Christ is the Covenant!

Now, he gives him as the covenant. That's such a wonderful picture. Coming to God through Jesus Christ is not embracing a plan of salvation and agreeing with its steps.

It is embracing a person, the person who embodies this covenant.

Christ did not come just to explain the covenant. He did not come merely to accomplish what needed to be accomplished to inaugurate this new contract of grace.

He is the covenant. He is the embodiment of every wonderful thing in our rescue.

Think of a marriage license. A marriage license is important. It helps to define the kind of love that I have with my wife, and it is a legal foundational doctrine.

I have a right to love her this way and only her this way. If I came home at the end of the day and had supper with the family and then went and sat on the couch with the marriage license and looked at the marriage license and said,

You're such a wonderful thing. I'm just so impressed with you. I love you more every day. It would be a bit odd, wouldn't it? You know, just leave my wife in another room.

Nobody does that. I don't even know where my marriage license is. My wife does. I don't.

I come home. I sit by my wife. She's the object of my affection. When we become serious about getting doctrine straight, sometimes

I find, especially in Reformed churches, that we can become enamored with the marriage license and we forget that it's the husband that's so attractive.

We love the great doctrines of the New Covenant. We love the federal headship of Christ. We love the sovereignty of God.

We love the unshakable grace of God, the loving kindness of God. We love the doctrines of conversion, you know, the work of the

Holy Spirit. But do not become so enamored with the intellectual aspects of doctrine that you forget that while these are foundational and they spell out your relationship with God through His Son, they are not the great attraction.