Covenant
(ברית / διαθηκη)
The Greek word διαθηκη (diatheke), usually translated "covenant" in English versions of the Bible, is a legal term denoting a formal and legally binding declaration of benefits to be given by one party to another, with or without conditions attached. In secular contexts it was most often used of a "last will and testament." In the Greek version of the Old Testament this word was used as the ordinary rendering for the Hebrew word ברית.
ברית (berith) is also translated "covenant" in English versions, but, like διαθηκη, it also refers to legal dispositions or pledges which may or may not have the character of an "agreement."
Sometimes a ברית is more in the nature of a one-sided promise or grant.
When English readers see the word "covenant" in the Bible, it is important to bear this in mind, because the true sense is often missed if readers suppose that the word must refer to a reciprocal "agreement" or "contract." The issue is important because misunderstandings along this line can have some serious consequences for theology.
This problem of interterpretation has received considerable attention from biblical scholars and theologians. We recommended to students the full discussion of the matter by Geerhardus Vos in his article Hebrews, the Epistle of the Diatheke, reproduced on a separate page of this site. Below we also provide some brief comments from the works of Herman Ridderbos and Louis Berkhof.
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Herman Ridderbos, The Epistle of Paul to the Churches of Galatia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1953), pp. 130-31.
In the Septuagint διαθηκη is regularly used as the translation of the covenant of God (berith), rather than the apparently more available word συνθηκη. In this there is already an expression of the fact that the covenant of God does not have the character of a contract between two parties, but rather that of a one-sided grant. This corrresponds with the covenant-idea in the Old Testament, in which berith, even in human relations, sometimes refers to a one-party guarantee which a more favored person gives a less favored one (cf.
Josh. 9:6, 15;
1 Sam. 11:1; Ezek. 17:13). And it is most peculiarly true of the divine covenantal deed that it is a one-party guarantee. It comes not from man at all, but from God alone. This does not rule out the fact, of course, that it involves religious and ethical obligation, namely that of faith and obedience (
Gen. 17:9-10), and that thus the reciprocal element is taken up in the covenant.
Still, such an obligation is not always named, and there is no room to speak at all of a correlation, in the sense that each determines and holds in balance the terms of the other, between the promise of God and the human appropriation of it. It is not the idea of parity, or even that of reciprocity, but that of validity which determines the essence of the covenant-idea. God's covenant with Noah, for example, lays down no stipulations, and it has the character of a one-party guarantee. It does of course require the faith of man, but is in its fulfillment in no respect dependent on the faith, an it is validly in force for all coming generations, believing and unbelieving (cf.
Gen. 9:9). And in the making of the covenant with Abraham, too, in
Gen. 15, the fulfillment of the law is in symbolical form made to depend wholly upon the divine deed. Abraham is deliberately excluded — he is the astonished spectator (cf.
Gen. 15:12, 17). True, in the Sinaitic covenant, the stipulations which God lays down for his people sometimes take the form of actual conditions, so that the realization of the promise is conditioned by them (cf.
Lev. 26:15 ff. and
Deut. 31:20), but this structural change in the covenant-revelation can be explained in connection with the wider promulgation — it is to extend to the whole nation of Israel — of the covenant, by means of which the covenant-relationship takes on a wider and more external meaning. It comprises not merely the unconditional guarantee of God to those who walk in the faith and obedience of their father Abraham: it also lays down a special bond constituted by the offer of salvation, on the one side, and by responsibility, on the other side, for those who will not appear to manifest a oneness with their spiritual ancestor.
Meanwhile, of course, the fact remains that in all the different dispensations of the covenant of grace, God's unconditional promise to Abraham constitutes its heart and kernel. Consequently, when the "new covenant" (
Jer. 31:33) is announced, one thing is expressly made clear: namely, that the disposition which is indispensible for the human reception of the covenant-benefits will itself be granted as the gift of God Himself. In other words, that very thing which in the Sinaitic covenant was so plainly set down as a condition, belongs in the new covenant to the benefits promised by God in the covenant itself. The New Testament concept of διαθηκη lies quite in the line of that development, particularly as Paul thinks of it, as is evident in [
Galatians 3 and 4], and in such a place as
Rom. 9. That New Testament concept points to a salvation whose benefits are guaranteed by God and as a matter of fact are actually given, because in Christ and through Him the conditions of the covenant are fulfilled.
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Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids, 1949), pp. 262-3.
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