The Doctor: Covenant =

What, then, is a covenant?  Well, a covenant in the Bible is a sovereign act of God’s grace in which He pledges Himself to do something.  There is not a single instance or illustration in the Bible of God meeting with the people and, as the result of a kind of bargaining discussion, God and the people agreeing for their mutual benefit to do certain things.  Covenant in the Bible is always something that is entirely and solely and only from God’s side.  God moved by nothing in us at all, but entirely by His own grace and His own eternal love comes to the people and He says, ‘I am going to do so and so and I pledge Myself that I will do it.’  – D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Romans Vol. 9, p. 54