What is a Covenant of Grace?

What Jesus calls the New Covenant in the Bible is a covenant of grace. But what does this mean? Many secular businesses incorporate grace into their names. Examples are hospitals, hair salons, and a coffee vendor on a nearby college campus.

Grace is more than just a word with a nice connotation. Unveiling the secret of ours being “a covenant of grace” can transform our relationship with God. Perhaps you are born again. You may be aware of your sins and glad to be a forgiven sinner. But do you see yourself the way Father God sees you? In spite of your failures He sees you as a new, sinless creation. How can this be? The revelation of it being a covenant of grace is vital. It is the key to experiencing the relationship and blessings of the New Covenant of Grace.  

Matthew 5:8 (AMPC) Blessed (happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous—possessing the happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their outward conditions) are the pure in heart, for they shall see God!

When you ask Jesus to be your Savior you are asking Him to be your Messiah-Savior, your Covenant Lord. The acceptance of the covenant qualifies you to be pure in heart in His eyes. You are eligible to receive all the blessings in the verse above. These blessings include being happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous. You also qualify for possessing the happiness that the experience of God’s favor produces.

But notice, there is a catch!

 Are these blessings limited in any way by your circumstances, your position in life, or your outward conditions? No. The verse says all of this is yours, regardless of your circumstances. Is your experiencing of the blessings a quart shy of a full gallon? What then, if anything, is the limiting factor? The answer is why I write this blog. Matthew 5:8 clearly says there is something that limits the amount of being happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous you experience. The level of your revelation dictates the the level of your elevation. It is “especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace.”

What is grace?

The Greek word for grace, in the original text of the New Testament, is charis.[1] Are you ready for this? Our acceptance by grace means to receive acceptable benefits and the ability to benefit from being acceptable in His sight. It also means to be given unmerited favor, and that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, and loveliness. Grace says all of these are given as unmerited gifts. The definition goes even further.

 Grace also includes someone showing hessed, a Hebraic covenant term for the receiving of loving-kindness, and tender mercy. Grace gives strength and increases one’s ability to do what one is “graced” to do. Holy Spirit gives these things us to increase our ability to minister spiritually to ourselves, and others in need. The word for gifts of the Holy Spirit is charismata, coming from the same root word for grace. 

This is a lot to absorb. Just take a moment to consider what it means to now have the revelation of a covenant grace-infused life.

• Acceptable benefits and the ability to benefit from being one God deems acceptable.
• A source of great favor.
• You have a what affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, loveliness; all of which is unmerited.
• Grace is given out of hessed, which is a covenant term for bestowing loving kindness, and tender mercy.
• Covenant grace provides power and enablement by way of spiritual gifts.
• This is what equips you as the scripture says, to be able to do all things in Christ.[2]

This can change your life

Unveiling the covenant grace basis of your relationship with Jesus and Father God can change your life. You have a God-given covenant right to experience not only forgiveness, but also righteousness, peace, joy, and life more abundantly.

It is imperative to get this revelation of how grace is the basis for our covenant relationship. I deeply regret that for decades I was either opposed to or ignorant of almost everything that I am telling you about blood covenants. I was “born again” at an early age. But my relationship with God was hampered. I was not aware of having grace-based blood covenant righteousness and sonship even while imperfect.

His covenant promise is that you are no longer considered a sinner regardless of what you do or do not do to improve yourself. Knowing this will not make you more prone to on keep sinning. Quite the opposite, it will cause you to run to God, not to hide from him. Father God runs toward the prodigal, not away from him.

Abraham was a stellar man of faith. He was also a sinful idolater from a heathen nation. He obtained righteousness, just like us, as a covenant gift from God. On the basis of the blood covenant, God accounted him as righteous. Abraham then lies in ways that could have been punished by death after being accounted righteous. He committed sins that not only offended God, but also earthly kings. God had to step in and warn kings that Abraham had told a half-lie, and not to take his wife or his life. Yet, sins racked up after making a covenant with God did not disqualify him from being accounted righteous. His righteousness was a covenant gift, not a result of human perfection. 

The bottom line

It is only understanding the mystery of our covenant of grace that can free us. Otherwise, we can be feeling like unworthy sinners who are only pretending or attempting to have a new nature. We may still feel unworthy because we know we did not earn or achieve perfection in our flesh. But our unmerited worthiness is not based on how we feel about it. 

Our position in Christ is based upon what God said and Jesus did, to change our identity. We are being reborn into the New Covenant of Grace with Jesus. The result is to inherit what is ours by blood covenant grace. We have a new nature, an amazing inheritance, by virtue of the role of grace in our relationship with God.

[1] Strong’s Concordance Dictionary.

[2] Philippians 4:13

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