Covenant Or Will?

by Johnston, Brian, D. | Category: Bible Covenants | Dec 2007

We are so used to 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament' in relation to the two main parts of the Bible that we don't stop to consider that these are very curious titles for groups of writings, given the way we use the word 'testament' in society today. Characters like Moses and David in the first part of the Bible related to God under the Old Covenant. But the making of the New Covenant by the death of Jesus brought about such a radically new way of relating to God that it demanded writings of its own to fully explain it. So, perhaps it would be better to refer to the two parts of the Bible as 'the Old Covenant' and 'the New Covenant' - which in itself would testify to the importance of the covenant idea through the Bible, as emphasized in this series.

So why is the wording 'Old Testament' and 'New Testament' preferred? It goes back to the Greeks (and the Latin 'Testamentum'). They had a word for what we would regard as someone's 'last will and testament', the document in which a person sets out what is to be done with his property after death. This was the word, 'diatheke' (pronounced dee-ath-ay-kay, Strong's no. 1242). In both classical Greek and in the papyri it is found many times and is almost always used in this sense.

But curiously, when we turn to the New Testament it's hard to deny that sometimes 'diatheke' means a covenant and at other times it means a will. Take Galatians 3:15, for example. Here Paul draws on everyday life. �Though it is only a man's covenant ('diatheke'), yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it�. So far, the words could refer either to a covenant or to a will. But Paul immediately goes on to say that the promises were spoken �to Abraham and to his Seed� (v.16). The second use of 'diatheke' (v.17) shows Paul is referring to the covenant God made with Abraham. So, the term must mean 'covenant' here.

However, we may come to a different conclusion if we turn to Hebrews 9:16-17. Following on in thought from the word inheritance at the end of verse 15, we read: �for where there is a testament ('diatheke'), there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament ('diatheke' again) is in force after men are dead�. Can it be said that a covenant is of force only when someone has died? Is a covenant not very much concerned with the living? On the other hand, it can be argued (rightly, as we saw from the very first article in this present series) that in covenant-making, the sacrifice of a victim was customary (Gen.15:10; Jer.34:18,19). Whoever made a covenant did so at the cost of a life. Therefore, might Hebrews 9 be viewing Jesus in covenantal terms as the victim whose death was necessary? But does the actual wording refer to the death of the covenant victim or to that of the covenant-maker?

On balance, in this instance it does seem as though the writer has subtly switched to treating the biblical Greek word for 'covenant' ('diatheke') as here signifying a will (its usual Greek sense outside the Bible). In some sense, there is actually not a lot of difference in the precise view taken, for thoughts of covenant and testament seem to merge here (v.18). While 'covenants' and 'wills' are not in all respects identical, the writer sees the New Covenant as having the character of a testamentary disposition. In other words, an authoritative setting down of terms - like human wills, in which all the arrangements are secured by the testator, and its beneficiaries need only accept its terms. Treating the New Covenant in this way, the writer argues that its force - like that of all human wills - depends on the death of the one who made it. That is when it takes effect.

If we may now return to the main point we were making, when the Old Testament was translated into Greek it was this term, 'diatheke', strangely enough at first sight, that was used to translate the Hebrew 'berith' (ber-eeth, Strong's no. 1285), 'covenant' - not just once, but 277 times. We say, strangely enough, for the translators passed over their usual word for covenant, 'suntheke' (pronounced soon-thay-kay), and used this term instead which was normally the regular word for a will.

Why did they do this? Perhaps, generalizing the argument above which was specific to Hebrews 9, they did not make as sharp a distinction between the two different ideas as we do. The basic idea in 'diatheke' is that of an authoritative disposition, and this applies equally well to any covenant in which God dictates the terms and also to a will in which we find the directions of a deceased person.

It seems that among the Greeks 'diatheke' stood for something laid down with final authority. After all, no-one can bargain with a testator to get better terms, because he's dead! In this series, we have been concerned with studying the covenants God makes with people by laying down the terms. No-one can negotiate with God in order to get Him to change His mind and produce another covenantal agreement that better suits the human recipient.

It may well be that the translators of the Old Testament felt that 'suntheke', the ordinary word for a formal agreement, would convey the wrong impression if used of covenants which God made, being too much concerned with two-sidedness. It stood for making the best deal that one's negotiating skills could obtain. This was not what the Old Testament writers were talking about, so the translators rejected the word that might well have conveyed this meaning. Instead they used a word which indicates an authoritative laying down of the terms. Once they had made their choice on the basis of the covenants God made, they had to use it for those other covenants too.

The writer to the Hebrews is especially fond of the covenant idea as a way of looking at Christ's saving work, and uses the word diatheke seventeen times - while all the rest of the writers of the New Testament manage only sixteen between them.

This great New Testament word ('diatheke'), which stresses an authoritative laying down of terms, shows that 'all is of God' - and on that note of reverent wonder, we draw this series on covenants to a close. In it, we have seen that while there was a conditional aspect to at least one covenant God made, divine covenants are never bilateral, for no-one in making a covenant bargains with God. Another thing which a study of this word has done, is to focus our attention on the death of Christ as the basis of the eternal covenant (Heb.13:20).

As far as our motivation to apply the Scriptures, perhaps we should reflect more on the New Testament as being the last will and testament of the Lord who died for us on the cross. The only fitting response we can make to His death for us is to obey from our hearts all we find written there. The body of teaching it contains is not for negotiation, but for our devoted compliance.

Johnston, Brian, D. | Dec 2007
Bible Covenants