Chapter 7: Of God's CovenantAll the Reformation-era confessions teach that the individual covenants initiated throughout Scripture (e.g., Abrahamic, Mosiac, Davidic, etc) are all expressions of the one covenant of grace. In fact, this was the common almost universal teaching of the Church until the error of dispensationalism appeared on the scene.1. The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant. ( Luke 17:10; Job 35:7,8 )
2. Moreover, man having brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. ( Genesis 2:17; Galatians 3:10; Romans 3:20, 21; Romans 8:3; Mark 16:15, 16; John 3:16; Ezekiel 36:26, 27; John 6:44, 45; Psalms 110:3 )
3. This covenant is revealed in the gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the New Testament; and it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction that was between the Father and the Son about the redemption of the elect; and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency. ( Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 1:1; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 1:2; Hebrews 11;6, 13; Romans 4:1, 2, &c.; Acts 4:12; John 8:56 )
London Baptist Confession of 1689
See O. Palmer Robertson's Christ of the Covenants.
What activates God’s Grace in Christ for us? ... Faithing, the pisteuo taught in the New Testament. Is that same ‘faithing’ taught in the Old Testament? Absolutely! [HINT: when Abraham was taking his beloved son to the sacrificial altar, he instructed the servants with them to wait at the foot of the hill that ‘they would return to them after the rite was carried out; THAT is faithing that even if he slayed his son to fulfill God’s command, God would raise that boy up to go back down from the hill because God made promises to be fulfilled through that boy so the promises couldn’t end on that altar. Man, that’s faithing! Faithing in the Grace of God, the fidelity of God, the promises of God. And it is taught throughout the entire Bible, thus the covenant of Grace is throughout the Bible.]
Ping for more detail read later:
Good stuff, but not sure about some of the artical, overall point is right on, some details seem off and may lead to practicing error but I won’t comment till I read slower feel like I see what the writter is getting at.
AMEN!
Christ, "by whom ALL THINGS consist."