JESUS' COVENANT of GRACE with the CHURCH a PREVIEW in Part
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
COVENANT THEOLOGY PART 4 - JESUS’ COVENANT OF GRACE WITH THE CHURCH A PREVIEW In Part 4 we see that, because Jesus is the successful Servant of God the Father's Covenant of Works with God the Son, Jesus becomes the Lord and Mediator of another covenant...a Covenant of Grace with the Church! RESOURCES This series of lectures is based on and in many instances taken directly from the works of Meredith Kline, Lee Irons, Gordon Hugenberger, Rick Lints and many conversations with pastor friends and fellow covenant theologians. A REVIEW We’re going to begin where we left off in Gen 3. Specifically Gen 3:14-21. This is the announcement, the promise of salvation right after the fall. And this good news for us comes as a declaration of war against our enemy, the devil, and as a pronouncement, as a prophecy of our enemy’s defeat by another Adam. And the crux of the prophecy is in v.15 with this bruising or striking or crushing of the serpent’s head AND the heel of the woman’s offspring. These are death blows to the devil and this Second Adam BUT they will mean salvation for God’s people. The First Adam failed to fulfill his Covenant of Works between him and God. So God the Father makes another Covenant of Works with a Second Adam = God the Son. Second Adam’s work: 1) doing what First Adam failed to do in resisting and judging the devil and fathering a people AND 2) giving up his life = dying and paying the penalty for Adam’s and for our disobedience. 1 Jesus tells his disciples about his covenant with his Heavenly Father the night before he is crucified at the Last Supper. Lk 22:29: “I covenant to you, as my Father covenanted to me, a kingdom.” What are the essential ingredients of a kingdom? 3 things: 1) a king, 2) people, 3) land The big question is how is all that going to get worked out? Through another covenant! Lk 22:29 1) “as the Father covenanted to me [a kingdom]” Jesus is the successful Servant of the Covenant of Works with God the Father. 2) “I covenant to you a kingdom” Jesus is the Lord and Mediator of a New Covenant with his church. Jesus gets to share with his people by grace what he has earned by works himself. BIG QUESTION - How is everyone before Jesus saved? Adam could obey or fail in his covenant with God (and he did fail) BUT IT WAS NOT possible that the Son of God would fail. It was so certain Jesus would do what Adam did not do and fulfill that eternal covenant of works and earn the blessings of the kingdom for his people that even before it happened the benefits of his work are already being dispensed. Right after the fall the Covenant of Grace began operating in the world. Christ is absolutely fully present and offered as Savior to Adam and Eve here in the garden AFTER THE FALL (not before the fall). Gen 3:15 says another son is coming who’s going to destroy this serpent devil. Gen 3:21 says, “And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” God kills an animal to cover over Adam and Eve. This is a sacrifice. And this sacrifice is doing two big things. 1) This slaughtering of an animal is the making of a covenant. Typically when a covenant is made it’s referred to as “cutting a covenant” (Gen 15:18 literally says, “On that day the LORD cut a covenant with Abram…”; Deut 5:2, “The LORD our God cut a covenant with us in Horeb.”). So the actual ceremony in which the covenant is set up and inaugurated is a ceremony that involves what they called “a ritual of cutting,” literally the slaughtering of a sacrificial animal as a way of visually representing that this 2 commitment that’s being made has sanctions attached to it. So if the person whose making the oath doesn’t keep their side of the commitment then they are going to be cut like this animal is being cut. 2) This covenant will only be fulfilled at great cost to God himself and this sacrificing of an animal is symbolizing and pointing to the ultimate sacrifice that provides atonement. The death blows of Gen 3:15 AND the sacrifice of 3:21 prepare us to expect this salvation to come at the cost of blood and death. This is THE promise Adam and Eve hold onto and pass down to their children: “Another Son is coming to do what we failed to do and he’s going to save us.” Now God relates to his people not through love and justice but love and grace. It’s no longer up to Adam and Eve to live obediently and merit eternal glory. God says to Adam and Eve the work will be taken care of by another man who is yet to be born in this world. This new man is the new king of this new relationship of grace between God and his people. So how is anyone saved before Jesus? The same way Adam and Eve are saved right after the fall. They put their faith in this offspring of theirs to come, that this man, will represent them now and do what they did not do and pay for their failure. That is, they are saved by grace through faith in the gospel. And the Son of God has been administering this Covenant of Grace ever since The Fall. The covenant starts off like a baby and gets bigger and fuller. Talking about the “Covenant of Grace” is to really talk about a series of covenants that we’re lumping together under the umbrella heading “Covenant of Grace.” Or, the “Covenant of Grace” is subdivided into a series of covenants = a series of administrations of the Covenant of Grace. You can think of God’s covenantal dealings with: -Adam and Eve after the fall, -the Sethites in Gen 4 and 5, -Noah, -the Abrahamic Covenant -which is renewed with Isaac -and then renewed with Jacob GENESIS 12-17 THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT The Abrahamic Covenant looks back to the Adamic Covenant of Works before the fall and it picks up the glory of heaven that was forfeited because of Adam’s sin. God has 3 not forgotten about this plan to bring in the kingdom of God that’s going to be global and engulf all of creation. Now he’s going to bring it about through a redemptive plan. The Abrahamic Covenant also looks ahead to the fulfillment of this plan of redemption. God comes to Abraham and promises him the kingdom of heaven. And remember, the promises of the kingdom are threefold: Abraham is promised that a great and numerous people are going to come from him, and that kings are going to come from him, and that they will have a land (1) king, 2) people, 3) land). AND YET Abraham never sees the fulfillment of these promises in his lifetime. The Abrahamic Covenant, and its promises, actually gets fulfilled in two stages later in history. FIRST STAGE FULFILLMENT OF ABRAHAMIC COVENANT The first stage fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant is the Mosaic Covenant; God’s Covenant with Israel. In the Book of Genesis you do not get to the fulfillment of these kingdom promises. You get the promises but the kingdom hasn’t come. The Book of Exodus is kingdom come. That’s the first coming of the kingdom. God saves his people and brings them out of Egypt in the Book of Exodus and God enters into a covenant and the kingdom is instituted there in Ex 19 and following. And the rest of OT history is the ongoing story of this God-king who claims his land as his people march in and take over that land. And then they get a human king. The OT is the story of the coming of the kingdom as the first fulfillment of those promises given to Abraham back in the Book of Genesis. 1) King - David is the fulfillment of the promise of a king to Abraham 2Sam 7:11 I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the LORD declares to you that the LORD will make you a house. 12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. 16 And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’” 4 2) People - Israel is the fulfillment of the promise of a numerous people to Abraham 1Kings 4:20 Judah and Israel were as many as the sand by the sea. They ate and drank and were happy.” 3) Land - Canaan is the fulfillment of the promise of an Eden like land to Abraham Josh.