Q&A

Ladies and gentlemen, we are live. Welcome to Open Air Theology. We have been on for two weeks, and we're back, and we're excited to be together, looking at each other, talking about the Bible, and sharing our thoughts with those who tune in and listen to us.

My name is Jeff Rice. I am the pastor of Covenant Reform Baptist Church. We meet in Tallahoma, Tennessee, and I am here with my good friend, Brayden. Brayden, would you introduce yourself.

And pass it to Haps? Yeah, I'm Brayden Patterson from Valley Baptist Church. I have the privilege of being the pastor there. If you live in the southern Idaho area and would like to come to church this Sunday, I would really encourage you to, where we come and worship one and only triune God, and just love on each other, encourage each other in those ways, and sing worship to God.

You can also find me at Reformed Ex-Mormon, where we just continue to seek to advance God's kingdom, and to glorify Him, and preach Him crucified.

From that, I'll pass it over to Haps. Brother Haps. Well, I'm Pastor Happy with Olive Branch Ministries, and we're out of southern California. We're in the lower deserts, and we're having.

A blast. All right. I see that we have a guest with us today. Happy, do you want to.

Introduce him to us? Yes. This is my right-hand man right here. This is my little brother. That's what me and Pastor Seth call him, and this is our baby brother right here. His name is Hannes Dadard, and he is my head deacon in Olive Branch Ministries, and he helps me.

With the counseling in the mentally ill. All right. All right. As you can probably tell from the post that we did, Hannes is on here tonight, and he's going to ask questions. Now, we've been trying to get some of our listeners to write in questions, to type us out questions for us to answer, but guess what?

No one wants to play alone. Hannes has decided to come on, be live with us, and to ask questions, and then we will provide, hopefully we're able to provide him straight biblical answers. So Hannes, won't you say hello?

Hello, everybody. All right. Short but sweet. So I know that you probably already have questions written out or whatever, and that's fine, and then Haps said that you had some that you just want to shoot from the hip also, depending on how our answers go, and so we just want to leave the floor open to you.

You can, if you feel more comfortable, we're going to Haps first since he's your pastor, asking him. That's fine. Just whoever you want to ask first, feel free and ask.

Sonship, Adoption, and Being Children of God

Yes, sir. So my first question is for Pastor Happy, my pastor. What is sonship? My questions for each of you pastors is followed with the subsequent question, why does it matter or why is it important?

And so my first question is for Pastor Happy again, what is sonship and why is it important?

Well, I can tell you this, you're going under church discipline. It was supposed to be Jeff.

First, then me. All right. Okay, no, I don't want discipline, Pastor Jeff.

You're fine. You're fine. You know what? This is like one of my favorite subjects right here, and I was just so excited because, you know, here at our house, this is a big part of our ministry is the gospel and the core of the gospel is adoption.

That's at the very, very core of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I was sitting back today, you know, and I was just sitting here and I was just, you know, I was just thinking and I was like, you know, and I don't, I'm not going to come at this like just all scripture right now.

I want to come at it with the heart and everything. You know, when you look all throughout scripture and it's always, you know, Addie, son of, or Jacob, the son of, you know, it's always the son of, there's always this title and, you know, my last name is Addison.

I'm very, very proud of my last name. That's, my family are Scottish and everything like this, but to be the son, to be a child of God, a son of God is awesome. And so I just, you know, I just want to read a couple things just real fast.

And I want to go to the London Baptist Confession of Faith actually. And I'm going to pull from some other resources, but under seven of the London Baptist Confession of Faith, it should, you guys all have it, right?

It's of adoption. And it says this, it says, all those that are justified, God vouchsafed. I can't even say that word. Vouchsafed. I can't say it. What chapter are you in? I'm in the London Baptist Confession of Faith of Adoption,.

Number seven. Oh, seven is the covenant. No, mine's after justification is of adoption. You're on page 30? No, I'm not. Adoption is chapter 12. Adoption is chapter 12. Okay. So not inherits that. Yeah.

Yeah. So you need to know how to read Roman numeral.

But it says, it says, in and for the sake of his only son, Jesus Christ, to make partakers of the grace of adoption by which they are taken into the number and enjoy the liberties and privileges of children of God.

Have the name put upon them, receive the spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness and enabled to cry, Abba, Father. Are pitied, protected, provided for and chastened by him as by a father yet never cast off, but sealed the day of redemption and inherit the promises as heirs of everlasting salvation.

And you know that here as sons of God, we have what the world doesn't have. We have reconciliation with God and now we are children of God. We bear his name upon us as children of God. And with that comes not only responsibility, but blessings.

I mean, just the promises are given to us that he shall never leave us nor forsake us, that if we're in the father and the son's hands, nobody can pluck us from his hands. Or his, he loves us. We have, he's long suffering with us.

We have this, it's not like, it's like, you know, Hannes, when we were, we were breaking down, to us has been given the keys to the kingdom. I mean, we just went through all this in the catechism, but in the Lord's prayer, you know, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

Our father is in heaven. That's specific right there. He's not our earthly father that is in sin, that is a natural sinner. Our God, our father that is in heaven, he's in the holies. He is holy and righteous and kind and just and he is without sin.

He is righteous. And that's why we cry out to him, Abba father, that more intimate way of saying father and stuff. And, but I mean, there's so many scriptures guys, so many scriptures. You have Ephesians 1 .5.

In fact, let's go to Ephesians 1 .5. That's one of my favorites right there. Ephesians 1 .5, you know, we are no longer children of wrath, but children of God now. And he loves us. And this, this isn't by accident.

We didn't, it's not like we just started loving him. So now he loves us. No, no. We love him because he first loved us. You know, that is why. And come on, where are you? And, Ephesians 1 .5 says this, you know, no, I got to read.

I got it, man. I got it, man. I can't open up scripture like that and just pull one out, man. I'm going to start in three. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

In love, he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

In him, we have redemption through the blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his great grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullest of time to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

And, you know, one of my favorite pastors, in fact, we were just talking about him, John Sampson of King's Church in, was it Phoenix, Arizona? The way he described, I mean, us as children of God, all right?

This grace, this grace, this glorious grace, which he lavishes us with, the riches of his grace that he lavishes with us. It's like having a bowl of ice cream, all right? And just smothering it with chocolate syrup, lavishing us, us, God's elect, us children of God, lavishing us, lavishing us with the riches of his grace that now we can boldly come before the throne of grace as children of God, that we are no longer in condemnation, you know?

And so the why, you know, why is this important? Well, you know, I want to read at the end of our catechism. I really do. I want to read at the end of that, it's not in your guys' Bibles, so I'll just read through it.

You know, as we were systematically breaking down the Lord's prayer and what that meant, and I'm talking petition upon petition, petition upon petition upon petition, he says this, for yours is the kingdom and the power.

How do we conclude this prayer? For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. This means we have made all these petitions of you because you are all powerful king. You are both willing and able to give us all that is good.

Give us, the children of God, all that is good. And because you're holy name and not we ourselves should receive all the praise forever. And why do we end? This is the important part. This is why this is important.

Why do we say amen? It means this shall truly and surely be. For it is much more certain that God has heard my prayer, that I feel in my heart and I desire such things from him that now that when we pray to him, he says, I hear you and I'm listening to you.

You know, remember all the promises we have now received through Christ. And I totally left my paper in the other room, but it's, I think it's a second Corinthians where it says all the promises were fulfilled in him with amen.

Amen. Amen. So yeah, that's it. I get passionate when I talk about that.

And you're, Hannes, and you said your follow-up question was, why does it matter? Why is it.

Important? And that was for myself and Brayden? Oh no, for all three. So the question was, his question, why does it matter? Why is it important? The sonship being the sonship.

Teaching he just taught. I think it's important to understand that first of all, when you speak about Jesus, he is the son of God. He is the second person of the Godhead. And that is Jesus, the creator of all things entered into creation.

The infinite became finite. He did so in particularly taking on flesh by becoming a Hebrew in order to be a high priest. So in order to take the function of high priest, he had to be made like his brothers in every way.

He had to become a Hebrew. And by him becoming a Hebrew, he came to his own and his own did not receive him. But the Bible says, but to all who did receive them, to them, he gave the right to become the child of God.

You see, before this took place, every one of us were born sons of Adam, not sons of God. All right. We are not born children of God. We're born children of the devil, sons of Adam, the offspring of Adam, the offspring of the serpent.

Jesus comes in the likeness of human flesh, lived the perfect life, died in atoning death. And because he came and he lived this life and he died this death and he did so on our behalf, when we receive him by faith, we are given the right to become children of God.

So basically God removes this garment of Adam that clothes us when we're born and he places upon us his righteousness. And as we all know, Jesus Christ is his righteousness. So 1 Corinthians chapter 15 explains it as Adam being the man of dust.

There's going to be some that come out the ground clothed in the man of dust, but some will be clothed in the man of heaven. The man of heaven being Jesus Christ, being clothed in Christ, the man of heaven means that we have the righteousness of Christ and you get the righteousness of Christ the same way Abraham received righteousness.

By believing, by faith. Yeah, no, I absolutely love what you said there, Haps, and I agree with everything that you just said, Jeff, and I think it's a really important reminder that if we are by nature children of God, then there is no such thing as adoption because you can't adopt something that was naturally born to you.

And so it's so important to remember that it is only through Jesus Christ that we can have that adoption. And so I'm really happy that you read chapter 12 of that London Baptist Confession of Faith. And it's vitally important because it is gospel-centered because it has to do with Christ being our better federal head.

He's our new federal head in those ways. And it's totally gospel-centered because it all has to do with what Jesus Christ did for us and not what we received through him. And so I think Jeff had summarized why that's so important perfectly.

Thank you all. Yeah, man. All right, so next question.

Covenant Theology, the Covenant of Redemption, and the Covenant of Grace

My next question is for Pastor Brayden. What is covenant theology and why is it important?

Man, I was super excited when I found out that that was going to be my question.

Hey, Brayden, you better answer this one correctly.

I know. I'm going to go down the cut. The Presbyterian covenant theology.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

You did not.

I'm not doing that. I want to do that. Well, I think at the very surface level, we need to first define what words we're using, right? And so when we say covenant, covenant is an agreement that's made between two or more parties.

And so to give an example of some of those kinds of things is like God and Noah. With flooding the world, he made a covenant between him and Noah that said that I will not do this. And then he gave a sign.

And so these signs are ways for us to remember our covenant. And so that sign between Noah and God was the rainbow. Likewise, if you are married and anybody's watching this, I hope you have a covenant on your ring, a sign on your ring that you made between you and your wife or your wife and your husband.

It's a covenantal sign. So that's what a covenant is. And so I think it's important for us to remember these kinds of things. So covenant theology, theology being the study and our knowing of who God is, is that when we say we believe in covenant theology, we're saying that we see that both the Old and New Testament are consistent in having a God that works in covenants.

And that is our systematic approach to understanding the way God deals with his people, as well as how God works within his inner Trinitarian working. And so if I was to boil down all the covenants, if you ask different individuals, and I'll try to be as fair as I possibly can to different people that are underneath the umbrella of covenantal theology, some would say that we only have one covenant.

Some would say we have two. Some would say we have three. Some would say a lot more than that. But I think if you were to boil it down to what we could all say is true, is that we say that there's a covenant that was made before the world ever was between God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

And this is what's known as the eternal covenant or the covenant of redemption. I'm really happy that Haps spoke of Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5, and I just want to read that one more time for us. It says, he predestined us, so this is something that the Father has done, predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will.

Talks about the Holy Spirit a little bit later, which we won't worry about that right now. But we see that it is through the blood, in verse 7 it says, in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of transpasses according to the riches of his grace.

So if you were to then go to, let me see here, I have another Bible open here, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20, Hebrews chapter 13 verse 20 it says, sorry excuse me, now the God of peace who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.

So now I want you to think about how that verse almost is identical to what's happening in Ephesians, because now God of peace, so the Father who has brought up from the dead the great shepherd, Jesus Christ, of the sheep, those are the ones that the Father has predestined in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 5, through the blood, that's verse 7, of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord.

So the question at hand is any covenant that's made between man and God is not eternal, well it's because there's a starting point with it. The eternal covenant is something that's taken place between the inter-trinitarian economic view of the trinity, so how God works, and so the Father made a covenant with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit made a covenant that the Father would predestine, the Son would become incarnate and redeemed through his blood, and the Holy Spirit would apply the purpose of the blood into the believers or those that would be predestined to be in Jesus Christ, those who the Father predestined, the Holy Spirit would apply that saving grace to, that blood to, and within that, if then if you were to draw a line that goes down, we then would say that there's two other covenants that we need to talk about that's found within the covenant of redemption or the eternal covenant, and that is the covenant of works and covenant of grace.

Now depending on the person that you're talking to with this, they will place their different understandings of how these different covenants have worked in the New Testament, but just to look at this real quick, it would be, it's important to realize that the covenant of works was started or instituted in the garden of every tree of the garden you can eat, but this one, unless you die, is what God says to Adam, right?

So there's this covenant made between them, and as long as Adam's able to keep these things, he's able to be in constant fellowship with God in the garden. Well, he's quick to violate that covenant of works, and therefore he is cast out, he'd be our federal ed, now we partake in his nature, and if we look at the other covenants that God has done throughout the Old Testament, we see that man has continually failed to continue to keep these covenants God has made between him and whoever it is that is speaking of in the Old Testament.

So we see this covenant of works that is expounded upon through different incidences, events, and times throughout the Old Testament. Now the covenant of grace, this one specifically, we will find different wording with how different people will take this, but the covenant of grace, some would say it's instituted in the garden, some would say it's instituted at the cross, there would be different wording on how you want to define those words and where you place the institution of those things.

How I would do my best to explain it is that the covenant of works was instituted in the garden, and it was fulfilled in Christ. Christ was made under the law, he was made obedient to the Father, he obeyed that which I cannot do.

He lived a life I cannot live. He completed the covenant of works, which is then accredited to you in my account. So that's why the eternal covenant is so important. So Christ fulfilled the covenant of works, and those covenant of works was instituted in the garden.

Now the covenant of grace, how I would do my best to word this is that it was extended in the garden through shadows, types, and promises made to Adam and other individuals, but it was realized in the better Adam, Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Once again, it is not through the blood of Adam I'm saved, it is through the blood of our great shepherd that I'm saved, through the blood of the eternal covenant I'm saved. It is his unmerited favor, his grace that I receive that that is that covenant that I am then partaking of.

So some of the examples of the shadows that I would say that we see specifically in the garden, and why I say it was realized, or not realized, but extended to the garden, is there's many shadows that we see in there.

The London Baptist Confession of Faith actually says that it's first made mention of in the seed, the promise that God says to the serpent that the seed of the woman will crush your head. And that seed is then also talked about by Abraham's seed, that through his seed that there'll be this great and large number of prosperity that will be greater than the stars.

And so then we would see in Galatians chapter 3 verse 6, even so Abraham believed and God reckoned to him as righteousness. And then verse, I'm just going to read a couple in here, I love Galatians chapter 3.

Let's see, where is that? Verse 16, Galatians 3 16. Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and his seed. He does not say unto seeds as referring to many, but rather to one, and to your seed that is Christ.

Now, I do agree that that's the first promise that we see from God speaking to a person or an individual such as the serpent as promising this covenant of grace. But as we would see in Ephesians chapter 4, that the marriage, both the husband and the wife represent Christ and the church.

We see that the first marriage took place in the garden, Adam and Eve. So even before there was a fall, there was a promise of a covenant of grace between Christ and the church, Adam and Eve. You would also see that it is through the fall of them not obedient to the tree that then Christ has to be crucified on the cursed tree.

So we see these shadows and types that take place all throughout the Old Testament. There's far too many to even make mention of. But once again, it is realized both the covenant of works and the covenants of grace are completely realized, completed, made factual.

I don't know what other wording you want to say, but that was long in Jesus Christ. Now the important thing that we need to take note of is that covenantal theology is not held by all Christians. And so the other popular view is what's called dispensationalism.

And so some of the biggest differences between dispensationalism and covenantal theology is that dispensationalists would say that they would view the Old Testament and the New Testament as being God working with different groups of people in different time periods differently.

Now they would also say that the church age that we're in right now, the first church started in Acts chapter two. They would also say that there's going to be a future day that there'll be a physical Israel that is redeemed.

Some of these kind of wordings, but some of the biggest differences between covenantal theology and dispensationalism is that covenantal theology people would say that the church began actually in the garden because the church is a group of believers, and that that was carried out throughout the true Israel, the remnant, the daughters of Zion, the sons of Abraham, and that the true Israel is all those that believe, Galatians chapter three, verse 16, like we just saw.

And that the Holy Spirit has always indwelt people, but has made himself specially manifest in the way of showing that a new revelation was valid by God, but that the Holy Spirit was indwelling people in a regeneration way prior than Acts chapter two.

Dispensationalists would say indwelling only happened in Acts chapter two, and it wasn't ever like that prior, where I'm saying it's always been like that, and God has validated himself through different ways of the administration of gifts through.

It. Can I ask the question Pastor Brady? So the indwelling of the Holy Spirit prior to Christ, his ministry, crucifixion, and then Acts chapter two, you have the church, all who are believing. So it's not like a retroactive salvific work on the part, like, okay, for instance, the Jewish people that died, that were saved,.

Where did they go? To heaven? I believe that they were worshiping God, wherever that place was be, they were, that blood of the eternal covenant covered them on, and the way I would try my best to describe this in analogy terms is one is paid on credit, where the other is paid on debit.

The blood was extended, that's why I chose that word, it was extended back to the garden, but it was realized in Jesus, and that's the best way I would do my best, because how Abraham was reckoned righteousness in Genesis chapter 15, that is many, many years before the cross, how could he be reckoned righteousness when Jesus Christ had not yet been born and lived the life that he could not live?

It had to have been through a extending of that future reality of Jesus Christ becoming incarnate. I hope that helps.

It helps perfectly, thank you so much. Yeah, just to chime in on that for a second,.

Because covenant theology is my thing. I think I would set things just a little bit different personally. I would point out that in Genesis 3 15, the promise to us but the curse to the serpent, that it was only a promise.

Yes. So it was only a promise. The promise was that an offspring would come from the woman, and that he would bruise the head of the serpent while only bruising his heel. So the fulfillment would be bruising the head of the serpent.

So if this is the covenant of grace, all 15 is is a promise, and the inauguration takes place when the offspring that comes from the woman bruises the head of the serpent while only bruising his heel.

So this would have been at the crucifixion. Yeah. And so all types and shadows, I would not say that they are a part of the covenant of grace, but that they are pointing to something that's coming. So when Abraham was saved, he was saved because of what Christ did on the cross.

That the blood of Christ was sufficient past, present at his time, and future past our time, however long time exists. For anyone that's saved, they're saved because of what Christ has done on the cross by believing God.

Abraham believed God, and what he believed about God was pointing to a land and an offspring that would bless the nations. Jesus kept the law, earned the land, and it's through him that the nations are blessed through Abraham.

So everything is about Jesus, but the new covenant is the covenant of grace is how I would say it. The covenant of grace is not in the old covenant. And that's where I would differ with the Presbyterians.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

And I was going to talk a little bit more about that in Romans chapter three. It says that was Romans chapter three, or Romans chapter four, excuse me, Romans chapter four, verse 10 on previously in verse two, it says for Abraham, if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.

And the works that are being spoke of in here is circumcision. He has something to boast about, but not before God for what does the scripture say? And Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

And then down in verse 10, how then was it reckoned while he was circumcised or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal for the righteousness of faith, which he had while uncircumcised that he might be the father of all who believe without being circumcised that righteousness might be reckoned to them.

And so once again, righteousness comes through Christ living the life that I cannot live and having faith in what he has done, the finished work of him on the cross. And that was extended even to Abraham who believed God and was reckoned righteousness.

And the new Testament is absolutely the covenant of grace. We see Christ everywhere on that text that is through him alone, that we have that access, that unmerited favor of God.

I hope that clarifies some stuff for you. Yes, it did. Thank you so much.

Also, I would also add, like when you were talking, it made me think about this because some denominations believe that, again, our Presbyterian brothers believe that the covenant of works was only with Adam in the garden and that the covenant of grace began at Genesis 315 and that all other covenants are an administration of the covenant of grace.

But if the covenant of grace ended at Genesis 315, then how did Christ come and fulfill the covenant of works if it ended? If the covenant of works ended in Genesis 315, how did Christ come and fulfill the covenant of works?

It makes no sense. It makes no sense. Anyways, I won't get harping.

On that right now. Speaking on that, though, that's where we start dividing between Presbyterians and Baptists, Reformed Baptists specifically. Sorry, I just recently read a book.

By Pastor Happy got me, The Mystery of Christ by Samuel Renahan and that more or less Pastor Rice, yeah, I just finished that book and more or less holds to what you're talking about, the covenant of works.

You got the covenant of creation, the kingdom, the king and his creation. Then you have the kingdom of Israel and then you have the kingdom of Christ. But the covenant of works goes Adam all the way through David and then Christ comes and fulfills all the types, the shadows, the illusions, all those types.

But the covenant of grace had always extended back.

Towards Israel. And each of the old covenants, I think that's how you would say it. There was always something that was pronounced for them to accomplish that them and themselves in their flesh could not accomplish.

Jesus at his coming accomplishes what they could not accomplish. He is the greater Adam. He is the greater Abraham, the greater Moses, the greater David, the greater Solomon. He fulfilled where they failed.

And that's why I was really trying to.

Use my wording carefully in there when I said that it is tough. So in the Old Testament, in the garden is where I say that that covenant of works was instituted, complete at the cross, complete in Christ.

That's where it meets its completion was in Christ. The covenant of grace was extended. If you had to look at the cross, it was extended back to those that are in the Old Testament that die having faith in the work of what Christ is going to do.

And now we have the better Adam. We have the more sure word today that we can now look and see.

Jesus Christ in those ways. Okay. I got a technical question for any one of you. Okay. So I'm really glad you brought up Galatians. What was it? Three? Yes. Yep. Okay. So I'm not trying to be a heretic and I'm not trying to be...

No one tries to be a heretic. It might sound at least a hyper historical grammatical or what have you and not redemptive historical in terms of perspective. But okay. So look, Galatians chapter 3, 19.

Oh, pardon. Okay. No. In the inheritance comes 18 by the law. It no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? Okay. Where does... Oh, I'm sorry. Verse 15, to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. Okay. This is apostolic interpretation of the Old Testament. He says, it does not say to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ.

And so I looked at that Old Testament verse. I'm having a hard time seeing how Paul gets that because I think it's 15 .6, Genesis 15 .6. Am I reading this wrong? But to me, if I'm taking this literally, he's talking about Canaan and he's talking about multiplicity of offspring.

And I'm not trying to be like... And I think he talks about it in Romans too, doesn't he? Or no, I think I'm wrong. I think it's... Oh no, no, 15. This man shall be...

So whatever... I can't find it. Okay. Yeah. And he believed. Yeah. So it's 15 .5, I believe is...

Let me check mine. So shall your offspring be... It's whichever verse that is that he's referencing. Let me find my concordance or my reference thing, please.

Genesis 15. Genesis 12 .7 is what is the quotation, right? Yes, sir. To your offspring, I will give this land. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what we were talking about earlier with Genesis 3 .15, there was an offspring that would come from the woman.

This offspring is passed through the line of Abraham. All right. So ultimately, the offspring is Christ. Jesus is Israel. He is the greater Israel. All right. They had to keep the law to live in the land.

Okay. A part of Jesus fulfilling the law was that he earned the land. That's why the Bible can correctly say, the meek shall inherit the earth. All right. So the covenant of works, if Adam would have kept the covenant, he would have earned eternal life for himself by eating of the tree of life and for his posterity.