Genesis 31:43-54 describes a covenant between Jacob and Laban. Neither of them trusted the other, and at best it was a shaky agreement. However, in verses 48-49, they attach an oath to it:
Therefore its name was called Galeed, 49 also Mizpah, because he said, “May the LORD watch between you and me when we are absent one from another...although no man is with us—see, God is witness between you and me!”
Having called upon God to witness and watch over the covenant, they both knew that they could never break the promises of covenant and get away with it.
The Covenant Seal
The scars from the wounds in their arms were the seals in their bodies of the participants’ declaring that they were parties to the covenant. They were carried in pride, identifying them as covenant partners. Often the names of the covenant makers were joined to make a new name announcing that they were joined as one by covenant blood.
Covenant Friends
From the making of the covenant, the two parties would be described as friends. The word friend has been greatly cheapened in the language of our Western society; but in societies where covenant-making is practiced and understood there is no higher honor than to be called a person’s friend, for it announces a covenant relationship.
This explains why Abraham is called the friend of God in the Scripture; it is a title that is the constant reminder that God made covenant with Abraham.
Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?
2 Chronicles 20:7
Covenant Meal
Every covenant ended in a meal that declared the covenant now valid and in effect, functioning in the lives of the parties to it. This was a very important part of covenant-making. To eat with someone at any time was a kind of covenant, and it had a far greater meaning when placed at the end of the making of a covenant. The meal declared the covenant, as the two representatives would eat of the same bread and drink of the same wine telling the world that they were one, partaking one of another. We have illustration of such covenant meals being eaten in the context of covenant-making between men:
But they said, “We have certainly seen that the LORD is with you. So we said, ‘Let there now be an oath between us, between you and us; and let us make a covenant with you, that you will do us no harm, since we have not touched you, and since we have done nothing to you but good and have sent you away in peace. You are now the blessed of the LORD.’” So he made them a feast, and they ate and drank. Then they arose early in the morning and swore an oath with one another; and Isaac sent them away, and they departed from him in peace.
Genesis 26:28-31
We have already looked at the covenant that was made between Jacob and Laban. Take note that it was sealed with a meal at the place of the covenant.
Now therefore, come, let us make a covenant, you and I, and let it be a witness between you and me.” So Jacob took a stone and set it up as a pillar. Then Jacob said to his brethren, “Gather stones.” And they took stones and made a heap, and they ate there on the heap.
Genesis 31:44-46
The Memorial or Place of the Covenant-Making
The place where the covenant was made was hallowed as the memorial site of the two parties’ becoming one. Sometimes there was an enduring memorial set up to remind succeeding generations of what had taken place. Sometimes the name of the place would be changed to reflect the covenant that was made there.
Lovingkindness
To become part of a covenant was to enter into a new situation, becoming part of a relationship that is best understood as a family—not based on birth ties, but on a commitment of love freely given and bound with a sacred oath. The oath created a new kind of family bound together with an unbreakable life-and-death relationship.
Among the Arabs to this very day is the saying “Blood is thicker than milk,” meaning that those bound by the blood of covenant are held in a stronger bond than those who have drunk of the same mother’s milk.
The covenant made was to be worked out for the duration of the two parties’ lives under all circumstances. Hesed5 is the Hebrew word used to describe the ongoing relationship of the parties in covenant who worked out the commitment made in covenant, the keeping of its promises and responsibilities. Hesed is a difficult word to translate into the language of the Western world, for we are a society that knows very little of the commitment involved in being part of a covenant. In various translations of the Scripture, different words are used to catch aspects of the meaning of the word or to try to encompass its whole meaning. It is translated as “mercy,” “goodness,” “steadfast love,” “loyal love,” “covenant love,” “lovingkindness,” or simply “kindness.” Most of the time in this book, we will use the English word “lovingkindness” to translate the Hebrew word hesed.
The most amazing news to be announced to the human race is that God, in His unconditional love for us, has called us to participate in the most intimate relationship and unbreakable bond known among humans or capable of being expressed in any language. He has called us to covenant relationship with Himself, to come into the circle of friendship in which God and humanity are bound together in an intimate love union.
This covenant is the content of the Gospel. It is called the new covenant. It consists of the everlasting oath of God, the shedding of the blood of God in the death of Jesus Christ and His resurrection and ascension to the Father. The Holy Spirit was sent to make the covenant a reality in the lives of men and women who surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.
Chapter 3: The World of the Living Dead
We were created for covenant union with God, to be in the circle of His friends. We are made in His image and in His likeness, uniquely fitted to interact with Him in love. This is the meaning of our existence: to live by the life of God, enjoying the privilege of being His friends.
We are the unique ones in creation: spirits who are able to commune and be the intimates of God that are in bodies of flesh made from the dust of the earth. The flesh body—that it should not merely house the spirit but be the way the spirit is expressed—is the genius of God. Men and women are creatures that are created to be at home in the heavens in communion with God, while in the same moment to be at home in the world of the created matter. We were created to live from our spirit center, conscious of the heavenly world, and from that center order our flesh and physical world.
But an interaction of love such as God intends between Himself and humanity must be by choice. Love cannot be legislated. Robots do not make covenant partners! Before Adam, and the human race that was in him, could embark on the path for which he was made and find the reason for his being, he had to choose to trust God, to freely obey Him, and so to take the first steps of loving Him.
We stand amazed that God, the only free will that existed, with no necessity within and no pressure from without to bring about another creature with free will, freely chose to create a being who had free will, who was capable of saying no to Him. We might look at the chaos in the world and, above all, the death and suffering of the Son of God because of it, and ask why God would create a being with free will.
The only answer possible is almost too incredible to think. He chose to create us because His love desired to share itself with free beings that could partake of His life and join Him in His unspeakable joy. What makes this so incredible is that He did not purpose this out of a need within Him for company. He is the infinitely fulfilled One. He created men and women because His love must share and be given away. He loves you not only because you are here, but also you are here because He loved you into existence.
All that would happen because of what men and women would do when their free will sinks into insignificance in the light of the glorious end in view. The goal that made it all worthwhile was that these men and women would be conformed to the image of the Son of God and would share His life for eternity. For that goal, the Son of Go
d would take on flesh, suffer and die and rise again, and God the Spirit would come and bring men and women to the goal.
The Choice
But that is anticipating the end! In order for the man and the woman to make the deliberate choice to believe Him and begin the journey of loving Him and walking in His love, there had to be something about which a free choice could be made. God placed the man into the Garden of Eden (or Delight), a park designed and planted by God for His infinitely loved creatures, man and woman. In the midst of the Garden, He placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which would be the place of choice.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2:16,17
The response of the man and woman to the tree would either be one of obedience or of disobedience. Obedience would develop into trust and love toward God. Disobedience, unbelief that rejected God and His love and the result of such a declaration of independence from God, would be death.
The tree was not poisonous but was the divinely appointed place for man and woman to choose to obey. They were warned that in the day that they ate of the tree, they would surely die.
It must not be looked on as an exam that, had they passed, they could have moved on to the next grade. It was the very necessary opportunity they had to have to become the freely choosing humans they were created to be.
But why would they even consider eating of a tree that guaranteed their death? What bait would lure them to even consider it?
Adam had everything and needed nothing. He lacked only one thing; and because he was a creature, he would always lack it. He was owner of all the earth, having all that he needed, knowing no lack. But all that he had, from the breath in his lungs, to his dominion over all of creation, was all the free gift of God. With every breath he took, he was reminded that he was not God but a dependent creature and that the meaning of his life was to be submitted to his Creator.
It was on this point that the devil came to tempt him. He dangled before him as a possible possession the one thing a creature could never have—divinity.
The heart of Adam’s sin was that he envied God. He could not be tempted to envy what God had, for he shared that in abundance. He could, however, be tempted to envy who God was; and that could be fired into the desire to dethrone Him and take His place. Sin in its ultimate desire wills to remove God, kill Him if it could, and crown the creature human in His place.
Satan began by portraying God as a liar not to be trusted. He then told the woman that in eating the tree and thus announcing before God and creation their self-sufficiency and declaring independence from God, they would possess that one thing they did not have: They would become as God. He assured them that God had lied: Eating of the tree would not bring death but was instead the doorway to total, self-directed freedom.
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:4,5
This is the lie and will be referred to as such throughout the following chapters. From that original lie, all the sin of humankind has flowed.
Who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Romans 1:25
...the devil...does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44 NASB
They believed Satan and made the choice to disobey and declare their independence from God, to sever themselves from the One who was the source of their life and the meaning of their existence. In that moment, their universe came crashing down around them.
Dead in Sin
We can only understand the necessity of the death and blood shedding of the Lord Jesus when we have understood what happened in that moment of disobedience. It was the act of disobedience from which all other disobedience and sin flowed. It was the Great Disobedience and is the response to the Primal Lie.
It was not a simple falling out among friends. In that case, each goes one’s own way and licks one’s wounds, either to get on with life without one’s friend or to seek reconciliation.
There is life after a falling out among human friends. But in this case, one of the parties was the Creator, the giver and sustainer of life. To rebel in an act of disobedience that declared independence from Him was to disconnect with the source of life and plunge into death. This must be understood in its magnitude. It was not the breaking of a pointless rule. They were not caught talking in class and given detention with a hundred lines to write. This was a deliberate act of unbelief in the basic law of the universe.
This is not to be likened to talking in class; it is likened to defying gravity, only infinitely more so! Apart from causing creation to cease, there was nothing God could do to suspend the results of their sin. “In the day you eat of it, you shall surely die” was not a punishment, but the announcement of a fact: You are dependent upon God for your life; you are created to live in His love, and if you walk away from Him a law will be triggered that cannot be reversed—you will certainly and unquestionably die.
They were created to say yes to God and to choose to trust His love. Instead, they said no to God and yes to the lie of Satan and, in so doing, became the enemies of God. They denied the meaning of their existence as creatures and rejected their God-given glory of submission and obedience to the Creator. They said no to the covenant union with Him, for whom they were created, exchanging it for the dead-end street of independence that results in death.
Man and woman died in the moment they ate of the tree. But what do we mean by death? After all, they continued to live for many years and the human race is still here. Granted, everyone dies in the end; but the warning was that in the day they ate, they would die.
The problem with defining death is that those who are in the state of death are doing the defining and are convinced that they are alive! From their perspective, they are alive now and death is what happens at the end of physical life; but the Bible plainly says that outside of Christ, they are not alive now! This is the world of the walking dead who do not live but exist.
There are many dimensions to what we mean by life.
First, God is life and the source and upholder of all life. No life exists outside of Him, and nothing is independent of Him.
Then there is the life of the human, the most complex of all living creatures but, most importantly, created to share in and participate in the divine life. This incredible human is created to live in God’s world and in the physical creation simultaneously.
Next, there is animal life, which has a graded scale of complexity from the primates all the way down to the amoeba.
The amoeba is alive, my dog is alive, I am alive, and God is life. Life and living mean something different at each level.
The human is the only creature whose life was intended to go far beyond the natural life by sharing in the divine life. The Hebrew word for life or to live is hayah,1 which means simply to be alive but always assumes that for a human to be alive is more than one’s possessing a beating heart and lungs filled with air.
Moses explained that the troubles in the wilderness were intended to point the people to the fact that their life consisted of more than physical characteristics.
So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Deuteronomy 8:3
The word he uses for “live” is hayah, indicating that in men and women hayah is a quality of life that is more than the keeping of body and
soul together; it is living on the life of God in His Word.
Moses, speaking to the people, defined life (hayah) in terms of walking in obedience to the words of God:
In that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess.
Deuteronomy 30:16
In the Greek language, the word zoe2 is used to describe life as God knows life. Zoe, then, becomes the foundation of all life; but it specifically describes that quality of life that is unique to God, translated in the New Testament as everlasting life.
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