Biblical Covenants and Fulfillment

Overview

The episode explains biblical covenants and promises, how they developed through Israel’s history, and how they are fulfilled in Yeshua (Jesus) and applied in the New Covenant.

Ancient Covenants: Nature and Practice

• A covenant is an agreement between parties; in Scripture these include individuals, tribes, nations, and God himself.
• Ancient covenants were often ratified by cutting animals, both parties walking between the pieces as a self-curse if broken.
• Covenants included explicit blessings for faithfulness and curses for breaking the agreement.
• Modern contracts resemble covenants, including defined terms, benefits, and penalties.
• Covenants were memorialized with visible tokens, reminding parties of the agreement and its terms.

Common Covenant Tokens and Examples

• Tokens included rainbows, stone pillars, feasts, shared wells, exchanged animals, and symbolic altars.
• Noah’s covenant included God’s promise never to flood the whole land again, symbolized by the rainbow.
• Jacob and Laban made a covenant marked by a stone pillar and a heap of stones, sharing a meal there.
• Isaac and Abimelech made a covenant of peace, sealed with an oath and a feast.

Major Biblical Covenants in Historical Order

Covenant Timeline

Abrahamic Covenant

• Abraham lived about 2000 BC in Ur (Babylon region); God began a set-apart tribal community through him.
• Genesis 15 describes God’s covenant: animals cut in two, God symbolized by smoking oven and flaming torch passing between.
• God foretold 400 years of enslavement for Abraham’s descendants, later deliverance, judgment on oppressors, and return to the land.
• God gave Abraham the land from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates; this covenant created the future physical nation of Israel.
• God renamed Abram (“exalted father”) to Abraham (“father of a multitude”) as he would father many nations.
• Lineage: Abraham → Isaac → Jacob (Israel) → twelve sons, heads of the twelve tribes of Israel.
• Ishmael also became father of other tribes, showing Abraham became father of many nations beyond Israel.
• The biblical story primarily follows Jacob’s descendants, the nation of Israel, in line with God’s covenantal plan.

Mosaic Covenant (Sinai Covenant)

• Hundreds of years later, Israel became enslaved in Egypt, as foretold to Abraham.
• God raised Moses to lead Israel out through Exodus and Passover events, forming them as a nation.
• In the wilderness, Israel received governing instruction through the Sinai covenant based on the Ten Commandments.
• Deuteronomy 4 states God spoke from fire and gave the Ten Commandments, written on two stone tablets.
• Mosaic covenant built on Abrahamic covenant but added law (Torah) for a representative kingdom of God.
• Torah set Israel apart from all other nations, forming a national covenant with blessings and curses.
• Deuteronomy 28: obedience brought exaltation above other nations; disobedience brought severe curses.
• The worst curses included loss of land and scattering among nations, with spiritual unrest and idolatry.

Davidic Covenant and National Decline

• Around 1000 BC, God provided David as an ideal example of kingship, expanding Israel’s influence.
• Under David, Israel approximated the promised national ideal, foreshadowing a future spiritual kingdom.
• Psalm 89 and Psalm 132 speak of God swearing to establish David’s seed and throne through all generations.
• David’s descendant Yeshua would later fulfill this pattern as the spiritual king.

Division and Exile

• Solomon turned to foreign gods late in life, weakening covenant faithfulness.
• After Solomon’s death, his sons split the kingdom: northern kingdom “Israel,” southern kingdom “Judah.”
• Over centuries most kings in both kingdoms broke covenant; only a few attempted reforms.
• The people’s hearts remained rebellious, leading repeatedly back into idolatry.
• Eventually covenant curses fell fully: northern Israel exiled by Assyria (722 BC); Judah exiled by Babylon (586 BC).
• Jeremiah describes Israel’s weeping and God’s call: if they returned and removed detested things, nations would bless themselves in him.
• Despite disobedience, God remembered his promises to Abraham and held out restoration if they returned.

Promise of a New Covenant

• Because Israel and Judah continually turned from God, he promised a New Covenant.
• This covenant would differ from Sinai: God’s law written on hearts, not only on stone tablets.
• With law internalized, people would remember and keep God’s ways more effectively.
• Jeremiah 31: God would make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
• The previous covenant (from Egypt) had been broken, though God was like a husband to them.
• In the New Covenant, God would put his law within them, write it on hearts; he would be their God, they his people.

Yeshua and Fulfillment of Earlier Covenants

Mosaic Promise Fulfilled in Yeshua

• Deuteronomy 18 promised a prophet like Moses from among Israel, who would speak all God’s words.
• God warned that whoever refused that prophet’s words would be held accountable.
• In John 8 and 12, Yeshua says he was sent by God and did not speak on his own initiative.
• The Father gave him what to say and speak, fulfilling the Deuteronomy promise.

Davidic Promise Fulfilled in Yeshua

• Psalm 132: God swore to David to set a descendant from his body on his throne.
• Matthew 1 calls Yeshua “the Messiah, the Son of David, the son of Abraham.”
• Matthew 21: crowds acclaimed Yeshua entering Jerusalem as “Son of David,” blessed one who comes in Yahweh’s name.
• Yeshua, as David’s descendant, fulfills God’s oath of a lasting Davidic throne.

Abrahamic Promises Fulfilled in Yeshua

• God’s earliest promises to Abraham predated formal covenants and shaped all later dealings.
• Genesis 12: God promised to make Abraham a great nation, bless him, bless those who bless him.
• God promised that in Abraham all families of the earth would be blessed.
• Galatians 3 explains Scripture foresaw God justifying nations by faith, preaching this beforehand to Abraham.
• “All nations will be blessed in you” is applied to those of faith, blessed with Abraham the believer.
• Genesis 15: God promised Abraham a physical heir from his own body and innumerable descendants like stars.
• Matthew 1 again links Yeshua as Abraham’s descendant, confirming physical fulfillment.
• Galatians 3:16 clarifies the promise to Abraham was to “seed” (singular), identified as Messiah.
• Thus Yeshua, as Abraham’s true descendant, fulfills both national and universal blessing promises.

Nature and Recipients of the New Covenant

• Jeremiah 31 specifies the New Covenant is with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.
• Modern teaching often claims the New Covenant is directly with the whole world, but the text names Israel and Judah.
• For the northern tribes (Israel), the New Covenant provided a way to return from scattering among nations.
• New Testament congregations are presented as composed of those among the nations, including scattered Israelites (lost sheep).
• For Judah, the New Covenant meant law written in hearts, freeing them from hypocritical man-made traditions.
• Yeshua repeatedly confronted hypocrisy, such as Pharisees clinging to tradition while neglecting God’s commandment.
• Mark 7: Yeshua accused leaders of honoring God with lips while hearts were far, teaching human precepts as doctrine.

Hebrews’ Teaching on the New Covenant

• Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah to emphasize continuity and transformation, not creation of a brand-new people.
• The New Covenant remains with the house of Israel and house of Judah; issue was not with God’s law but with people.
• People failed because they did not keep the law from the heart, treating it as external rules plus added traditions.
• Under the New Covenant, God puts his laws in minds and writes them on hearts, renewing relationship.
• The focus shifts from “letter only” observance to internalized obedience empowered by God’s Spirit.

Spirit vs. Letter

• 2 Corinthians 3: believers are made adequate as servants of a New Covenant, “not of the letter but of the spirit.”
• “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life”: rigid rule-keeping without heart produces death, but Spirit brings life.
• The Spirit enables the true intent of God’s instruction to bear fruit, not just external conformity.
• Through the Spirit, believers can actually remain faithful to God’s word and purpose.

Inclusion of Non-Jews through Abraham’s Promises

• Because Yeshua fulfilled the pre-covenantal promises to Abraham, he became the way to God for non-Israelites.
• Anyone, Jew or non-Jew, expressing faith in Yeshua as sent by God can now approach the Creator.
• This access mirrors Abraham’s simple faith, making him a pattern for all believers.
• Early congregations included both Jews and people from the nations where Israelites were scattered.
• Galatians 3: all are sons of God through faith in Messiah Yeshua; all who are baptized into him have clothed themselves with him.
• In Messiah there is no Jew/Greek, slave/free, male/female distinction in terms of covenantal status.
• Colossians 3: the new self is renewed in true knowledge, in the image of the Creator.
• In this renewal, there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, freeman.
• Messiah is all and in all, uniting diverse believers in one covenantal body.

Why This Is “Good News”

• Abrahamic promises came before national covenants; their fulfillment can apply to non-covenantal bloodlines.
• Non-Jewish believers can share in fulfilled promises by faith, despite not being of Jewish or Hebraic descent.
• The gospel of the kingdom is “good news” because it opens access to God for all people through Yeshua.
• Through Yeshua, God draws both Jews and non-Jews to himself, reestablishing a new creation of his kingdom.
• This kingdom includes all people for all eternity, rooted in fulfilled covenants and promises.

Action Items

• Meditate further on how the different covenants relate to each other and culminate in Yeshua.
• Study the faith of Abraham to understand how modern believers can be considered his children by faith.
• Examine personal attitudes toward God’s commands: external rule-keeping vs. internalized, Spirit-empowered obedience.
• Explore New Testament passages (Galatians 3, Hebrews 8, 2 Corinthians 3) in light of Jeremiah 31’s New Covenant.
• Consider how inclusion of Jews and non-Jews shapes understanding of the kingdom and community life today.

Decisions

• The host intends to further explore the believer’s relationship to Abraham’s promise and the “faith of Abraham” in a future episode.