America is not God’s Covenant Nation–Part 1: How God Covenants With a Nation and a People

Introduction
Part 2

To understand why America does not have a special covenant with God, we need to look at what a covenant with God in the Bible actually entails.

Some may argue that the US has another kind of covenant with God unlike those covenants in the Bible, so the Bible does not count. However, this is cheating. If the US has a kind of covenant with God unlike anything in the Bible, then this covenant is something impossible to define, defend, or even repudiate. It is simply beyond discussion. At the same time, people pushing this idea that the US has a covenant with God always imply or affirm that the US has the same kind of covenant with God that Israel had. Since this covenant can only be understood by looking at Scripture, to the Bible we will go.

First, it should be noted that while individuals in the Bible at times made covenants with each other, God himself made covenants only with the Patriarchs, the children of Israel (mostly as a nation, rarely with separate individuals), the human race as a whole, and with believers in Christ. Nowhere in the Bible is there any evidence that God ever made a covenant with any other nation besides Israel.

Second, the form of the covenant that God made with Israel was special: It was not just a run-of-the-mill promise between two parties. It was what can be best termed as a treaty of suzerainty. In olden times, such treaties bound a weaker nation to a stronger one. The weaker nation would maintain some sort of limited internal autonomy, but would serve the stronger nation. However, with God’s covenant with Israel, this treaty of suzerainty binds the nation of Israel in service to God. Since I lost my books and parchments in my many moves, I will use Wikipedia’s explanation:

Suzerainty treaties and similar covenants and agreements between near-eastern nations were quite prevalent in the pre-monarchic and monarchy periods of the Ancient Israelites … The Ancient Israelites reflected the understanding of suzerain to their understanding of their covenant (law) with God … the structure of the covenant law was structured similarly to the Hittite form of suzerain. Each treaty would typically begin with an “Identification” of the Suzerain Exodus 20:2, followed by a historical prologue which catalogues the relationship between the two groups Exodus 20:2, “with emphasis on the benevolent actions of the suzerain towards the vassal.” Following historical prologue comes the stipulations Exodus 20:3-20:17. This includes tributes, obligations, and other forms of subordination that will be imposed on the Israelites … What followed that was an addition of authority and further security of the treaty being carried out. The treaty would have divine and earthly witnesses purporting the treaty’s validity, trustworthiness, and efficacy. This also tied into the blessings that would come from following the treaty and the curses from breaching it … For disobedience, curses would be given to those who had remained steadfast in carrying out the stipulations of the treaty.

When we read Genesis-Deuteronomy, we are reading this treaty of suzerainty, interspersed with a record of the historical events which accompanied each section of the treaty. All of the elements are there.

When such a formal covenant was made, the Bible says that they “cut covenant”. To cut covenant means the shedding of blood–a sacrifice had to be made.

The example Bible scholars most often use to illustrate cutting covenant is the initiation of the covenant between God and Abraham:

After this, the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision:

   “Do not be afraid, Abram.
I am your shield,
your very great reward.”

But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.”
Then the word of the LORD came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.”
Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.
He also said to him, “I am the LORD, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
But Abram said, “Sovereign LORD, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?”
So the LORD said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.”
Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.
As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the LORD said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”
When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadiof Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

Genesis 15

Note that in addition to the vows and promise of blessing, there was a blood sacrifice. After the sacrifice, God himself came and affirmed His acceptance of the sacrifice by sending a smoking firepot and a blazing torch between the pieces of the animals. This is what it means to cut covenant with God.

With the nation of Israel, the rituals were different, but the end result was the same:

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach the LORD; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.”
When Moses went and told the people all the LORD’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the LORD has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the LORD had said.
He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the LORD. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey.”
Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.”
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up  and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of lapis lazuli, as bright blue as the sky.  But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God, and they ate and drank.

Exodus 24: 1-11

Thus, blood sacrifices were made, and then God affirmed these sacrifices by drawing near and allowing the elders to see Him and live. They cut covenant.

Yet, this covenant was insufficient to save them from their sins, so a new covenant was needed:

“The days are coming,” declares the LORD,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the LORD.
“This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the LORD.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will they teach their neighbor,
or say to one another, ‘Know the LORD,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the LORD.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31: 31-34

This new covenant was established with the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, which is why Jesus, foreshadowing his own death, said, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Mathew 26: 28). Just as in his previous covenants, God sealed this covenant by a show of power: He raised Jesus from the grave. And, by doing so He demonstrated that He is able to keep all that He has promised to us in his covenant, “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself” (2 Corinthians 2: 14).

This new covenant was offered first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles:

If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Romans 10: 9-13

Regarding the Jews, there is a sense in which the old covenant has been superseded and rendered obsolete. However, God’s callings and promises are eternal:

I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in,  and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written:

“The deliverer will come from Zion;
he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.
And this is my covenant with them
when I take away their sins.”

 As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies for your sake; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable.

Romans 11: 25-29

With this Scripture, Paul prophesies that Israel will indeed be a part of God’s a harvest of salvation, but not through the old covenant–it will be through the new. It will be through Jesus Christ.

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It is important to note that these Scriptures do not leave room for any country or people to take Israel’s place as God’s chosen people. Rather, through the new covenant all people of faith in Jesus Christ are grafted into the tree of salvation, a tree that has existed from before time, a tree which Israel will once again be grafted back into to share an equal part with the Gentiles (Romans 11: 17-24).

No matter how hard one might look, there is no “New Israel” mentioned in the Bible. Israel is Israel, and by Israel we mean the Jews. America is not the New Israel–the Jewish people were, are, and always will be the Israel of God’s promise, a promise God will keep.*

Nor is there in the Bible anywhere a hint of any other covenant with God that America can be a part of, except God’s new covenant with all people of faith in Jesus Christ.

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*This does not necessarily mean that the present country of Israel is the inheritor of God’s promise. Actually, though most popular Christian writers seem sure that the current state of Israel is the Israel of promise (and therefore, for Christians, the Israel in Revelation), both Christian and Jewish scholars are split on this issue. Many–but not all–biblical scholars agree that the promised nation of Israel is tied to the land: It cannot exist without the land, and therefore cannot be the Jewish diaspora. However, there is the real question of how a secular state born of secular necessity can be the inheritor of a promise made by a God they do not acknowledge or believe in. It could well be that the Israel of promise is a state that will exist at a future time, but does not exist now. Among evangelical Christians, Art Katz (a Messianic Jewish evangelist) was no doubt the most prominent to hold this view. While I am inclined to agree with Katz’s logic, I am in fact agnostic on this issue. I am a supporter of Israel, but there are any myriad of good reasons to support Israel that have nothing to do with various interpretations of Bible prophecy.