How Many Testaments?
March 19, 2025
First, most people are familiar with the existence of two main parts of the Bible: the Old and the New Testaments.
However, we often don’t realize that a Testament is a Contract between two people or two groups — as in Last Will and Testament or as in Employer/Employee agreements called Contracts.
What I want to start with, then, is the words Testament, Contract, Agreement, and Covenant all mean basically the same thing.
They are two parties coming together to form an agreement.
“ ‘Come now, let us settle the matter;’ says the Lord….” — Isaiah 1:18, NIV.
That “matter” will be discussed further on.
Still and all, I want to point out, with those synonyms defined, in one way of understanding,there are several contracts in the Bible:
Genesis 1–2 has agreements between God and Mankind and, between God and Adam and Eve. Those could be considered as two separate contracts, but they are so similar in the terms, giving them both dominion and responsibilities for that dominion, I am thinking of them as one agreement.
God had given both peoples dominion over His Creation , but they had to take responsibility to care for it. That was a part of the deal.
In brief, then, to me, there seems to be more covenants…
There is God’s Promise to Abraham tied to his obedience to trust and obey. Following is the same contract cosigned by Isaac and then, by Jacob. What followed was an expanded agreement, with Moses and the Israelites (who had a hard time living up to their side of the agreement);. Next were the kings, especially King David.
The Old Testament kept on being renewed, on and off, -because of the obedience problem — throughout the rest of Jewish history.
God “got tired,” so to speak, of this continual on again off again relationship with people, Yet, He had planned from the Beginning to offer a new agreement to finally “settle the matter” (Isaiah 1:18).
God’s deal would be for establishing a new covenant. The details of these promises are in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as explained in the books and letters of the New Testament.
To be clear, my view on expressing all of this comes from my negotiation experiences between Employers and my coworkers as their Union Representative. So, in that sense, all of these testaments have been a lot like Labor contracts.
Likewise, in this sense, the Gospel is God’s Final Offer to Humanity. So, the decision is a “take it or leave it” situation.
However, unlike current Labor Law, if refused, there is no Strike provision… There is no Department of Labor, no Unemployment Insurance, either… All that’s left is, well… nothing.
“If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.” — Hebrews 10:26–27, NIV.
Notwithstanding that fact, you can choose to agree to participate in the agreement…
“Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. — 2 Peter 1:4, NIV.
“Come now, let us settle the matter, says the Lord. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.”
That offer seems like a really good deal to me, and I recommend everyone agrees to work with God under those conditions.
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Finally, I would like to move to this addendum which is similar to the discussion of dynamics of the Biblical Testaments’ in their continuity, themes, and process…
In my years of reading the Bible, until last year, I had never realized in the Story of Adam and Eve, there is more to it than just one Original Sin. I had been taught only one and had been proceeding on that assumption in what I believed.
Upon further review and from slowing the pace of my reading, when God confronted them, what else did “original sin” involve?
What were the details in what they did wrong”?
Compounded within their willful disobedience were these errors: attempting a coverup; pleading ignorance; making excuses; claiming helplessness; blaming others, including blaming God…
Sound familiar?
This last one, in my mind, is the worst of the precipitating sins, because it is still a plague, permeating everything Human.
“It’s not me, it’s everybody else.”
“God should have done a better job in Creation by doing this, that, or the other thing…”
“…It’s everything else; it’s my parents; it’s my childhood ; it’s her; it’s him; it’s them; it’s my pain; it’s Society; it’s the government; it’s the world; it’s the devil; it’s Christians; it’s God; etc etc etc.”
I have given a name to all of these excuses. I call it playing “The Blame Game.”
Over the centuries The Game has been expanding and has become a malignant and unusually incurable cancer…
Yet, as challenging as it seems for many to accept, Jesus has provided the cure and will surgically remove that tumor.
As people recorded this in the Bible, He healed just about everything else you could think of during His life.
What I see as most important — beyond the physical healings — is providing a way to escape being pawns in The Blame Game. He forgives and heals the illness caused by sin — the hurts and harms of disobedience to God.
All of it!
“His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who calls us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.” — 2 Peter 1:3–4, NIV.
Yes. God has designed all His covenants to be agreed to voluntarily.
He has always given people freedom of choice and has given it throughout Mankind’s history,- starting with Adam and Eve and then all through to our choices today — but today with the offer in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
“Remember what it says: ‘Today when you hear his voice, don’t harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled.’ ” — Hebrews 3:15, NLT.
“3:16” | by Anne Wilson | Lyrics
“Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” — John 3:14–18, NIV.
