You will no doubt recall that in previous installments we were looking through the statement that Paul made unto a people who were, as he said, ‘those of his own flesh, who were Israelites’. He reminded them that they were those “to whom pertained the adoption and the glory.”  Having studied both these aspects in considerable depth, we now move on to the next section of our studies.  I should point out that I am not dealing with the next aspects of Israel’s heritage strictly in the order in which they are quoted in the epistle.  I intend to deal with both the Covenants and the Promises as a join study.
 Now I have no doubt but that some would ask the question as to the difference between a covenant and a promise, and I think we should clear that up first because then you’ll realise why I’m dealing with them as one subject.
 The alternative word for ‘covenant’ is ‘testament’. The Old Testament in our Bible is really the book of the Old Covenant, whilst the New Testament is the book of the New Covenant.  The words ‘testament’ and ‘covenant’ are synonymous terms, meaning the same thing. This is why you’ve got the Bible divided into the Old Testament and the New Testament.
 Now the majority of us would have what is called “A Last Will and Testament”.  That is the document which in my case contains the details of the ‘covenant’ which I have made regarding what I wish to be done with what I possess.  It is called my “testament”.  But what use would that be if when you open it up to read it there was nothing printed inside?  It would be no use whatsoever despite the fact that the document identified itself as my covenant or testament.  The covenant is the document itself as a whole.  It constitutes the relationship that is set up between the person who makes the covenant or testament and the person or persons who make up those that are to receive the benefits of the testament. When God made His covenants with His people, the major thing about these was not just what was contained in them, but the fact that God set Himself into a very special relationship with His people Israel, because they are the only people on the face of the earth with whom God ever made this type of covenant.
 Paul, in his statement in Romans chapter four says, “who are Israelites, to whom pertaineth the covenants and the promises.” They were only concerned with Israel. God never made these covenants with anyone else, and He never made any covenant like them with anyone else.
 But what about the promises? Let me just return to my illustration again.  Should the Lord tarry, and I go to my rest, my last will and testament would be opened and read, and those concerned would then know what I had promised. The difference is, that the covenant is the relationship that is established between the two parties. The promises are what is promised by one party to the other because of that relationship.
 Thus we read in Romans 15 and 11,
“Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers.”
 It didn’t say to confirm the ‘covenant’ made unto the fathers.  That relationship had already been firmly established,  because the covenant was the relationship. It constituted the intent of God, the irrevocable decision of God, concerning His relationship with  His people.  On the other hand the promises comprised, as we stated above, the terms of that relationship. Christians today seem to have totally misunderstood this fact.  They talk about God changing His mind, or changing direction.  Many of us have heard someone, and in my experience it’s mostly been ministers of the Gospel, saying that God had to change His mind as far as these covenants were concerned because Israel turned out to be so bad and so sinful that He couldn’t do with them what He originally intended to do.
 Now to me that’s nothing short of blasphemy.  We read in God’s word that His decisions and His election were made before the foundations of the world. In other words, God had made these decisions and established His will and purposes before He even commenced His creation.  As a matter of fact, the manner and sequence in which He carried out His creative works was predicated on the these very promises.  In His mind they had already occurred.  We read in Deuteronomy 32:8-9;

“When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.
For the LORD'S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.”

 How then can we say God changed His mind about anything?  When He says “I am the Lord, I change not, therefore ye sons of Jacob shall not be consumed”, that’s the understatement of the year.  What did the prophet Balaam mean when he said, as recorded in Leviticus 23:19;

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

 There is no possible way that God could ever change His mind, because as far as He’s concerned, what He promised has already happened.  I am constantly amazed at the arrogance of so many people who think and teach that God will alter His clearly stated purposes just to please and accomodate some theological  argument.
 When it comes to the covenants and the promises, and the relationship that He set up with His people who were to be the recipients of these covenants, we find that they have been in the process of being gradually fulfilled over a period of thousands of years, and that in these days in which we now live are virtually at the culmination of what God has promised.
 There are eight covenants in the Bible, and in this series of studies we will deal with them individually and in sufficient depth to hopefully equip the reader with a sound foundation for their belief in the faithfulness of God.  They are:-

1. The EDENIC Covenant. Gen. 1:28-30,  2:16-17.
2. The ADAMIC Covenant. Gen. 3:14-19.
3. The NOAHIC Covenant. Gen. 6:12-13, 18;  7:1-5;        8:16-22;  and  9:1-17.
4. The ABRAHAMIC Covenant. Gen. 12:1-3.
5. The MOSAIC Covenant. Exodus 24:8.
6. The PALESTINIAN Covenant. Lev. 26,
      Deut. 28,29,30.
7. The DAVIDIC Covenant. 2 Samuel 7:16.
8. The NEW Covenant.  Jeremiah 31:31;  Heb. 8:8.

 These eight covenants are split into two major sections, or groups, namely, UNCONDITIONAL and CONDITIONAL covenants.  Numbers 1,2,3,4,7 and 8 in the above list constitute UNCONDITIONAL covenants, whereas numbers 4 and 5 constitute CONDITIONAL covenants.
 An unconditional covenant means that they are everlasting and eternal.  Their fulfilment does not depend to any degree whatsoever upon what we do or believe.  They simply state, and are based upon, God’s unwavering and unalterable intentions.  There are absolutely NO conditions placed upon these covenants whereby they may, at some future time, or because of some future conditions, be altered in the slightest detail, let alone rescinded.  They are going to happen whether or not we like it, whether or not we believe it, or whether or not we agree with it.  The only choice we have in the matter is whether we receive them the easy way or the hard way.
 A conditional covenant, on the other hand, is, or could be, a temporary agreement, the fulfilment of which depends on one party obeying certain pre-specified conditions.  ( such as, “I will do this, if you do that”. )  Whilst they are the statements of God’s Will, they contain alternatives of either blessing or cursing which depend entirely on our choice.
 These covenants and promises constitute the expression of God’s Will and Purposes for His entire creation through  Adam, the greatest of all His creations.  They are the basis for the entire Bible.  They are major prophecies, in that they all refer to events and conditions that were future to the time in which they were made.  Every event and circumstance in the entire Bible, and every event in history, has been related to, and dependant upon, one or more of these covenants.
 One might question what the Edenic and the Adamic and the Noahic covenant have to do with the covenants God made with Abraham. But upon consideration, it’s really quite simple.  If He had not made these earlier covenants, the remainder could not have been implemented.  Because of the ravages of sin brought upon the entire Adamic race by the sin of their parents, Adam and Eve, God had to prepare the ground, as it were, for what He intended to accomplish through Abraham and his descendants. So we find that when we study the first three of these covenants, that they are all inter-connected with, and totally necessary to, the full implementation of what God’s overall plan was for this world of ours.
 So with the above details in mind, let us now move on to a study of the individual covenants and promises listed.  They begin with;

1. The Edenic Covenant.

 We read it in Genesis 2, verses 7 to 9, and then verses 15 to 20.
 “And the Lord formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden eastwards in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.  And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
 “And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all the cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.”

 I believe it’s very obvious from a study of the Word of God in other aspects of the subject in question, that this Adam that we read of in chapter 2 is a very special person.  I personally do not believe that this refers generally to the same ‘Adam’ of chapter one of Genesis.  In that account we are told that God created Adam, or man in His own image.  The word ‘create’ means to make something out of nothing.  There is no doubt in my mind that Genesis chapter one contains the account of the creation of what is referred to as the pre-Adamic races of the world, including those of all colours.  But the Adam of chapter two is referred to as being ‘formed’, which means that he was formed out of something that already existed.  We are told that he was ‘formed’ out of the ‘dust of the ground’, something that already existed.  And there are some very interesting things we need to keep in our mind at this point, because here, I believe, we have an expression of God’s overall master plan.  I believe that the garden of Eden was nothing more, and nothing less, than a working model, or preview in minature, if you could put it that way, of the Kingdom of God here on this earth.  And as we study the subject, we realise that this was the formation of the highest order of God’s whole creation about which we are now reading .  It’s highly significant and interesting to note the Septuagint Translation of this passage.  This is the translation of the Old Testament from the Hebrew to the Greek by 70 specially selected scholars, the title ‘Septuagint’ being the Greek for 70.  When it translates the word Adam throughout this 2nd. chapter, it states;
“the Lord God formed the Adam of the dust of the earth”.

 Now if translators of the Bible, men who are very, very highly trained and recognised for their skills in translating from Hebrew into Greek, can see that there is something in the Hebrew expressions that warrants the inclusion of the definite article “the” to point to a specific person, rather than used in a  general sense as in chapter one, then I believe we have to take note of this.   This Adam referred to here was not just any old man. This was a very particular man who was formed by God to be a special person in His sight, and whom He intended for a very special purpose. When we go to Luke chapter three, we find the record of the genealogy of our Lord Jesus Christ.  It lists the line of succession as;

“who was the son of  . . . .who was the son of . . . . etc”  and concludes with the listing;  “who was the son of Adam, who was the son of God.”

 So we find that when God formed this particular Adam, He had formed someone who had the rank of the, or a, son of God.  It’s very easy to lose sight of the tremendous significance of this statement.  Because every person in the Israel nation who subsequently became a descendant of this Adam, possessed a pre-planned and pre-ordained destiny to be Sons of God.  This was theirs by Divine Right.  They became heirs to all of God’s blessings, even to the extent of sharing in His glory.  This is the subject of Paul’s remarks in Romans chapter 8, verses 14-23, to which the reader is referred.

 The point now arises when we must ask ourselves whether or not we believe that God is going to eventually achieve this situation?  If we think that he is not going to end up achieving  what He originally planned, then we may as well give our belief away.  God has no intentions of changing things. As we quoted earlier of the Lord;

“I am the Lord.  I Change not.”

 But we find that the Lord acted in a definite sequence.  In Gen. 2:7-8 we read;

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.”

 Firstly God formed (the) Adam.  Then He planted a garden, or dwelling place, in which He then placed the man whom He had formed.   The place was prepared for the man for which it was intended.   As I stated previously,  I believe that the Garden of Eden was just a model or fore-runner of the Kingdom of God on earth.  God had created or formed a working situation which prefigured the completion and the perfection of God’s Kingdom on earth
 But it says He planted this garden eastwards in Eden. Eastward of where? Sometimes we don’t ask ourselves the obvious questions, do we?  Why would God include the direction of eastward if there was no particular significance in where it was?  He must surely have been directing our attention to some specific location.  In the Bible we find that in most instances all directions like north, south, east and west are given as they relate to the geographical location of Jerusalem. When the children of Israel migrated they went west.  West from where?  They didn’t go west from China.  They went west from Jerusalem.  That was the central focal point.  So the garden of Eden, wherever it was originally, must have been east of Jerusalem.  It is not possible to be absolutely dogmatic about the exact area invovled, although I personally follow the concept that it was in the Tanim Basin within the country that we now call Tibet, or at least around that general area. But be that as it may, it doesn’t make any difference to the fact that God prepared this particular area to which He referred as ‘The Garden of Eden’ east of what we would now call the middle-east.
 The next thing He did, was to place in that garden the man whom he had formed  -  The Adam!  He didn’t just create or form Adam and then Eden and say ‘look you guys, you just find yourself a nice place to settle down until I find a suitable permanent dwelling place for you.’ He prepared the ground first. He prepared the place first and then He put them there, more or less saying to them ‘now here is your habitat, this is what I have formed you for. You are to live in this perfect environment.’ But there was just one other important factor.  God had planted what He referred to as “the tree of life” and “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in the midst of this garden.   He subsequently instructed both Adam and his wife Eve that they could eat of every tree that was in this garden with the exception of the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”.  We know only too well that these two people violated this instruction and brought upon themselves, and all their future descendants, the sentence that God had imposed should His instructions be disregarded.   His sentence was quite clear.  We read of it in Genesis 2:17;

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

 In the original Hebrew that reads “in the day you eat of it, dying thou shalt surely die.” In other words, a death process will begin in your body from the time you eat of this tree of good and evil.
 There is much discussion and theorising as to the nature of the sin which Adam and Eve committed in eating of this “tree”, and it does not fall within the province of this writing to go into detail about all these ideas.  Suffice is it to point out that I do not believe that it had anything to do with Eve having sexual relations with ‘the serpent’, which represented Satan.  We will deal with this subject more fully when we study the next covenant.  For our present purposes, it is sufficient to realise that both Adam and Eve disobeyed God, and brought death to their descendants, the Adamic Race.
 What must be kept in mind is that at this period prior to the “fall”, it was a time and place of absolute perfection.  This Adam, and subsequently his wife Eve, had been deliberately formed by God to be a special people who were to become “The Sons of God.”  This Divine intention was quite unconditional.  Irrespective of what His formed creature did in the future, this plan was irrevocable.  This was His covenant, and it is nothing short of breathtaking to find as we continue our studies, the extent to which our Great God and Saviour went in order to fully accomplish His wonderful plans and purposes in us.

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