Baptist Covenant Theology Week 13 - The New Covenant (Part 3)

So this is week 13 and it's our final week on our Bad Discovery Theology class. Hope you guys have enjoyed it. We started this like in January, so I think 13 weeks. We took a few weeks off because we had different things, you know, this spring, but I really enjoyed it.

Hope you've been blessed by it. The goal is to have this on our website so that we can point people back to it. You know, I'll teach a class on this, but probably be a few years before I did that again.

So it's been good. I hope, I hope that you've been encouraged. So tonight we're talking about the New Covenant Part 3, really, and we really get into Jeremiah 31 again. So let's read that. Jeremiah 31.

It's just really a crucial text. We read it last week. But behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when all will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And we talked about that last week.

Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. God will be their God, and they shall be my people.

And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For they shall all know, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Okay. So according to this verse, I know it's hard with the recording. The people can't pick you up. That's fine. But according to this verse, who is in the New Covenant? And their children. What? Those who know the Lord.

That's right. Those who know the Lord. What are some characteristics from this text of people in the New Covenant? What do they have? They have grace. That's beautiful. Specifically from the text, what do people in the New Covenant have?

Starting in really verse 33. They have the law of God in their hearts. They have God as their God. They are God's people. 34, what? They know him. 34, their iniquities are, and when will they be remembered?

Never. Right? So this is from the text. You listening back there? This is what we have in the New Covenant. So John Owen, there are promises which express only the work of God's grace and what he will freely do in and upon the hearts of his thereby, as to the working holiness and obedience him, as also of his pardoning mercy and his free acceptance of him in Jesus Christ.

And these are in a peculiar manner those better promises of the covenant of grace, upon the account whereof it is so exceedingly exalted above that of works, which by sin was broken and disannulled. So let me read the verse and then go back.

Hebrews 6. It's on your text. We've read it, or it's on your sheet. We've read it multiple times. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellently old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

All these promises here is what God will do, right? Verse 33. This is in your text. This is a covenant. I will make, I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they shall be my people.

They shall all know me. I will forgive them iniquity. I will remember their sin no more. Who's the great actor in this covenant? It's God. So what are the blessings of the New Covenant? We're going to get to that, but first let me say this.

Robert Purnell, he's a 17th century Baptist. I'm trying to connect here to show you that like, well he just didn't come up with this, right, yesterday or something. Like we stand in a long line of Baptist tradition.

He says, all serious Christians do understand the engagements which God have laid upon himself to bestow on them for whom Christ died all good temporal spiritual, now this is all his spellings, and eternal blessings.

So that by this God doth make himself debtor to his people and covenant with them and is bound in justice to perform his word and promise. So let me say this. This is weird in a way. So put our traditional thinking aside for a second and say, from one perspective of looking at it, was God obligated to save Alex?

Well in one sense, absolutely not. Another sense, yes. Why? Because he obligated what? Himself. You understand? Like don't run too far with that. Don't be crazy with that, but you understand what we're saying here when we're putting all this together.

God, before the foundation of the world, chose to save Alex. He's going to save Alex. Alex is undeserving. Alex is not, God is not obligated to save Alex based on anything in Alex. God has obligated himself by his own free working of his own grace.

Does that make sense? Does that make sense how I'm saying it? Because I don't want you to be confused. This is God's covenant. This is what God has done for his people. And isn't that amazing? You who are in and of yourself, you don't have value intrinsically like in and of yourself.

You're not, it's not because you're better than anybody. It's not because you live in Arkansas or your skin color or who you voted for. It's by a sheer act of God's sovereign grace. That Christ is your representative.

That Christ bore all righteousness for you and then bore your sin in his body on the tree, dying to pay the sinner's debt and rose again from the dead. This is the gospel. You understand, Miss Virginia, why we're so serious about when we say, what is the gospel?

We want to know. Kids in the back, do you understand why it's so important that we need to know what is the gospel? Right? It's all tied to, it's all tied together. So what are some blessings of the new covenant?

Well, I've listed them out for you and we're just going to talk about them briefly. One blessing is regeneration. Regeneration, remember Ezekiel 36, last week, our heart of stone is removed. It's replaced with a heart of flesh and the law of God is written in our hearts.

Now here's a good question for you. What law? What law of God is written on verse 33? I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. What law? Well, I agree with the law of Christ, but I want to be careful because theologians split hairs here.

When God is saying I'll write my law, I would make an argument that it is his moral law, right? It's his law. His law is unchanging. It doesn't go from one thing in the garden. We've talked about this in every step of the way.

Essentially, God's moral law is summarily contained as our confession says in the Ten Commandments. It's even, you can boil it down even more to what Jesus says the summation is, is what? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Love your neighbor as yourself. But you say, okay, but how do I love God? Right? Well, that's expressed in the moral law. So I think, I'll put this on your sheet, right? So our confession puts it this way.

It's a really well articulated statement. True believers are not under the law, this is 19 .6, 2nd London Baptist Confession, chapter 19, paragraph 6. True believers are not under the law as a covenant of works to be justified or condemned by.

Yet it is very useful to them and to others as a rule of life that informs them of the will of God and their duty. It directs and obligates them to live according to its precepts. It also exposes the sinful corruptions of their natures, hearts, and lives.

As they examine themselves in light of the law, they come to further conviction of humiliation for and hatred of sin, along with a clear view of their need for Christ and the perfection of his obedience.

The law is also useful to the regenerate to restrain their corruptions because it forbids sin. The punishment threatened by the law shows them what even their sins deserve and what troubles they may expect in this life due to their sin.

Even though they are freed from the curse and undiminished severity of it. The promises of the law likewise show them God's approval of obedience and the blessings they may expect when they keep it, even though these blessings are not owed to them by the law as a covenant of works.

If people do good and refrain from evil because the law encourages good and discourages evil, that does not indicate that they are under the law and not under grace. You understand? Just tracking with that?

When we're in the new covenant, we're born again, God writes his law on our hearts. Now in a sense, the unregenerate man has the law in his heart in a broken sense. In the sense that, you know, you look at all the cultures of the world and there's morality, right?

I mean, today's a bad example, isn't it? But you go back through history and, you know, these distant tribes, it's wrong to steal or it's wrong to murder or it's wrong, you know, at least maybe not for a man, but at least it's wrong for a woman to commit adultery, right?

In all these cultures and such. Where does that come from? That comes from being made in the image of God. But when we're born again, being brought into the new covenant, our hearts are restored and renewed and God's law is written on our hearts.

Does it make sense? Questions, comments? Okay, so one of the blessings of the new covenant is regeneration and we want to follow God's commands. Guys, don't slip into, obviously, legalism is a real danger.

Don't slip into legalism, don't slip into antinomianism. You go to a lot of churches today and you start talking about the law and what you should do, what do people want to start talking about? I have what in Christ?

I have grace or liberty. I have freedom. I have freedom. Well, freedom is not freedom to sin, but what? Yeah, freedom to follow God. Freedom to do what his law says even though I'm going to come up short.

But now I'm freed from the condemnation of the law. Why? Christ. So I'm free from the condemnation, so do I go and I keep sinning? No, Paul addresses that, doesn't he? So that's how you know you're on the right track, because when the Bible addresses your exact point, you're like, oh, I'm thinking about this.

That's Romans 6. Okay, what are other blessings? Justification. So Jeremiah 31 says that if you're in the new covenant, you're justified. I'll say it again. If you are in the new covenant, you're justified.

It says, I will forgive their iniquity and I'll remember their sin no more. Our sins are atoned for in Christ. Our righteousness is, sorry, Christ's righteousness, our righteousness is filthy rags. Christ's righteousness is credited to our account.

Sam Rinehan says the response of God's people to the new covenant of grace is resting in and receiving Christ by faith, and even this is worked in their hearts by God. How do you get in a new covenant?

You must be born again, but the command to us is repent and believe the gospel. You don't enter into the new covenant by baptism. You don't enter into the new covenant by partaking of the Lord's Supper.

You enter into the new covenant by being born again, calling upon Christ, turning from your sins, repenting, looking to Christ. Those people ask me sometimes, you know, what comes first, regeneration or faith?

Well, it's not a difficult question, but it's difficult working through in people's mind. It's like, what comes first? You turn the light switch on or the light comes on? Well, you turn the light switch on, but what happens?

Like I said, it's immediate, right? So I prefer, I think the best way to talk about it is regeneration is the cause. Does that make sense? You don't get regenerated and then, you know, two minutes later, five minutes later, three hours later, you believe, right?

It happens simultaneously from a temporal perspective, but how does it happen? It's the Spirit of God. That's what Jesus is saying in John 3. He blows where he wills. You mean it may happen during a sermon?

Miss Virginia believes she was converted under an actual sermon, but that's not everyone's testimony in the history of the church. Maybe it's not your testimony. Some people were converted reading a tract.

Conal says he was converted out in his front yard one day, just all of a sudden burdened with his sins and realized he needed to call upon Christ. But each conversion story is absolutely tied to the necessity of the gospel.

You know, Conal, Miss Virginia, you, however, at some point you've heard the gospel. Sometimes right there you repented and believed. Maybe sometimes it was later the Holy Spirit brought that to your heart.

Okay, all right, let's keep going on. Adoption. We're called sons and daughters of God. Let me tell something to the kiddos. Not everyone is a child of God, okay? Well, I ask it this way. Amelia, are you a child of God?

How so? You don't know? What about you, Piper? Why would you say no? Who is a child of God? Some people would say everybody. What are we.

Gonna say, Steve?

Who's a child of God? Those born again. If you are born again, you are adopted into God's family. Now, God has a fatherly disposition or benevolence to all creation, you know, but as far as being a child of God, that's a blessing of the new covenant.

You must be within the covenant of grace to be a child of God. Union with Christ. Sam Ronehan said, apart from union with Christ, the federal head of the new covenant of grace, there's no participation in the blessings and benefits of Christ's covenant.

Union with Christ is a blessing of new covenant. Some people would say, where do you put union with Christ, you know? And some, you say, well, in one sense, even in eternity path, we're chosen in who?

Ephesians 1. In Christ, right? But there is this, there's still, you may be called more formal or practical or experiential, that's the word I was looking for, experiential aspect of union with Christ when we're regenerated, being united with Christ.

Anyway, that's one of the blessings of the new covenant. If you are in the new covenant, you are what? In union with Christ. Maybe some of you understand the pace I'm building, but I'll bring that up later.

Sanctification, okay? Again, the text says that His law is within us, so sanctification is what? Yeah, we're growing. It's 1st Corinthians, is it 1st Corinthians 1 .31 that says that Christ became to us sanctification?

Like one of the works of Christ is securing all these blessings for us, including our sanctification. If you're in the new covenant, you are being what? Sanctified. And then finally, glorification. So all those in the new covenant will always be in the new covenant, and we will one day behold our God and glorify Him.

Does this make sense to you? I should, from a Baptist perspective, you should see this, but do you understand that we're trying to guard against, these are the only people in the new covenant. You cannot have unregenerate people in the new covenant.

Do you know what one thing it says, if you have someone in the new covenant and then they go out of the new covenant, do you know who that ultimately reflects on? Yeah, but I'm saying if that were possible, it reflects on the mediator.

You understand? The mediator is unable to keep them in the covenant. Read John 17. That's our, Christ is our mediator. So we don't hold to this idea of, and again, this would distance us from people of Baptist, you know, like Pastor Jacob's tradition, free will Baptist, like That would distance us from those guys where they said, well, you can come in the new covenant, then you can go out of the new covenant.

Like, no, we don't believe that. We don't believe that. We don't believe like with the Lutherans, you can choose to walk away or whatever. And we certainly don't believe with the Presbyterians that you're unconverted children.

Are their sins forgiven? Will their sins ever be remitted? Are you saying you guarantee your children are going to heaven? Well, most of them wouldn't say that. Then that means they're in the new covenant and there's a possibility they fall out.

Brothers and sisters, Jeremiah 31 teaches differently. They will all know me. What does it mean from the least to them to the greatest? Yeah. Urbata. Okay. It means everybody. It means from the least intellectual to the highest.

Intellectual.

I think that's saying that the least will be first and the first will be last.

Yeah, that's a little bit different context, but yes, the last will be first, first will be last. But the point is everyone in the new covenant knows the Lord. Now we're going to apply this to the church for a moment.

So the new covenant, the local church. So a little bit of overlapping from Sunday school, but let's look at Matthew 18 again. If you're in Sunday school, a little bit of overlap, but we're going to press it even farther.

I'm going to make some real, I think, a practical application here as we think about the new covenant. So Matthew 18, 18 through 20, let me just read that for a second. This is in the context of church discipline, but in verse 18, Jesus says, truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven for where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. And we talked about in Sunday school, how this is referring to the church and in the context of church discipline.

Let me just make a connection between the new covenant and the local church. Let me say this, our doctrine now is, is anybody have their doctrine perfectly? No area we need to improve. Well, I think when we get to heaven, we'll all say, man, we all should have been on millennium.

There's always areas we should be growing. But I want to say that doctrine fits tightly together. And what we believe about one aspect of doctrine is going to affect another area. So what happens is if you misunderstand the new covenant and its members, you're going to go wrong on the church.

Okay? The church is the new covenant community. And I would argue that the church is the mystery in the Old Testament, in the sense that how God was going to redeem a people from all nations to himself through the gospel.

It's not that the gospel was not understood in the Old Testament. It was I mean, yes, there are there are there mysteries to it? Yes, and the fullness and all that, of course, but the gospel is understood.

But this what Paul says in Ephesians four, listen, he says explicitly, verse three, when you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and the prophets by the spirit.

So some people look at that say, it's the gospel. The mystery is the gospel. It wasn't made known. And now it is made known. But listen to what he said in verse six, this mystery is he's going to tell us okay, what is the mystery?

This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. So it's not just is not you shouldn't look at it as like nobody in the Old Testament understood the coming of Christ.

They did. The New Testament teaches us that, right? The scriptures preach the gospel to Abraham, David foresaw his resurrection. Okay. But what they didn't fully understand is this great mystery of how God because it talks about the nations in the Old Testament, read the Psalms, declare his glory among the nations like, okay, but how are you going to do all this?

They didn't understand. And the answer in the church. So again, the church is a new covenant community of God. This has always been so. Philip Carey says it this way, another 17th century Baptist, by so much of necessity must the gospel church exceed in luster, beauty, refinedness and spirituality, the former administration.

In other words, he's saying now that this has come to light in fullness, the gospel church in the New Testament is so beautiful in comparison to what there was. So true sons and daughters of Abraham are those in Christ.

Another 17th century Baptist. I don't have a source for this one. It's from a book called Truth Vindicated, but I'm not sure actually who wrote it. It's anonymous, but it says, prove your relation to Christ, and then you may conclude your relation to Abraham.

To Abraham and to his seed were the promises made, not to every believer in his seed. Abraham had but two seeds, a natural and a spiritual. The Gentiles are not his natural seed, nor can they be known to be spiritual till they walk in the steps of Abraham's faith.

The point is, again, maybe that doesn't fit so well there. Maybe you should look at that earlier. But the point is, it's only those who have the faith of Abraham who are in the New Covenant. Now let me draw some connections here.

Okay, first, number one. It's on your sheet. Number one, congregational politics. Now I'm going to talk about this. Presbyterians push a hard elder rule form of politics, but here's why. It makes sense because they lead, by design, a mixed group.

You understand? By design in the Presbyterian system, they lead believers and unbelievers. They lead those born again and those not born again by design. As Baptists, we favor congregational polity when it comes to the local church because we believe, Jeremiah 31 says, who will make us?

Everybody. Everybody. So we have elders and not priests because all believers are priests. Now this is not, now you can go extreme on this end and you can have those churches, you've all seen it or at least heard about it, Baptist churches that run amok, that they just think they're the United States in, you know, microcosm and majority rules.

Whatever majority says, that's what you have to do. Well, that's not true because the church is not a democracy. It is a monarchy and Christ is king. You can't go over the other way. So we try to balance these.

I think it's a biblical balance. We take the oversight and the leadership and the authority of elders seriously. Christ has given us these instructions, but we don't put elders in a special class of believers.

They're not in the inner sanctum of the new covenant, right? They are also part of the new covenant. We all know the Lord and so that tends to favor congregational policy, which I prefer elder led. Elder ruled, I'm not, it's not that, it just depends on the definitions, right?

I do think elders should be over the overseers. I think they should lead. I think that there's some decisions, even many decisions along the way that the elders should just go, like you don't have to have a committee to change the light bulb, right?

You don't have to have any committees at all because the Bible doesn't say it. At the same time, we take very seriously the congregation's responsibility for bringing in new members, for church discipline, for even oversight over the elders.

If an elder goes astray, who's responsible for that? The church, right? Anyway, so consider all that. Secondly, this leads us to regenerate church membership, okay? So all churches, so let believers and unbelievers.

The difference is for the Baptist, this is not our design and it is not our goal. It's actually our design to make this as small as possible because we believe only regenerate people are in the new covenant.

So we believe only regenerate people make up the church. Now the Presbyterians and people laugh at us sometimes like, oh you must have regeneration goggles. Well, no. How do we know if someone's regenerate?

Yeah, now we can be deceived. We can deceive ourselves. We can be wrong on either side. We can say, no way that person's a Christian or we can say, oh I know they're a Christian and sometimes we can be wrong.

We can err. I get that. However, the Bible has given us various fruit to look at, various things to examine, various doctrine to grant. You know, if someone's like, oh I'm a Christian, you're like, what's the gospel?

And they're like, well, you got to shoot goats to be saved. You know, it's like, okay, you know. Right, right, yeah. So there are some evidences, but the idea is that we want the local church to do the best it can to make sure that everyone on our church role is also in the Lamb's book of life.

Does that make sense? Benjamin Keech has a beautiful definition of the church. He says, a church of Christ is a congregation of godly Christians who, as a stated assembly, being first baptized upon the profession of faith, do by mutual agreement and consent, give themselves up to the Lord and to one another according to the will of God, and do ordinarily meet together in one place for the public service and worship of God, among whom the word of God and sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's institution.

The beauty and glory of which congregation does consist in there being all converted persons or lively stones. That's from 1 Peter 2 .9. Being by the Holy Spirit united to Jesus Christ, the precious cornerstone and only foundation of every Christian, as well as of every particular congregation and of the whole Catholic, he means universal, church.

That every person, before they are admitted as members in such a church so constituted, must declare to the church or to such with the pastor that they shall appoint what God has done for their souls or their experiences of a saving work of grace upon their hearts.

Moreover, the church should inquire after and take full satisfaction concerning the holy lives or good conversations. When admitted into membership, they must solemnly enter into a covenant before the church to walk in the fellowship of that particular congregation.

They must submit themselves to the care and discipline thereof and to walk faithfully with God and all his holy ordinances. They agree to be fed, have communion, and worship God there when the church meets, if possible, and give themselves up to the watch and charge of the pastor and ministry thereof.

That's really a beautiful statement. It really is a sad, this is written, you know, almost probably 450 years ago or something, or no, 350 years ago, sorry, and my math didn't work right there, but the idea is this Southern Baptist mentality, it's not just Southern Baptist, Missionary Baptist, this mentality like people come in, you get to know them for a month, they come for like, we want to join the church.

Okay, well, how are they doing? We're going to come from letter from so-and-so, and you don't really know them. You've seen them at church. They're nice, right? They're nice, but you don't really know who they are.

You haven't, they haven't expressed you, and if you ever said, I know this language, but if you ever said to them, can I have, can you share with me a God's work of grace in your life? They might be offended.

One time, I was a young pastor, and I was just like, resolute, this time I'm going to do it, so I visited this lady. It was several churches ago. This was like in 09, or probably, actually 2010. I came pastor 2010, so it's 2010, or maybe early 2010, and I visited this lady, and I said, how has your time with the Lord been?

You know, she's a member of the church. I'm trying to make Christian conversation, like, how's your time with the Lord? She said, do what? And I was like, oh, she didn't hear me. Oh, how has your time with the Lord been?

Fine. Oh, like she was offended that I asked. Well, there could be a number of reasons for that, but one speculation is she wasn't having a vibrant walk with the Lord. She didn't want me to talk to her about that.

In essence, that was none of my business, and this is how we live today in the church, but we believe in regenerate church membership. We believe that those in the church are born again. They have the law on their heart, and we love God, and we love one another, and we want to talk about the things of the Lord, right?

Now, be careful. Don't beat people over the head. Are you going to deal with immature believers? Yes. Think about you. You weren't born again with where you're at today, right? You've grown. Let's be patient with our brothers and sisters, but at the same time, patience doesn't mean slack up.

Well, they don't like me asking about how the Lord's working in their life. That's okay. They don't like you asking, but keep asking, you know. Hey, how's your Bible reading been? You know, we talk. We watch over one, and we care for any way I'm going on changing.

Last one. This is an obvious connection I hope you see, too. Church discipline. Sam Renahan has a great quote. As no unclean thing was to be admitted to Eden, nor any unclean thing to be permitted in the temple in Jerusalem, so also the church must not allow any unclean thing into God's sanctuary.

Consequently, sin has no place in the new covenant kingdom of Christ. Believers are to put to death their sin as they are renewed in the inner man. There's an individual responsibility of killing sin.

There's also a corporate responsibility of saying, this is what the church is, and sadly, there will be times when people say, continue to show by their life that they, for all evidence is given to us, are not in the new covenant.

They didn't come in, and now they're going out, but they were affirmed as being in, but they were never in, and their life demonstrates they're not in, and so then it's the church's responsibility to say, we don't think you're in, and we turn you over to the world in hopes that you'll repent and believe the gospel.

Church discipline is not used in the sense of like, well, we think you're a believer, but we're going to do this to you so we can punish you. It's like, no. Oh, I'm sorry. The final step. Church discipline should be happening all the time, talking all that, but the final step of church discipline is known as what?

Excommunication, and the final step of church discipline, you're saying, we don't think you are a Christian, and that's what it means. We don't think that you're in the new covenant. We don't think that you ever were in the new covenant, and we hope that by turning you out to the world, the Lord will shake you up, and you'll repent, and you'll believe the gospel.

Does it make sense? So you see how all of this ties together. So this is the new covenant and its relation to the church. I'm going to stop the recording, and then we can have time for discussion.