Among rational and moral creatures all higher life takes the form of a covenant. Generally, a covenant is an agreement between persons who voluntarily obligate and bind themselves to each other for the purpose of fending off an evil or obtaining a good. Such an agreement, whether it is made tacitly or defined in explicit detail, is the usual form in terms of which all humans live and work together. Love, friendship, marriage, as well as all social cooperation in business, industry, science, art, and so forth, is ultimately grounded in a covenant, that is, in reciprocal fidelity and an assortment of generally recognized moral obligations. It should not surprise us, therefore, that also the highest and most richly textured life of human beings, namely, religion bears this character. In Scripture "covenant" is the fixed form in which the relation of God to his people is depi...