What is the meaning for the word "covenant" in your theology?
Does the term imply an agreement between two or more parties?
The answer to these questions is important because of the teaching of the "covenant of works" and the "covenant of grace" among the Covenant Theologians.
Surely the concept of a covenant is somewhere defined in detail in systemized Covenant Theology, is it not? Where can these details be found?
Here is a link to plenty more info: http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Covenant-Theology/What-is-a-Covenant/
Charlie, thanks for the links. In the first one we read:
"Of the biblical words usually rendered "covenant" the primary one in the Old Testament is the Hebrew berith, for which the Greek diatheke was the translation choice of the New Testament writers" (Meredith G. Kline, What is a Covenant?).
The translators of the LXX chose the Greek word diatheke to translate the Hebrew word berith.
So I would imagine that their choice of Greek word to translate berith would give us the best understanding of the meaning of berith. From this we can understand that the Greek word does not mean a "covenant" as we understand the word.
Louis Berkhof wrote that "In the Septuagint the word ‘berith’ is rendered ‘diatheke’ in every passage where it occurs with the exception of Deut. 9:15 (marturion) and I Kings 11:11 (entole). The word ‘diatheke’ is confined to this usage, except in four passages. This use of the word seems rather peculiar in view of the fact that it is not the usual Greek word for covenant, but really denotes a disposition, and consequently also a testament. The ordinary word for covenant is ‘suntheke.’” [emphasis added ] (Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology [Grand Rapids, 1949 ], 262-263.
So the translators of the LXX chose not to use the Greek word which means "covenant" and instead chose a word that means "a disposition" or "testament."
Adolf Deissmann wrote that "There is ample material to back me in the statement that no one in the Mediterranean world in the first century A.D. would have thought of finding in the word 'diatheke' the idea of ‘covenant'" (Adolf Deissmann, Light From the Ancient East, translated by Lionel R.M. Strachan [London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1927 ], 337-338).
That is also the Greek word that the authors of the New Testament employed. So can we understand that the various arrangements spoken of in the Bible are not covenants at all but instead are "dispositions" or "testaments"?