- Covenant of God
- The Time of Adam and Eve
- The Time of Noah
- The Time of Abraham
- The Time of Moses
- Covenant at the Time of Jesus’ First Coming
- Covenant at the Time of Jesus’ Second Coming
- The Result of the Covenant
- Those Who Do Not Keep The Covenant
- Those Who Keep the Covenant
- Conclusion
The Bible contains God’s love and will for His creations. He gave the Scriptures to His people to reveal the way to salvation. Even so, why didn’t the great Bible scholars such as the Pharisees and Sadducees believe that Jesus was the Savior? Wasn’t He the physical reality of what was written in the Scriptures?
What does the Bible tell us, exactly? How do we make sure not to repeat the sin that our forefathers did against God?
Let’s take a rundown of the important events in the Bible and how this mirrors us in our life of faith.
Covenant of God
As written in Psalms 89:3, God made a covenant to His chosen one. This tells us that God does not make a promise to everyone, rather only a few ones were given the trust to preserve His covenant. This covenant is unbreakable and unchanging. God stands by His promises and He will be faithful to His chosen ones.
But as we can read and see from the beginning of the story of the Bible, God has been repeatedly heartbroken by the people He chose.
Let us find out how and why.
The Time of Adam and Eve
In the very beginning, God created the heavens and earth (Gen 1:1). He was satisfied with all that He had made. He entrusted Adam to govern in the Garden of Eden and commanded that he could eat anything except from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17). Now, this does not pertain to the physical tree or fruit as usually interpreted. Instead, it represents lies that may keep us farther from God, to the truth.
As it turned out, Adam and his wife, Eve, were deceived by the crafty snake which lured them to eat what was from that tree. They were then banished from Eden and it was the first disobedience and sin that man had ever made which caused evil and death to exist.
That is how the first promise with God got broken. It is God’s first heartbreak. It is so painful that He had to leave for He is holy and men are with sin. He cannot dwell with mankind, otherwise, we will die. That is how Adam’s era ended.
The Time of Noah
When human beings began to increase in number, the Lord saw how wicked humans were. He created the world perfectly and yet the beings who were supposed to rule over were full of evil intentions. He was greatly troubled and regretted He had made human beings (Gen. 6:6).
But approximately 1600 years later, Noah found favor in God’s eyes (Gen. 6:8).
Seeing how wickedness had surged all over the Earth, God decided to put an end to all of the people through floodwaters. He asked Noah to build a huge ark and gave him specific instructions on how to make it. On that very day, God said to Noah that only he, his family, and his son’s wives were to be saved, including two of all male and female creatures.
From that point, it is evident that God revealed a long time ago that only his chosen ones will be saved, and the rest will eventually pay the price for their unbelief and wicked ways.
When the Earth was washed away, God made a covenant with them that never again would there be a flood to destroy the earth. God set His rainbow in the clouds as the sign of His covenant (Gen. 9:13-17).
They earned God’s trust and followed Him until Ham saw the nakedness of his father (Gen. 9:22). Ham, the father of Canaan, and his descendants broke their alliance with God and worshiped other gods.
Thus, sin entered again in the world of Noah.
The Time of Abraham
Four hundred (400) years after Noah’s era ended, Abram was the next one chosen by God. God appointed him the father of many nations and called him Abraham.
God promised to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and would give them the promised land (Gen. 26:4).
But before that happens, his descendants would be strangers in a country not their own and enslaved and mistreated there for four hundred years. And God will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward, they will come out with great possessions (Gen. 15:13-14).
Despite his old age and barren wife, Abraham believed in all of those promises, and God credited Abraham’s faith as righteousness (Gen 15:6).
The Time of Moses
God had promised Abraham that he would conquer the promised land and make his descendants take possession of it. True to His Word, God fulfilled His promises, but, through Moses.
We could see in Exodus 1 that the newly appointed King of Egypt was deeply concerned about the fruitful number of Israelites. With that, the Egyptians decided to deal with them shrewdly, but to no avail, Israelites still kept increasing in numbers.
Approximately 500 years later, God commanded Moses to lead the Israelites to exit Egypt and head to Canaan.
God through Moses guided them to the desert on the way to the Promised Land. He even rained down bread, manna, from heaven to quench their thirst until they reached the border of Canaan.
However, due to the difficulties, they encountered on their journey, the Israelites began to question why Moses even thought about bringing them out of Egypt and doubted if God was ever with them (Ex. 14:11-12, Num. 14:1-3).
Eventually, Aaron and the Israelites made their own gods and tarnished their covenant with God. Tracing back from the time of Adam down to the time of Moses, the people to whom God made a covenant did not keep their faith until the very end.
As God saw how His people gave in to sin, He finally decided to give His own Son for the world to attain salvation.
Covenant at the Time of Jesus’ First Coming
To wash away the sins of the Earth, God prophesied in the Bible that He will send a Messiah to save His people from their oppressors as written in Isaiah 19:20.
What does prophecy mean then?
In simplest words, it means telling what is to come before it comes to a reality. It is like how a promise is given before it actually happens. Why does God prophesy through His prophets before He fulfills it? As read in John 14:29, God has given His promises beforehand, so when it does happen, His people will believe.
1500 years later, the prophecy was later fulfilled by Jesus as the sole reality himself.
He was the King and Savior referred to in the 1st coming, a Word that became flesh. Some fulfilled realities about Jesus were: Jesus’ birth was already prophesied in the Book of Micah and Isaiah and was later fulfilled in the Book of Matthew. Jesus’ coming as a Zion’s King was also promised and was later fulfilled when Jesus came to Jerusalem as a King.
From the references above, it is clearly stated that God fulfills His promises by turning the prophecies into realities, such as how the Word became flesh, which is Jesus (1 Jn. 1:1-1).
So, what is faith all about? Isn’t it about believing in the actual entities of the promises that were made? That’s why Jesus said He is the way the truth and the life. People at that time should believe in Him as the fulfillment so they will be saved.
However, many religious leaders at the time of the first coming failed to recognize Jesus as the Savior whom God referred to in the Bible.
Due to the lack of understanding, they excluded Jesus and led Him to His death.
Covenant at the Time of Jesus’ Second Coming
These self-proclaimed Christians in olden times had shown mastery of the Bible. Some of them performed miracles, some actively held on to what they knew while others practiced the values written in the Scriptures. Yet, Jesus referred to them as evildoers. As explained in Biblical history, believing is not only about holding on to the promise. Most importantly, it is about believing in its fulfillment at the appointed time.
Before Jesus suffered and died on the cross, He left a new covenant which will be fulfilled at the time of His second coming (Luke 22:14-20). Jesus said beforehand that He would make a new covenant that was not like the promise that was broken by the ancestors (Jer. 31:32). It will be a covenant that will never be broken. It will be a promise that will end the suffering of those who could keep their faith until the very end. He will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for Him (Heb. 9:28).
So then, which era are we living in today? What signs should we look for? Will God use physical entities like Jesus and the 12 disciples at the time of the second coming? If so, what or who will the actual entities be? Lastly, if these things show up, will we believe them?
At this moment, we learned that seeking the true answers to these questions and believing in them at the time of fulfillment will significantly determine whether we belong to God or not.
The Result of the Covenant
Those Who Do Not Keep The Covenant
Jesus came to that which was His own, but He was not accepted (Jn.1:11). Their lack of faith and understanding led them to their spiritual death.
As a consequence, judgment will come upon them on the last day (Jn 12:48). Those who omit the realities in the Bible and add their own interpretations to it will receive plagues, curses, and eternal death. This is how they will suffer from their unbelief.
Not believing in the Scriptures makes a man entirely lose his purpose both in the physical and spiritual world. Since this is how heavy the consequence is, shouldn’t we make our life of faith strong enough to overcome evil?
We should keep in mind that it was never God’s intention to harm us. The painful result of sin is not God’s way of getting back at those who did not keep their faith, rather it is the result of a human’s deliberate choice to allow sin to contaminate his spirit. It should be noted that God expresses His pure intention of planning to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future (Jer. 29:11).
The Bible clearly tells us that plagues and curses belong to evil, and God firmly warns us not to draw near wickedness.
Those Who Keep the Covenant
Conversely, God promised the sweetest blessings anyone could have ever imagined as written in Revelation 2-3. God said that a person who understands the Revealed Word at our time today and manifests this kind of faith until the end will gain eternal life and will enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Conclusion
It is disheartening to look back on the downfall of the elect. However, today is not the time to be pessimistic. The history seen in the Bible teaches us the importance of keeping the prophecy and fulfillment to attain salvation.
God has relentlessly fought for us for 6,000 years and the love God has poured out should completely be reciprocated. Shouldn’t love to be mutual at work? Wouldn’t manifesting full commitment keep the relationship for a lifetime? So then, we Christians must exhibit a true life of faith.
The question is, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Luke 18:8).
But how do we keep our relationship with God healthy? Join us in our Free Bible Class to get the full understanding of God’s heart and will through the Scriptures!
