The Covenants are also ours

By Lou Occhi

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/081421.cfm
Joshua 24:14-29
Matthew 19:13-15

In today’s first reading, Joshua gathers all the tribes of Israel and tells then to fear the Lord and serve Him completely and sincerely. He goes on to tell them to cast out the gods their father served in Egypt and serve the Lord. He tells them to decide today whom they shall serve and that he (Joshua) and his family will serve the Lord.

They respond in their best passive-aggressive voice that they will not forsake the Lord after all He has done for them in delivering them from slavery. Joshua, noticing their passive-aggressive tone, in turn, tells them that they may not be able to serve the Lord for the Lord is a holy God and jealous God who will destroy you if you forsake Him after all he has done for you.

The people, upset that Josuah doesn’t think they are serious, respond that they will absolutely serve the Lord. Joshua, jumping on their adamant declaration, tells them that they have chosen to serve the Lord so they should put away the false gods among them and to turn their hearts to the Lord. The people then promised to serve the Lord.

To confirm their decision, Joshua set a stone tablet at the base of an oak tree in the sanctuary of the Lord. Joshua then told his people that he has made a covenant with the people that day and made statutes and ordinances with them. That stone shall be a witness against you should they wish to deny God.

Just as an aside, this tale about Joshua leading his people to swear allegiance to the Lord reminds me of Tom Sawyer convincing his friends to paint Aunt Polly’s fence. Joshua was basically telling them that following the Lord was difficult and that they didn’t have the ability or commitment to do such a thing. Each time he told them they did not have the ability to follow the Lord the more they insisted that they did. Finally Joshua set their decision in stone so that they could not deny they had committed to serve the Lord.

In all of this, we hear the key word covenant. In today’s first reading, there is a covenant established between Joshua and the people of Israel. This is a type of agreement between Joshua and his people that they would all abandon their false gods and serve only the Lord. This triggered a memory of my high school religion class. Father Gilbert drilled into our head the first covenant between man and God found in Genesis 3:15. For some reason I have never forgotten that. So, I Googled covenant and found a trove of information on the subject.

In the bible, there are seven specific covenants between God and man. These covenants fall into three categories: conditional, unconditional and general. Conditional covenants are based on prerequisites and obligations. If the requirements are not fulfilled the covenant is broken. An unconditional covenant has no prerequisites or obligations and will be kept regardless of the participants’ fidelity or infidelity. A general covenant is not tied to one group of people and can involve a wide range of people.

Since you already know there are seven specific covenants in the bible, then you will know when I get to the seventh covenant I will finally be near the end.

• Adamic Covenant. Genesis 1:26-30 and 2:16-17 is a conditional covenant. It commanded not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The consequence, of course is banishment from paradise and death. Later, in Genesis 3:15, God tells Satan, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. She will strike at your head while you will strike at her heel.” This implies that there will eventually be a redemption for mankind.
  
• Noahic Covenant. This also is a general covenant. In Genesis 9:11 God made a covenant with Noah that never again will all flesh be destroyed by water and that a rainbow will be the symbol of God’s faithfulness to the covenant.
  
• Abrahamic Covenant. In Genesis 12:2-3 God promises Abraham that He will make you a great nation and I will bless you and magnify your name and you will be blessed. He will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. In addition, God vowed to bless the whole world through Abraham’s seed. The fulfillment of this unconditional general covenant is seen in the history of Abraham’s descendants and in the creation of the nation of Israel. The worldwide blessing came through Jesus Christ who was from the line of Abraham.
  
• Palestinian Covenant. This conditional covenant is found in Deuteronomy 30:1-10. In this covenant God promised to scatter Israel if they were disobedient and restore them to Israel at a later time. This was fulfilled twice. Once with the Babylonian captivity and restoration of Jerusalem under Cyrus the Great. Then, again, with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD and reinstatement of the nation of Israel in 1948.
  
• Mosaic Covenant. This conditional covenant is found in Deuteronomy 11. Here God promises to bless obedience and curse disobedience. We see the fulfilled many times as the Jews disobeyed God’s commands and later repented.
  
• Davidic Covenant. This unconditional covenant is found in 2 Samuel 7:8-16. God promised to bless David’s family line and an everlasting kingdom. Jesus is from the family line of David and is the fulfillment of this covenant.
  
• New Covenant. This unconditional covenant was prophesized in Jeremiah 31:34. God promises that a time will come when he would forgive sins and have a close relationship with His people. This promise was made first to Israel and then in Matthew 26:28 and Hebrews 9:15 extended to all who come to Jesus in faith.

While there are some disagreements among Biblical scholars over some of the details on the covenants it is clear that God made certain promises to Israel and others to all people. In every case, the promises were to fulfill His plans for the world. Through the blood of Christ Acts 2:21 tells us, “It will come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”