The word testament means covenant, so the Biblical message is immediately understood as two covenants; the covenant of the law and the covenant of the Spirit. The God of the Bible is a covenant making God. Whenever He relates to a person or a nation He forms covenant with them. This is evident from the fact that even by half way through Genesis, God has made three covenants - with Adam, Noah and Abraham. The next book Exodus focuses on the establishing of the covenant with Abraham’s family - the people of Israel.

Covenant is an agreement between two parties that brings them into an experience of oneness, and is most obviously and frequently demonstrated in the covenant of marriage – “Holy Matrimony”. Covenant is the main concept and tool by and through which God relates to human beings. God reveals His astonishing and extraordinary generosity, kindness, faithfulness and goodness though covenant. God confers on human beings the rights and freedoms for them to come into a covenant relationship with him. A different human parallel would be the process whereby the Roman army allowed those nations it conquered to join its own forces, enjoy its own prosperity and even its own citizenship.

Covenants were ratified with sacrifice. They usually involved the exchange of property and often included the change of a name and even the scarring of the person’s flesh and the shedding of blood. The parallels in human marriage and its consummation are obvious. Covenant is serious stuff. It meant that your life was going to change. Two tribes would take animals and slaughter them as a sign that their present lives were ending and a new one was starting. They would split open the animals and create a corridor of blood. At each end a leading man representing each tribe would stand. Then each would exchange places, walking between the two carcasses. In changing places the two tribes become one. So a tribe of cattle herders and a tribe of shepherds coming together in covenant were both saying we who once looked after cattle and sheep separately now are one tribe who look after cattle and sheep together.

David Hope, the Archbishop of York who presided over the inauguration of The Order of Mission in April 2003 describes covenant as follows; ‘A covenant is the foundation upon which all right relationships are built. It goes beyond a mere contract, in which those involved enter into defined but limited mutual obligations. It is altogether richer, more profound and comprehensive than that. It represents an ongoing commitment to a relationship, in mutual loyalty, in openness and accountability, regardless of short term self-interest. Within it, above all else, faithfulness to promises, trust and truth are fundamental.’

Once God establishes covenant, He consummates it! He comes in power on the parties to the covenant (see Genesis 15:12f, Exodus 40:34f and Acts 2). The two principle benefits of covenant are provision and protection. Everyone in covenant with Yahweh enjoys his provision and protection – have a look at the Lord’s prayer: we are encouraged to ask for our daily bread (provision) and freedom from past sins and present evil (protection).

The terms of the Old Covenant were obedience to the law – the Torah – as described in the first five books of the Bible. God’s people could enjoy the benefits of God’s covenant if they obeyed the law. But they didn’t. Indeed as the centuries passed it became horrifyingly clear that they couldn’t. When the Old Covenant was established and the law was given, three thousand people were killed (Exodus 32:28). It was a horrific beginning. But when the New Covenant was established and inaugurated by the gift of the Holy Spirit, three thousand people were saved! ( Acts 2:41)

In inaugurating the New Covenant, Jesus, God’s Son, established an altogether superior covenant, not just for the Israelites but for the whole of humanity. He sacrificed himself for the sins of the whole world so that every person could, through believing in Him, “have the full rights of Sons” (Galatians 4:5). That means absolutely nothing less than the honourable position, office, right and role of being God’s children in the Royal Court of Heaven with ALL that that entails both now and in the future. His sacrificial death not only fulfilled the requirements of the Old Covenant – thereby completing and finishing and ending it perfectly – but He also established the New Covenant with the two main provisions of forgiveness for sins and the empowering presence of God in our lives through the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:38). We have power for living in the presence and realm of the heavenly King. The realm, the domain, the sphere of influence of the King is called the ‘King-dom(ain)’, and ‘the Kingdom of God is not a matter of food and drink (the OT food laws), but righteousness, joy and peace in the Spirit’ (Romans 14:17).

So of course ‘Jesus came preaching, the Kingdom of God is near’ (Matt 4:17). What else would He have done! The Kingdom is the dominant, overarching subject of all Jesus’ teaching (the Sermon on the Mount and the fact that almost all the parables are specifically told to illustrate the kingdom). So between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, ‘He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God’ ( Acts 1:3). The very last verse of Acts describes Paul in Rome, ‘boldly and without hindrance preaching the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ.’

Any person can enter into both the New Covenant and the Kingdom of God by repenting and believing. Repenting involves a thorough process of turning around your life to obey the teachings of Jesus, to ‘follow Christ’. This will involve the confession of sins and recognising there is a different way to live. Believing is like getting on an aeroplane - it involves a decision followed by action. You get on the aeroplane because you trust the overwhelming evidence that the pilot will fly you to the destination. Jesus is the pilot. He is absolutely trustworthy and He has by far best plane!