A Covenant People

I am no longer my own but yours.

There is a saying the “Possession is nine-tenths of the law” meaning that ownership is easier to maintain if one has possession of something, or difficult to enforce if one does not. However, in covenantal terms, Biblical Ownership has much more to do with the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ who came to fulfil the law.

There is a wonderful statement of Covenantal  Ownership in the Old Testament where we find theses words, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:14

Bishop N T Wright can help us in our understanding of this Covenantal relationship when he writes, “What the Bible offers is not a “works contract,” but a covenant of vocation. The vocation in question is that of being a genuine human being, with genuinely human tasks to perform as part of the Creator's purpose for his world.” Fred Beuchner  also helps us understand that the Covenant of the Old Testament is fulfilled in what has become known as the New Covenant. “What is new about the New Covenant, therefore, is not the idea that God loves the world enough to bleed for it, but the claim that here he is actually putting his money where his mouth is. Like a father saying about his sick child, "I'd do anything to make you well," God finally calls his own bluff and does it. Jesus Christ is what God does, and the cross where God did it is the central symbol of New Covenant faith.”

If this is God means by Covenant, our assent in the words, “I am no longer my own but yours!” Is a way of saying - “Count me in!”

Paul writing to the Galations says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” 

Come, let us use the grace divine,

and all, with one accord,

in a perpetual cov‘nant join

ourselves to Christ the Lord: