The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament | Theocast

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Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

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Christian life from a Reformed perspective. Our hosts today, at least in this portion, are

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John Moffitt, pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and myself, Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

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Today's episode of the podcast is a unique one, and Jimmy Buehler will be featured in much of that recording that you'll be listening to.

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Jimmy is the pastor of Christ Community Church in Willmar, Minnesota. Before we get to teeing up what you're going to hear from us today,

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John has a very important update. This is not really a pro -con. This is kind of a cultural update.

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At a minimum, we can say that it's something that John is quite excited about.

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So brother, talk, celebrate, and rejoice. For those of you that don't know,

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I was born and raised in sunny California. When I was a small, small child,

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I joined the Blues Crew, which for those of you that don't know, that's a program that I don't even know exists anymore for the

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Dodgers. I was a massive Dodger fan. Oral Hochschleizer was my hero, and I haven't really seen the

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Dodgers win since 1988 was the last time that they won the World Series. To be completely honest,

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I haven't really followed baseball since high school and even college just because of what happens when you get married and seminary and all that kind of stuff.

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But when I saw the Dodgers were doing really well and they made it to the World Series, I watched them beat the

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Braves, and then I did watch the entire World Series. And I have to say, it was quite enjoyable to announce that the

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Los Doyers are world champions. Amen. Praise, praise, whatever,

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I don't know. I don't even know how you make that spiritual. But I am happy as a

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Dodger fan. So go Los Doyers. And if you don't know why it's Los Doyers, I guess you have to look it up.

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So you're not saying that the Doyers are the Lord's team? You're not saying that? You're not going to go so far as to say that? No. Just trying to be clear.

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Not going to say that. Can I make a brief comment about that whole thing with sports? So I used to think this in high school and college playing ball, when we would pray and stuff before games, and position coaches would pray and all this stuff.

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And sometimes the way guys would pray, I in my own mind would be thinking, do we assume that there are just no

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Christians on the other team? I don't understand what we're doing here. Because do we think that the

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Lord is somehow uniquely with us, like the way he was with Israel or something? That we're going to go out here on the gridiron and just absolutely smash the other team because God is with us?

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I don't understand. Anyway, that's just one comment about that. I did appreciate my football coach though. I think it's fine for us to pray for safety, to pray for various things.

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Yeah, my football coach, his prayer was always that we'd be honoring in our actions and deeds.

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And that was it. It was like, hey look, we just pray that both teams are honoring in actions and their deeds and that we would demonstrate love.

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Compete well, play the game well, people would remain safe. All that's great. That even the fans in attendance would enjoy themselves.

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All that's cool. But then, yeah, anyway, I don't know that God's pulling for one team or another.

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Though I do believe he has ordained all things since before the world began. So there that is. Now, let's pivot.

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I do think it's a sin. I do think it's a sin to use David though. I mean, I think that should never be allowed to be used ever again.

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Okay. Like I said, we're going to pivot before this spirals even more out of control. So this week is a special treat,

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I think, for our listeners. This is content that our members have already had access to or people have had access to that have donated and have, in one sense,

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I guess in that way, gained access to the content. I'm not quite sure the right language to say, and I'm fumbling at my words.

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So this today is another one of the sessions from the teaching series that we did on covenant theology.

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So if you're not familiar with that whole teaching series, we did five sessions on covenant theology from a 1689

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Federalist perspective. You can find that whole teaching series on our website over at theocast .org.

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The whole teaching series can be yours for a donation of any amount. Am I correct in saying that, John? Yep. Yeah.

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Beautiful. And yeah, please donate and support this ministry so that this message of rest in Christ can be spread to as many people as possible.

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So this week, we are releasing session number four of those five sessions, and this is on the covenant of grace in the

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Old Testament. And again, this is from a 1689 Federalist perspective of covenant theology.

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So what we do in this episode is essentially trace the promise of the covenant of grace all the way from Genesis 3 .15

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through the end of the book of Malachi. This was, John, a spirited, joyful, exuberant, just great conversation that I know the three of us, you, myself, and Jimmy, we enjoyed doing it.

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And at the end of it, we were just like, oh my gosh, what a worshipful experience that was as we thought about the promised seed of Eve, the promised seed of Abraham, the one through whom, like who is he and when's he coming and how is it that God's going to accomplish redemption?

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And we see how that unfolds by farther steps from the promise made in Genesis 3 .15 through the covenant

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God makes with Abraham, the covenant God makes with Moses, the covenant God makes with David. We see all that unfold as we are making our way toward the arrival of Christ in the

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New Testament. So I highly commend this to people. I hope it's encouraging. I hope it's clarifying.

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If you've got questions about covenant theology, really consider purchasing, donating, and getting access to those five teaching sessions.

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I think you'll find it accessible, but yet robust enough that you'll really be introduced to the topic.

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That's good, Justin. We do provide, for those that are able to get the series, we do provide a glossary where there's an outline of each session.

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We give you key terms, all of the verses that we use, and then very soon, as soon as we can raise enough money, we're going to provide an entire book that goes with it, along with a study guide for small groups and churches.

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So we're pretty excited. But I will tell you that if you like Reformed theology, if you like Calvinism, this is new for you.

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And I remember the first time I heard covenant theology, I really didn't know what it meant, other than I knew

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I didn't believe in it and it was bad, or that it means you baptize babies.

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That's all I knew covenant theology meant, or that you're an all -millennialist, meaning that you're not a pre -conceived. I mean, there was just all of these horrible preconceived ideas.

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What we're trying to help you understand is that covenant theology, understanding the purpose of the

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Bible, understanding how God communicates, interacts, and fulfills His promises of salvation is through this covenant theology.

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And I can promise you, if you don't know this, or even if you do, you'll be encouraged because you'll see the beautiful design of God's grace and how it just flows through the

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Old Testament, giving you assurance and hope and clarity in the midst of sin and chaos.

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God's faithfulness is completely unfolding, and that's the design of the Bible. And if you don't see

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God's word that way, stay tuned. I think you'll be encouraged. Last couple of comments, man.

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Reformed theology is covenant theology. I mean, historically speaking, to understand yourself to be reformed theologically would mean that you were covenantal in your understanding of Scripture, and two of the things that we talk about a ton here on Theocast that are inextricably linked to covenant theology.

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One is the redemptive historical framework of Scripture. That and covenant theology go together. But then even more importantly, in terms of the foundation of this ministry, the sufficiency of Christ and the rest that is ours in him is absolutely inextricably tethered to and linked to covenant theology and an understanding of the

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Bible in that way, as Scripture presents itself on its own terms. And so if rest in Christ and a redemptive historical framework of the

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Bible have been helpful to you, then dive deeply into covenant theology because it will only aid you in your life,

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I think, but it will also deepen your understanding of these things. So yeah, we commend it to you, and we hope it's helpful.

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One last thing for our members, one of the things that we are offering to you as well is we'll be doing week three of a book study that Justin and I have been holding for pastors from around the world.

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So we offered this freely to these pastors who wanted to learn more about covenant theology, so we did a small book review by Sam Rinehan's book,

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The Mystery of Christ, and that third session, which is going to be about an hour, hour and a half long, that will be available on our website.

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So go to theocast .org slash members, and you can get all three sessions that are available there. We encourage you to get the book and go along with us.

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And one more thing. No, I'm just kidding. We've done that enough. Enjoy the episode. In this section, we are going to be covering the covenant of grace.

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And I can tell you, we are excited. We are trying to figure out how to get everything we want to say into such a small time, because this is an introduction.

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We're not going to give you an exhaustive view of this. So let's jump right in. We're trying not to just firehose everybody down.

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We talk about this all of the time, and so we are going to do our best to keep this as an introduction.

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As we've done with the covenant of works, we're going to do it again. The covenant of grace is actually different.

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It's an unconditional covenant, meaning that if we look at the two parties involved, we have

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God and us, the elect people of God, and then the one acting is

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God, and all of the conditions are placed upon God. He will do this.

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He is the one who has all of the conditions that must be met, which we will get into. And then for us, the reason why it's unconditional, the second party members is that there's nothing placed on us.

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This is why we use the language of grace. Sometimes people confuse mercy and grace.

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Mercy is to not receive what you deserve, and grace is to receive that which you don't deserve.

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So when we talk about the covenant of grace, God is making this promise. He's putting conditions upon Himself, and we are the recipients of it.

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And what that is, is we are going to receive forgiveness of our sins through Jesus Christ, and we're going to receive the righteousness or the obedience of Jesus Christ, and all of that comes to us by grace through faith alone.

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So that's what we'd say is a quick definition and an overview of the covenant of grace. In particular, in the covenant of grace, when we talk about what it is that we are receiving, we are receiving the merits of Christ.

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He has satisfied for our sin. He's atoned for it. He has provided us positively with righteousness, and everything that is

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His is ours, and that includes an inheritance of a new creation, and we will be a part of His people forever in that sense.

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It might be good right now to explain the term covenant of grace even further, in that someone may ask legitimately, why do you guys call it the covenant of grace?

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Why don't you just call it the new covenant or the old covenant? Why do you use this language? Well, a couple of thoughts here.

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One, the covenant of grace is a helpful term in that it makes very clear the contrast of grace and works that we see found throughout the

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New Testament. But one other thought here, too, is that the covenant of grace is promised before the new covenant comes, and so it's helpful for us because there is one covenant of grace in all of Scripture, through which all of God's people from all time are saved, under which all of God's people of all time are saved.

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And so it's useful to use this covenant language, the covenant of grace, because it helps us to explain that united one plan of salvation that God has always had.

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So old and new people, Old Testament and New Testament people are saved by the same covenant.

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Justin Perdue Exactly. They're trusting in the promises of God realized in Messiah, which we'll explain. Jon Moffitt Which we'll explain further.

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Justin Perdue So as any good Bible student or theology student will go, we

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I think need to explain or show where this covenant of grace is revealed in Scripture, taught about in Scripture.

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And where we need to begin, I think, is in Genesis 3, specifically

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Genesis 3, verse 15, where what we see is what is known historically as the

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Proto -Ewangelion, or the first gospel. It is the announcement or the promise that is made to Adam and Eve that though the serpent has, quote, won the battle that day, he will ultimately not win the war, that there will come one from the line of Eve that will crush the head of the serpent.

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And so, in essence, this contrasts it with the covenant of words. That there will come someone from the line of the woman, there will come someone who will do this for his people.

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So I think that's the first place to go, and this really kicks off this whole idea that we see throughout the

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Old Testament. We've mentioned this before in previous sessions, this idea of types and shadows. Justin Perdue That's good,

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Jimmy. Before we even start talking more specifically about types and shadows, for the sake of clarity, we want to be really precise in how we understand the covenant of grace.

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We understand that the covenant of grace is promised and revealed, beginning in Genesis 3 .15, as Jimmy just stated, and then it is continued to be revealed through farther steps throughout the rest of the

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Old Testament. And then the covenant of grace proper is established and accomplished through Christ in the new covenant.

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So it's promised and revealed in the Old Testament, beginning in Genesis 3 .15. Through farther steps, it becomes more clear.

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It's increasingly clear as we get into Abraham and Moses and David.

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It becomes more clear. Until finally, we get to Christ, and the covenant of grace is established and accomplished through him in the new covenant.

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Jimmy Buehler That language of promise becomes really important. So just to even start the role and moving it forward, in this promise to Adam and Eve, in the

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Old Testament, you will always hear the seed of, and it's always in reference to the man.

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What's interesting is that in this promise that God gives Eve, he does not say the seed of Adam, because if it was, that means that the sin of Adam would be passed down, and he couldn't be the replacement.

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He would have to pay for his own sin. So he says something very fascinating. He says the seed of Eve.

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It will be the child of Eve, which, jump to Luke 2, you have a virgin who comes and says that the

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Spirit will come and bring that seed. Jon Moffitt Because the question is, who's the father going to be? Jimmy Buehler Exactly. So you're seeing a connection now between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace.

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Jon Moffitt Exactly. Jimmy Buehler Right? So the covenant of redemption says God will come and save his people, and then you see this little tiny promise.

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It's not there yet. The covenant of grace is not there. The actual covenant that saves people is not there yet, but it's promised to Eve.

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Then you have this big question, how do we know which one?

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Who is this promised seed? That's really what the rest of the Old Testament is getting us ready for. It is bringing increasing amounts of clarity to that question.

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Jon Moffitt There's drama in the story too, because all these people start getting born, the world is growing, and all of them have the rebellious nature of Adam.

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So it's clearly none of these people. It gets so bad that God wipes out the earth, but still keeps the promise, because what did he say?

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It has to come through the line of Eve. So Noah is preserved, so now we know it's coming at least through Noah, and God said,

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I'm never going to destroy everyone, otherwise he would go back on his promise.

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Jimmy Buehler When he's going to sustain the creation because the Redeemer is coming, the seed of Eve is coming.

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So I'm going to make sure that the world into which that seed is going to be born is going to be sustained.

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That's the purpose of the Noahic covenant in that regard. Jon Moffitt All those who believed the promise that came from Adam and Eve, which

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I'm sure they told their children, when we say the first mission of the gospel, if they believed that, then it was accounted to them and they were saved.

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We'll learn more about this as we get into the New Testament and Romans, when he says that God passed over former sins, reenacting the covenant of grace.

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Jimmy Buehler Shortly after Noah, we get to Abraham, which is the next massive moment.

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It's a huge mile marker here. Beginning in Genesis chapter 12, we hear of a man, initially his name is

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Abram. God changes his name later to Abraham, and we'll just refer to him as Abraham throughout this time. I want to make one little interjection here before we go forward, because what we're about to explain to you is our perspective of the covenant of grace and our perspective of the covenant of Abraham.

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I will tell you, up to this point, if you were to take the Westminster Confession, the Savoy Declaration, the 1689

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Reformed Theology and Understanding Covenant Theology, with very small adjustments on how things are said, we are in almost 100 percent agreement on covenant of works, covenant of redemption, and that there are two covenants, bi -covenantalism, where you're going to see a little bit of it.

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This is where in the 1689 Reformed Theology, there's even some more broad language that would allow some variance here, because during the time of it being formulated, there was a full commitment to understanding how the

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New Covenant works. Where you're going to see is there's going to be some differences in how we're going to explain the

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Abrahamic covenant. Our view, if you want to know, it's a historic view called the 1689

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Federalism view. It was the view that was held by the majority of those during the time of the confession being made.

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This is also where you're going to see some change between us and the Presbyterian view.

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You can make that comparison later. That's not really what this podcast is for. We want to give you an overview of what we would say is the majority view of the 1689.

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Before we go into Abraham, this is where we can pick up. Let's pick up with Abraham.

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Beginning in Genesis 12, we see that God calls

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Abraham out and he makes a promise to him in Genesis chapter 12 that we would see as the promise of the covenant of grace.

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Paul will even pick up on this in Galatians chapter 3 and say the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham, and he cites

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Genesis 12. He believed he was justified. That's Genesis 15.

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There is the promise of the covenant of grace made to Abraham, and then there is a covenant formally made with him,

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Genesis 15, Genesis 17, in particular Genesis 17, where there is land promised to Abraham.

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He has promised that kings will come from him, from his line, and rulers will come from him.

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It's important that we see that God promises that these things will happen.

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I'm going to make sure that a nation comes from you, that rulers come from you, and that a land will be given to your offspring.

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So you could say it's unconditional in that sense. But then there is a conditional piece of this covenant of circumcision that's established in Genesis 17, where it's very clear that individuals may be cut off from the people of God through disobedience.

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If they are not circumcised, they are cut off. So there's an unconditional promise to the nation, land, rulers, people, and there is a conditional promise to individuals underneath the covenant of circumcision.

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Alongside that, with Abraham, we see the promise of the covenant of grace that is unconditional, and it is to the elect, to the spiritual seed of Abraham.

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That's our understanding. So when he makes the promise from you, from your seed, singular, all the nations of the world will be blessed.

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He's talking about Jesus. So you're hearing that language of seed again. Eve is protected in the

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Noahic, and now we're knowing, oh, now it's coming through Abraham, through this nation.

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I think it's important, and you did a really good job there explaining the difference of the conditional and unconditional parts of it, that he is creating, and Abraham and this land is going to start becoming a type and a shadow.

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So it's not the actual substance, it's not the actual covenant yet, but it is giving us a shadow.

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It's not the covenant of grace yet. It's a covenant of circumcision with Abraham that has conditions that the people must meet, but it's a shadow of that which is to come.

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When the covenant of grace comes, what is Canaan a type of? It's the new heaven and the new earth.

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It's the land by which Hebrews says they were looking forward to. Rulers will come from you,

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Abraham. Well, what is that a type of? It's a type of the great king named Jesus who's going to come. We could do this for a while.

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To that point, even later on, right before they go into Egypt, you are given through Judah, saying, through you,

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Judah, will come a king. Before that happens, you're going to spend 400 years in captivity.

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Then I'm going to redeem you out. So you have these little promises.

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If you're reading your Bible and you don't have this covenant, like you're anticipating what's going on, it's kind of a jumbled mess.

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That's how I always read it. It was a jumbled mess, but now you're understanding it's all connected.

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There is this great fine line that's connecting every single word, and it has a purpose, and it's rolling along in its narrative.

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I think this is where it's helpful to understand and have this covenantal language and this covenantal framework.

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What does it prevent us from doing? It prevents us from looking at Abraham as an end in himself, that Abraham is some great hero of the faith.

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Now, certainly, Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Which is a pattern that Paul sets up for us for redemption in the book of Romans.

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However, what's interesting to note in Jesus' conversation with the

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Pharisees, what did they appeal to? We are children of Abraham, and how does Jesus respond? Well, he says,

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I can turn rocks into children. I think what's important to note is that ultimately,

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I think in Jesus' mind, in that moment, he's saying, essentially, fools, this is about me.

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That promise was made to Abraham because ultimately, I'm coming from Abraham.

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Abraham looks to me. Justin Perdue is on the scene, and he's telling them that the

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Son, meaning himself, will set you free. They're like, look, bro, we're children of Abraham.

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Why do you say we will become free? He even says to them, I know that you're the offspring of Abraham, but yet you seek to kill me because my words find no place in you, aka, you are the physical seed of Abraham, but then he goes on just a few verses later.

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This is John 8 .39. They again say, the Jewish audience says, Abraham is our father, and Jesus says, if you were

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Abraham's children, you'd be doing what Abraham did, meaning if you were his spiritual seed. Then later on, to your point,

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Jimmy, he says, your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.

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You fools are geeked up about Abraham. Abraham was excited about me, and Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it.

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Well, what is that? The gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham. A seed is coming.

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Abraham believed the promises of God to be realized in Messiah and therefore was saved.

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I think, again, even the story of Abraham shows us how God, in the covenant of grace, works in spite of people.

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What does Abraham immediately do? He goes to the servant. He goes to the slave woman and essentially takes matters into his own hands.

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That's really what these religious leaders of the Pharisees are contrasting themselves with. We are not sons of the slave woman.

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We are sons of the free woman, and Jesus says, no, you have no idea what it means to be free. You are slaves to your own self -salvation and self -righteousness project.

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Jesus again says, I can make anything children of Abraham. It's so important for us to circle back to what

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I said in the beginning. When we have this covenantal framework, we see just how gracious God is.

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Even in light of Abraham, who looked forward imperfectly, is still saved under that promise.

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Also, it prevents us from looking at Abraham as the Pharisees and religious leaders did.

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As this great pillar of, He is the one we look to. Jesus is like, no,

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Abraham is a mirror that ultimately points to me. What matters is not, are you related to Abraham physically?

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What matters is, do you have Abraham's faith? That's Galatians 3.

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Those who have faith are the sons of Abraham, Galatians 3. Then you also have Romans 4, where Paul says that Abraham was trusting in the one who justifies the ungodly.

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He's trusting in God who justifies ungodly people, which is a scandalous message that no other religion preaches.

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That is the pattern of Abraham that is going to carry over into the new covenant, where the covenant of grace is established.

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The story keeps moving. You have these unbelievable promises.

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Of course, you have a man in his nineties, a woman in her nineties, a baron, they have no children, and the most unbelievable promise is that he's going to bless all the nations of the world, and they're going to have a nation that is larger than the sands of the sea.

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Abraham is hearing all this and going, you're nuts. You're going to do that through me? His wife laughs.

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It's a wonderful story of the mercy and grace of God using incapable, messed up people.

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Abraham was not a moral man. Let's just put it that way. He lied a lot.

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God says, Abraham, a nation is going to come from you, and the purpose of that nation is that it will produce a seed that will bless the nations.

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The purpose of Abraham's nation was to produce the seed.

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The Pharisees standing before Jesus totally didn't get that. They thought the blessings come through being a part of Abraham.

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He said, no, the blessing comes from the seed of Abraham. Now you have the question of what

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God is doing with this nation. They move into Egypt through Joseph, which is a beautiful statement from Joseph.

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You meant this for evil, God meant this for good, meaning that God is following his plan, his will.

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Famine in the land, and Jacob moves his family into Egypt. Israel, as they become known,

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Jacob's family becomes known as the nation of Israel.

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The book of Exodus says they grow great in number. Egypt is threatened, and they become enslaved by Pharaoh.

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They become enslaved by the people of Egypt. What does God do?

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He raises up Moses, who also is a shadow and a prophet.

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He is a mouthpiece of God. He goes and he mediates on behalf of his people.

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The book of Exodus is echoed all throughout Scripture. Justin Perdue Absolutely.

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The greatest work of redemption before the cross, without question, is the Exodus. As you read through the

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Old Testament, particularly in the Psalms, what do the song leaders and the writers of the

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Psalms constantly point back to? The Psalms are the contemporary

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Christian music of their day, as we sing of the cross on Sunday mornings. Jon Moffitt The constant shadow of enslavement.

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What do they celebrate, and we continue to celebrate the shadow of it as well?

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The Passover. It becomes part of their culture that the blood being put over the doorpost.

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Do you think they even remotely fully understood that? Justin Perdue There's the blood of a lamb that God looks at and sees it and passes over us.

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We are saved, and those who are not covered by that blood are killed. Jon Moffitt At the moment, they wanted to be out of Egypt, and they didn't want to die, so they obeyed.

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But as the New Testament writers go back and explain that, they're using this glorious shadow, saying that was pointing to Jesus, whom

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God passes over our sins because of the blood of Jesus. He's the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

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Abraham and Isaac up on the mountain. It's a glorious shadow that we look right past.

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Justin Perdue As the story progresses, as the Bible progresses, ultimately Moses leads God's people out of Egypt.

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As we know from the well -known Bible story, he parts the Red Sea. They walk through, which is later referenced in the

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New Testament. Jon Moffitt Another type. Justin Perdue Another type. Another shadow. They pass through.

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Jon Moffitt A big one. Justin Perdue A huge one. I know JP's freaking out. Jon Moffitt I'm wigging out. Go ahead. Justin Perdue They pass through the

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Red Sea. The unbelievers, if you will, are drowned in the waters of judgment.

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Then what we see is Israel, after they get tired of wandering and not having bread, they want to return to slavery.

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They want to go back to Egypt. They wander throughout the desert. Jon Moffitt What we don't realize is that for 400 years, they don't have a

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Bible. They don't have a system. They have passed down verbally the promises that your father is

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Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There was a promise given of a land. We're not in there yet. We're supposed to be a great nation.

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We're big now. But these people have had 400 years of paganism.

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What do they do the moment Moses goes up on the mountain? Justin Perdue That's what

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I'm going to do. They get to Mount Sinai, and this is where Moses goes to meet with the Lord.

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This is where we really begin to understand and see another step further in revealing this covenant of grace in the

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Mosaic covenant. Not to say that the Mosaic covenant is the covenant of grace. That is not what we're saying, to be precise.

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The Mosaic covenant, let's maybe break that down a little bit and explain it. God, through Moses, gives the law.

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This nation is being made. The people that he promised to Abraham are becoming a reality.

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Now God is going to make another covenant with them. He is going to tell them essentially how they are to live.

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If you live this way, then you will be blessed. Justin Perdue It is a theocratic nation.

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Justin Perdue Yes. If you violate these things, there are curses. Justin Perdue You need to explain that. What do you mean by theocratic?

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Justin Perdue A theocracy. God is at the head. Justin Perdue God is the only nation that God has ever led, which is

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Israel. Justin Perdue God gives the law, and he says, if you do these things, then you will prosper.

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You will live long in the land. If you fail to do these things and you violate these laws, then you will be cursed, and you will face judgment from me.

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It's important, like you said, we do not understand the Mosaic covenant to be the covenant of grace. If anything, like we said earlier, we understand that the

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Mosaic covenant, in one sense, is almost a type of a covenant of works. It's conditioned upon the obedience of the people. Justin Perdue There are conditions.

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Justin Perdue There are conditions to be met, but then what does the Mosaic covenant do in helping us better understand the covenant of grace?

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Well, it makes God's requirements clear. This is what God requires for righteousness, and it helps us understand.

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However we are going to be saved, there must come one. This seed is going to need to come and do all of this in order that we might be counted righteous before the

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Lord. This is where you see the Apostle Paul write extensively in places like Galatians and Romans about the law.

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Moses is often seen as the representative of the law, where Paul writes, the law came, and what does it do?

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It reveals the trespass. It increases it. The law increases the trespass.

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I always like to share the example like this. When you go to a hotel and there's a sign there that says, don't splash in the pool, what is your first gut reaction?

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Most likely, it is to splash in the pool because that law there increases the trespass.

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It also helps you understand. Initially, if that were not posted, you would splash in the pool and think, well, that's not a big deal.

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That's not wrong. But then when that's posted, it's like, oh no, now I've broken something. It's a challenge.

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This, again, is a good example of how the New Testament will come and further explain.

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Originally, when God gave the law to Moses, it was to do things. It was to govern them in the land so that they could have peace and protection and blessing from God.

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There is a gracious part of the Mosaic law, but it's not the covenant of grace.

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Grace's provision is that God knew they would fail the law, and because of that,

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He set up the sacrificial system by which their failure to the law could be covered, but it was always a temporary covering.

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What do we keep talking about? It's always moving us along farther and farther down.

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The sacrificial system becomes a shadow. It becomes a type of Christ.

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It's like, okay, we have violated God's law, we are guilty, we stand condemned, and now atonement must be made.

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Blood must be shed. Whoever the sacrifice is must be perfect so that we then are clean.

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God is teaching His people through even those gracious provisions, the gracious provision of the sacrificial system.

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He's giving them law and then He's giving them teaching on atonement and how they can be made clean. Like you said, it's advancing us down the field so we have a better understanding of how we're going to be redeemed.

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Justin Perdue And what's mind -boggling as we think about this is that as we're marching through the

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Old Testament as quickly as we are, we have to realize that God teaches His people through the course of generations.

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Great -great -great -grandfathers are learning this and teaching it to their grandchildren and teaching it to their children and their children.

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There is such an anticipation that God is building to the coming of His Son, the seed of Ehiv, who will be established from this nation.

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Justin Perdue Very quick interjection, if anybody's questioning how we're thinking about the covenant with Moses and the law and the sacrificial system, just pick up the book of Hebrews and read it.

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One of the ways that the law ends up being used is how do we know we have the right seed?

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You had made a quick reference to this and I want to go back to it. The Mosaic law becomes for us a fuller or another way of explaining the covenant of works.

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You have Adam failing the work that was given him. You have the initial purpose of the law, which was to establish blessings and to govern the people in the land.

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Then Jesus comes and He says the most amazing statement. They're all thinking, oh great, the

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King is here and He's going to get rid of the law. He says, oh, I haven't come to get rid of it or abolish it. What does

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He say? When you hear Paul say the first Adam failed and the second

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Adam succeeded, that's what Jesus is saying. In the last session, when

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Christ is up on the cross and He says, it is finished, that's what He's referencing.

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What's so fun about the Old Testament is that you get a little bit more puzzle pieces.

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It's not all fully there. If a guy is casting a fishing pole and you can't see where the line is going, that's what happened with the law.

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The law was thrown out and there's a connection that's going to happen when Christ shows up on the scene, but we don't have that yet.

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What we have to understand is that there's the original revelation of what's going on, and there's always this line, this promise that's coming.

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Let's back up and make the connection so that we can keep moving on with this. You have the conditional promises given to Abraham.

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It's now having a fuller revelation. It's being realized in the days of Moses, but even in the passing of Moses with Joshua, who is instructed to go into the promised land.

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All of these types and shadows that are established in the mosaic, the prophets are going to start pulling these things apart.

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Even types and shadows that I don't think are insignificant with Moses and Joshua.

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Moses, who represents the law, is not the one who will take the people into the promised land, but Yeshua is raised up to take the people into the land.

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Who will be the Savior? Yeshua. Jesus. You can't make this stuff up.

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It's like God wrote it. Jon Moffitt I know sometimes there's a confusion with covenant theology and people say that you spiritualize the text.

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We're trying to be very careful to show you that we're not trying to make spiritual connections. We're going to the New Testament and helping you see how they interpreted this unfolding narrative.

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Are we ready to move on to that next moment? We're kind of getting there. We have

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. We see the story of Israel come to be a nation.

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Frankly, what happens is we see Moses disobeys. We don't have to get into details about that. Moses disobeys.

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He does not lead his people into the promised land, but Joshua rises up. That's where we begin to see the people of Israel begin to take over the promised land.

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We have the book of Judges, where what we begin to see, and this is setting up where we're going next, is there becomes a cry for the people of Israel to have a leader.

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Somebody lead us. I don't think that those cries are insignificant because you have to think that in the minds of these people who have been taught for generations, in their minds they're saying, we have been told that somebody is going to come unite these people and quit this mess.

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The people of Israel are not in the promised land, but what do we see? Neighboring nations are coming.

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They're creeping in. They're defiling them. There are some pretty bad things going on.

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The people begin to cry out, wait, we were promised that somebody was going to come and get rid of all this mess.

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That's setting us up to where we're about to go. Justin Perdue brings us to the beginning, especially in the book of 1

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Samuel, where not only the prophet Samuel shows up on the scene, but there is a demand on the part of the people for a king.

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Initially, they demand a king of their own making in Saul, but Saul is not the one that matters.

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Samuel finds the anointed one named David. God makes a covenant with David, which is where we are now.

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David's throne is established. He's a man after God's own heart. He is fallible. He makes tons of mistakes, but he is a type of the king who will come.

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He is a type of Jesus, but his rule is established, his throne is established, his kingdom is established, and God, in 2

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Samuel 7, most pointedly, makes a covenant with him. He says that somebody from your line will sit on the throne and he is responsible to obey my law.

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If he obeys my law, if he disobeys, I will discipline him. I will chastise him. The big thing with the

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Davidic covenant is that it is conditional upon the king's obedience. It becomes quite clear now that the one who's coming is going to be a son of David, he's going to be a king, and he will represent the nation before God.

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As the king goes, the nation goes. Jon Moffitt I'm glad that you said that because this is really setting us up for the history books of the

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Old Testament. Even into the major and minor prophets, this is where the story really begins to collapse in on itself, but I don't mean it in the way you're thinking.

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It becomes like this interwoven story told from different angles and through the mouths and minds of different prophets.

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Exactly as you said, JP, as goes the heart of the king, so goes the heart of the nation. Where does that leave us in the

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Old Testament? Ultimately, what we see is that God punishes or rewards the nation based off of the merits of the king.

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Jon Moffitt Solomon thinks it's him at one moment, and then there's a clarification that says he perfectly obeys the law.

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You see the initial explanation of the law in Moses, and now you're seeing a further explanation.

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You have to understand that every single one of these covenants is pushing us toward the covenant of grace.

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All of them are promising and revealing. Now the people of Israel aren't looking to try and obey.

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They're saying, we need someone who will do this for us. Of course, what is the story? Up and down, up and down, until you get to a moment where there is no king.

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Right. After Solomon, because of Solomon's disobedience, the kingdom of Israel is split in two.

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There's the northern kingdom called Israel still. Its capital is in Samaria. There's the southern kingdom of Judah, capital in Jerusalem.

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There are now two kingdoms. None of the kings of Israel do right in the eyes of the

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Lord. There are some good ones in the southern kingdom, maybe most notably Josiah. What's incredible is that even upon the southern kingdom, there comes

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God's judgment. The northern kingdom is conquered by the Assyrians, but then the southern kingdom is conquered by the

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Babylonians, and exile is the order of the day. It's incredible. We read the prophets.

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Isaiah writes a lot of these things, but Jeremiah writes, as does Ezekiel, of the southern kingdom and the exile and all these things, oppression under Babylon.

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You get words like this from Jeremiah. Everything looks lost. I'm not even going to Jeremiah 31 yet.

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Everything looks lost, but what is it? There is a son of David who's coming who's going to represent the nation.

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What's it going to be? Listen to Jeremiah 23, 5, and 6. Behold, the days are coming, declares the

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Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

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In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called.

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The Lord is our righteousness. You might fall out of your chair. I have goosebumps sitting here talking about this.

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The son of David is coming, and the Lord is in the midst of exile. Everything seems lost. He's coming.

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Justin Perdue Even just to add to that, the prophet Isaiah says that from Jesse is coming.

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Then he describes what he brings, and it's restoration in the land. At the end of it, he's describing what this king is going to bring.

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At the end of it, I get chills every time I read this, but it says in verse 11, it says they shall not hurt or destroy.

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At the very end of it, he says this, and his, the king's, resting place shall be glorious.

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The people of Israel are now feeling this. They don't live in a resting land.

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Canaan is definitely not glorious in any way, shape, or form. To pick back up on the exile idea, what you have is a groaning people who are in Babylon, and we get

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Daniel. What does Daniel do?

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He interprets dreams to leaders. One of the fantastic dreams is the kingdoms of the earth.

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The kingdoms of the earth who mock and spit and destroy and steal.

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This is where Psalm 1 and 2 come into view. You have the blessed man who does not take counsel with scoffers, but walks in the way of the righteous.

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Psalm 2 says, why do the nations rage? In part of the dreams that Daniel interprets, what we see is that one is coming whose kingdom will destroy all other kingdoms.

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All other kingdoms will bow down to his, and he will bless the nations. Why do the nations rage?

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Who is this talking about? This is talking about what was promised to Eve, what was promised to Abraham, what we long for with Moses, who is promised in David, who is longed for throughout

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Joshua, Judges, and the history of the kings, who are the prophets, who looked forward and saw dimly.

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Ultimately, what we get is all of these promises. We have three pretty good concrete ellipses, like the dot, dot, dot of the

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Old Testament. So bring us there, guys. Justin Perdue Right.

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Before we do, I think it's just to help clarify some of our position. We believe that God fulfilled those promises.

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The promises to Abraham, they are in the land, the nations is established. Kings did come from his line.

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You just see that every promise that God made, his condition side, he never once failed.

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Jon Moffitt The nation got all that stuff, and some individuals were cut off. Justin Perdue Right. In certain stories in the Bible, you see the nation gets down to one person.

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God preserves this, and the promise of the seed continues to go down. On top of this covenantal language, it is an amazing ride to see how much

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Israel tried to destroy, even interwoving themselves into other nations when God tells them they need to be pure.

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God continues to preserve it. We can go to the very end of right before there's going to be 400 years of silence.

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You're not going to hear any more from the prophets. You're not hearing any more from God. The last thing that Malachi is going to say before Luke shows up, or the angels show up on the scene in Luke, is that he tells them to remember one thing.

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He says, remember the law of Moses. Why? Jesus even says, the law and the prophets wrote of me.

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Malachi is saying, don't forget this, because this is where the Messiah is coming. I would interpret that to say, you have seen all of these promises of the grace that's to come.

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Don't forget this. Jon Moffitt This is where we get. As you travel to the end of the

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Old Testament, it's easy to be depressed because it is a hot mess. You thought slavery in Egypt was bad.

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What the Old Testament reveals is that physical slavery has nothing on spiritual slavery.

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That is where God's people are. Their hearts are hearts of stone.

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Many of you probably know where I'm going. This is where Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, the one who weeps over the exile of God's people.

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This is ultimately what Jeremiah promises that we hang on to so dearly. In Jeremiah 31, he says,

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Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when

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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

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Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, that I will do what?

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I will put my law within them. I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

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No longer shall each one teach his neighbor and his brother, saying, Know the Lord. For what? They shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the

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Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. That is a great ellipsis moment that probably very few people listen to for poor

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Jeremiah. Justin Perdue had the worst job. Being a prophet in the

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Old Testament was not awesome. It was terrible. Jon Moffitt So now we'll go and actually read

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Malachi chapter four, and just for the sake of time, I'm going to read just a couple of verses. It says, verse four, remember the law of Moses, the statues and rules that I commanded him at Arab for all of Israel.

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Behold, I will send you Elijah. Now, what does that actually mean? It's a reference to someone.

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Who is it? Jon Moffitt John the Baptist. Jon Moffitt John the Baptist. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the

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Lord comes. Jon Moffitt And then verse six. Jon Moffitt He says, and he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a degree of utter destruction.

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That's how the book ends. Jon Moffitt But the hearts of the people will turn. Then we get 400 years of silence, and then finally, an angel shows up on the scene and talks to this woman named

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Mary. He says this about the child that is going to be conceived in her by the

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Holy Spirit. He will be great and will be called the Son of the

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Most High. The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

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When that child is born and presented in the temple, there's a man named Simeon who sees him and says, I can die because I have seen the salvation of the

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Lord. Jon Moffitt And that's where we move on. And that's where we'll pick up.

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If you thought that was a wild ride, this next one, I don't even know how we're going to get it in within 45 minutes, but we're going to do our best.