– In the Bible, it indicates God’s initiative to make a covenant with individuals or with the chosen people. It is quite common to call the Old Testament the covenant of Yahweh with the Hebrew people, and the New Testament the covenant renewed by God with his adopted children through the sacrifice of his Only Begotten Son, Jesus the Christ:
2Cor 3,14 : Even now […] that same veil remains lowered, because it is only in Christ that it must be lifted.
1Cor 11,23-27 : I received from the Lord what I passed on to you: that the Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed.
– Examples of alliance with individuals:
– With Adam:
Gen 1,3.26-30 : God blessed them: “Be fruitful”, he said, “and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it”.
Gen 3,9-19: But the Lord God called the man and asked him: “Where are you?”.
– With Noah:
Gen 6:18 : But I will make a covenant with you: you shall enter the ark with your sons, your wife and your sons’ wives.
Gen 9,8-17 : I will make a covenant with you and your posterity.
– With Abram/Abraão:
Gen 12,1-3 : The Lord said to Abram: “Leave your country, your family and your father’s house and go to the land that I will show you”.
Gen 15,7-21 : And he said to him: “I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of Chaldea to give you this land”.
Gen 17,2-22 : I want to make a covenant with you and I will multiply your descendants infinitely.
Acts 3:25 : You are children of the prophets and of the covenant that God established with our fathers, when he said to Abraham.
Acts 7 :8 : And he gave him the covenant of circumcision.
Gal 3,16-17 : Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his descendants.
– With Moses and with the people of Israel:
Ex 2,24 : God heard their groans and remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Ex 6,4-5 : I promised to give them the land of Canaan.
Ex 19,5-6 : Now therefore, if you obey my voice, and keep my covenant.
Ex 24,1-11 : God said to Moses: “Go up to the Lord, with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu”.
Ex 34,10.27 : The Lord said: “I will make a covenant with you”.
Deut 4:23 : Be careful not to forget the covenant that the Lord your God made with you.
Deut 7,9-10 : Know , then, that the Lord your God is truly God, a faithful God, who keeps his covenant.
1Ch 16,15-16 : Remember your covenant without ceasing.
Romans 9:4 : They are the Israelites; to them were given the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the law.
– With Phinehas:
Num 25,12-13 : Tell him, therefore, that I give him my covenant of peace.
– With David:
2 Sam 7:16 : Your house and your kingdom are established forever before me and your throne is established forever.
2 Kings 8:19 : Despite this, the Lord did not want to destroy the house of Judah.
2Ch 21,7 : However, the Lord did not want to destroy the house of David, in view of the covenant made with David.
Ps 88,4-5 : “I have concluded”, you say, “a covenant with my chosen one”.
– The entire history of Israel is based on the covenant of the people with Yahweh. Such an alliance must guide the behavior of each individual, as well as that of the entire nation; it is the covenant that gives the people of Israel its mission as witnesses of the true God and preparation for the messianic work:
Ex 19,5 : Now therefore, if you obey my voice, and keep my covenant.
– Jesus Christ, in the Last Supper and in the sacrifice of the cross, elevates this covenant to perfection, conferring on man true justice and divine adoption:
Mt 26:28 : Because this is my blood, the blood of the New Covenant, shed for many men in remission of sins.
Rom 3:21ff : But now, without the aid of the law, the justice of God has been manifested.
– Israel’s unbelief was the cause of the salvation of the heathen. This New Covenant of Jesus is not restricted to Israel: it reaches all nations:
Rom 11,11-24 : I still ask: Did they stumble to fall?
Mt 28:19 : Go therefore and teach all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
– The New Covenant frees and is superior to the old:
Gal 4,21-22 : Tell me, you who want to be subject to a Law: do you not listen to the Law?
Heb 7,22-23 : And this covenant of which Jesus is Lord is far superior to him.
Heb 8,6-13 : Our High Priest […] has a ministry that is all the more excellent as he is the mediator of a covenant.
Heb 9,11-12.24-28 : But Christ, the High Priest of good things to come, has already come.
Heb 10,1-18 : The Law, as it is only the shadow of future goods, not its real expression.
– Is enlivened by the Spirit of God:
2Cor 3,6 : He has made us fit to be ministers of the New Covenant, not that of the letter, but that of the Spirit.
