God has made many promises to us, humans, and He has concluded many covenants with us

In the course of our history JHWH has made mankind promises and has made very clear arrangements with mankind on more than ten occasions. These arrangements always have the form of agreements, treaties, and contracts. In the case of all these arrangements, agreements, treaties or contracts there are always two parties involved: God on the one side and a group of people or even all mankind on the other side.

If the Bible tells us that on more than ten occasions God promised things to people and established covenants with them, this means that on as many occasions God contacted people, discussed matters with them and eventually made arrangements and agreements with them.

It stands to reason that the things that God has promised us and the covenants that God has concluded with us are of the utmost importance for our salvation. All hope that people may have for a liberation from suffering and death is based on these promises made by God and these contracts between God and mankind. All hope that people may have for a perfect and eternal life is based on these same promises and the agreements that God has made us. We humans can be sure that God will keep His promises and that He will never break the agreements and covenants He has established with us.

In this article we will limit ourselves to five promises that God has made to persons or even all mankind and covenants which have been established between God on the one side and humans or even all mankind on the other side:

---The promise that God made to all mankind in the garden of Eden, immediately after the revolt of Adam and Eve, more than 4,000 years before the birth of Christ.

---The covenant that God established with Abraham. In the year 1943 before Christ.

---The law covenant that God made with the people of Israel near Mount Sinai in the year 1513 before Christ.

---God’s covenant regarding a kingdom and an eternal dynasty established with King David about the year 1070 before Christ.

---The new covenant that came into force on the Pentecost of the year 33 A.D.

The promise that God made to mankind in the Garden of Eden.

Right after the rebellion of Satan, Adam and Eve in paradise, God made it known to mankind that the ends for which He had created the earth and mankind remained the same and were sure to be achieved. He spoke the well-known sentences of Genesis 3:15: I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will crush you in the head and you will crush him in the heel.

As we have said before, the exact meaning of these words was God’s holy secret for thousands of years, but in the days of Jesus the meaning of these words became very clear for everybody who wanted to understand it.

With the word you Satan is meant.

The word woman refers to the angels and the humans who remain perfectly loyal to God.

With your seed all angels and humans are meant who rebel against god.

The words her seed refer to Jesus Christ.

Satan and his followers crushed Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, in the heel when in 33 A.D. they succeeded in having Jesus killed.

But the great promise for us humans is to be found in the words: Jesus Christ will crush Satan in the head.

The Bible book Revelation tells us very clearly what this promise means for mankind: at the end of our human history Satan will be annihilated and all the damage he caused for the earth and for mankind will be undone. After that JHWH and His Son will establish God’s Kingdom. Part of this kingdom is a paradise-like earth, inhabited by perfect, totally happy people who will live on this paradise earth for ever. All of them persons who have voluntarily and from conviction chosen to have a perfect appreciation of the creator and everything He has created, including the laws and rules to which people must subject themselves.

The covenant that God made with Abraham.

In the year 1943 B.C. Abraham, the founder of the people of Israel who had left his home town in Southern Babylonia, crossed the river Euphrates and entered Canaan (the area in and around present day Israel).

On that memorable day God promised Abraham two things which are of immense and eternal meaning for all humans.

He promised Abraham that He would give the land of Canaan to Abraham’s seed. The use of the word seed in the way God phrased this promise connects it to a promise that God had made mankind earlier in the Garden of Eden, in which the word seed also occurs. The realization of the two promises would be the result of a human seed, a human descendant, a genealogical line.

God promised Abraham not only that his offspring would take possession of the land of Canaan, He also promised that the numbers of his offspring would be huge: almost uncountable like the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the beach.

But this is only the first one of two promises that God made to Abraham. The second promise reveals the immense and eternal importance of Abraham’s huge numbers of offspring: by means of Abraham’s seed that will take possession of the Promised Land all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

We, people of the 21st century who posses both the Hebrew Scriptures and the Greek Scriptures, can clearly see that the promise that God made in Eden and God’s covenant with Abraham are connected: Jesus Christ is the seed that both promises point forward to. We also realize the immense and eternal meaning of the seed to which God referred twice in the course of our history.

The law covenant that God established with the people of Israel

In the year 1513 B.C., three months after the exodus of the people of Israel out of Egypt, God made a covenant with His people: the law covenant. This was not a promise or a covenant which involved all mankind. The two parties who concluded a covenant with each other near Mount Sinai in 1513 B.C. were JHWH and one nation: the people of Israel. It was a very copious and detailed agreement with hundreds of regulations. God asked the people of Israel to promise Him that they would obey hundreds of laws, commandments and prohibitions which He passed on to them through Moses. If they were willing to do this, He would reward them with everything that is desirable for people on our earth: peace, welfare, happiness, success, power and so on and so forth.

But the law covenant that God proposed also had a reverse side: when God approached the Israelites with His proposal He left no doubt about what He would do if first they would establish the proposed covenant with Him and say yes to the hundreds of laws, regulations, commandments and prohibitions He proposed and subsequently, after saying yes, they would do no. If, after voluntarily establishing the law covenant with Him, they would in large numbers ignore the laws and rules, He would punish them with everything that is horrifying and terrible for humans: war, oppression, poverty, misery, diseases, powerlessness and so on and so forth. Up to and including terrible things like exile and definitive rejection.

Moses was the mediator between JHWH and His people and as such he was the one who laid the hundreds of regulations of the covenant before the Israelites. The people agreed to God’s covenant-proposal and promised God that they would obey all the mentioned laws and regulations in the hope that they would receive God’s promised blessings.

As part of the law covenant 1 of the 12 tribes, the tribe of Levi, was appointed a priestly tribe. The Levites were exclusively devoted to the worship of God. The tribe of Levi also provided the high priest. The first high priest was Moses’ brother Aaron. After Aaron the eldest son of the high priest was always the one who was to succeed his father.

In the light of what we can read in the Greek Scriptures about this law covenant we can conclude that its main purpose was to demonstrate towards the Israelites in how many hundreds of ways people can sin against God and how impossible it is for people to live without sinning and enter God’s Kingdom on the ground of one’s own merits. In short: the law covenant has taught mankind how sinful all people are and to what degree they need a Savior for their salvation.

In addition to this the law covenant prepared the people of Israel in many ways for the coming of Christ. Thus the law covenant prescribed the making of animal sacrifices as a means for humans to achieve reconciliation with God. But evidently this means was completely insufficient. Only when Christ offered His perfect human life as a sin offering to God was the relationship between God and mankind really restored. And only then did it become possible for everybody who believed in Jesus’ ransom sacrifice and wanted to make use of it to approach JHWH in a way that was acceptable in His eyes.

When, on 14 Nisan of the year 33 A.D., Jesus offered His perfect human life to His Father as a peace offering for mankind he thereby laid the basis for a completely new covenant between God and mankind. The new covenant took effect on the Pentecost of the same year when God poured out His holy spirit on 120 disciples of Jesus who were together in an upper room in Jerusalem on that day.

The new covenant meant the definitive end of the law covenant.

It also meant the definitive end of God’s special relationship with the people of Israel.

The law covenant was a national affair which concerned only one human nation. The new covenant has universal and eternal validity and value for all mankind.