God’s Covenant with Humanity

Since the beginning, God has related to humans through promises, or covenants. There are two main covenants in the Bible that connect all the other covenants: the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. The covenant of works was established in the garden with Adam and Eve where they were given commands with the threat of punishment for disobedience.

Then the LORD God commanded the man, “You may freely eat fruit from every tree of the orchard, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.”
—Genesis 2:16-17

If they obeyed the Lord they would live and receive the blessings that came with obedience. If they disobeyed and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they would die. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve disobeyed and broke God’s law. Because of this, all kinds of destruction came into the world. 

God knew they would not obey His laws on their own. Their fall did not come as a surprise. Why exactly God chooses to do things the way He does is something we won’t fully understand until we see Him face to face. But He is God and knows, better than we do, what needs to be done. 

Remember what I accomplished in antiquity.

Truly I am God, I have no peer;

I am God, and there is none like me,

who announces the end from the beginning

and reveals beforehand what has not yet occurred;

who says, ‘My plan will be realized,

I will accomplish what I desire;’

—Isaiah 46:9-10

Through the fall God showed us we cannot obey His law on our own. Even Adam and Eve couldn’t manage to obey, what we might think of as, the simplest of rules. 

God is merciful and gracious and set up a covenant of grace, later called the New Covenant, immediately after the fall. The first mention is found in Genesis 3:15. It doesn’t reveal much, but it is the promise of what the covenant of grace is all about: God’s promise of a Deliverer.

This covenant, or promise, is not based on a person’s ability to keep a promise, but on God’s ability to keep promises. Salvation and eternal life with God are not based on something we must earn or do but on what God has done and continues to do.

Throughout the  Bible we see God set up smaller promises, or covenants, that all point to the larger covenant of grace. The covenant He made with Noah is one of those promises. Never again would God destroy the earth through a flood. He would, instead, preserve the earth so people can live, flourish, and multiply and subdue the earth so at the right time and through the proper lineage, Jesus would be born. His birth is the beginning of the culmination of the covenant of grace. He was born to die. He was born to die for the sins of those who find their hope in Him. He was born to die to satisfy the wrath of God. He was born to die  to fulfill the promises God made to us.