Last week I wrote an article called The Two Covenants – The Everlasting Covenant and the Covenant at Sinai which if you have not read I pray that you will as God has a blessing in it for you. But today while contemplating this issue again Father brought some more depth of the riches of his grace and love to me and I wrote down some of these thoughts. I pray that you find a blessing in them.
The Origin of The Everlasting Covenant – God And Christ Before Any Creature Was Created
The grace of God is deep. The Character of God and His Son and the love that was manifest between them before the world was is many times hardly noticed.
While contemplating the Covenants, I beheld a deeper understanding of His love towards us.
Covenant Established Before Creation
Before the first creature or angel was made, and understanding that these creatures had the freedom of choice, it was necessary that God provide for the possibility of sin. Was it necessary to provide for this possibility before the first creature was made? Most certainly it was. Therefore it was necessary that the Everlasting Covenant was in place before the first angel was created.
Zechariah 6:13 “ the counsel of peace shall be between them both.”
What was part of that Covenant?
John 17:3-5 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. (4) I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. (5) And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
The Covenant between God and Christ was established before even a single angel was created that Christ would shed his blood should the commandments be broken. That’s why it is the “blood of the everlasting covenant”(Hebrews 13:20).
This plan was established before “anything made that was made.”(John 1:3). The Covenant was based on the 10 commandments.
Deuteronomy 4:13 And he declared unto you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform,even ten commandments; and he wrote them upon two tables of stone.
The Love of God
The expression of the character of God is summed up in the ten commandments. His promises are true, and He has said “I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:”(Heb 8:10).
What was the cost to God of us breaking His law?
Romans 8:32 He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?
The bible says “For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”(Romans 6:23) And also says “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;”(Romans 3:23).
The only way in which the demand of the law could be fulfilled was by God. God was the one who covenanted to give His only begotten Son. God the Father is the only immortal being in the universe in the absolute sense. Only the death of the Son of God himself could fulfill the demand of the law. The Son covenanted to give to God that life which Christ as the only born Son of God possessed by inheritance.
But how can an immortal being die. He can’t. He is life. Jesus Christ His only begotten Son was heir of the fullness of this life that he was “in the form of God…equal with God” (Phillipians 2:6). He was the only being who was with God before any creature was made. And he covenanted with Father to give himself to die should sin enter.
This covenant of God’s was not “obey and live”. God had a covenant before the angels even had a mouth created for them to speak to even make a covenant to say “yes we will obey and live”. How could they possibly obey to live if they were yet to be alive. God makes no such covenant. Life was given to them before they could promise anything.
The Covenant included the gift of His Holy Spirit to do the will of Father. It also included mercy should they choose to disobey and it included a second freedom to do as they choose again. They were never made to be bond-slaves. Even after they sinned.
Isaiah 59:21 As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever.
The Covenant was between the Father and Son and whoever will by faith accept the merits of Christ to redeem him from transgression of the law. God did not design that He and His Son Jesus Christ should be alone in the universe for eternity. This was not the will of Father. God is love and He wanted to share that love with other beings who could think for themselves.
But again before even the first creature was created provision was made to redeem any who should bring upon himself the penalty for transgressing the law.
When we see that this Covenant was in place before even a creature was made and understand that the creator would die even to redeem the created. We begin to behold the eternal purpose of God in Christ Jesus our Lord and begin to get a grasp of what we term “the everlasting gospel”(Revelation 14:6). It is “everlasting”.
So therefore standing in thought with Jesus Christ before even an angel was created God desired to share His love with other intelligent beings that could enjoy His love with Him. God loved us so much that he did not create us without freewill, but gave us the choice to choose to sin.
Everything Was Done Through His Son
Sin would cost God His only begotten Son. It was therefore necessary that the cost of sin be determined before a being with freewill were created. But yet the love of God did not keep this from happening and the entire government of God was laid upon the shoulders of His only begotten Son who by choice chose to give his life to ransom the beings that were created by God through himself. Everything God created would be created by His Son Jesus Christ.
Colossians 1:15-16 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
What love? Created by him and for him and he created us as free beings and desired to have a relationship with us and even covenanted to die for us, the creator for the created.
The bible tells us that God the Father is so unselfish that He created nothing without His Son Jesus Christ. For there is “One God the Father of whom are all things”(1 Corinthians 8:6). That includes the love and Spirit that flowed out through his Son our “One Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things”(1 Corinthians 8:6) and Jesus was a willing sacrifice who knew very well the unselfish love of the Father.
John 1:2-3 The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
It may seem small to understand that the everlasting covenant originated before an angel was created between the Father and Son, but as you continue to meditate on this issue your eyes will begin to behold more clearly the love of God in Christ Jesus, the everlasting covenant and the everlasting gospel.
The Everlasting Covenant – EJ Waggoner
The Two Covenants – The Everlasting Covenant and the Covenant at Sinai
