Time goes by and you notice someone building a house on the plot of land next to your property. "There goes the neighborhood," you think. You watch as the neighbors work slowly to complete their property, secretly wishing that your solitude still existed. The neighbors complete their house and then start work on other amenities. They construct a dock for their boat, a tent-like structure near the water, and a fence for their livestock. As the fence goes up, it appears very close to your property line, maybe a little too close. A closer look causes you to wonder if perhaps the fence is no longer on their property, but now has infringed on to yours.
Now you have a problem. You are relatively sure that fence is on your property. So now, the new neighbors have not only ruined your peace and solitude, but have infringed on the land that is rightfully yours.You are placed in a situation that needs resolution. Life is no longer so good!
If this happened today, you would call a land surveyor, have them review property records, and measure out where your property ended and where your neighbor's started. After obtaining the facts, you would present this information to your neighbor in hopes that the fence would be moved. If even after this, the fence remained, you might decide to take your neighbor to court to settle the issue. You would call your lawyer to set up the proceedings, and your neighbor would "get served".2
But remember, you are not a land owner in 2012, you are a land owner in the Ancient Near East,3 and as such there are different methods for conflict resolution.In the Ancient Near East, there would be essentially three different methods to resolve this issue.
Your first option would be to take the land by force. If you were bigger, stronger, or had a larger family and you wanted to grow your land and set its boundary, you would go in by force and claim it. There would not be a discussion, there would be no contract, or agreement, but instead blood and strife. This was a practiced method of many during this time, and while it was violent and not very neighborly there is no doubt it happened and was at least a mildly accepted practice.
Your second option would be to go to your governor or ruling authority and have them settle the case. So each party will appear before a ruler, state their case, records would be reviewed, and the ruler then, after hearing both sides of the story and reviewing the facts would come to a decision.4 The boundary would then be declared by law, and the dispute would be settled. This is most similar to what we see today, but even this resolution is not perfect. What happens if the judge rules more in your favor than theirs? Sure it was a fair decision in a court of law, but most likely a rift would still be created between you and your neighbor.(see Israel's disputes with surrounding countries over their boundary)
The third solution would be to form a covenant. In this situation, you would speak to your neighbor and express to them your interest to live in fellowship with them, to be on good terms with them, and to settle the dispute in the most loving way. The two of you would then sit down and come to an agreement as to where the boundary would be drawn. After this, you would write a document containing this information as well as
the conditions that nullified the contract, the duration of the covenant, and the parties involved. Finally, a blood sacrifice of an animal would be included as part of a ceremony to dedicate the covenant. This spilling of blood was symbolic of what should happen to anyone who broke the covenant. Covenants were serious deals in the A.N.E., but covenants were always solutions founded with the goal of love and fellowship.
The first two solutions would not grow the parties close together, but would drive a wedge between them. Covenant was a way of the initiator to say, "I want to be able to love and have fellowship with you. I want to be on good standing with you, with nothing between us. However, there is an issue that we need to work on, and obstacle that needs to be addressed so we can live in relationship with one another." The covenant would resolve the issue, and bring you into a stronger closer relationship with your covenant partner. A covenant deciding the placement of a fence would create strong neighbors who loved one another and who could live in communion with one another without any hindrance.
The initiator of ancient covenants always came with the goal of love,
fellowship, and communion with the other party involved. Force could be enacted, diplomacy, and legal action could be central, but within the covenant, love trumps all. Realize this: the God of the universe, the God of
the Old Testament and the God of the Bible, is a God of covenants.
Look through the Old Testament and time and time again, you see covenants that
God makes with His people. Each and every time, God, the initiator of the
covenant is saying, "I want to be able to love and have fellowship with
you. I want to be on good standing with you, and you with me, with nothing
between us. However, there is an issue we need to work on, an obstacle that
needs to be addressed so we can live in relationship with one another."
Stop reading this post, and take ten seconds to think about that truth, read that statement again if you have to. God makes covenants with a desire for
love, fellowship, communion, and relationship.
God owes the other parties of the covenants nothing. When God creates Adam and makes a covenant to dwell among him, and give him peace and solitude in the garden, and the blessings that come with it, it was because of love.5 God owed Adam nothing. God did not need to create man, but instead has this depth of love inside of him that must be shared. So he creates man as a covenant partner to share his love.
All of God's covenants aare the way in which He addresses problems that interrupt His ability to have unhindered communion, fellowship, and relationship with man. These problems are the proverbial "fence" (to use our story at the beginning) that causes the rift. And so, The God of the universe, who created the earth and everything in it, in making covenants with man shows that His ultimate pursuit is relationship. God enacts covenants to address problems that get in the way of this relationship. God sees the fence on His property, the hindrance of relationship, and comes to you, not by force, not by way of a process server, but rather knocks on the door in love hoping to work through the issue and restore relationship. God desires to live in communion with you, He desires to take care of the things that get in the way of your relationship Him so you can live unhindered in perfect communion with Him. Even more than that, He literally is in pursuit of this very thing.
A knock is at the door. A covenant partner awaits. There are issues that need to be addressed. Will you answer the door?
1. For some this will take a greater imagination than others. Some readers may already be wealthy, and a landowner, and thus must solely be able to transport themselves to another era. Other readers may be a landowner, but hardly wealthy, and thus will be charged with the task of time travel and changing their income demographic. Still others are not wealthy, nor landowners, and thus must imagine themselves, richer, possessing land, in an era thousands of years ago. For the last group, you have a great task ahead of you.
2. I always thought it would be fun to be a process server, just to be able to tell people, "You got served". I am sure I am glorifying a not-so-fun profession, but in my head that is what it looks like, so just go with it.
3. Ever hear that riddle that starts with, "You are the bus driver?" The joke then follows up with all the people getting on and off the bus, and the stops you make. In your head you are doing math, figuring out where your stops are, and where the next one will be. Then the riddle ends with "What color are the bus driver's eyes?" Most people now have completely forgot the opening statement. This post is like that riddle, don't forget the opening statement.
4. This type of resolution is seen in 1 Kings 3:16-28.
5. The Edenic Covenant of Genesis 1:26-30; 2:16-17.
Further Reading:
Mark Driscoll - http://marshill.com/media/doctrine/covenant-god-pursues#transcript
Spurgeon - http://www.spurgeon.org/sermons/0277.htm
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