Fear No Fear

(All scripture from the World English Bible, ebible.org, all rights reserved)

Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him my covenant of peace.
Numbers 25:12 (emphasis added)

This is a personal two-fold promise to Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron. It is also a shadow of the promise of God to all humanity. Both of them are significant because Yahweh God is a God of covenant: Know therefore that Yahweh your God himself is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and loving kindness to a thousand generations with those who love him and keep his commandments (Deuteronomy 7:9). The Lord makes promises (Joshua 21:45). The Lord makes His face to shine on us (Numbers 6:24-26). The Lord blesses us (Ephesians 1:3). And the Lord gives us Grace, sustaining us in all good works (2 Corinthians 9:8). But beyond all that, Yahweh God covenants with us.

A covenant is serious business. A covenant is a written agreement or promise usually under seal between two or more parties especially for the performance of some action (Merriam-Webster definition). It comes from Latin and refers to two or more parties that are coming together for a contract or an agreement of promise. Not something off the cuff, but something that will have responsibility, privilege, and conditions or stipulations. We use the term as the basis for political treaties, social behaviour, and lifelong bonds such as marriage. It is serious stuff.

To give you an idea of how serious, let’s take a look at the Hebrew word that is used for covenant: Berith (ber-eeth). It is defined between men as a treaty, alliance, league, agreement, and pledge (man to man). As a constitution or ordinance (monarch to subjects). As an alliance of friendship (person to person) or marriage (man to woman). Between God and humanity it is defined as an alliance (of friendship) or divine ordinance (with signs and pledges). As a phrase, the word is used to mean covenant making, covenant keeping, and covenant violation. It is used about 285 times.

Pop over to the New Testament and the word is the Greek diatheke (dee-ath-ay’-kay). It’s used about 33 times and is defined as a disposition or arrangement of any sort which one wishes to be valid, the last disposition which one makes of their earthly possessions after death, or a testament or will. It is also defined as a compact, a covenant, and a testament (such as God’s with Noah) when referencing relations between God and humanity.
In the ancient world, a covenant was serious enough that it was often a blood covenant. Whether blood was shed at the drawing of the covenant or not depends on what source material you read. But the idea was that if the covenant was violated, the violating party had to pay with blood. As in, keep this or you gonna die. No one entered into covenant lightly. There was no get out of jail free card. There wasn’t any no-fault divorce as it were (just a word picture, not referencing marriage specifically).

Covenants have two levels. One is bilateral. It is between two equal parties. This is the vast majority of human to human covenants. It doesn’t matter if it is political, pledging, or marriage. Both parties are equal and joint contributors. That means equal status, equal privileges, equal responsibilities, and clear assigned roles within that framework since only one individual can enact a given role. Think the President of a company and a Vice-President. Equally working together, but they can’t both be President. When it comes to a sovereign covenant (monarch to subject), the covenant level is unilateral. The subjects are recipients, but they don’t contribute. They don’t offer any substance to the agreement. The monarch provides the substance of the bond with unmerited favour (the subjects don’t do anything to deserve the offered arrangement). The subjects are to accept it as offered and keep it according to the stipulations. The flip side is all the responsibility is on the side of the Monarch who has to give the results that by oath they have assured their subjects will come. If they fail to give the results, they are 100% responsible. If the subjects fail to keep the stipulations, the Monarch can punish the subjects or withhold the results from the subjects.

Our covenants with Yahweh God are unilateral, but under the dominion of free will. In other words, Yahweh doesn’t withhold anything from us. Yahweh doesn’t punish us. Sin was the price of rebellion and it was paid by Jesus through His death and resurrection to life. With God, the covenant is simple: keep my commandments and I can bless you. Don’t keep my commandments, and you put yourself in a place where you cannot receive what I am offering. It is the same as salvation. You are going to separate yourself from God forever because of the sinful nature you have. This is the factory setting of humanity. Jesus paid the price of sin, so you can accept that He did and follow Him submitted to Jesus as Lord. If you do, you don’t have to separate yourself from God.

As a species, we hate the idea that there is a God who punishes us and casts us into hell if we don’t do right. This is a fine thing to hate because it isn’t true. God doesn’t punish us. God doesn’t cast us into hell. God seeks to save us. God seeks to correct us so that we don’t get punished. God is about heading us off at the pass and redeeming us. Sustaining us so we don’t starve. God is all about the good. Everything else is a lie designed to confuse us and replace God with our idea of what God is. The main purpose of this lie is to ensure we don’t choose to alter our course. That we continue choosing hell in ignorance. One of the other purposes of the lie is to keep us from accepting covenant from God. To focus on our bad and not on His good. This was exactly the problem of Phinehas.

Phinehas had killed. “Behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, while they were weeping at the door of the Tent of Meeting. When Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from the middle of the congregation, and took a spear in his hand. He went after the man of Israel into the pavilion, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel” (Numbers 25:6-8). The history here is God commanded the people to stay away from the people of the lands they were entering. They weren’t to intermarry or dabble with them because they would tempt them away from Yahweh and to their idols. Israelites were doing this, but it was happening outside the camp of Israel (Numbers 25:1-2). This man did this INSIDE the camp of Israel. It was a direct slap in the face of Moses, Yahweh, and the Israelites. It was a direct challenge. Phinehas burned with righteous anger and responded by killing the man.

Now, if you were a priest you were forbidden to kill. They couldn’t even be around a dead body (Leviticus 21-22). Levites as a tribe were warrior-priests — not serving priests, but guards set to instruct Israel and guard the things of the Lord, sometimes literally. But Aaron and his sons (descendants) were serving priests. And serving priests set themselves apart from even the other Levites in what they could or couldn’t do in order to remain pure and consecrated to their service — and there’s a bunch of stuff wrapped up in that. Since Phinehas killed, he wasn’t eligible to serve as a priest anymore (or become one if he wasn’t one yet — the Jewish teaching on this is a little muddied and depends on the commentator you’re reading). But Phinehas didn’t kill out of anger or spite or wrath or frivolously. He killed in righteous anger. In jealous defence of the statutes of Yahweh God. And God did NOT hold it against him.

Yahweh spoke and granted Phinehas His covenant of peace. One English translation of the Hebrew text reads that Phinehas is granted Yahweh’s pact of friendship. In the immediate this covenant had two levels. First, Phinehas no longer had to fear reprisal from the relatives of the dead man because God said that it was a righteous slaying of sinful behaviour that would have infected the whole camp. Second, Yahweh is declaring that because of Phinehas’ righteous fervour, he was worthy of the role of priest. In fact, in verse thirteen God says “‘It shall be to him, and to his offspring after him, the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’” Phinehas was gifted the priesthood for himself and all his descendants. As Phinehas loved the Lord, the Lord showed His love to Phinehas.

If you start wading through Rabbinical teaching, there is a lot to uncover. Among them is that this idea of peace was more than peace to his fellow men. This was more than no reprisal for the killing. This was peace to Phinehas himself period. Peace includes the idea of no conflict. Between people, animals, and creation. A lack of the curse in its entirety. Some Rabbis believe that Phinehas was therefore granted immortality because of this. There is certainly evidence that Phinehas was granted long life (as is a benefit of fervent loving of God and following His guidance and ordinances – Psalm 91). Long after Joshua and the Elders of Joshua’s time were passed on, we find Phinehas serving before the altar of the Lord (Judges 20:28). If you look at the timeline alone, Phinehas was close to three hundred years old at this point. That’s some peace! Although his death is never recorded, per se, there are many people whose deaths are never recorded. We may not know if he was called up directly like Enoch and Elijah, but we know he had favour and lived a LONG time.

God loves us. We know this. He treats us magnificently even though we don’t deserve it. His mercy endures forever. His lovingkindness endures forever. He showers us with Grace and Faith. He is our Father, our Saviour, and our Teacher. There is also His Peace. His Covenant of Peace. The angel declared loudly and eternally: “Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men” (Luke 2:14). We are offered Yahweh’s Covenant of Peace separate from salvation, from adoption as sons and daughters, and from being the body and Bride of Christ. Jesus offered it to us all in a unilateral agreement in John 14:27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Don’t let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.” This isn’t just a New Testament offer. It has been an offer from the beginning. Zechariah 3:7 tells us “‘If you will walk in my ways, and if you will follow my instructions, then you also shall judge my house, and shall also keep my courts, and I will give you a place of access among these who stand by.’” We also find it in Exodus 18:20, 1 John 2:6, Deuteronomy 10:12-13, Psalm 18:30, 2 Timothy 3:10, Job 23:10-12, and Psalm 1:1-2.

Yahweh wants the best for us. The best is more than Sonship in Jesus. The best is more than His righteous spirit. The best is more than indwelling by the Holy Ghost. The best is more than salvation. The best is more than blessing. The best is more than blessing others. The best is more than relationship, prayer, and waiting on the Lord. The best is obedience. It is better than all other sacrifices (1 Samuel 15:22). To obey is to walk in His path (Proverbs 4:26-27). To obey is to seek Him (Luke 11:9-10). This is the Covenant of His Peace. To seek His face. If we do? We unilaterally can expect the results of His Peace:

Strength (Ephesians 3:14-16)

Rest (Matthew 11:28-30)

Needs taken care of (Philippians 4:19)

Answered prayers (Matthew 7:7)

Working everything to His Glory and our good (Romans 8:28)

Long life and revelation (Psalm 91:16)

That’s pretty good Peace. That is in addition to our (also unilateral) promises in salvation to be with us always (Matthew 28:20), protection (Psalm 3:3), freedom from a return to sinful habits (1 John 1:9), and total, and absolute connection to Him (Romans 8:38-39).

Yahweh God wants us with Him. He wants to give us good things. He forgives, indwells, redeems, and renews us. He is good for His promises (2 Corinthians 1:20 & Joshua 21:45). All of that is wonderful and awesome and to be desired. But if you will seek His face, seek HIM, there is a Covenant of Peace to walk in. A Covenant of special relationship, dedicated priesthood, and peace with all things in Him, by Him, and through Him. It is a journey of special, set-apart closeness with Yahweh God. It is to be desired above all things and every single human being is called to it: “Seek Yahweh while he may be found. Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to Yahweh, and he will have mercy on him, to our God, for he will freely pardon” (Isaiah 55:6-7).

Take Him up on the offer. Start today. He is at the door knocking. Seek Him. Seek Him diligently and with every waking moment. Seek Jesus in every way. If you do, you WILL find Him. If you find Him, you can enter His Covenant of Peace. It is a reward unlike anything else, and it is worth finding. Seek Him today.

Daily Affirmation of God’s Love: Proverbs 8:17-21

Those who seek find. One of the greatest promises of the Word. God is not hiding FROM us. He is hiding FOR us. He is not to be cheapened. He is not common. He is there. Eternal. Righteous. Glorious. And Worthy. He loves us and wants us beside Him. He gives His Word as flaming signposts to follow to His throne. He sent His Son who volunteered to pay sin’s price and redeem us. To give us the choice. To give us the option to leave the world behind and enter His Kingdom. By Grace, through Faith, and with never-ending Mercy. Because of Love. He doesn’t want to send us mash notes. He doesn’t want to do a drive-by smooching. He wants fellowship. More than coffee and donuts. More than let’s catch-up sometime. True and total fellowship. One of the greatest things you can experience in this world is to be truly and totally seen by another human. For everything about you, every nook and cranny, every fold and flab, every quirk and quarrel, every petty and pretty, every idea and I don’t. For all of it to be seen and accepted. It is unique and not everyone finds it. What Yahweh offers us when we seek Him puts that experience to shame. What we get in Jesus and through Jesus when we seek the Lord is something that defies real description. It includes all the good that God can imagine. It is total relationship. Total SEEN-ness. It is a treasure not to be missed and able to be found by everyone. He loves you. And He will love it when you find Him. Start today. Seek so you can find.

Your Daily Confession of God’s love to YOU:

Today God loves that I _______.