Sermon quotes on covenant
Herman Bavinck
Faith and repentance are as much benefits of the covenant of grace as justification . . . . faith and repentance themselves . . . . are components of the gospel, not the workings or fruits of the law.
Reformed Dogmatics: Volume 4: Holy Spirit, Church, and New Creation, Baker Books, 2008, p.454.
Matt Chandler
We’ve been given the covenant community because we need each other, and together we’ll be more mature, experience more life, and know more joy than we ever would apart from one another.
Leonard Cohen
To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation’s sweetest dreams of itself.
Book of Mercy, McClelland & Stewart, 2010, p.27.
Ellen F. Davis
The mystery I wish to explore…is this: vulnerability as the condition, the enabling condition, for covenant relationship with God…Vulnerability, the capacity to be wounded—what does that mean for us who claim to be the body of Christ in the world?…Calling vulnerability a capacity means that it is something more than a negative… A capacity is a positive thing, a kind of strength.
“Vulnerability, the Condition of Covenant,” in Ellen F. Davis and Richard B. Hays, eds., The Art of Reading Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2003), 278.
John Eldredge
Most Christians are still living with an Old Testament view of their heart. Jeremiah 17:9 says, ‘My heart is deceitfully wicked.’ No, it’s not. Not after the work of Christ, because the promise of the new covenant is a new heart.
Michael Fishbane
There is no mere world or matters of fact for covenant theology; there is always the wonder and duty to the concrete moment at hand, where God’s illimitable gift of life is given into our hands – to hear and do what is here and now. Theology does not change nature as such, but rather transforms its reception, through spiritual consciousness. Brute facticity remains, while being simultaneously transfigured.
Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 119.
Stanley Grenz
The church is a covenanting people. It consists of those whom the Spirit has called out of the world through the gospel proclamation to walk together as God’s people. This covenanting people, however, are not an end in themselves. Rather, the church as people-in-covenant is related to God’s larger intention.
Theology for the Community of God, Eerdmans, 2000.
Timothy Keller
Covenant community is like air. We don’t miss it until we need it.
Michael Lawrence
Covenants are not merely contracts or promises. Rather, covenants are relationships under authority, with both obligations and rewards. The terms and benefits of the relationship are spelled out, and so are the consequences if the relationship is broken. But what is perhaps most significant about biblical covenants is that when God enters into a covenant, He must condescend to initiate it, He sets the terms, He provides the benefits, and He executes the judgment when the covenant is broken.
Biblical Theology, Crossway Books, 2010. p.31.
Scot McKnight
God’s love entails a covenant commitment on the part of with us, and that covenant commitment means a promise to be with us and for us, and God’s covenant is shaped toward our redemption.
J.I. Packer
Guidance, like all God’s acts of blessing under the covenant of grace, is a sovereign act. Not merely does God will to guide us in the sense of showing us his way, that we may tread it; he wills also to guide us in the more fundamental sense of ensuring that, whatever happens, whatever mistakes we may make, we shall come safely home. Slippings and strayings there will be, no doubt, but the everlasting arms are beneath us; we shall be caught, rescued, restored. This is God’s promise; this is how good he is.
Knowing God, Hachette UK, 2011, p.212.
John Piper
A covenant involves three things:
- Promises, which God will perform if the people keep the covenant.
- Commandments or terms, which the people must keep in order to receive the promises.
- Warnings, of what will happen if the covenant is broken.
The Lord Whose Name is Jealous, October 28, 1984. www.DesiringGod.org.
Charles Spurgeon
Because God is the living God, He can hear; because He is a loving God, He will hear; because He is our covenant God, He has bound Himself to hear.
Daily Devotion – 365 Days With Jesus, Editora Dracaena, 2015, p.26.
Charles Spurgeon
Settle this in your heart: Whether I am up or down, the Lord Jesus is the same. Whether I sing or sigh, the promise is true and the Promiser is faithful. Whether I stand on the summit or am hidden in the vale the covenant stands fast and everlasting love abides.
Alistair I. Wilson and Jamie A. Grant
The idea of covenant is fundamental to the Bible’s story. At its most basic, covenant presents God’s desire to enter into relationship with men and women created in his image. This is reflected in the repeated covenant refrain, “I will be your God and you will be my people” (Exodus 6:6-8; Leviticus 26:12 etc.). Covenant is all about relationship between the Creator and his creation. The idea may seem simple; however, the implications of covenant and covenant relationship between God and humankind are vast . .
The God of Covenant: Biblical, Theological, and Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Jamie A. Grant and Alistair I. Wilson (Leicester, UK: Apollos, 2005), p.12.
Eugene H. Peterson
This kingdom of God life is not a matter of waking up each morning with a list of chores or an agenda to be tended to, left on our bedside table by the Holy Spirit for us while we slept. We wake up already immersed in a large story of creation and covenant, of Israel and Jesus, the story of Jesus and the stories that Jesus told. We let ourselves be formed by these formative stories, and especially as we listen to the stories that Jesus tells, get a feel for the way he does it, the way he talks, the way he treats people, the Jesus way.
Rowan Williams
Marriage has a unique place because it speaks of an absolute faithfulness, a covenant between radically different persons, male and female; and so it echoes the absolute covenant of God with his chosen, a covenant between radically different partners.
N.T. Wright
Dealing with sin, saving humans from it, giving them grace, forgiveness, justification, glorification-all this was the purpose of the single covenant from the beginning, now fulfilled in Jesus Christ.
Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision, IVP Press.
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