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Our God is the great covenant God, He who rejoices in making and keeping His promises, who goes so far as to giving His Word made flesh in the form of Jesus Christ, the covenant of salvation for all who believe, sealed in holy blood at Calvary. That His word is held perfect trustworthy and true is an axiom of God's holy name and the bedrock of our faith.
A search on the great Biblical covenants usually yields up five to eight divine promises which are generally considered to be covenantal. This chart contains some detail about 'the five', and, while some might not agree with certain details, generally it is uncontroversial teaching.
https://www.webtruth.org/wp-content...ovenant-Programme-M-Penfold-2017-Webtruth.jpg
Apart from the Noahic, Adamic, Mosaic, Davidic and Messianic covenant, sometimes the Edenic, Adamic and Land covenants are also included.
All these covenants are the pillars of God's plan for humanity and creation, and from one to the next reveal a great Christological, Christotelic development, ie the progressive revelation of the steps in how God leads the world back from sin and death into love and life.
We see this represented in Ezekiel as a river of life, which flows from the temple, starting as a trickle and progressively swelling to a tumult before it pours out into the Dead Sea, giving life to all things therein. (Ez 47:1-10)
So we come to what I contend is the 'forgotten covenant', the promise first made by God to Cyrus in Isaiah 45:23:
I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
God only rarely puts forth a declaration of His intention by way of an oath. Indeed, He does not even do so for some of the 5 main covenants. But a divine oath, as confirmed in Hebrews 6:13, is the highest expression of the divine will.
We might overlook the significance of the Koreshic Covenant if it were not reiterated by Paul in Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:10. Even then, we might consider that God is not really serious about the universality of this promise.
However, when we arrive at Revelation 15:4, we read:
Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.
And then we see in the great renovation:
The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. (Revelation 21:24)
On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:2)
And then we recall the part of the Abrahamic Covenant wherein God promises "...and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:3b)
And John 3:17:
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
And we see that the river, which began as a trickle with Abraham gradually gaining momentum through Moses, David and Cyrus, and swelling into a river with the advent of Christ, until finally it consummates in the eschaton with the delivery of the promise of universal salvation, bringing all the dead to life in Christ, the alpha and the omega.
So, does Isaiah 45:23 have the force and effect of a divine covenant? If not, why not?
A search on the great Biblical covenants usually yields up five to eight divine promises which are generally considered to be covenantal. This chart contains some detail about 'the five', and, while some might not agree with certain details, generally it is uncontroversial teaching.
https://www.webtruth.org/wp-content...ovenant-Programme-M-Penfold-2017-Webtruth.jpg
Apart from the Noahic, Adamic, Mosaic, Davidic and Messianic covenant, sometimes the Edenic, Adamic and Land covenants are also included.
All these covenants are the pillars of God's plan for humanity and creation, and from one to the next reveal a great Christological, Christotelic development, ie the progressive revelation of the steps in how God leads the world back from sin and death into love and life.
We see this represented in Ezekiel as a river of life, which flows from the temple, starting as a trickle and progressively swelling to a tumult before it pours out into the Dead Sea, giving life to all things therein. (Ez 47:1-10)
So we come to what I contend is the 'forgotten covenant', the promise first made by God to Cyrus in Isaiah 45:23:
I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear allegiance.
God only rarely puts forth a declaration of His intention by way of an oath. Indeed, He does not even do so for some of the 5 main covenants. But a divine oath, as confirmed in Hebrews 6:13, is the highest expression of the divine will.
We might overlook the significance of the Koreshic Covenant if it were not reiterated by Paul in Romans 14:11 and Philippians 2:10. Even then, we might consider that God is not really serious about the universality of this promise.
However, when we arrive at Revelation 15:4, we read:
Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED.
And then we see in the great renovation:
The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. (Revelation 21:24)
On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:2)
And then we recall the part of the Abrahamic Covenant wherein God promises "...and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you." (Genesis 12:3b)
And John 3:17:
For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
And we see that the river, which began as a trickle with Abraham gradually gaining momentum through Moses, David and Cyrus, and swelling into a river with the advent of Christ, until finally it consummates in the eschaton with the delivery of the promise of universal salvation, bringing all the dead to life in Christ, the alpha and the omega.
So, does Isaiah 45:23 have the force and effect of a divine covenant? If not, why not?