There’s a whole lot of wrangling in the news today here in the US about bonuses and contracts and such.  I thought it might be a nice idea to put forth this Christian’s opinion on how God views contracts which are synonymous with covenants in my opinion.

The first promise God made that I can think of was that He promised not to allow anyone to kill Cain after Cain slew Abel and did God keep that promise?  Yep (Genesis 4).  The first covenant was with Noah and subsequently all mankind.  It is found in Genesis 9 where God promised not to destroy the world again with a flood.  God made the most famous covenant with Abraham to make Abraham’s seed a multitude of nations and also made what is commonly known as the Old Covenant with the physical seed of Abraham, the Israelites.   Both the Old Covenant and the New are key to this discussion because they both have (or had) conditions or, rather, “terms and conditions”.  The Israelites had to obey in order for that covenant to remain in force (Exodus 19:5).  Christians living under the New Covenant, where faith in Jesus allows us to be adopted into the house of Israel and thus we become heirs according to the promise (Jer 31:31, Luke 22:20, Galatians 3:26-29) also have conditions (Hebrews 10: 26-27).

One thing that remains true with God’s contracts is that He never, ever, went back on His Word and He never will.  He also never went back and re-worked the contract after the fact (or ex post facto).  Either His covenant was/is in force or it wasn’t/isn’t.  Either we accept Jesus by faith or we don’t.

Contracts show up in other places in scripture and they even seem to trump the Law of God.  The first that I can think of was when Jephthah made a vow with God that if he was given victory in battle, then he would offer the first thing that he saw when he arrived home.  Well, the he won the battle and the first thing he saw when he got home..... his daughter.  And his reply:

Judges 11:35 When he saw her, he tore his clothes and said, "Alas, my daughter! You have brought me very low, and you are among those who trouble me; for I have given my word to the LORD, and I cannot take it back."

36 So she said to him, "My father, you have given your word to the LORD; do to me as you have said, since the LORD has avenged you of your enemies, the sons of Ammon."

He couldn’t take it back and his daughter didn’t even want him to.

I think it is important to know that God is not going to go back on His word.  God gave His only Son so that the world might be saved.  God will not forsake His children.  Sure, times may be tough in this age, and injustice may abound, but this age is going to come to an end.  God’s justice will ultimately prevail.  And if God is not going to renege on His contracts, how much more-so should we, as individuals or as nations, honor ours?