When Jesus judges the fig tree, he foretells judgment not on all Israelites but on those who, like the luxuriantly leafy but fruitless tree, appear to be alive but are barren (Matt. 13:22). Jesus has just inspected the temple and found it wanting. The spectacle of worship—the priests, the music, the sacrifices, the gleaming buildings—is grand but fruitless. Its leaders bar Gentiles from worship and plot the murder of their king. Truly, it has become a cave of rebels against God, their show of religion notwithstanding.

18In the morning, as he was returning to the city, he became hungry. 19And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21:18–22
Jesus as Lord and Judge
Passover is days away, and pilgrims stream into Jerusalem. Many have traveled from Galilee; they spontaneously hail Jesus as prophet and Son of David as they enter Jerusalem with him. After entering, Jesus visits the temple. As so often, Mark offers details that Matthew omits. Mark 11:11 notes how Jesus “looked around at everything” and then left the city with the Twelve, “as it was already late.” Whether “looking around” signifies a quick look or a thorough examination, Mark gives Jesus an evening to meditate before he purges the temple. If Mark suggests contemplation, Matthew describes direct action: Jesus enters, drives out the merchants, overturns their tables, and then explains himself: they have made God’s house into a “den of robbers” or, it could be translated, a “cave of insurrectionists” (Matt. 21:12–13).
Explanations are in order. First, currency exchange is not immoral. Travelers would seek to purchase animals for their sacrifices and feasts, and they had to convert their currency into the temple’s. The problem is not commerce per se but commerce in the temple precincts, as Jesus explains by quoting Isaiah and Jeremiah: “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.”
“Prayer” is synecdoche for public worship: the prayers, songs, teachings, and offerings of the temple. It is possible that the merchants overcharge, but Jesus drives out buyers and sellers, so malfeasance cannot be the sole issue. The problem is corruption of the temple’s purpose: the noise of commerce and animals prevents the silence that is the context for prayer, worship, and instruction. If rabbinic comments are accurate, Caiaphas the high priest had recently moved the sale of sacrificial animals from the valley near Jerusalem into the temple court reserved for Gentiles. This might account for the additional phrase in Mark 11:17: the temple is to be a “house of prayer for all the nations.”
The context of Jesus’ OT citations is essential. Isaiah 56 declares that no one— neither eunuch nor Gentile—should say, “The Lord will surely separate me from his people” (Isa. 56:3). No, to those who hold to the covenant, the Lord says, “I will . . . make them joyful in my house of prayer; . . . for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples” (Isa. 56:7). Whatever the logic of the temple commerce, it makes worship difficult for Gentiles and neglects Isaiah’s word. By citing Isaiah, Jesus implicitly claims that his action brings the messianic blessing predicted by the prophet. Further, Jesus’ “disruptive action” is necessary if the temple is to regain “its God-ordained purpose.”1
While the temple has ceased to be a house of prayer for the nations, it has become a “den of robbers” (Matt. 21:13). Scholars doubt that the problem is corruption among the money-changers, since (again) Jesus opposes both selling and buying, and there is no record of complaints against them.2 The merchants, with the priests’ approval, are certainly depriving Gentiles of their right to worship God. The phrase “den of robbers,” from Jeremiah 7, is instructive too.
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Though Gen Z-ers have all but replaced Millennials as the dazzling object of scrutiny and cultural analysis, it’s not because Millennials are no longer struggling. Rates of addiction, depression, burnout, and loneliness are all disproportionately high among the demographic born between 1981 and 1996. Since 2013, in fact, Millennials have seen a 47 percent increase in major depression diagnoses.
For their part, evangelical Millennials are in a season of deconstruction and deconversion, or reeling from the many influential and high profile leaders that have recently either left the faith or fallen from grace. Disillusionment is now a dominant feature of this group that was once convinced it could change the world.
In his influential book The Righteous Mind, Jonathan Haidt uses a rider and an elephant to illustrate moral psychology. The rider represents intellectual reasoning. The elephant represents immediate perceptions, intuitions and instincts. Most modern people, Haidt argues, think that their own moral frameworks are derived from objective, rational reasoning. In other words, it’s the rider who tells the elephant where to go and what to eat. In reality, however, moral decisions primarily come from our gut instincts, and we use intellectual reasoning to justify those decisions. Or, back to our metaphor, the elephant wants bananas, and the rider explains why bananas are good after the decision to get bananas has already been made.
If Haidt is right, we can better understand the beauty and power of Christianity. To borrow his metaphor, Christ speaks to both the rider and the elephant. “Like newborn babies,” the Apostle Peter tells us, “crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.” Christianity is not only ultimately true, it is also ultimately satisfying. It is satisfying, in fact, because it is true.
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God graciously chose to covenant with us, and second, he undertook the conditions of the covenants on our behalf when we failed to do so. When we understand this covenant love, we are motivated to respond with lives of grateful obedience. We are inspired to obey his law, not as a means to earn salvation under the Covenant of Works, but as a joyful response to his covenant faithfulness to us.

The Bible is a book about the greatest story, and it touches on hundreds of themes. When we read it, we tend to focus on one of these things; the overall narrative or the themes. Typically we use biblical theology to follow scripture’s story; and systematic theology to trace scripture’s themes. Covenant theology combines these approaches. It helps us step back and see that the Bible tells the story of redemptive history (biblical theology) by using a specific theme or structure: God’s covenants (systematic theology).
Now, this doesn’t mean that covenant theology replaces the other approaches. Covenant theology is really a hermeneutic, a way of reading the scriptures, building on the strengths of both biblical and systematic theology to understand the Bible as a cohesive whole.
In this article, I’ll briefly define a covenant, introduce the Covenants of Works as well as the Covenant of Grace, and in so doing demonstrate how covenant theology helps us understand what Christ has done for us. Some will be familiar with the concepts, while others may have only recently discovered covenant theology. This article is primarily written for the second group, though I hope those of us familiar with these concepts will find our memories refreshed and our hearts encouraged.
What Is a Covenant?
A covenant is a mutual agreement between two parties, where both parties are bound to each other to perform the conditions contracted. At a basic level, it’s a contract. There are blessings for keeping the terms of the covenant, and curses for breaking them. But biblical covenants are deeper than just an agreement to perform a certain action. They connect people to each other and establish a relationship between them; in the scriptures, especially, they connect man and God.
Covenants are typically agreements between equals. So we must for a moment acknowledge the obvious imbalance between God and man. First, we are not equals. Humans depend on God for existence. He is the Creator. We are the creature. Secondly, as part of God’s creation, he has authority over us. He doesn’t need our consent. But God doesn’t force us to simply do as he commands. Instead, he graciously condescends to us, coming to our level and binding himself in covenant to us. By covenanting with us, God chooses to enter into relationship with us. And this means that every covenant is based on God’s grace, even the Covenant of Works.
The Covenant of Works
The Covenant of Works was made with Adam in the Garden of Eden, before the fall. But this covenant doesn’t just involve Adam: God appointed Adam as a representative of all humanity. Adam had a natural right to represent us as the first man, and perhaps more importantly, a legal right which he received from God. This means that Adam’s actions affect us, just as a king who signs a peace treaty signs not just for himself, but for every citizen.
One might summarise the Covenant of Works in this way: “Do this and live.” Note: God does two things here. Firstly, he sets a law (do this) and gives a promise (you will live). If God had only commanded us to do this, there wouldn’t have been any grace. He would simply demand obedience. If God only told us to live, then we’d have a promise but wouldn’t be drawn closer to God. It’s only as a covenant, a mixture of promise and law, that we get the full picture. For it’s by obedience to God that we can draw closer to him and enjoy life. This is the blessing offered under the Covenant of Works.
Let’s expand on that summary. God required Adam to perfectly and personally obey his Law. Adam knew the Law through reason, nature, and of course, God’s plain command. The Ten Commandments would later summarise what Adam was required to obey (Exodus 20:1-26). “Perfectly” and “personally.” These words are important. Perfectly is simple enough to understand.
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