At its most basic, a biblical covenant is a relationship between two parties before God that involves promises. We see this in marriage. God binds a man and a woman together in a marriage covenant that has particular promises attached. At my wedding, I promised before God to love my wife in sickness and in health and to forsake all others. She promised to do the same.
Similarly, God joins himself to his people through covenants. Thus, his promised kingdom would come through covenant. And we must understand this to understand how the Bible reveals Jesus as God the Son Incarnate. The fact that God relates to his people through covenants teaches us three important facts:
I. God is the covenant lord of his people
As covenant Lord, he promises to provide and to protect his covenant people with faithful love. Yet he also demands our faithful, wholehearted love in return.
II. God views us through our covenant head (either Adam or Christ)
A covenant head represents us before God. We rise and fall with our covenant head. His guilt is our guilt. His shame is our shame. His defeat is our defeat. But this also means that his victory is our victory. His glory is our glory. His righteousness is our righteousness. Like a marriage where a man and a woman become one-flesh, all that we have belongs to our covenant head, and all that he has belongs to us.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!
18 Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.
—Romans 5:15-19 NIV
20 But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22 For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.
—1 Corinthians 15:20-22 NIV
According to these verses, why does having a covenant head matter? What difference does it make whether we are in Christ or in Adam?
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Today most of us live in a world of hyperindividualism, and so such talk of our union with Adam or union with Christ sounds weird–and as factual as a unicorn. Because we think we don't really have any unity with Adam, it even sounds unfair. Why must I suffer because of what he did? (As if really each of us were islands, independent of him.) But that individualism has mutilated our view of the Christian good news, turning it into a little message, an ad for the consumer: "Come and add something to your life...have some grace." Paul saw it very differently. He saw a far deeper problem and a far grander vision. Our plight, he saw, is not merely that we each fail to be good enough and need a little forgiveness. If it were that simple, of course we'd be tempted to try a bit harder and turn up the morality. Instead, our very identity is a problem. We were born of Adam. There is no hope for us in trying harder or getting some divine leniency. Our only hope is to be taken out of Adam's old humanity, to be born again into a new humanity, to be a new creation.
(Michael Reeves, Rejoicing in Christ, 42-43)
III. Covenants have consequences
We see this in marriage, don't we? When someone breaks their marriage covenant, the results are disastrous and destroy the marriage. When people fulfill their marriage covenant, the results are beautiful and the marriage flourishes. With the biblical covenants, breaking the covenant results in curse and death. Keeping the covenant results in blessing and life.