April 30th: God’s Covenants

Speaker: Chris Laws

This key doctrine provides a clear view of God’s dealings with men, and a firm foundation for church practice.

Covenant = an undertaking by God to relate to man on certain conditions. A compact, an arrangement.
God bound himself to us to give us undying life if we obeyed. A ‘sign of friendship’ (Watson).
God intends to interact with man – the best of all friendship.
The covenants teach that true religion is having a relationship with Him.
1 Pet 1.18 “Whom having not seen, ye love.”

1. Confusion. We soon read of many covenants: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Israel.
Allow Paul to simplify things for us: Gal 4.24 “these are the two covenants”.
There are just two covenants in Scripture. Not many as in dispensationalism.
Heb 8.7 “If that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been found for the second.”
Hebrews contrasts the two.

2. Covenant of works – the first arrangement of God with man.
It was broken when man fell. It had failed. We may think it is therefore useless, to be discarded.
But God did not discard it. It remained in force.
Paul could say 1000s years later, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them” (Gal 3.10).
It has a continuing function today. It condemns us all because we all sin.
God’s demands of obedience continue to this day, written in every heart. Never repealed.

3. Covenant of grace immediately announced in Gen 3.15 “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise (crush) thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”
Speaking of Messiah, who would crush Satan. Only Christ could do that.
But Messiah wouldn’t come for 1000s of years. What in the meantime?
We have the covenant of grace now, but what would be the arrangement/covenant for the whole OT period?
The covenant of grace immediately sprang into action.

All the heroes of faith of Heb 11 lived in the OT period. All saved by grace!
Abel, Enoch, Noah are listed. They knew that “Without faith it is impossible to please him [God]” (Heb 11.6).
Salvation has always been by grace. Never been possible any other way.
No interim agreement for the OT people such as dispensationalism teaches.

4. The key to understanding the covenants is to realise that from the Fall onwards the covenant of grace exists alongside the covenant of works. 
There are two covenants now, both active.
This is essential to understanding the covenants.
We think of the covenant of works as being before Christ, the covenant of grace after Christ.
Our Bible: Old Testament, New Testament. Testament = Covenant, same word.
But both active throughout history. We will trace them both.
Classical Reformed Baptist theology. Spurgeon, Bunyan, BCF, etc.

5. Covenant of grace.
Announced in Gen 3.15. Then we learn more in Genesis 12.
God makes a covenant with Abraham. Promises him a land. But much more.
Six times God promises him “In thy seed shall all the families/nations of the earth be blessed.”
God promised blessing/salvation to his spiritual descendants. Not physical descendants.
Gal 3.6 “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.”
Gal 3.8 “God...preached the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.”

Paul explains “thy seed”. Gal 3.16 “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
Gal 3.29 “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed.” Spiritual descendants – the covenant of grace.
You see this working out straightaway. Isaac a spiritual descendant not Ishmael, Jacob not Esau.
So covenant of grace active in the OT.
Father of the faithful c2000BC.

6. What of the covenant of works?
Does it disappear? Hopeless?
430 years after Abraham, the great command and warning of the Garden of Eden, is replaced by the Law.
Restated/re-issued as the Law of Moses. Strict obedience to God.
“Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live” (Leviticus 18.5). 
Now written down as well as in man’s heart. Known globally. Basis of many human laws.

Why draw attention to the covenant of works again? It didn’t succeed.
Ever since Man fell he is utterly incapable of gaining acceptance with God through works.
Gal 3.19 “It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come.”
Its function is to make clear God’s standards. Necessary or they would be forgotten.
Gal 3.24 “Our school master to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.”
Its function is to warn, drive us to grace.
You try obeying the Law, turning over a new leaf, and you cannot.

Two active covenants. God drives us away with the covenant of works, and calls us near with grace.
Deut 29.1 “These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which he made with them in Horeb.”

Another covenant, made later. Moses proclaimed two covenants.
Law at Sinai/Horeb, and then grace (Deut 29-30), the ‘evangelical covenant’.
In Deut 30.1 Moses speaks of “the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee.”
Deut 30.15 “See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil.”
Same today: we set before people works = death, grace = life.

Presbyterians take the view that after the Fall there has been only one covenant – that of grace.
Administered in different ways in the Old and New Testaments.
Israel a special people. Moses spoke of grace. Its ceremonial pictured Christ, the sacrifices Calvary.
They make the NT church a continuation of the OT church, making the two almost identical.
      You baptise infants – as they circumcised baby boys.
      You admit people into Christ’s church without professing faith – children of believers.
      You make NT church government hierarchical similar to the government of Israel.
      You set aside the goal of a regenerate church membership. 
But Paul says the Law is a covenant of works.
Gal 3.10 “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them.”
Law and grace are opposites.

7. Which is the oldest covenant?
Covenant of works when the world began.
Covenant of grace. Conceived in eternity past. 2 Tim 1.9 “Who hath saved us...according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ before the world began.”

8. Who are the parties in the covenants?
Covenant of works God and man. All depended on man’s performance. Man failed.
Covenant of grace. God the Father and the Son. John 17.9 “Them which thou hast given me” before the world began.
‘If you will go and suffer and die for them, I will give them to you as a possession forever.’
All depended on Christ’s obedience. Christ cannot fail. Hence salvation is secure for eternity.

9. Covenant of Grace binding
In the NT the Gk for covenant is sometimes translated testament – which happens after death of a party.
Last will and testament. Binding.
So much hangs on Christ’s death at Calvary.
The covenant of grace was accomplished by the death of Christ.
Like a last will and testament it cannot be changed. So His people are secure.

Application
God continues to do two things – He pushes us away by the Law, and calls us near by grace.
Two covenants – which is it for you?
Do you know and love the Lord?