essentially correct interpretation, which merely resolves the ὑτερ of Mark and Luke into περι + εἰς.

A further argument may be added to this from the part which the covenant conception plays in the second part of the Book of Isaiah in connexion with the figure of the Servant of Jehovah, who is called, as we have seen, the בִּרִית עָם. In our opinion, although this has been denied by Ritschl and others, there can be no doubt that the Servant-of-Jehovah-prophecy, and particularly Is 53, was an influential factor in determining the Messianic consciousness of Jesus. In this prophecy, however, the sacrificial role of the Servant, in an expiatory, vicarious sense, is so distinctly delineated, that, once fioding Himself in the chapter, Jesus could not conceive thereafter of His death, or of the relation of His death to the covenant, on any other principle than is here set forth (cf. Denney, Death of Christ, pp. 13–56).

As a matter of fact, the trend of recent investigation of the problem of the Supper is towards the acknowledgment, that the words, as they stand, not merely in Luke and Paul, nor merely in Matthew, but even in Mark, clearly express, and were intended by the writers of the Gospels to express, the expiatory interpretation of the death of Jesus. So far as the purely exegetical determination of the sense of the words ex animo auctorum (in distinction from the estimate put upon their historic credibility) is concerned, the traditional Church-doctrine is being more and more decisively vindicated. True, many modern writers, while granting this, emphatically deny that our Lord spoke, or could have spoken, the words which St. Paul and the Synoptists attribute to Him, or that what He spoke can have had the meaning which the words in their present setting and form convey. The two main reasons for this denial are, that, on the one hand, the teaching of Jesus about the sinner’s relation to God is such as to leave no room for sacrificial expiation as a prerequisite of the sinner’s acceptance, forgiveness flowing from God’s free grace; and that, on the other hand, in the early Apostolic Church the expiatory interpretation of the death of Jesus is not present from the beginning, as it would have been if Jesus had taught it, but marks a subsequent doctrinal development. Neither of these contentions has sufficient force to discredit the unanimous witness of St. Paul and the Synoptists. In point of fact, Jesus nowhere represents the forgiveness of sins as absolutely unconditioned. It is one of the gifts connected with the state of sonship in the Kingdom. Consequently, it is bound to His own person in the same sense and to the same degree as the general inheritance of the Kingdom is. Unless one is ready to assert with Harnack, that in the gospel, as preached by Jesus Himself, there is no place for His person, it will be necessary to believe that our Lord considered His own Messianic character and work of supreme importance, not merely for the preaching, but also for the actual establishment of the Kingdom of God. This being so, it became necessary for Him to combine with the specific form He gave to His Messiahship a specific conception of the manner in which the blessings of the Kingdom are obtained by the disciples. His views about the forgiveness of sins would be less apt to be determined by any abstract doctrine as to the nature of God, than by the concrete mode in which the developments of His life led Him, in dependence upon Scripture, to conceive of the character of His Messiahship and its relation to the coming of the Kingdom. If He anticipated death, as there is abundant evidence to show He did, from a comparatively early point in His ministry, then He could not fail to ascribe to this death a Messianic meaning; and this Messianic meaning, if there was to belong to it any definiteness at all, could hardly be other than that portrayed by the prophet Isaiah in the suffering Servant of Jehovah.

It is quite true that the silence observed by our Lord in regard to this important matter till very near the close of His ministry is calculated to awaken surprise. But this silence He likewise preserved till the same point with regard to His Messianic calling in general; the problem is not greater in the former respect than in the latter; the reasons which will explain the one will also explain the other. Nor should it be forgotten that, side by side with His high conception of the love of God, Jesus ascribed supreme importance to the Divine justice. He carefully preserved the valuable truth contained in the exaggerated Jewish ideas about the forensic relation between God and man (cf. Keim, v. 331, ‘A continual oscillation between the standpoint of grace and that of Jewish satisfaction can be established’). Recognizing this element in His teaching as something He did not hold prefunctorily, but with great earnestness of conviction, we have no right to assert that every idea of expiation and satisfaction must have been on principle repudiated by Jesus as inconsistent with the love of God. Nor is there much force in the second contention, namely, that the absence of the expiatory interpretation of the death of Jesus from the early Apostolic preaching proves the impossibility of deriving this doctrine from Jesus. The doctrine is certainly older than St. Paul, who declares that he ‘received’ ἐν πρώτοις, as one of the fundamental tenets of the Apostolic faith, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures (1Co 15:3). This ‘receiving’ on the part of St. Paul is separated by no more than seven years from the death of Jesus; according to recent schemes of chronology, by an even shorter interval. When in the discourses of the earlier chapters of Acts the emphasis is placed on the resurrection rather than on the death of Jesus, this must be explained from the apologetic purpose of these discourses. They were intended to prove that, notwithstanding His death, Jesus could still be the Messiah. Probably even upon the disciples themselves, at that early date, the full meaning of the teaching of Jesus concerning His death had not dawned; but if it had, to make this the burden of their preaching to the Jews would have been an ill-advised method. We know from these same discourses in Acts that the disciples looked upon the death of Jesus as foreordained. It is not likely that, holding this, they can have rested in it as sufficient for their faith, and entirely refrained from seeking the reasons for the Divine forcordination, which in this, as well as all other cases, must have appeared to them teleological. In the light of this, the references to Jesus as the Servant of God, which occur in these early discourses, sometimes in connexion with His suffering, become highly significant, partly because they sound like reminiscences of Jesus’ own teaching, partly because they render it probable that our Lord’s death was interpreted in dependence on Is 53. Finally, attention should be called to the central place which the forgiveness of sins occupies in the early Apostolic preaching. The prominence of this theme requires for its background a certain definite connexion between the Messiahship of Jesus and the forgiveness of sins, and this is precisely what is afforded by the expiatory interpretation of the Saviour’s death (cf. Denney, The Death of Christ, pp. 65–85, where the preceding points are luminously discussed).

On the grounds stated we conclude that there is neither exegetical nor historical necessity for departing from the old view, that Jesus represented His death as the sacrificial, expiatory basis of a covenant with God. The next question arising is, Who are meant as the beneficiaries of this expiation on which the covenant is founded? At first sight it would seem as if only one answer were possible, viz. those to whom He gives the cup in which the wine, the symbol of the expiating blood, is contained. Nevertheless, the correctness of this view has been of late strenuously disputed. This has been done mainly on the ground before stated, that for the disciples the whole tenor of our Lord’s teaching represents the forgiveness of sins as unconditioned, assured by the gracious love of God as such. Hence it is assumed that Jesus intended the covenant-sacrifice not for His disciples, but for the unbelieving mass of the people, who were so hardened in their unbelief as to render an atoning sacrifice necessary in order to their reacceptance into the favour of God (thus Johannes Weiss, Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, p. 28 ff.; and R. A. Hoffmann, Die Abendmahlsgedanken Jesu Christi, pp. 60–88). Weiss, while believing that the covenant-blood is primarily shed for the nation, would not exclude the disciples from its effects. Hoffmann, on the other hand, distinguishes sharply between those who are concerned in the covenant-sacrifice as its direct beneficiaries, i.e. the enemies of Jesus, and those whom He desires to appropriate the spirit of His self-sacrifice for others, and therefore invites to eat His body and drink His blood. The words spoken with the cup express on this view two distinct thoughts: (1) the blood is covenant-blood for the unbelieving Jews; (2) the blood as the exponent of the spirit of self-sacrifice of Jesus must pass over into the disciples, so that they too shall give their life for others. In other words, the disciples do not drink the blood in the sense in which it is defined by the phrase τῆς διαθήκης, but in the sense in which it symbolizes the subjective spirit on Jesus’ part which led Him to offer His life for others. It will be readily perceived that this introduces an intolerable dualism into the significance of the blood: it must mean at the same time objectively the life poured forth in death as the principle of atonement, and subjectively the life pouring itself forth in death as the principle of self-sacrifice. There is no hint in the words themselves at any such double meaning. From the simple statement no one would guess that the blood is drunk by the disciples in any other capacity than that in which the Lord describes it, as ‘blood of the covenant.’ St. Paul and St. Luke have not understood Jesus in the manner proposed; for, according to their version, the cup, that which the disciples drink, is the new covenant itself in the blood, not merely the blood which for others is the covenant-blood. Hoffmann has to assume that St. Paul and St. Luke misinterpreted the intent of Jesus, and regards Mark and Matthew as giving the correct version. But even into the words of St. Mark and St. Matthew his view will not fit readily. If our Lord invited the disciples to drink His blood, in the sense of receiving into themselves the spirit of His self-surrender to death, the description of this blood as covenant-blood becomes irrelevant to the expression of this thought. Whether the blood is covenant-blood or serves any other beneficent purpose, is of no direct consequence whatever for the main idea, viz., that it is the exponent of a spirit which the disciples must imitate, nay, the introduction of the former thought only tends to obscure the latter. Our Lord certainly did not expect the disciples to make the sacrifice of their own life a covenant-sacrifice in the sense His was for the nation. The ὑπὲρ πολλῶν in Mark and the περὶ πολλῶν in Matthew, to which Hoffmann appeals, cannot prove the exclusion of the disciples from the covenantal effect of the blood. The phrase is derived from Isa 53:11-12, where it serves to affirm the fruitfulness. the efficacy of the self-sacrifice of the Servant of Jehovah. This simple thought suffices here as well as in Mar 10:45 to explain Jesus’ statement that many will be benefited by His death. Who the many are, disciples or non-disciples, the ὑπὲρ πολλῶν alone does not enable us to determine.

The one question that still remains to be answered is, whether the covenant-blood appears in the words of Jesus, ‘This is my blood of the covenant,’ primarily as the blood which through expiation inaugurates the covenant, or primarily as the blood which by being sacramentally received will make those who receive it partakers of the covenant. Both meanings are equally well suited to the words themselves. In order to choose definitely between them, we should have to enter upon the extremely complicated discussion that has of recent years been carried on, and is still being carried on, concerning the origin of the Lord’s Supper and the significance of the act performed and the words spoken by our Lord on the last evening of His earthly life. A few remarks must suffice to indicate the bearings of this problem on the question before us. The two views above distinguished coincide with the so-called parabolic or purely symbolic and the so-called institutional or sacramental interpretation of the transaction. According to the former, Jesus did not mean to institute a rite, did not intend the act to be repeated, but simply enacted before the eyes of His disciples, in a visible parable, the drama of His death, indicating by the parabolic form He gave it that His death would be for their good through the inauguration of a covenant. According to the latter, Jesus instituted, and for the first time caused His disciples to celebrate, a rite in which He made the partaking of bread and wine, as sacramental symbols of His body and blood, to stand for the appropriation of His expiatory sacrifice and of the covenant founded on it.

It ought to be observed that these views are not in themselves mutually exclusive. The parabolic significance of the body and blood, as symbolizing death, must on the second view be assumed to form the background, expressed or presupposed, of the sacramental transaction—expressed, if the breaking of the bread and the pouring of the wine be made significant; presupposed, if the broken bread and the poured wine be made the starting-point of the observance. That the so-called parabolic view is frequently advocated in a form which excludes the sacramental complexion of the act, is due not so much to the view itself, but largely to a general theory on the nature of the parables of Jesus.

Jülicher, the foremost representative of the parabolic interpretation of the Supper (cf. Theologische Abhandlungen C. v. Weizsacker gewidmet, p. 207 ff.), is also the strenuous advocate of the theory that in every genuine parable of Jesus there can be but one point of comparison. Consequently it is insisted upon that, if the broken bread and the wine stand as figures for the death of Jesus, figures which involve the destruction of these elements, they cannot at the same time stand as figures for the appropriation of the benefits of His death, because this would involve the usefulness of the elements, the very opposite of their destruction. Julicher was not at first disposed to carry this to an extreme, but admitted that as a secondary point of comparison the usefulness of the bread and wine as food and drink might have stood before the mind of Jesus. Others, however, demand that on the parabolic view every figurative significance of the eating and drinking must be rigorously excluded, and make this a ground of criticism of said view, because in the records the eating and drinking are undoubtedly made prominent (cf. Johannes Hoffmann, Das Abendmahl im Urchristenthum, pp. 61–65, and Jülicher’s review of Hoffmann’s book in Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1904, col. 282 ff.).

Jülicher’s canon of interpretation, while on the whole representing a sound principle of exegesis, leads in single instances to the rejection of undoubtedly geouine material. It makes Jesus construct His parables with conscious regard to the unity and purity of their form, rather than with the practical end of their efficacy in view (cf. Bugge, Die Haupt-Parabeln Jesu). Where, as in the present case, the two points of comparison, that of the dissolution of the elements and that of their appropriation for nourishment, are so naturally combined into the one act of the meal, it were foolish to require the exclusion of either on the ground of a puristic insistence on the rules of formal rhetoric.

In all probability the combination of these two aspects of the symbolism was not first made by our Lord, but was antecedently given in the union of the OT sacrifice and the sacrificial meal. Schultzen (Das Abendmahl im Neuen Testament, p. 53 ff.) has shown, to our mind convincingly, that the eating of the bread and the drinking of the cup are placed by our Lord under the aspect of a sacrificial meal, for which His own death furnishes the sacrifice. As in the sacrificial meal the offerer appropriates the benefits of the expiation and the resulting benefits of covenant-fellowship with God (Exo 24:10-11, Psa 50:5), so the disciples are invited to appropriate by eating and drinking all the benefits of expiation and covenant-fellowship that are secured by the sacrifice of the Saviour’s death.

We may assume, therefore, that both the symbolism of sacrifice and the symbolism of the sacrificial meal are present in the transaction performed by Jesus. But the question still remains unanswered, whether the former is present in explicit form or merely as the unexpressed background of the latter. Those who emphasize the symbolical significance of the breaking of the bread, a feature named in all the records, hold that the death is not merely presupposed but formally enacted. On the whole, however, the trend of the discussion has of late been in the direction of the other view, which attributes no special significance to the breaking of the bread or the pouring forth of the wine, but makes the broken bread and the wine, as symbols of the death as an accomplished fact, the starting-point for the enacted symbolism of the sacrificial meal. It has been pointed out with a degree of force that the formula, ‘This is my body,’ ‘This is my blood,’ in the sense of ‘This symbolizes what will happen to My body and to My blood,’ is out of all analogy with Jesus’ usual parabolic mode of statement, because elsewhere not the symbol, but the thing symbolized, always forms the subject of the sentence (so Zahn, Das Evangelium des Matthäus, p. 687, note 53). It may also be urged that the natural sequence, in case a parabolic enactment of the death of Jesus were intended, would have been as follows: ‘He brake the bread and said: This is my body; and he gave it to them and said, Take,’ and similarly with the cup. As the record stands, the pouring out of the wine is not mentioned at all. It seems that Jesus took a cup which had already been filled. If He had intended to give a parabolic representation of the event of His death, He would have taken pains to fill one before their eyes. The fact that with both elements the giving to eat and to drink precedes the declaration of what the bread and the wine stand for, favours the view that this declaration deals primarily with the symbolism of the sacrificial meal. The words, ‘This is my body,’ then obtain the meaning: To partake of this bread signifies the partaking of My sacrificed body in a sacrificial meal; the words, ‘This is my blood,’ the meaning: To partake of this wine signifies the partaking of My sacrificial blood in a sacrificial meal. Thus we would reach the conclusion that the phrase ‘blood of the covenant’ has for its primary import: blood through the partaking of which participation in the covenant is assured. The Pauline-Lukan version, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood,’ cannot be quoted with conclusiveness in favour of either view. This version may either mean: this cup is by the blood it contains the new covenant, or: this cup is the new covenant, which new covenant consists in My blood. Each of these two renderings leaves open the two possibilities, that the shedding of the blood is represented as the source of the new covenant, or that the drinking of the blood is represented as the participation in the new covenant. To prevent misunderstanding, however, it should be stated once more, that the sacramental interpretation of the words has for its background the symbolic significance of bread and wine as exponents of the expiatory death of Jesus itself.

In conclusion, we must endeavour to define the place of the covenant conception thus interpreted within the teaching of Jesus as a whole, and its correlation with other important conceptions. Like the Kingdom of God, the Messiahship, and the Church, the Covenant idea is one of the great generalizing ideas of the OT, the use of which enables Jesus to gather up in Himself the main lines of the historic movement of OT redemption and revelation. From the Kingdom the Covenant is distinguished in several respects. The Kingdom conception is more comprehensive, since it embraces the eschatological realization of the OT promises as well as their provisional fulfilment in the present life, being on the whole, however, eschatologically conceived, the present Kingdom-powers and blessings appearing as so many anticipations of the final Kingdom. The Kingdom is also comprehensive in this other respect, that it covers indiscriminately the entire content of the consummate state, the external as well as the internal, the judgment as well as the salvation-aspect. Over against this the Covenant idea, while by no means pointedly excluding the eschatological state (in Hebrews the idea is used eschatologically, the new covenant coinciding with the αἰὼν μέλλων), yet is more characteristic as a designation of the blessings of believers in the present intermediate period. And among the manifold contents of salvation it pre-eminently designates the internal ones of forgiveness of sin and fellowship with God, as is already the case in the passage of Jeremiah.

If the word rendered by διαθήκη had in our Lord’s mind the associations of the word ‘testament.’ and if the statement found in the context of Luke (Luk 22:29-30), ‘I appoint unto you (διατίθεμαι ὑμῖν), even as my Father appointed unto me a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom,’ may be understood as having been suggested to Him by this testamental sense of διαθήκη, then this would bring the Covenant idea much nearer to the Kingdom idea, inasmuch as in the latter saying the full content of the blessedness of the final state is the object of the διατίθεσθαι. It is not certain, however, that the sequence of the narrative here in Luke is chronological, and that, therefore, these words were uttered immediately after the reference to the covenant-blood in the Supper. In Mat 19:27-29 words in part identical occur in a different connexion. In the Supper, God is the διαθέμενος, whereas here it would be Jesus. It is better, therefore, not to introduce the testamentary idea into the words of the Supper, and to adhere to the distinction between the Kingdom and the Covenant from the point of view already indicated. According to the Pauline interpretation, the Supper, and with it the Covenant, belong to the pre-eschatological state, in which believers are during the present life, for the Supper is a proclamation of the death of Jesus ‘until he come’ (1Co 11:26). The sayings in Mar 14:25, Mat 26:29, Luk 22:16; Luk 22:18 also mark the Supper and the participation in the Covenant as belonging to a state distinct from the final Kingdom of God. Our Lord, however, does not place this second stage of the covenant-life of the people of God in contrast with the former stage from the point of view that it involves the abrogation of the OT legal forms of life, as St. Paul does in 2 Corinthians 3 and Galatians 3. If it is a new covenant, it is new simply for the positive reason that it brings greater assurance of the forgiveness of sin and closer fellowship with God.

From the idea of the Kingdom that of the Covenant is still further distinguished, in that it appears in much closer dependence than the former on the Messianic person and work of Jesus. In our Lord’s preaching of the Kingdom, His Messianic person and work remain almost entirely in the background, at least so far as the verbal disclosures on this subject are concerned, while the matter comes to stand somewhat differently if the self-revelation contained in Jesus’ Messianic acts be considered. The Covenant is explicitly declared to be founded on His expiatory death, and to be received by the partaking of His body and blood. This importance of the person and work of Jesus, both for the inauguration and the reception of the Covenant, agrees with the view that the Covenant designates the present, provisional blessedness of believers, for this stage is specifically controlled and determined by the activity of Christ, so that St. Paul calls it the Kingdom of Christ in distinction from the Kingdom of God, which is the final state. The Covenant idea shares with the idea of the Church this reference to the present earthly form of possession of the Messianic blessings, and this dependence on the person and work of the Messiah (cf. Mat 16:18; Mat 18:17). The difference is that in the conception of the Church, the organization of believers into one body outwardly, as well as their spiritual union inwardly, and the communication of a higher life through the Spirit, stand in the foreground, neither of which is reflected upon in the idea of the Covenant. The Covenant stands for that central, God-ward aspect of the state of salvation, in which it means the atonement of sin and the full enjoyment of fellowship with God through the appropriation of this atonement in Christ.

Literature.—Rückert, Das Abendmahl, 1856; Baur, Varlesungen über neutest. Theologie, 1864, pp. 102–105; Volkmar, Die Evangelien, 1870, p. 560 ff., Jesus Nazarenus, 1882, p. 112 ff.; Guthe, de Fœderis Notione Jeremiana, 1877; Keim, Jesus of Nazara (English translation ), 1881, v. pp. 275–343; Wellhausen. Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, 1887, iii. p. 122; A. Brandt, Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theol. 1888, p. 30 ff.; W. R. Smith, R^{S [Note: S Religion of the Semites.] 2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , 1894; Lobstein, La Doctrine de la Sainte Cène, 1889, pp. 62, 258; Bousset, Die Evangeliencitate Justins des Martyrers, 1890, p. 112 ff.; V. Zittwitz, Das Christliche Abendmahl im Lichte der Religionsgeschichte, 1892, p. 5 ff.; Jülicher in Theol. Abhaudlungen C. von Weizsacker gewidmet, 1892, p. 217 ff.; Joh. Weiss, Jesu l’redigt vom Reiche Gottes, 1892 (2nd ed. 1900), p. 28 ff., Das älteste Evangelium, 1903, pp. 289–299; W. Brandt, Die Evangelische Geschichte, 1893, pp. 289 ff., 566; Spitta, Zur Geschichte und Literatur des Urchristenthums, 1893, i. p. 207 ff.; Mensinga in Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theologie, 1893, ii. p. 267 ff.; Gardner, The Origin of the Lord’s Supper, 1893; Haupt, Ueber die ursprüngliche Form und Bedeutung der Abendmahlsworte, 1894, p. 22 ff.; Schultzen, Das Abendmahl im NT, 1895, pp. 33–37, 41, 53, 55, 96; Grafe in Zeitschrift f. Theol. u. Kirche, 1895, pp. 101–138; Titius, Die Neutest. Lehre von der Seligkeit, 1895, i. p. 150 ff.; Joachim, ‘Die Ueberlieferung über Jesus letztes Mahl ‘in Hermes’ Zeitschrift f. Klassische Philologie. 1895, p. 43; Zockler, ‘Moderne Abendmahlscontroversen’ in Evang. Kirchenzeitung, 1895, p. 108 ff.; Kattenbusch, ‘Das heilige Abendmahl’ in Christl. Welt. 1895, Nos. 13–15; Kraetzschmar, Die Bundesvorstellung im A^{T [Note: T Altes Testament.]} , 1896; R. A. Hoffmann, Die Abendmahlsgedanken Jesu Christi, 1896, pp. 47–77; Schaefer, Das Herrenmahl, 1897, pp. 388–392; Ramsay in Expositor, Nov. 1898, pp. 321–330; Eichhorn, Das Abendmahl im NT, 1898; Smend, Alttest. Religionsgeschichte, 1899, p. 24 ff.; Giesehrecht, Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinaibundes, 1900; Wrede in Zeitschrift f. d. Neutest. Wissenschaft, 1900, pp. 69–74; Wendt, Die Lehre Jesu^{2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred]} , 1901, pp. 257–258, 502–509; Hollmann, Die Bedeutung des Todes Jesu, 1901, p. 145 ff.; Denney, The Death of Christ, 1902, pp. 46–60; Joh. Hoffmann, Das Abendmahl im Urchristenthum, 1903. The literature on the Lord’s Supper is not given complete, but only in so far as it is of importance for the discussion of the Covenant idea. See, further, art. Lord’s Supper.

Geerhardus Vos.

(= ; Septuagint, διαΘήκη Vulgate, "testamentum").

By: Executive Committee of the Editorial Board., Kaufmann Kohler, Louis Ginzberg, Richard Gottheil, Isaac Broydé, Emil G. Hirsch, J. Frederic McCurdy

—Biblical Data:

An agreement between two contracting parties, originally sealed with blood; a bond, or a law; a permanent religious dispensation. The old, primitive way of concluding a covenant (, "to cut a covenant") was for the covenanters to cut into each other's arm and suck the blood, the mixing of the blood rendering them "brothers of the covenant" (see Trumbull, "The Blood Covenant," pp. 5 et seq., 322; W. R. Smith, "Religion of the Semites," pp. 296 et seq., 460 et seq.; compare Herodotus, iii. 8, iv. 70). Whether "berit" is to be derived from "barah" =to cut or from a root cognate with the Assyrian "berit" = fetter (see Nathauael Schmidt, in Cheyne and Black,"Encyc. Bibl." s.v."Covenant"), or whether both Assyrian and Hebrew come from "barah"= to cut (compare "asar" = covenant and bracelet in Arabic; see Trumbull, l.c. pp. 64 et seq.), can not be decided here. A rite expressive of the same idea is (see Jer. xxxiv. 18; compare Gen. xv. et seq.) the cutting of a sacrificial animal into two parts, between which the contracting parties pass, showing thereby that they are bound to each other; the eating together of the meat, which usually follows, reiterating the same idea. Originally the covenant was a bond of life-fellowship, where the mingling of the blood was deemed essential. In the course of time aversion to imbibing human blood eliminated the sucking of the blood, and the eating and drinking together became in itself the means of covenanting, while the act was solemnized by the invocation of the Deity in an oath, or by the presence of representative symbols of the Deity, such as seven animals, or seven stones or wells, indicative of the seven astral deities; whence ("to be bound by the holy seven") as an equivalent for "swearing" in pre-Mosaic times (see Gen. xxi. 27, xxvi. 28, xxxi. 54; Herodotus, iii. 8; Josh. ix. 14; II Sam. iii. 12-20; W. R. Smith, l.c. pp. 252 et seq.). Salt was especially selected together with bread for the conclusion of a covenant (Num. xviii. 19; see W. R. Smith, l.c. p. 252; Trumbull, "The Covenant of Salt," 1899).

Covenant Between Men and Nations.

Every covenant required some kind of religious rite in which the Deity was invoked as a witness to render it valid (Gen. xxi. 23; Josh. ix. 19; Judges ix. 46; Jer. xxxiv. 18). The covenant made the life and property of the confederates ("ba'ale berit," Gen. xiv. 13) inviolable. To break "the covenant of the brothers" (Amos i. 9) was a heinous sin, and imposed the penalty of death (II Sam. iii. 28). The Mosaic law, therefore, forbade Israel making a covenant with the idolatrous inhabitants of Canaan or "with their gods" (Ex. xxiii. 32, xxxiv. 12; Deut. vii. 2). The covenant concluded by Solomon with Hiram (I Kings vi. 26), and those between the kings of Judah or Israel and the kings of Syria or Assyria and Babylonia (I Kings xv. 19; Hosea xii. 2; Ezek. xvii. 13), were therefore fraught with evil, nor could the covenant of Simon Maccabeus with Rome (I Macc. xiv. 24 et seq.) meet with anything but disapproval on the part of the Pharisees. The worst that can happen to a nation is to have its confederates ("anshe berit") conspire against it (Obad. i. 7). The pledge of matrimony also was, according to Mal. i. 13, 14; Prov. ii. 17; Ezek. xvi. 8, 61 (with which must be compared Job xxxii.), a covenant concluded before witnesses, and probably at some altar or sacrificial feast, at which the repast withthe wine seems to have been an essential feature (see Gen. xxiv. 54).

God's Covenant with Men.

The relation of man to the Deity was also conceived of in Biblical times as a covenant concluded by God with certain men or nations, from which all laws derived their sanctity and perpetuity. God, when creating the heavens and the earth, made a covenant with them to observe the rules of day and night (Jer. xxxiii. 25), and when the flood caused by the sin of all flesh had interrupted the operation of the law, He hung the rainbow in the clouds as a sign of the covenant, to assure men that it would not again be suspended on account of man's sin. He thus made a special covenant with Noah and his sons, requiring them to preserve and show due regard for all human life, while pledging the preservation of the order of earthly life for all generations (Gen. ix. 1-17). Regarding this so-called Noachian covenant see below.

God concluded a covenant with Abraham (Gen. xv. 18, xvii. 2, 7) by which He entered into a special relationship with him and his descendants for all time; and as a sign of this covenant he enjoined on them the rite of Circumcision. This Abrahamitic covenant, expressive of the religious character of the descendants of Abraham as the people of Yhwh, the one and only God, was renewed on Mount Sinai when, before the giving of the Law, Israel as a people pledged itself to keep His covenant (Ex. xix. 8). After the giving of the Law Moses sprinkled "the blood of the covenant sacrifice" half upon the people and half upon the altar of the Lord (Ex. xxiv. 6-8), to signify the mystical union of Israel and its God. Of this "everlasting" Sinaitic covenant between God and Israel the Sabbath is declared to be the sign forever (Ex. xxxi. 13-17). At the same time the tables of the Law upon which the pledge was made were called "the book of the covenant" (Ex. xxiv. 7), and the Ten Commandments "the words of the covenant" (Ex. xxxiv. 28); and so the tables containing these became "the tables of the covenant" (Deut. ix. 9, 15). Of peculiar significance to the people during its wanderings in the wilderness, and in its settled state in Palestine, was the Ark of the Covenant (Num. x. 33; Deut. x. 8, xxxi. 26; and frequently in Joshua, Samuel, and Kings), which was regarded as "the testimony" ("'edut") to the presence of the God of the Covenant in its midst.

Renewal of Covenant.

Four times in the history of Israel this covenant of Sinai was renewed: by Moses in the plains of Moab (Deut. xxix. 1, 9); by Joshua before his death (Josh. xxiv. 25); by the high priest Jehoiada after the idolatrous Queen Athaliah had been deposed and young Jehoash proclaimed king (II Kings xi. 17); and finally by King Josiah after the book of the Law had been found in the Temple and "all the words of the book of the covenant" had been read before all the people (II Kings xxiii. 2, 3). In fact, the Book of Deuteronomy dwells with special emphasis (see ch. iv.-v. and xxviii.-xxix.) upon the covenant made in Horeb for all generations; and Jeremiah (see ch. xi., xxxi., xxxiv.), as well as Ezekiel (ch. xvi., xvii.) also recurs often to the covenant; but Isaiah never mentions the word "covenant." This fact has led many modern Bible critics to assume that the covenant idea originated among the late prophets of Judea. But the accusation that Israel "forsook the covenant of the Law" was made as early as the time of the prophet Elijah (I Kings xix. 10), while both Hosea (ii. 18-20) and Jeremiah held out the promise that the covenant which Israel had broken, thereby forfeiting its existence as a nation before God, shall be written anew and upon the hearts of all, never to be broken again (Jer. xxxi. 31-34). It must be observed, however, that parallel with the Sinai covenant there is also continuous reference to the older covenant which God concluded with the Patriarchs as the guaranty of Israel's redemption and renewed salvation (Ex. vi. 4; Lev. xxvi. 42-45; Deut. iv. 31, vii. 12).

Covenant with Aaron and David.

Besides the covenant with the people of Israel, God concluded a special covenant with the priestly tribe of Levi, and specifically with the houses of Aaron (Num. xviii. 19; xxv. 12, 13; Deut. xxxiii. 9; Jer. xxxiii. 21; Mal. ii. 4; compare Ex. xxxii. 29; Deut. x. 8, xviii. 5) and King David (II Sam. xxiii. 5; Jer. xxxiii. 21; Ps. lxxxix. 4, 35; cxxxii. 12; II Chron. xiii. 5). These two covenants, together with the one made with Abraham (Gen. xv. 18), were meant to perpetuate the three possessions: the land, the Davidic monarchy, and the Aaronitic priesthood. The perpetual character of the Sinai covenant was accentuated by the seer of the Exile, and Israel itself was declared to be "a covenant of the people"; that is, a covenant-people among the nations united by the word of God (Isa. xlii. 6, xlix. 8, liv. 10, lv. 3, lix. 21, lxi. 8; compare Jer. i. 5).

Meaning of the Divine Covenant.

While every sacrifice was regarded as a renewal of the covenant with God (Ps. 1. 5), the conception of religion as a covenant concluded by God with man is peculiarly Jewish. The idea of the covenant of God is therefore coeval with the beginning of Israel as the people of God. It is also easy to understand why "berit" (covenant) became synonymous with the Law (Isa. lvi. 6 et seq.; Ps. xxv. 10, 14; 1.16; I Kings xi. 11). On the other hand, the idea of Israel as the covenant-people became more powerful when a prophet, "the messenger of the covenant," who would renew the covenant in the person of Elijah (Mal. iii. 3 [iv. 5]) was looked for, and still more when the preservation or violation of the covenant—that is, the maintenance or extermination of Judaism—was the question at issue between the two parties during the Syrian persecution (Dan. xi. 28-32; I Macc. i. 15. 63; Judith ix. 13; Ps. lxxiv. 20; see Elijah).

Special stress was laid on circumcision and the Sabbath during the Exile as the signs of the Israelitish covenant (Ps. lvi. 4-6), and they were regarded as the bulwarks of the faith in the Maccabean era (I Macc. i. 15, 45-48).

From this point of view the history of divine revelation was in the second pre-Christian century, seen in a new light. The broader and more cosmopolitan view dwelt on the covenant of God withman. According to Ben Sira, God made a covenant of life even with the first man (Ecclus. [Sirach] xvii. 12, probably based on Hosea vi. 12; compare Sanh. 38b). But it is especially the covenant of Noah which was interpreted by the Rabbis to include all the laws of humanity.

Noachian and Abrahamitic Covenant.

The strictly nationalistic view found its vigorous expression in the Book of Jubilees, according to which the Noachian covenant, particularly resting on the sacredness of blood, was concluded upon the identical day, the fifteenth of Siwan, on which the Sinaitic covenant was concluded (Book of Jubilees vi. 11 et seq.); it puts the Abrahamitic covenant, however, in the foreground (ib. xv. 11-34, xxi. 4, xxiii. 16, xxx. 21, xxxiii. 19) as the only condition of eternal salvation for Israelites.

The Old and the New Covenant.

When Jeremiah spoke of "the new covenant" which the Lord "will make with the house of Israel and the house of Judah" (Jer. xxxi. 31) he immediately explained his words by saying: "I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts" (ib. xxxi. 33; compare xxxiii. 40). Judaism knows of no other than the old Sinaitic covenant. Eternal as the covenant with heaven and earth is God's covenant with the seed of Jacob (Jer. xxxiii. 25 et seq.). Christianity, however, interpreted the words of the prophet in such a way as to indicate a new religious dispensation in place of the law of Moses (Heb. viii. 8-13). The Septuagint translation of the term "berit" being διαθήκη, which signifies both a compact and a last will or testament (Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion more correctly translate "berit" συνθήκη = covenant), the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews writes: "A testament is of force after men are dead, but not while the testator liveth; wherefore the first testament could not be dedicated without blood, as in fact Moses did enjoin the people by the blood of the testament; Jesus, however, as the mediator of the new testament offered his own blood for the redemption of the transgressions under the first testament" (ib. ix. 15-25 et seq., Greek). This strange view is based upon the idea expressed by Paul (Gal. iii. 15 et seq., Greek). "A man's testament [A. V. "covenant" gives no sense] if it be confirmed, no one disannulleth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, and this seed is Christ. The testament then confirmed by God in Christ can not be annulled by the law four hundred and thirty years thereafter. The law was added because of transgressions till the seed should come in Christ." It was obviously in opposition to the Passover blood of the covenant (Ex. xii. 23; Ezek. xvi. 6) that the early Christians at their communion meals proclaimed their faith in the crucified Christ as "the new testament (I Cor. xi. 25; Luke xxii. 20; Matt. xxvi. 28; Mark xiv. 24; see New Testament; Passover).

Bibliography:

Cheyne and Black, Encyc. Bibl., and Hastings, Dict. Bibl. s.v. Covenant;

J. Selden, De Jure Naturali Gentium Juxta Disciplinam Habrœorum, ii. 1;

H. Clay Trumbull. The Blood Covenant, New York, 1885;

Valeton, in Zeitschrift für Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 1892-93;

Kraetzschmar, Die Bundesvorstellung im Alten Testament, 1896;

S. Bernays, Gesammelte Schriften, i. 52;

Winer, B. R., and Riehm, Handwörterbuch des Biblischen Alterthums, s.v. Bund.

—In Rabbinical Literature:

The term "berit" is used occasionally in Talmudic-Midrashic literature in referring to the laws of nature, which are regarded as a sort of covenant between God and things (see Gen. R. xxxiv.; Niddah 58b); or it is used in the sense of a contract, as, for instance, "a covenant made with the lips" (M. Ḳ. 18; Num. R. xviii.), or a covenant made with the thirteen middot, that they may be efficient during prayer" (R. H. 17b; Yer. Ber. v. 9a), but it refers chiefly to God's covenant made with Israel, and with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Phineas, and David (Derek Ereẓ Zuṭa, i., end). Frequent reference is made in the liturgy to "the covenant with the fathers" (Lev. xxvi. 42, Hebr.). In one passage there is also a reference to the covenant made with the twelve progenitors of the tribes, by which a covenant like that made with the "fathers" is meant (Torat Kohanim; Beḥuḳḳotai, xxvi. 45). The intimacy existing between God and Israel as the descendants of the "fathers" was shown in the form of a covenant when Israel received the Torah (compare also Tanna debe Eliyahu R. iii.; Sifre, Deut. 4).

Repeated Covenants.

In view of the covenant between God and Israel concluded on Mt. Sinai, the phrase "the oath on Mt. Sinai" ("mushba' me-har Sinai"), referring to the duty of the Israelites to observe the Torah, frequently recurs in Talmudic literature. The following three ceremonies preceded this covenant: "milah" (circumcision), "ṭebilah" (baptism), "harẓa'at dam" (sprinkling of the sacrificial blood (compare Ex. xxiv. 6); hence they are deemed indispensable for the admission of a proselyte into the Jewish community (Ker. 9a; compare Proselytes and Proselytism). Besides the one on Mt. Sinai, a covenant was made on the departure from Egypt, and another shortly before the entry into the promised land (compare Deut. xxix. 11), when God made the Israelites swear that they would observe the Torah (Tan., Niẓẓabim, ed. Buber, p. 50; compare Soṭah 37b, top). Some especially important miẓwot are called simply "berit." In the first place stands circumcision (Shak. 135a; Mek., Yitro, ed. Weiss, 71), also designated "berito shel Abraham abinu" (the covenant with our father Abraham) (Abot iii. 17); and in the liturgy, in a passage dating from tannaitic times, "berit ḳodesh" (holy covenant). Akiba took "berit" (Ex. xix. 5) to mean the observance of the Sabbath and the recognition of God (Mek., Yitro, l.c.), while in the Zohar the Torah, circumcision, and God are designated by "berit" (Aḥare Mot, iii. 73b; compare also Zohar Pinḥas, iii. 220b, bottom).

Covenants Among Men.

The covenants between God and some of the elect mentioned in Scripture are a favorite subject of the Haggadah; and as early as the Book of Jubilees there is an explicit reference to the covenant between God and Noah when the latter left the ark (vi. 10, 11). God's covenant with the sons of Noah was, however, not made for all eternity, but was intended to be coeval only with the existence of this world (Gen R. xxxiv.). When God promised Noah to send no deluge, he also made a covenant with theearth that men should be filled with love for their homes so that all parts of the earth might be inhabited (Gen. R. l.c.). The Haggadah treats with much detail of God's covenant with Abraham, mentioned in Gen. xv. 9-21, which is designated in the liturgy as "berit ben ha-betarim" (the covenant between the sacrificial pieces) (compare also the Syriac Baruch apocalypse, iv. 4). "God showed him Gehenna and the dominion of the nations on the one side, and the revelation on Mt. Sinai and the service in the Temple on the other side, and said: 'If your children honor these last two [the Torah and worship], they shall be spared the first two; if not, the Temple shall be destroyed, and you may now choose between suffering under the heathen and suffering in Gehenna as the punishment of your descendants.' Abraham was at first inclined to choose the latter, but God induced him finally to choose the sorrows of the exile as punishment for Israel, in order that they might be spared the torments of hell" (Gen. R. xliv.; Pirḳe R. El. xxviii.). The Apocalypse of Abraham is in large part a detailed description of the "berit ben ha-betarim." Abraham is often severely censured for having made a covenant with the pagan Abimelech (Gen. xxi. 27; Tanna Eliyahu R. vii.; Yalḳ., Gen. 95; compare also Abimelech in Rabbinical Literature).

—In Arabic Literature:

The belief in a covenant ("mithaḳ") existing between the divinities and their worshipers was prevalent in pre-Islamic times. The offering of sacrifices had no other object than that of strengthening the covenants between the divinities and the officiants, and blood was considered to be the best agent. A covenant concluded between men was often solemnized by dipping the hands in blood. The Banu 'Adi ben Ka'b and the Banu 'Abd al-Dar concluded a covenant, and to give it greater force the parties dipped their hands in a plate of blood (Ibn Hisham's "Life of Mohammed," p. 125). Mohammed taught, both in the Koran and the Tradition, that in the beginning God called all the souls of mankind together and made a covenant with them. "The Lord brought forth their descendants from the reins of the sons of Adam, and took them to witness against themselves" (Koran, vii. 171). In explanation of this verse Ubai ibn Ka'b relates that when God created the spirits of the sons of Adam He gathered them together and took from them a promise ("wa'dah") and a covenant ("mithaḳ"). Then Adam saw among them prophets appointed by special covenant (compare 'Ab. Zarah 5a, where this legend is given in detail).

Mohammed frequently reproaches the Jews with having broken the covenant: "O children of Israel! Remember my grace which I conferred upon you [when I said] keep the covenant with me and I will keep the covenant with you" (Koran, ii. 37). Mohammed connects the covenant which God made with the children of Israel with the giving of the Law on Mt. Sinai: "And when we made a covenant with you and lifted the mountain above you, saying: 'Receive with steadfastness what we have brought you, and remember what it contains'" (ib. ii. 60). The commentator Baiḍawi explains the expression "and the mountain was lifted above you" ("waruti' fauḳakum al-ṭur") by the following legend: When Moses brought the Torah, the children of Israel, seeing the numerous obligations imposed upon them, refused to accept it. Then God commanded Gabriel, and he tore out the mountain and suspended it over the Israelites. A similar legend is found in Shab. 88a: "'And they stood at the nether part of the mount' [Ex. xix. 17], said R. Abdimi bar Ḥana. From this expression we learn that God suspended the mount over them as a bat, and said to them: 'If you accept the Torah, it is all right; if not, you will find here your tomb.'" In regard to the covenant with the Prophets, Mohammed said: "Remember we have entered into covenant with the Prophets, with thee Mohammed, and with Noah, and with Abraham, and with Musa, and with Jesus, the son of Mary, and we made with them a covenant (sura xxxiii. 7).

—Critical View:

The Hebrew "berit," usually translated "covenant" in the A. V., has a wider range of application than its English equivalent, since it is the ordinary term for any kind of agreement or compact. Naturally the word has to be considered in the sense of a solemn agreement; but it must be noticed that all agreements among ancient peoples were solemn and sacred, having the sanction of an oath or "curse," while covenant-breaking of any sort was held to be most sacrilegious. It is its comprehensiveness of meaning along with its intrinsic sacredness that gives the berit such great significance in the Hebrew Scriptures. The most binding covenant was naturally that made "before Jehovah" (I Sam. xxiii. 18), and the name Baalberith is a reminiscence of some similar covenant made before the "Ba'al" of the land.

This Ba'al seems originally to have been the patron deity of Shechem (Judges viii. 33; ix. 4, 46), which, being one of the oldest cities of the land, retained even in later days its prominence as the capital of a confederation. Jacob buys a piece of land; that is, enters into a covenant with it (Gen. xxxiii. 18, 19; xxxiv. 2). It is appointed as a city of refuge—in other words, a covenant city (Josh. xx. 7). It is here that Joshua delivers his farewell address (Josh. xxiv. 1). Its rôle under Jeroboam (I Kings xii. 25) points in the same direction. By the Ba'al of the chief city the covenant between the component tribes must have been sanctioned. Hence this Ba'al became the Ba'al-berit par excellence. Though unsupported by epigraphic proof, the theory that among the Phenicians' a Ba'al called also "Ba'al Elyun," or "Elyun Beruth," had a similar preeminence as the protector of an alliance of various cities (Creutzer, "Symbolik," ii. 87), throws light on the function of this Ba'al.

Besides the oath formally taken or implied, a ceremony was often performed, such as "passing between" the parts of a sacrificial victim slain for the purpose (Gen. xv. 18; Jer. xxxiv. 15), or giving the hand, or partaking of salt in common. Very primitive, wide-spread, and potential was the blood-covenant.

A peculiar Hebrew custom is that of imposing a berit upon another or others; e.g., the covenantimposed by Joshua upon the Gibeonites (Josh. ix. 7, xi. 19), or that by Jehoiada the priest upon the people (II Kings xi. 17). So important is this apparently one-sided relation that it has molded the dominant prophetic conception of God's attitude toward His people. Thus the commands given at Sinai on "the tables of the covenant," and the whole giving of the Law, have come to be known as the Sinaitic covenant. Here the obligation is upon the side of the people. But in the progressive development of Yhwh's relations to Israel as God of the covenant there is an increasing assumption of obligation on His part, with all solemnity of assurance as to the fulfilment (see, for example, Jer. xxxiii. 20 et seq.). The idea is indeed the most germinal of all religious conceptions, for when Jeremiah utters the profoundest sentiment of the Old Testament, that the Law of God should be written upon His people's hearts, the promise is called "a new covenant" (ib. xxxi. 31 et seq.).

Bibliography:

The lexicons of Gesenius and Siegfried and Stade, s.v. ;

the Biblical theologies of Schultz, Dillmann, Smend, and Marti:

Smith, Rel. of Sem. lectures 8 and 9;

Kraetzschmar, Die Bundesvorstellung im Alten Testament.

COVENANT.—The term is of frequent occurrence in the Bible, and is used in the general sense of a compact or agreement between parties, and also in the more technical and legal sense of an arrangement entered into by God, and confirmed or sealed with the due formalities. The Hebrew word (berîth) has a similarly wide signification; whilst the Greek (diathçkç) is used alike in the classics and on the papyri in the further sense of ‘testament’ or ‘will,’ though Aristophanes (Av. 439) is a good witness for the meaning of mutual agreement. The rendering ‘testament’ is retained by the RV [Note: Revised Version.] in two places only (Heb 9:16-17; cf. margin of Gal 3:15), and is perpetuated in the titles given to the two main parts of the Bible (see Testament).

As for the formalities in concluding a covenant, the primitive way seems to have been for the two parties to swallow each a drop of the other’s blood, thus becoming covenant-brothers. This actual mingling of blood soon became distasteful, and substitutes were found, such as the cutting of sacrificial animals into two parts, between which the contracting parties passed (Gen 15:10; Gen 15:17, Jer 34:18 f.), the meat probably being eaten afterwards in a joint meal. This ritual appears to have been inherited from the nomadic period, and it afterwards generally gave way to a solemn oath or invocation of God, combining a pledge to observe the covenant (Gen 26:31, Heb 6:17) and the imprecation of a curse on non-observance (Deu 27:15 ff.). Sometimes a handshake took the place of the oath (Ezr 10:19, Pro 6:1; Pro 17:18; Pro 22:26, 1Ch 29:24 marg., 1Ma 6:58), or was added to it (Eze 17:18). In very early times an agreement between two men was sometimes confirmed by setting up a pillar or a heap of stones (Gen 31:44-48), the religious sanction being added (Gen 31:49 f., 53). When God was Himself directly one of the parties, and an obligation was thought to be assumed by Him rather than by both, a token was substituted (Gen 9:12); but in these cases the transaction takes the form chiefly of a pledge or assurance, though the idea of some obligation upon the other party is often implicit. Compacts would often be made or confirmed at a shrine; and the god was invoked as a witness (Gen 31:49 ff., Jos 24:27, 2Ki 11:4; 2Ki 23:3), or a sacrificial meal accompanied the act (Gen 26:30; Gen 31:54, 2Sa 3:20). Sprinkling of sacrificial blood (Exo 24:8, Zec 9:11, Heb 9:20) was a specially solemn indication of God’s approving presence and of the obligations undertaken; and its significance survives and is deepened in the death of Christ (Heb 10:29; Heb 13:20) and in the Eucharist (Mat 26:28, Mar 14:24, Luk 22:20, 1Co 11:25).

Of the covenants referred to in Scripture, there are two classes.

1. Covenants between men.—These, again, are of several kinds, the most frequent being international alliances (e.g. Gen 21:27, Jos 9:6, Psa 83:5, Amo 1:9), judicial decisions and codes (Sir 38:33, possibly Exo 24:7), agreements between a ruler and the people (2Sa 5:3, Dan 9:27), and civil and domestic compacts of every variety. The word was used for alliances of friendship (1Sa 18:3, Psa 55:20), and of marriage (Pro 2:17, Mal 2:14). By an easy metaphor, a covenant in the sense of an imposed will may be made with the eyes (Job 31:1); or, in the other sense of agreement, with the stones (Job 5:23), but not with Leviathan (Job 41:4), because of his greatness and intractability, nor wisely with death either in scorn of God (Isa 28:15; Isa 28:18) or in yearning (Wis 1:16). In Dan 11:22 ‘the prince of the covenant’ is sometimes rendered ‘a prince in league with him’; but if the other translation stands, ‘covenant’ will represent the nation as a religious community (cf. Dan 11:28; Dan 11:30, Psa 74:20), and the prince will be the high priest, Onias III., who was deposed by Antiochus about b.c. 174. Similarly in Mal 3:1 ‘the messenger of the covenant’ may be the attendant of God, His instrument in dealing with the nation (cf. RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ).

2. Covenants between God and men.—The idea of a covenant with Adam, beyond the simple injunction of Gen 2:16-17, has been found by some writers in Sir 17:12, which is more easily interpreted of the transactions on Horeb (Deu 5:3). In Psa 25:14, as in Psa 55:20, the word has its fundamental meaning of an alliance of friendship, with a specific allusion in the former case to the Deuteronomic covenant of the tenth verse. In other cases the technical meaning of an agreement with signs and pledges is more conspicuous. The Noachian covenant (Gen 6:18; Gen 9:8-17, Isa 54:9 f., Jer 33:20; Jer 33:25) guarantees the stability of natural law. The covenant with Abraham (Gen 15:18; Gen 17:2-21) was confirmed in its promise to Isaac and Jacob (Exo 2:24, Lev 26:42, Psa 105:9 f.), and ensured a blessing through their seed to all nations, circumcision being adopted as the token (cf. Act 7:8, 1Ma 1:15). Of still greater significance was the covenant at Horeb or Sinai (Exo 19:5; Exo 34:10; Exo 34:27 f. et al.), which was renewed in the plains of Moab (Deu 29:1), and is frequently referred to in the OT. It was really a constitution given to Israel by God, with appointed promise and penalty, duly inscribed on the tables of the covenant (Deu 9:9; Deu 9:11; Deu 9:15), which were deposited in the ark (Deu 10:2; Deu 10:5, 1Ki 8:9; 1Ki 8:21, 2Ch 5:10, Heb 9:4). Elsewhere the covenant is described as set forth in words (Exo 34:28, Deu 29:9) and written in a book (Exo 24:7, 2Ki 23:2). Amongst other covenants of minor importance are that with Phinehas establishing an everlasting priesthood in his line (Num 25:12 f.), and that with David establishing an everlasting kingdom (Psa 89:3 f., Jer 33:21; cf. 2Sa 7:1-29). Joshua and the people covenant to serve Jehovah only (Jos 24:25); so Jehoiada and the people (2Ki 11:17). Hezekiah and the people solemnly agree to reform the worship (2Ch 29:10); Josiah (2Ki 23:3) and Ezra (Ezr 10:3) lead the people into a covenant to observe the Law.

Whilst the Sinaitic covenant is rightly regarded as the charter of the Jewish dispensation, the establishment by God of a new constitution was contemplated by a series of prophets (Jer 31:31; Jer 31:33; Jer 32:40; Jer 50:5, Isa 55:3; Isa 59:21; Isa 61:8, Eze 16:60; Eze 16:62; Eze 20:37; Eze 34:25). Some of the pledges were new, and not confined in their range to Israel, whilst the Messianic Servant becomes ‘for a covenant of the people’ (Isa 42:6 f., Isa 49:8; cf. ‘messenger of the covenant,’ Mal 3:1). The Sinaitic covenant is thus transformed, and, whilst continuing as a note of racial separation until the period for the Incarnation was come, gave way then to a new dispensation with increased emphasis on personal religion and the provision of means adequate to ensure it (Heb 8:6-13). Yet the ancient covenant, even that with Abraham, was everlasting (Gen 17:7), and still stands in its supreme purpose (Lev 26:44 f., Act 3:25, Rom 11:26 f.) of making men the people of God, the new elements consisting mainly in the adoption of more effective influences and inspiration. The Exile is sometimes thought of as marking the dissolution of the Old Covenant (Jer 31:31 ff.), though the new one was not fully introduced until some centuries later. The act of making the New Covenant is compared with the transactions in the wilderness (Eze 20:36 ff.). On God’s part there is forgiveness with the quickening of the inner life of man (Eze 36:24 ff.). And both the activity and the blessedness are associated with the Messianic expectations (Jer 33:15 f., Eze 37:21-28, Luk 1:20).

In the later OT writings the word ‘covenant,’ as appears from the previous citations, has lost much of its technical signification, and does not always denote even a formal act of agreement, but becomes almost a synonym, and that without much precision, for the conditions of religion (Psa 103:18). St. Paul recognizes a series of covenants (Rom 9:4, Eph 2:12) on an ascending scale of adequacy (2Co 3:6, Gal 4:24 ff.; cf. Heb 7:22; Heb 8:6 ff.); and Sinai is but a stage (Gal 3:15 ff.) in the course from Abraham to Christ.

Of special phrases, two or three may present some difficulty. ‘A covenant of salt’ (Num 18:19, 2Ch 13:5) is a perpetual covenant, the eating of salt together being a token of friendship as sealed by sacred hospitality. ‘The salt of the covenant’ (Lev 2:13) has probably the same primary suggestion, as at natural accompaniment of the sacrificial meal, and with it constituting an inviolable bond. Sometimes the two great divisions of Scripture are called the books of the Old and of the New Covenant respectively. The name ‘Book of the Covenant’ (see next article) is given to Exo 20:22-23; that of ‘Little Book of the Covenant’ to Exo 34:11-26. A distinction is often drawn between the Covenant of Works, assumed to have been made by God with Adam (Gen 2:17), and that of Grace or Redemption (2Ti 1:9), whereby Christ becomes to man the medium of all spiritual blessings.

R. W. Moss.

(Hebrews 8)

- A "treaty" between God and his people. In the Old Testament, God’s most important covenant was at Sinai, where he gave his chosen people the Law and called on Israel to be a holy nation. In the New Testament the covenant is God’s gift of his son to both Jew and Gentile, and the call is for all people to believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.

A covenant was an agreement between two parties that laid down conditions and guaranteed benefits, depending upon a person’s keeping or breaking the covenant. It was sealed by some form of witness (Gen 21:22-32; Gen 31:44-54; 1Sa 18:3-4; Mal 2:14).

Covenants between God and the people he created, however, differed from purely human covenants. They were not agreements between equals, because God was always the one who gave, and people were always the ones who received. No human being could negotiate an agreement with God or make demands upon him. God’s promises originated in his sovereign grace alone, and those who received those promises could do nothing but accept his directions.

Through one man to the world

From the time of the earliest recorded covenant (God’s covenant with Noah, and with the human race through him), features of grace are prominent. The covenant originated in God’s grace and depended upon God’s grace for its fulfilment. The rainbow was the sign, or witness, that sealed the covenant (Gen 6:18; Gen 9:8-17; see GRACE).

Having promised to preserve the human race (Gen 9:15-16), God then revealed that he had a plan of salvation for it. This plan again was based on a covenant that originated in God’s grace. In his sovereign will God chose one man, Abraham, promising him a multitude of descendants who would become a nation, receive Canaan as their homeland, and be God’s channel of blessing to the world (Gen 12:1-3; Gen 15:18-21; Gen 17:2-8; Act 3:25).

God confirmed his promise to Abraham by a covenant ceremony. The ancient custom was for the two parties to kill an animal, cut it in halves, then pass between the two halves, calling down the fate of the slaughtered animals upon themselves should they break the covenant (Gen 15:9-11; Jer 34:18). But in Abraham’s case, only God (symbolized by a smoking fire-pot and a flaming torch) passed between the halves of the animal. He alone made the covenant and guaranteed its fulfilment (Gen 15:17).

Abraham, however, had a responsibility to respond to God’s grace, and his response would determine whether he would enjoy the covenant benefits. A truly spiritual relationship could exist only where people responded to God in faith and obedience. The rite of circumcision, which God gave as the sign and seal of the covenant, gave Abraham and his descendants the opportunity to demonstrate such faith and obedience. Those who responded to God’s grace by being circumcised kept the covenant; those who did not were cut off from it. The covenant depended upon God, but only those who were obedient to God experienced the communion with God that was the covenant’s central blessing (Gen 17:9-14; see CIRCUMCISION; OBEDIENCE.)

Developed through Israel

Once the promised nation existed and was on the way to its promised homeland, God renewed the covenant made earlier with Abraham, this time applying it to the whole nation. Since Moses was the mediator through whom God worked in dealing with the people, the covenant is sometimes called the Mosaic covenant. It is also called the Sinaitic covenant, after Mt Sinai, where the ceremony took place.

God, in his sovereign grace, had saved the people of Israel from bondage in Egypt and taken them into a close relationship with himself. Grace was again the basis of God’s covenant dealings (Exo 2:24; Exo 3:16; Exo 4:22; Exo 6:6-8; Exo 15:13; Exo 19:4-6; Exo 20:2). As in the covenant with Abraham, so in the covenant with his descendants, the central blessing was communion with God; for he was their God and they were his people (Gen 17:7; Exo 6:7; Lev 26:12). Again, the people would enjoy this blessing only as they were holy in life and obedient to God (Exo 19:5-6). The people understood this and agreed to be obedient to all God’s commands. They were in no position to argue with God; they could do nothing but surrender completely to his will (Exo 24:7-8; see also LAW).

The two parties to the covenant were then bound together in a blood ritual. Half the blood was thrown against the altar (representing God) and half sprinkled on the people (Exo 24:3-8).

But this blood ritual was more than just a dramatic way of swearing loyalty to the covenant. The Passover had shown the people of Israel that blood symbolized life laid down to release those under condemnation of death (Exo 12:13). Blood was linked with release from the penalty of sin; therefore, the blood ritual at Sinai was an indication to Israel that it began its formal existence as God’s covenant people in a condition of ceremonial purity (Heb 9:19-22; see BLOOD).

All this ceremonial procedure emphasized once more that the covenant with Israel, following the covenant with Abraham, was based on divine grace, not human effort (Gal 3:17-18). Nevertheless, the people had to keep their part of the covenant if they were to enjoy its benefits (Exo 19:5; cf. Gen 17:9). God had no obligation to bless his people when they disobeyed his covenant commands, though in his mercy he was patient with them (Lev 26:27-33; Deu 4:25-31; Deu 7:9-10; Neh 9:33; Heb 3:16-19).

Note on the form of the covenant

The covenant between God and Israel was of a kind that people of the time understood. It was similar in form to the common Near Eastern treaty by which a sovereign overlord made a covenant with his subject peoples.

Such a treaty was not a negotiated agreement. It was an authoritative document prepared by the overlord, declaring his sovereignty over his people and laying down the order of life he required of them. The features of these ancient documents are well illustrated in the book of Deuteronomy, which was written in the form of a covenant document. (For details see DEUTERONOMY. Concerning the illustration that likens the covenant between God and Israel to the marriage covenant see LOVE, sub-heading ‘Steadfast love’.)

Towards a specific goal through David

After the promised nation had become established in the promised land, God revealed the next stage in directing his covenant purposes towards their ultimate goal. The promised offspring of Abraham through whom God would send his salvation to the world was Jesus the Messiah (Gen 12:3; Gen 12:7; Gal 3:16; Gal 3:29).

God prepared Israel to produce the Messiah by choosing from the nation one person, King David, and promising that his dynasty would be the channel through which the Messiah would come. God gave David this promise by means of a covenant that followed on from his earlier covenants, namely, those with Abraham and with the nation Israel (2Sa 7:12-17; 2Sa 23:5; Psa 89:3-4; Psa 89:28-37).

Jesus therefore was the true fulfilment of all God’s covenant purposes. The Abrahamic covenant led to the Sinaitic covenant, which in turn led to the Davidic covenant, which led finally to Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world (Luk 1:32-33; Luk 1:72-73; Act 13:17-23).

The new covenant

Former covenants, then, were but a preparation for that saving work of God through Christ which the Bible calls the new covenant. Or, to put it another way, the new covenant fully develops the features consistently displayed in the former covenants.

Like the former covenants, the new covenant originates in the sovereign grace of God (Rom 3:24; Rom 5:15-21; Eph 2:8-9; Tit 3:5). Through it God makes unworthy sinners his people and promises to be their God (Heb 8:8; Heb 8:10; 1Pe 2:9-10). But if people are to enjoy that life-giving relationship with God which is the covenant’s central blessing, they must respond to God’s grace in faith and obedience (Gal 3:14; Heb 5:9; 1Pe 1:2). Also, since faith involves perseverance, they must continue in the covenant (Col 1:23; cf. Heb 8:9; see PERSEVERANCE).

Yet there are great differences between the old and new covenants. All former covenants were imperfect – not in the sense of being wrong, but in the sense of being incomplete. They belonged to the era before Christ and therefore could not in themselves bring salvation. Only the atoning death of Christ can do that (see ATONEMENT). Therefore, until Christ came, there was always the need for a new covenant, one that carried with it better promises (Heb 8:6-9; Heb 8:13; Heb 10:9-10).

The new covenant, in contrast to the old, is not concerned with a particular nation, nor is it concerned with any nation as a whole. Rather it is concerned with individuals, regardless of their nation. It does not demand obedience to a set of laws, but puts God’s laws in people’s hearts. It does not need priests to mediate between God and individuals, for all believers know God personally and have direct fellowship with him. There is no remembrance of sins through repetitive sacrifices, for all sins are at once removed and are gone for ever (Heb 8:10-12). (For further details of the contrast between the old and new covenants see HEBREWS, LETTER TO THE.)

Jesus Christ’s atoning death is the basis of the new covenant. He is the mediator through whom God makes the covenant, and he is the sacrifice whose blood seals the covenant (1Co 11:25; Heb 9:15; Heb 12:24). Through that same blood, sin is forgiven completely, so that God’s people enter the covenant not with mere ceremonial cleansing, but with actual cleansing (Mat 26:28; cf. Heb 9:19-22). This is an eternal covenant, for there will never be another to follow it. Covenant grace is fully revealed, and the blessings that flow from it are eternal (Heb 10:16-18; Heb 13:20).

An agreement between two parties. The agreement, according to Ancient Near East custom, consists of five parts: 1) Identification of parties, 2) Historical prologue where the deeds establishing the worthiness of the dominant party is established, 3) Conditions of the agreement, 4) Rewards and punishments in regard to keeping the conditions, and 5) Disposition of the documents where each party receives a copy of the agreement (e.g. the two tablets of stone of the 10 Commandments).

Ultimately, the covenants God has made with man result in our benefit. We receive eternal blessings from the covenant of grace. (For further study see Gen 2:16-17; Gen 9:1-17; Gen 15:18; Gen 26:3-5; Gal 3:16-18; Luk 1:68-79; Heb 13:20).