What Is a Covenant, Anyway?

This weekend Wellspring hosts our Annual Covenant Renewal Service (Sunday, January 22, 7:00 pm).  The annual covenant, which Wellspring instituted several years ago, is a means for all of us to simultaneously commit ourselves to the Lord and to one another for the coming year.  The idea is borrowed from Scripture, where covenants play an enormous role.  The trouble is we don't often encounter covenants in our world, so the concept needs some explaining.

Put simply, a covenant is a voluntary life-long agreement between two parties.  This is why we refer to marriage as a covenant -- the couple is under no obligation to enter their union, but they choose to do so until death separates them.  At least, that's how it's supposed to work, but that's another subject for another day.

In the ancient world, these agreements would be made between nations, in which one, the stronger, would pledge protection and provision for the other, weaker nation.  In return, the lesser tribe would promise fidelity to the greater leader.  These oaths would be sealed in blood, typically some kind of sacrifice, which represented the enduring strength of the agreement.  The lesser party, by offering the sacrifice, was essentially saying that they could break the covenant only in death.

It's a grim picture, I know, but it is also a powerful one.  We enter into a covenant with the Lord, promising our faithfulness to Him and His ways.  In return, as the greater party, God pledges his protection and provision (Philippians 4:19), all that is needed for life (and life everlasting, I might add).  The agreement is sealed in the blood of God's own Son, who happened to receive a resurrected life for his own fidelity to the Father.  Not a bad deal.

-- Mike McKinniss