Systematic Theology (part 12)

The Tension Between Covenant Theology and Dispensational Theology

So this morning we are going to maybe court controversy a little bit. You can ask Corey, you can ask Pastor Steve, who's not in here yet, although I saw him, he's around, he'll show up. I really struggled with whether or not I wanted to cover this topic this week, but just like Chaucer wrote that all roads lead to Rome, it kind of felt to me like all roads led to the covenants.

So here we are talking about covenants. Why do I say this is courting controversy? Because looking at the covenants means inevitably that we are going to end up in a conversation to some degree about covenant theology versus dispensational theology.

I think probably we're going to talk about that more next week. This is going to be a two-parter. When I hit 12 .15 a .m. and I looked at what I had to go, I was like, nope, this is not happening in one day.

We've been repeatedly reminded to end at an appropriate time, so I'm assuming they want to start church on time, so this is going to be a two-parter. Also, I do kind of feel like if you ask 10 different theologians the correct position on covenant versus dispensational theology, you're probably going to arrive at roughly 10 different answers.

I also feel like BBC as a church body has migrated a little bit in one direction from another direction. I'm being very careful about what I say, but anyway, so I think there's been a shift, a theological shift at BBC as well, so I just kind of want to stay away from saying something that would be inappropriate.

I also have been inspired to tackle this topic because, and I'm recommending this podcast to all of you, there is a podcast called Things Unseen by this guy you might have heard of named Sinclair Ferguson.

Many people at BBC love Ferguson, and rightly so. We taught through the whole Christ a few years ago. Ferguson is a Presbyterian, and this past week his entire thing, he does a kind of a weekly thing, was on baptism.

I say that again, Ferguson is a Presbyterian who taught for a week on baptism, but he definitely tried very hard to do it in a way that would not involve paedo versus credo baptism, immersion versus sprinkling, and all this other stuff, and really just talking about baptism and its significance to the life of a believer, and so I was really encouraged by that as I struggled with whether or not I actually wanted to talk about the covenant, so you can blame him.

God as a Covenant-Keeping God

So getting back on topic, covenants are important regardless of what your position actually is. I don't think it is a refutable thing to say that God is a covenant keeping God. Remember we talked about dogmas versus doctrines, right?

What were dogmas? Anybody remember what dogmas were? This is a long time ago that we talked about it. It was this summer. It's okay. This is how you learn to remember. Strongly, heavily, close. So dogmas are irrefutable facts taken directly from scripture, where you say, okay, it's clear that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.

It's right there. You can't not, right? Doctrines are when you take that and you understand it as kind of a system from those dogmas, right? And so the idea that God is a covenant keeping God is a dogma, right?

I will make my covenant with you. Okay, well, there you go. Lexham Bible Dictionary says this, and I know that question one on your sheet is, what is a covenant? Give me some time. We're going to develop this, so don't write this down.

Busts us a lot. God's covenants are prominent in every period of salvation history. Divine covenants reveal the saving plan of God for establishing communion with Israel and the nations ultimately fulfilled by the death and resurrection of Christ.

When I committed to this, I went to the good old Amazon and I bought a book called Covenant Theology from well-known heretic Pat Abendroth. I'm glad you're all laughing. This book is actually really good.

So I got it yesterday and I will be quoting him. So that's how good it is. And then we went back and forth on Twitter. It was a good time. Those Abendroths on Twitter, I tell you what, very readable. And he really tries to write this from a more neutral perspective.

So it's not like an apologetic argument for covenant theology. So I would recommend that you at least consider this. I don't know. Ben's not here. I can't even get a nod out of him whether or not we have any of these in the bookstore.

I have no idea. Do you know, Steve? You don't know. Okay. But I do find it very readable. It came out of his dissertation. So there's a lot of this writer says blah, blah, blah, which is a style that drives me crazy, but I digress anyway.

So we're going to pull some out of this. And he points out in his book that between Genesis and Exodus, there are six covenants, four between God and man and two that are between men. And if you want that list, I'll give you that list.

It's not really relevant for right now, but it's important for us to see God is a covenant keeping God. Why covenants? Why did I get into this as a topic that I felt was important to address? I think we saw trappings of this and what Dave was talking about last week with the church.

Did the church precede Pentecost? Yes. No. Why? What are the belief systems or what's the scriptural evidence to support either direction of that? And a lot of that comes from the covenants. It goes back to the covenants and an understanding of the covenants.

So I said this word a lot, this covenant word a lot. I will ask the question to all of you. What is a covenant? What is a covenant? A formal agreement between two parties. Okay. Anybody else? A promise.

You missed my joke about Pat already. A solemn. Solemn is a good word. I actually really like the word solemn when we talk about covenants. Anyone else? Okay. So this is Sunday school with Andrew and Corey.

Consequently, we have to talk about nuance. Saying, listen, that a covenant is a promise or an agreement between two parties is incorrect. I love these guys. However, it is correct to say that a covenant is a promise that involves at least two parties.

It is not necessarily an agreement. And we'll talk about this. We'll see an example of this today. So I promise. So, okay. So it's not between, but it involves, I told you it's nuance. So what makes, what are the component parts of a covenant?

When we think about what a covenant is, like what kind of, what goes into it? Pretty much. Yeah. So you've got multiple parties involved. You have an agreement. I called it an agreement of trade. I don't know if that's the best way to kind of describe it, but there is this thing will be fulfilled.

And as a result of that, there will be something else, right? And then there's consequences for failure, right? There's this idea of kind of binding articles. Kittles Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says there is no firmer guarantee of legal security, peace, or personal loyalty than the covenant.

Sometimes covenants are conditional. Sometimes covenants are not conditional. Ish. We'll see this a little bit later when we start talking about Hebrew and Greek, which you can obviously tell is on your sheet, but the word that's translated in the new Testament as covenant can also be translated as Testament.

All right. When you think about a Testament, you think about our modern culture, there's pretty much, I sat and thought for a little bit, I can't come up with more than two examples in our modern culture, in our modern parlance, where we would use the word Testament.

One of them obviously is the Bible. What's the other one? Last will and Testament. That's the only other one I can, can anybody come up with another example, by the way, where Testament comes up in our modern 21st century jargon?

Maybe we'll see if we can get the kids to start using hashtag Testament or something. I suppose so, but you don't say the word Testament, right? But I don't know. At that point, it becomes like an oath.

It's almost like an oath kind of thing. But yeah, so last will and Testament. Now, how many parties are involved in a last will and Testament? Many, usually at least two, right? Somebody is giving their stuff to at least one other person, usually, right?

Or some entity or, I don't know, Treehuggers Anonymous or something. I don't know what it might be, right? But the last will and Testament is about giving of this stuff or what to do with someone's assets or something like that.

It could be lots of people. But how many people decide what goes into it? How many people make the decisions about the stuff? Like, yes, one, right? Like, so, oh, well, I don't know. Have you met Grandma Margie?

I mean, she's really ridiculous. And trust me, when Grandpa had to write this thing, she was involved. Like, that's not where I'm going with this. At the end of the day, it's one person, right? Testament, one person.

So they're not the same, but there's definitely a nuance here about the power dynamic, because when one person holds all the cards, one person gets to make all the rules. That's kind of how it works. A holder of power, in this case, usually wealth, has sole discretion to distribute as they see fit.

There are multiple parties, potentially, in the distribution, but it's one person making those decisions. Similarly, as we will see, biblical covenants between God and man have a huge power imbalance, right?

There's a huge imbalance in that dynamic. God establishes covenants as part of his decretive will. That's what they are. Packer talks about this when he describes covenants by saying, covenants in scripture, this is pretty much question one, covenants in scripture are solemn agreements, who said solemn?

Was that John? Solemn agreements, negotiated or unilaterally imposed, that's for Josh, that bind the parties to each other in permanent, defined relationships with specific promises, claims, and obligations on both sides.

Covenants in scripture are solemn agreements, negotiated or unilaterally imposed, that bind the parties to each other in permanent, defined relationships with specific promises, claims, and obligations on both sides.

The Meaning of Covenant in Hebrew and Greek

So, where does this word come from? I don't think it's a surprise if you look at your sheet, by the way, does anybody not have a sheet? I only printed 30 of them, so I don't know if we need more, if we're good, no hands went up, excellent.

The word for covenant in Hebrew is berith, B-E-R-I-T-H, berith. And it's pretty much the only word used in the Old Testament for covenant, but, etymologically, it has two potential sources. There's two words that are thought to be the etymological roots, one of them is Hebrew, the other one technically Assyrian, and if you think about covenants, both of them make sense, kind of depending on how you look at covenants.

The first one, and this is the most common one, this is the one that we've, we probably haven't heard the word from the pulpit, we've definitely heard this idea referenced from the pulpit, the first one is the word bara, this is a Hebrew verb, B-A-R-A-H, it transliterated anyway, and so if anybody can remember when Pastor Mike talks about a covenant, and talks about what happens when a covenant is being made in the Old Testament, if you could think about that, what do you suppose the word bara means?

Now I get to find out who's actually listening to Pastor Mike, too. I know what nature is, because she already did the hand signals for this. I don't think it was American Sign Language, though. Any guesses?

Dissect? Do you ask for a repetition? Okay, so the word bara is one of the potential etymological roots of barith, which is the word that means covenant in the Old Testament. Pastor Mike, when he describes a covenant, when he describes the making of a covenant, the sealing of a covenant, he describes what happens.

And so my question is essentially, based on Mike's description of what happens in the forming of a covenant, what do you suppose that this word means? I mean, I could just give you the answer, but this is more fun.

What's that? To create? No, no. Anyone else, before I spill the beans? Split? It means to cut. It means to cut. So, who would like to read, because I've talked a lot, who would like to read some Old Testament for me?

Anyone? I've got to give this one to Josh, sorry. All right, Genesis 15, verses 7 through 10, and then verses 17 and 18. Obviously. Genesis 15, verses 7 to 10, and then verses 17 and 18. Okay, great, thank you very much.

So, perfect picture here. So, the animals have been cut in half, they've been split apart, and then the presence of God comes, and like an oven or a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch, passes between them and declares this covenant with Abram.

And what this is intended to do is be a reminder for those involved in the covenant, if I fail to keep my covenant, what has happened to these animals will happen to you. Ouch. Right? And so that's this idea, this idea of bara, this cut idea.

But there is another word, and this is a word that comes from the Assyrian, that is beritu, b-e-r-i-t-u, beritu. And this one you probably haven't heard, although some commentators believe very strongly that this is the root word of berith, and, you know, they look similar, transliterated, I guess.

This word means to bind, pretty straightforward, to bind, a binding agreement, right? Pretty easy to understand. And so both of these ideas, whether or not one is the actual root or not, both of these ideas are certainly present in this berith idea, to bind and to cut, right?

This is what the Old Testament covenant would represent. It gets really interesting in the Greek, though. We'll talk about that. In the Greek, the word used almost exclusively in scripture to describe covenants is the word diatek, d-i-a-t-h-e-k-e, diatek.

And I'm not going to tell you how many pronunciation websites I went to to figure out how to say this, so I'm going with the best that I've got. Diatek. And here's why this is weird, right? Like, you're like, okay, it's a Greek word that means, you know, covenant, whatever.

What's so weird about that? In every Greek dictionary that would describe this word diatek, or would describe what we would understand to be a covenant, an abstract object, a covenant, the word that you would use is suntek, s-u-n-t-h-e-k-e.

Suntek. You say, okay, this is my covenant, right? Suntek. It's the thing, right? So here's how I'm going to attempt to explain this, and I think this will help. If not, we can kind of talk about it a little bit more.

But if I'm going to abstractly talk about the covenant of grace, or the covenant of works, or whatever, that would be the right word to use. If I was speaking Greek to you, I wouldn't say diatek, I would say suntek.

So why is diatek being used? Even as we look at what we saw in Genesis 15, I will make a covenant with you. Why does the Septuagint use this word diatek? What's going on? And what does diatek even really mean?

Well, it means it's describing a disposition. It's not describing a thing, it's describing a disposition. And the best way that I can think about this, I thought about mortgages. So if you're driving down the road, and you see a house that's for sale, and there's the realtor's name on there, and there's a phone number, and maybe if it's this more modern thing, they've got the little handouts, you can stop and take a handout, because why would you ever want to talk to somebody in the 21st century?

And there's a little thing hanging on the bottom that's clearly designed to be taken off and put back on without having to take the sign out, and it says for sale. And then, you know, in 2023, six hours later, there's a different sign hanging on that thing, which says what?

Sale pending, usually, right? And then a little bit later, depending on how involved your real estate agent is, there might be another sign under that, which says what? Under contract. Under contract.

So what does under contract mean? That's a disposition. It's not the contract, right? You don't see, like, you've got to wait another, I don't know, four or six weeks before you can find out on Zillow how much somebody paid for that hunk of junk, right?

You can't get that information. You don't have the physical contract, but you have an indicator of the disposition. Okay, so when we think of Suntec, and we think of of Diatek, that's what this is talking about.

That's this idea when we see this word translated as covenant. Diatek, by the way, when I said that there was a word that's translated as testament, that's Diatek. All right, here's what Burkhoff says about this, because remember, this is all, in theory, indexed off of Louis Burkhoff's systematic theology.

Burkhoff says, a covenant is a pact or agreement between two or more parties. There's that between word again. I quoted him. It may be, and among men most generally is, an agreement to which parties which can meet on a footing of quality voluntarily come after a careful stipulation of their mutual duties and privileges.

But it may also be of the nature of a disposition or arrangement imposed by a superior party on one that is inferior and accepted by the latter. Now, we should not say that we cannot properly speak of a covenant between God and man because the parties are too unequal and therefore proceed on the assumption that the covenant of grace is nothing but the price of salvation in the form of a covenant.

It is perfectly true that both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace are monopleric in origin. I promise we're going to go back, don't worry, don't freak out. That they are of the nature of arrangements ordained and instituted by God, and that God has the priority in both, but they are nevertheless covenants.

That is a lot of words. What does it mean? I talked about the imbalance of power in the covenants. This idea that God is so clearly superior that he could basically have his way in the covenant, declare what he wants, and what are we going to say?

That's really what this kind of idea is, what Burkhoff is driving to. He's like, okay, this is what a covenant is, and in this situation where things are so unequal, is it even really a covenant anymore?

Or is it just a declaration of God about how things are going to be the way they are? And he says, no, they are still covenants. He points out that these main covenants are monopleric, which means what?

Does anybody know what this word means? This is a college word, easily. Maybe this is a master's degree. Anyway, it means it's got one source, mono, as opposed to diapleric, which would have, it's got two sources.

So a typical contract that we would think of would be a diapleric contract, where there's multiple sources, two sources coming in, negotiating, making an arrangement, and there you go. Especially the Abrahamic covenant, which we just read about, would be monopleric.

There's two parties involved, but it came from one source. Lincoln Duncan calls this a one-sided divine enactment. That's his description of what monopleric means. Maybe I should have put, what does monopleric mean on here?

Anyway, so they come from God. They are covenants. They deal with multiple parties, but they come from God. They are monopleric. And when did that happen, by the way? When were these covenants created, drafted, agreed upon, whatever?

Before eternity passed. That response was for the video. He also points out that God has priority in these covenants. God is doing the majority of the work. And finally, that these are still, despite the imbalance of power and the singular source, they're still covenants.

And we call them covenants because God describes himself as what? A covenant-keeping God. There's almost always an imbalance of power, right? It's very rare that two people are actually legitimately equal when they come to a covenant about anything.

And that's actually why in American culture, we have what is, there's a legal term, which is arm's length transaction. And the whole point of an arm's length transaction is that you're trying as best you can to avoid the power dynamics at play.

That's the reason for them. So Abraham and Abimelech, there's a covenant there. And then there's Jacob and Laban. That's got a power dynamic, right? Because Jacob wants Laban has in a very Old Testament way.

Please don't come after me. He didn't own his daughters anyway. But yeah, so it's very rare that you'll actually come into something without an intervening third party, which is often God, right? Because God is so transcendent that the power dynamic that's different between two people is functionally irrelevant when God is the neutral third party on the agreement, right?

It's very rare that you're actually going to have equality of authority in a covenant like that. So that pretty much gets us to number four. So if you have a, if you did not write down an answer for one, two, or three, just come see me after class, I guess.

The Three Major Doctrinal Covenants

And so what we're going to do for the rest of today and for next week is we're going to cover the three major doctrinal covenants in scripture. Now, Jonathan is not allowed to answer this question because he's been reading Pat's book.

But my question for you, don't cheat and read later on your worksheet. That's cheating. What are the three major doctrinal covenants in scripture? Let's not see the same hands. Okay. Anybody on this side of the room or John, anyone?

I'll have to call you up. I thought I just saw, I thought I saw like a half a hand, like a T-Rex hand come up. I don't know what. Okay. You can give it a shot. Okay. Dave, do you have a differing set of answers?

Didn't I just say don't look at the worksheet? See, these WPI people, we've got to find every advantage we can to figure out the right answers. I get it. I don't blame you. So we have the covenant of redemption, which is really, we're going to spend the rest of our time talking about the covenant of redemption.

Then we have the covenant of works. Then we have the covenant of grace. Now I will, I will fully admit that coming into this study and maybe a little bit before the study, this is actually, this whole covenantal theology, dispensational theology thing has been roiling around in my head for a while.

So it's really something I've been thinking about, but really coming into this kind of analysis, I've always been like, okay, so the covenants are the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Noahic covenant.

That's where my brain was at all the time. And so if you're thinking those things and you're like, wait, why didn't he talk about that? Like the Abrahamic covenant is pretty important. The Mosaic covenant, pretty important, right?

And maybe some, some people call it the Sinaitic covenant, covenant of grace. A lot of people call that the new covenant. Like there's the old covenant, the new covenant, like this, this word's coming out a lot, right?

And there's slightly different kind of understandings of how this all breaks down, how you would stratify these covenants in scripture. And so the case that this guy makes, Pastor Abendroth, the other Pastor Abendroth, makes in his book, Covenant Theology, is that these three covenants are the basis for a systematic assessment of the covenants in scripture, and they provide a hermeneutic for understanding the Bible.

The covenants provide a hermeneutic by which we can understand all of scripture. And his, his argument would be that all of the things that kind of fall out of this, like your eschatology, like the whole, you know, baptizing babies, pedo-baptisms, like a lot of those things are not necessarily tied to the covenants.

His perspective is very much that your covenantal understanding really should be primary and some, and a lot of those other things are not necessarily attached to them, even though a lot of people put them together.

So I don't want those second, third order issues to crowd your mind when we're talking about covenant theology. All right. So this, Pastor Abendroth wrote this, the three covenants of covenant theology serve to provide perspective so that the reader can maneuver the Bible's richly diverse landscape more easily and in a manner that is consistent with the divine intention.

If one is reading Leviticus, Judges, or Matthew, for example, perspective can be maintained with the big picture remaining in focus. The big picture being that the triune God is unfolding his purposes.

Humanity stands guilty in association with Adam and can only be found in the ultimate deliverer, who is Jesus. He goes on to say, this is simply put by Derek Thomas, covenant theology serves as an organizing principle that shows how biblical history and theology form a coherent, systematic whole with a unified message from the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem.

How do we understand that? We understand that to say, okay, if we look at scripture in the context of these three covenants, a lot of things really seem to fall into place. And it's very, very helpful for our understanding because we give this lip service a lot that the entire Bible is consistent and points to one main purpose.

The main thrust of scripture is the story of redemption found in Christ Jesus. And this is a hermeneutic by which we can understand these things. So I don't want to get too caught up in a lot of the historical stuff that's kind of attached to covenant theology.

I just want to really focus on it. So we're going to define the covenants, and then we're going to look at their relationship to each other. And I will say that in much the same way, it was really difficult with our Trinitarian study to define individual things because they're so tightly bound together.

I think we're going to find the same thing with the covenants. Excellent point, as usual, by Elder Pradeep, talking about the fact that we know scripture is true, no matter what, it is irrefutable. And when we talk about things like dogma versus doctrine, it helps us to understand that the further we step away from scripture as the specific thing that we are reading, and the words that we're reading—and you can make an original language argument there, and I'm not going to go there—but the further you step away from that, the more loosely we should hold those truths, right?

Because we're now injecting human understanding, and human beings are inherently fallible, and so the further you get away from that, it's like multiplicity. Anybody ever see Multiplicity? You heathens, I can't believe you watched that movie.

But it's the photocopies of Kevin Costner, or whatever it was, I don't even remember. Was it Kevin Costner? Was that who it was? Michael Keaton. Michael Keaton, there you go, whatever, they're all the same to me.

But anyway, and the further you get away from the root, the more like, the further we get away from the core truths of scripture, the more, I don't want to say likely, but the more possible it is that error will creep in, because these are the discernments of fallible men.

And so, as pretty brightly said, scripture is always true. Our understanding of scripture through this hermeneutic, this lens of covenant theology, may have some errors in it, because it is a framework that has been put together by fallible men attempting to understand an infallible God.

The Covenant of Redemption in the Trinity

Is that pretty much? All right, great. Okay, so here we go. Covenant of redemption. Yeah, we're only getting to this today. Who can define for me the covenant of redemption? If you didn't go to Bible college, you will probably get this wrong, but that's okay.

That's what we're here for. All right, Danny. Danny's been wanting to talk for a while. Nobody's surprised by this. Hi, I'm Danny. Okay, that's actually pretty good. That was pretty good. I got to give it to you.

So, when we look at the covenant of redemption, I'm just going to explain it like this. When we look at the covenant of redemption, the easiest way for us to understand this is that it is the mechanisms by which God, the Trinitarian God, will save his people.

Period. That's it. And we'll dig into that. And for us, a little preview for you, we really can only understand this through the covenant of grace, which is a different thing. The covenant of grace being the application of the covenant of redemption.

Packard, the full reality of God and God's work are not adequately grasped until the covenant of redemption, the specific covenantal agreement between father and son, on which the covenant of grace rests, occupies its proper place in our minds.

Horton goes on to describe the covenant of redemption by saying, this covenant, the covenant of redemption, is the basis for all of God's purposes in nature and history, and it is the foundation and efficacy of the covenant of grace.

So, when we look at the covenant of redemption, if we're trying to properly understand the theological framework, we have to be careful to not blend the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, because they're two different things.

I don't think it's really the end of the world, but if you're trying to have a theological understanding, that's the best that we can do. And now, because human beings are relational people, when we look at scripture, the vast majority of the time that we would see the covenant of redemption presented to us, we're going to see it through the lens of the covenant of grace, because scripture is talking about God and his people, right?

But there are some examples that we can look to where we really find something that is pretty much an example of the covenant of redemption. Most of the time, it's when Jesus is talking to God the Father directly, which, you know, makes sense.

Hebrews 10, verses 5 through 9, says, consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, who is he talking to? God the Father, sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body you have prepared for me.

In burnt offerings and sin offerings, you have taken no pleasure. Then I said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. When he said above, you have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings.

These are offered according to the law. Then he added, behold, I have come to do your will. He does away with the first in order to establish the second. How much more do I have? Okay, I think we'll make it.

These are all the components of the covenant of redemption. God the Father is providing a body for Jesus the Son. He is providing the means by which Jesus would accomplish salvation. Jesus is going to earth to accomplish that salvation.

The Holy Spirit is sealing that salvation. We can also look at passages like John 6, 38 and 39, John 17, 1 through 5, and more. So we can ask some questions. We can ask kind of the same questions about all of our covenants to help us understand them in a systematic way.

Who are the parties in the covenant of redemption? Question five. Yeah, not kind of. It's totally an interterritorial covenant. That's the covenant of grace. Correct. That's exactly right. So when talking about the covenant of redemption, it doesn't involve us except for its application through the covenant of grace.

So we can think of, man, I have computer programming examples that I can't use. It's an abstract class, you guys. Okay, when we think of the covenant of redemption, it's providing the framework. And the parties of the covenant of redemption is God.

It's the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Burkhoff writes, now we find that in the economy of redemption there is, in a sense, a division of labor. The Father is the originator, the Son the executor, and the Holy Spirit the applier.

That's covenant of grace. We'll get to that next week. There is a concept that there is a chosen people. There is a concept that there's a why this covenant of redemption is being made. But those specific people are not part of that covenant.

That's the whole John 6 thing. You get people, they're whatever, they're just people. Right, exactly. So we're not in the covenant in the sense that we're one of the parties in the arrangement. So in the covenant of redemption, Jesus stands as the shorty, the guarantor.

Jesus is the guarantor of the covenant of redemption. And this is important because it is on this fact, talking about the covenant of grace, that we will look forward to the covenant of grace, Hebrews 7 .22.

The Purpose and Assurance of the Covenant of Redemption

Okay, so those are the parties of the covenant of redemption. What is the purpose of the covenant of redemption? Saving God's people? Well, I can't hear you. To bring God glory? Everything is to bring God glory, right?

That's the softball Sunday school answer, right? So the best way for us to think about the covenant of redemption is that we have this agreement in eternity passed between the Father and the Son. It is the eternal foundation, the eternal prototype for the covenant of grace.

The covenant of redemption describes the mechanisms by which Jesus will accomplish, has accomplished salvation, redemption, covenant of redemption. It describes all that the Father will provide to the Son, namely a human form.

We saw that in Hebrews 10, the gifts and graces for the task. It describes the work of the Holy Spirit as the comforter for the Son in his trials and the seal of the work that he has done. It describes the rewards for the work of the Son.

We see that in Hebrews 1, Jesus is what? The heir of all things, right? That's part of the covenant of redemption. Although the covenant of redemption provides the foundational work for the covenant of grace, for Jesus, it is a works-based covenant.

Jesus has to do something, right? And when we look at the covenant of grace, as we'll talk about next week, the parties in the covenant of grace, God and man, we're just recipients of grace in that covenant, so that's a little bit different.

And just kind of to wrap up, because we're pretty much out of time, when we look at the covenant of grace, which I just mentioned, we can have assurance. When we look at that, why? Why can we have assurance when we look at the covenant of grace?

Because Jesus fulfilled the covenant. The only reason that the covenant is guaranteed is because it was planned and accomplished by a perfect, immutable God. God never fails. He never fails to keep his promises.