In Scripture we find covenants among men with terms which are mutually considered and agreed to and then ratified by an oath or some token before witnesses. God’s covenants with man on earth are of a different character. Their conditions are established by God under which man is to live with Him. The terms of relationship may be either conditional or unconditional as God chooses. The primary covenants that God has made and will make with man are called the “old” and the “new” covenant. The old was made at Sinai with Israel; its terms were conditional — if they kept the law they would be blessed; if they broke it they would be cursed. The Lord Jesus, by the shedding of His blood in death, laid the foundation of a “new” covenant to be made with Israel in a still-future millennial day. The gospel is not a covenant, but the revelation of the salvation of God by grace, and those who receive it become children in God’s family and members of Christ’s body. Such enjoy all the essential privileges of the new covenant, its foundation being of God, but they are in a family relationship with God and in a body relationship with Christ — not in a covenant relationship.