Covenant

"This is what the LORD says, 'If you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night no longer come at their appointed times, then my covenant with David my servant--and my covenant with the Levites who are priests ministering before me--can be broken . . . "

~Jeremiah 33:20-21a

I remember the first time I really saw that verse. The first time it hit me: it's easier to break the cycle of the sun and moon than it is to break God's covenant.

So why have I spent so much of my life without that confidence? With spiritual insecurity and doubt? Why have I not taken hold of what it means that we are in covenant with God?

Covenantal love is the story of the Bible. It's displayed through every page of Scripture. From Noah to Abraham to Jesus to everywhere in between and beyond its pages.

We serve a covenant God.

We serve a God who remembers us. Who keeps us secure and holds our salvation. Who pursues our sanctification and restoration. Who will not abandon us. 

God doesn't make covenants like people do. His covenants are timeless--He will not let go of His promises--and we see His heart displayed in them.

When God makes His covenant with Abram, He takes on sole responsibility to keep it, unlike human custom, and this is the promise we stand on. 

When we are in Christ, "it is God who works in [us], both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (Phil. 2:13). That doesn't mean we are cavalier with sin or we dismiss the work of pursuing His goodness, but it means we don't have to measure up, we don't have to get it right, we are held by His grace in the midst of our sin and our failures. 

We have hope in covenant. We have a place to return. We have a God who restores.

We see this repeatedly in Scripture, but one of the most striking to me is in the progression of Ezekiel 16.

For 59 verses God speaks condemnation. He expresses Israel's rebellion in drastic terms of unfaithfulness--even greater than that of Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet they are not struck down in the same way. Why?

Sometimes in our flesh we look to lesser punishment more as a sign of our goodness than God's. We equate lesser judgement to lesser offense, when the reality is only God's grace and mercy over us. We get uncomfortable with God's judgement, not wanting to believe what it says about us, which in turn causes us to justify ourselves and accuse our God. But when we have a right understanding of our sin, we see God's goodness in His justice, and we know the depth of what He's spared us from through His covenant. 

In Ezekiel 16 God speaks judgement over Israel, but in verses 60 and 63, we see a shift. The climax of Israel's judgement is grace. The expectation of complete condemnation is traded for restoration. After detailing Israel's offenses, God says, "yet I will remember my covenant with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish my everlasting covenant with you . . . I atone for you for all that you have done."

Though Israel rebelled against God, their covenant was secure because their God is secure, and nothing can change His promise. Every judgement against them becomes a path for drawing back to God, and ultimately, a sign of His grace, mercy, and restoration. Their judgement will not be their final chapter because His everlasting covenant will always stand. 

We deserve death. We deserve judgement. But God is not led by our faithlessness but His faithfulness. We are oathbreakers, but God is always an oathkeeper, and He will restore us as He has called us. He will continue to pursue us. He will honor the covenant we have broken.

And it is only a merciful God who keeps us from what our actions have earned us. In the context of His covenant, God turns judgement of the faithless into pursuit of the loved. 

As Ezekiel 36 shows us, God's judgement is discipline, not destruction, meant to uplift His covenant people towards His goodness, giving them a new spirit to receive it. He delivers them from themselves as He had from their enemies in the past. He uplifts His name, not in Israel's destruction, but in their restoration to Him.

That's what it is to be in covenant with God. He will not tolerate the abuse of His name, but His reproof will not be ultimate. In love for His covenant people, the pattern of Scripture is a God who always moves us to correction and restoration. A God who purposes the exile to reap fruit in the hearts of His people.

This is the God who Mary remembers in her song and Zechariah in his prophecy in the beginning of Luke. This is a God who is reliable, who is more sure than we are fickle. This is a covenant we can trust because of who upholds it. It does not end. It's safe for those who are held by it. We can put our hope in the God who covenants with us.

Sometimes the rainbow looks distant and hazy, but it will never fade. It is everlasting as displayed in Isaiah 55 and Jeremiah 32. God's covenant remains true when everything seems to be going wrong. Nothing is too hard for Him, He will not turn away from doing good to us, and He will accomplish His purposes and promises in His good and appointed time. We will not be abandoned, seasons of silence will not last, our inadequacies will be covered, and we can depend on Him forever. He's a God who restores us to His name according to His will.

We take hold of that covenant now. Of the God who delights in our salvation and whose word never returns to us empty. The God who authors our story and keeps us in His love. Our covenant God.