Quotes about Covenant

What has just been pointed out reveals a principle which is of great practical value for our own souls today. The further Israel's religious apostasy advanced and wickedness increased, the more were the godly handful among them taught to look away from the present to the future, to walk by faith and not by sight, to regale their desponding hearts with those covenant blessings which the Messiah would obtain for all His people.

I do believe that Israel is covenant land. That's very controversial, but I read the Bible literally, and I believe that God gave them that land, all the way back to Deuteronomy.

But we must never read such promises, or anything in the Old Testament, as if Jesus had not come and the New Testament had not been written.

the Old Testament must always be read in light of the New. I never read such Old Testament texts without immediately asking, "Does the New Testament shed additional light on how I am to understand the nature of such promises and their recipients?

The covenant language in the Bible is not cold, legal language, but relational language.

I began to understand the security of the covenant of grace, and to expect to be preserved, not by my own power and holiness, but by the mighty power and promise of God, through faith in an unchangeable Savior.

Marriage is not mainly about prospering economically; it is mainly about displaying the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church. Knowing Christ is more important than making a living. Treasuring Christ is more important than bearing children. Being united to Christ by faith is a greater source of marital success than perfect sex and double-income prosperity.

God created us in his image, male and female, with personhood and sexual passions, so that when he comes to us in this world there would be these powerful words and images to describe the promises and the pleasures of our covenant relationship with him through Christ.

Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. And therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and his church on display. That is why marriage exists. If you are married, that is why you are married. If you hope to be, that should be your dream.

The new covenant is purchased by the blood of Christ, effected by the Spirit of Christ, and appropriated by faith in Christ.

In other words, the covenant involved in leaving mother and father and holding fast to a spouse and becoming one flesh is a portrayal of the covenant between Christ and his church. Marriage exists ultimately to display the covenant-keeping love between Christ and his church.

have also assumed that the mark of this people is not merely that they are "chosen before the foundation of the world," but that they have willingly responded to God in a certain way. In this chapter I have focused mainly