Our Heavenly Father is a covenant God. Most commonly, a covenant is a contract, pledge, promise or agreement between two parties. Covenants made by God are His conditional promises to humanity. For instance, God made a covenant with the Children of Israel to protect and bless them as long as they were faithful to keep and honor His statues and laws. Heavenly Father would provide protection and bountiful blessings, but the Children of Israel also had a part to play. They needed to keep His commandments. Numbers 23:19(NLT) tells us, “God is not a man, so he does not lie. He is not human, so he does not change his mind. Has he ever spoken and failed to act? Has he ever promised and not carried it through?” Psalm 145:13(NLT) says, “ For your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom. You rule throughout all generations. The Lord always keeps his promises; he is gracious in all he does.” Hebrews 10:23(NLT) reminds us, “Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise.” Our Heavenly Father never changes, and He is faithful to His Word to an incomprehensible degree. When He makes a promise, we can count on Him to keep His promise with all that we are. Humans, on the hand, are still learning to be as committed to Him as He is to us.
The covenants and promises that God has made have open the door for abundantly living through Christ. They give us hope and allow us to lay claim to the blessings we desire in faith. The pattern that God has set through His covenants is that He establishes them according to His plan, then He brings us in to reap the benefits of them. We’re supposed to abide by and follow the conditions of the covenant, so we can reap the blessings of what He has established. This is so incredibly important to state, because most humans operate in a way that is quite different. They think they can dictate what they want, and that God will follow along. This is a dangerous track because it leads people to develop dependencies on
other things. They worship the creations and not the Creator, and this is idolatrous.
Idolatry is the practice of putting any other thing before our relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. We see God’s warnings to His people about this several times in His Word. Idolatry is a sin, and it has been rampant throughout humanity. Consciously or unconsciously, we have indulged the sin of idolatry in many ways. Whether it is a relationship, person, situation, or material thing, many people have thought that it was okay to place these things in first place, and to place our relationship with God in second or third place. This is not what our Heavenly Father deserves. He is the Creator of the universe, and He can never hold anything other than first place in all things. Idolatry has been the common practice of many people because they’ve not humbled themselves before God and not honored the conditions of His covenant. Historically, whenever and wherever God’s covenant has not been honored and upheld, terrible consequences have been the result.
In the Old Testament, Moses requested that the Lord forgive the sins of the Children of Israel and that He be with them and claim them as His own special possession. Exodus 34:10(NLT) tells us God’s response: “The LORD replied, “Listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people. I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth or in any nation. And all the people around you will see the power of the LORD—the awesome power I will display for you.” God told Moses how to instruct the Children of Israel. In Exodus 34:12(NLT), He said, “Be very careful never to make a treaty with the people who live in the land where you are going. If you do, you will follow their evil ways and be trapped.” This is what idolatry does, it traps people under the oppression and bondage of evil and darkness.
God delivered His people as He had promised to do, but they were rebellious, and didn’t obey the covenant He made with them. This was not a surprise to Heavenly Father. He knows everything. We must never lose sight that as God’s people, we are a work in progress. We are getting better as we put on more of the example of Jesus Christ. God doesn’t force us to change, just as He did not force Adam and Eve to change. He doesn’t force anyone to love and honor Him. It’s our choice. We have the gift of free-will, and we chose the degree to which we will love and honor God by obeying His Word. We were created in our Father’s image, and since our creation, Heavenly Father has been overwhelmingly patient with us. We have walked upon this earth for thousands of years, and we have been allowed to get to know God. We are commanded in Ephesians 5:1 to be imitators of God. His desire is that the more we know about Him, the more we will put on His nature and become like Him.
Again, God has not rushed our pace of spiritual growth. He did not create human beings having all knowledge of Him already in our minds and hearts. It is up to us to decide who we are going to be. We decide if we are going to follow the ways of God through Jesus Christ, or if we will choose darkness, as Adam and Eve did, and remain slaves of satan. Those living during Old Testament times were under the Law Administration. They were not children of God, but servants of God. They were God’s possession and their covenant provided a way for them to maintain a relationship with Him, but it was not the kind of relationship that He had in mind when He created us.
Our hearts and minds grow deeper in Christ as we understand more about him through the Word of God. This causes us to come into greater understanding of who God has made us. Christ is the blueprint for our identity. As we grow more in Christ, our relationship with God grows too. It takes on greater levels of depth and fulfillment. This is one of the reasons we must continually pursue God’s Word.
Alongside growing in Christ, something else grows too, and it is our level of thankfulness for the blessings of God. Our Heavenly Father is an excellent Giver. In modern terms, a person that is considered an excellent giver will only give people gifts they can appreciate and use. This person would not give a two-year old an exquisite vase, because a two-year old wouldn’t know what to do with it. A toy would be a more appropriate gift for a toddler. If we as humans use this level of discernment and wisdom about giving gifts, we should expect our Heavenly Father to do it even more so. He doesn’t give us blessings for which we lack the ability to be sincerely and deeply thankful to receive. Jesus Christ said in Luke 12:48 that to whom much is given, much is required. The more we receive from God, the greater the requirements are for our stewardship and management of the blessings He provides.
Galatians 4:3-4 says that we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of the world, but when God determined the time was right, He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. We were in elementary school, so to speak, only able to digest the basics, and were not ready to graduate to grade school. Our Redeemer did not come immediately after Adam and Eve sinned. He came much later. He came when many human beings recognized how desperately the Messiah was needed. He came when people could demonstrate a level of gratitude that God deemed adequate. God waited to send the Messiah. He waited until we could digest in a more robust way the reality that He, the Almighty God and Creator of the universe, would make everlasting promises with us, His creation. He wanted us to appreciate Ephesians 2:10, where He calls us His masterpiece and finest work. We are fearfully and wonderfully made by our Creator, and through His Son, Jesus Christ, He has made us worthy to come into covenant with Him. Humanity had to be in a place intellectually and spiritually to comprehend this. The Children of Israel were not able to keep the covenant God made with them. They were caught in a vicious cycle of sin and sacrifices, but when Jesus Christ came to the earth, he saved us, and changed all that.
God’s laws are good and perfect, but we are not. Galatians 3:19 tells us that His laws revealed the nature of sin in us. His Laws also revealed who He created us to become through Jesus Christ. Through His laws, God shows us His own nature. He shows us the righteousness of how He behaves, and again as Ephesians 5:1 says, we are to imitate His nature by following the example that Christ left for us. Human beings are not made righteous by obeying the law. We are made righteous by faith, by believing and trusting our Heavenly Father’s Word. Galatians 3:21-22(NLT) says, “Is there a conflict, then, between God’s law and God’s promises? Absolutely not! If the law could give us new life, we could be made right with God by obeying it. 22 But the Scriptures declare that we are all prisoners of sin, so we receive God’s promise of freedom only by believing in Jesus Christ.”
Our Savior rescued us from the bondage of slavery to the law. Galatians 3:13-14(NLT) tells us, “13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. 14 Through Christ Jesus, God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.” Jesus Christ is the way of faith. He told us in John 14:6 that he is the way, the truth, and the life. The only way to get to the Father is through Christ. Galatians 3:25-26(NLT) declares, “25 And now that the way of faith has come, we no longer need the law as our guardian. 26 For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus.”
Heavenly Father sent Jesus Christ to purchase our freedom from the slavery of the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own. Believers living after the ascension of Jesus Christ are not servants. Jesus Christ ushered in a new covenant with God, and we are God’s children. We have God’s seed, which is the Holy Spirit of promise. Galatians 4:7(NLT) tells us, “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.” No longer is it necessary for priest to make sacrifices on behalf of people’s sins. During his last super with the disciples, Jesus Christ said in Luke 22:20(NLT), “This cup is the new covenant between God and his people—an agreement confirmed with my blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you.” Our Lord and Savior paid the price for our sins, his blood canceled them out. Now we are sealed with God’s indwelling Holy Spirit, and we can live through his power every day of our lives. ■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“Rescued from the Law’s Curse”, written by JMack, 4theChristianMan.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.