The ABC’s of the Christian Life (11): Following Jesus Christ Rightly #6b – Understanding Law & Grace

First Baptist Church Leominster

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Well, let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter 3. We'll read the first word, first promise of the

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Gospel, way back in the beginning in Genesis 3 .15.

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And this first word of the Gospel is given to us when our Lord was pronouncing a curse on the serpent, on the devil, who was manifested through the serpent.

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God gave forth his promise after Adam and Eve had fallen into sin. Genesis 3 .15,

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this is the Lord speaking. I will put enmity between you, talking to the serpent directly, to Satan indirectly.

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I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.

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Through sin, Adam and Eve, of course, lost God's blessing. Adam and Eve served in the garden as prophet, priest, and king on behalf of God.

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They were ruling in the garden in that fashion, on behalf of God. However, by yielding to the temptation of the serpent,

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Adam rebelled against God. And in doing so, Adam gave over his kingdom.

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He surrendered his kingdom. Adam was dethroned, essentially, and gave his authority over to the serpent, to the devil.

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And ever since then, Adam and the fallen race have been enslaved to the devil, were born into the devil's kingdom, this fallen world.

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And so at that time, when Adam first sat in the garden, the kingdom of Satan ascended over man, and all mankind would thereafter labor with hardship, the earth itself resisting him.

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And man would suffer the injustice from others, even as he perpetrated injustice upon others.

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The fallen world is a hostile place. Fallen man would endure a difficult life of pain and sorrow until the day he returned to the dust from which he came, is what we have recorded for us.

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But here in the beginning, here in Genesis 3, even when the fall of man is recorded, we have a word of promise.

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And it's the first word of the gospel that we have in the Bible. And that's why this promise of Genesis 3 .15

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is commonly referred to as a proto -evangelium, Greek word proto -first, evangelium, good news, or gospel, the first gospel.

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And this word was that God himself would save a people unto himself, delivering them from under the authority of the devil who made their life difficult and miserable.

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And so God himself would call forth a people, a seed, a group of people from the woman.

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And he would be opposed, the people of God would be opposed by the people of the devil, the seed of the devil, the serpent.

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And then one day he would cause the seed of the woman, and probably in your translation, you have that second seed capitalized.

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That second seed is a reference to Jesus Christ. That seed of the woman would strip the devil of his authority, that the devil had gained over fallen man.

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And so God says that this seed would bruise your head, serpent, in other words, devil, the head being an emblem of authority.

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Basically, it's a declaration that Satan's authority, his kingdom, would be conquered and that he would be deposed.

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Now, even though at that time, the seed of the serpent would, or the serpent himself would bruise the heel of this seed.

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And that is a prophecy of Jesus Christ dying upon the cross. The devil had thought he gained the upper hand, didn't he?

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When he entered into Judas and betrayed Jesus and crucified him. But that very act of crucifixion, of course, as our

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Lord Jesus submitted to God his Father, obeying even unto death, resulted in him rising from the dead and being given all authority in heaven and earth.

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And so Satan's kingdom was deposed and Jesus' authority and kingdom was exalted above the kingdom of the devil.

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And so here is the first word in Scripture of the salvation that God purposed to bring to his people.

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And it reflects his work of salvation as a manifestation of the covenant of grace that we began to talk about last week.

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This covenant of grace that God makes with his people. And this is a very important matter for every

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Christian to understand. Last week, we began to address this subject.

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And again, our series at this point is how we may follow Jesus Christ rightly.

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In other words, what kind of doctrines, what kind of things are we to do, to think, believe in order to be good

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Christians? Walking closely to the Lord, being used of the Lord in this life, in this world, how can we follow

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Jesus Christ rightly? And what we're saying is understanding this distinction between law and grace is foundational.

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You've got to understand this or you're going to have a lot of problems in your understanding of the Christian life and how

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God would have you live before him. And so we gave ourselves last week to this matter, but we had a full service.

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We baptized, we had the Lord's Supper, and so as is commonly the case, I didn't get very far in my notes.

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In fact, I only got to page 6, I think, out of 13. And so on the one hand,

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I hesitate to pick up where we left off last week. And one of the reasons is because there's people that we send out our notes to, about 185 people now, and probably

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I would guess about 75 of those are pastors in Africa and India and elsewhere. And I hate to be repetitious with them, sending out a lot of the same notes

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I sent last week. But on the other hand, I feel an obligation to us and to you because actually, you know, this is our chief concern, obviously, the church here.

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And so I believe that we need to, after introducing the matter a little bit, pick up where we left off and fill out this important matter for us today.

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And perhaps in a little bit of the rehearsing of what we considered last week will be reinforced in these matters, because this is important.

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And so it's important that we understand. And so in order for us to better understand this important Christian teaching, the distinction between law and grace, let us first rehearse the essence and nature of covenant theology, which we believe is biblical theology.

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First, we established last week that God has created us, the human race, in a covenant relationship with himself and with us.

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The idea of covenant permeates the entire Holy Scripture.

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In order for man to have a relationship with God, he must enter into a covenant relationship with God, a covenant that God himself has to initiate, prescribe, as well as maintain.

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And the reason that God ordained we relate to him by means of a covenant relationship is due to the vast difference between us as finite creatures and him as being an infinite

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God. You and I cannot know him, cannot relate to him, because he is so different from us.

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He's infinite, we're finite. And therefore, if we're going to know him, he's going to have to condescend to us, come down to us and reveal himself in a form, in a manner, in a way that we can comprehend, because we're finite creatures.

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And this is basically what a covenant is. A covenant is like a contract, which sets out four terms and conditions by which two parties can maintain a relationship with one another.

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I don't know if Dale has signed his contract yet, but one will be presented in front of him. He's about ready to enter into a relationship with Clark University.

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They'll set the contract out, and they'll set down his responsibilities, and the university will set down its responsibilities, and they both put their signature to it, and they enter into an employer -employee relationship based upon that covenant.

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And God does the same thing with us. He relates to people based upon a covenant.

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Well, there are many different covenants found in the Bible. We rehearsed some of these last week.

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But each of the covenants may be classified into one of two kinds of covenants.

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A covenant of works, as well as a covenant of grace. And they are vastly different from one another.

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And as we read of the covenants of Scripture, and as we consider our own relationship with God, we have to understand which covenant we're relating to God upon.

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Which covenant binds us in relationship with God? It's either a covenant of works or a covenant of grace, and there are no other alternatives.

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A covenant of works is a relationship with God based upon what we do. A covenant of grace is a relationship with God based upon what

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He has done on our behalf through Jesus Christ. That's the difference.

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I'll take the latter, please. God had originally made a covenant of works with Adam in the

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Garden of Eden. But when God established that covenant of works with Adam and Eve, He also, of course, set in place that the entire human race born to Adam and Eve would also relate to Him based on that covenant of works.

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And the reason is, Adam was the legal representative of mankind because he was our father.

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He represented us. And so what he did, we did in him. That's a principle found throughout

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Scripture. And so it's commonly said Adam was the federal head or the federal representative of the human race.

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When he sinned, therefore, the entire human race sinned. You sinned when

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Adam sinned. You are as guilty of that sin when Adam rebelled against God in the

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Garden as Adam himself, because you're guilty. You were in him. You're guilty for that very sin he committed.

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You might argue, well, that's not fair. That's not right. But that's what the Bible teaches. And if you deny that principle, then you cut off any possibility of salvation because the same principle that brings condemnation to us through Adam brings salvation to us through Jesus Christ.

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You reject the one. You don't get the other. Thankfully, however, after the fall of Adam into sin,

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God made known his promise of another covenant, which is a covenant of grace that he planned and purposed in eternity.

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And that's expressed in veiled form in what we read in Genesis 3 .15.

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He planned this covenant of grace in eternity. And the covenant of grace is when we enter into the covenant with God based upon that covenant of grace.

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But commonly when we speak about when God decreed even before creation that covenant of grace would take place, commonly it's expressed in terms of the blessed holy trinity coming into an agreement, a covenantal relationship.

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And so commonly the covenant of grace that came out of that, that formulation, that decree is commonly called the covenant of redemption.

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And so the covenant of redemption is not between God and you and me. That's the covenant of grace.

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But the covenant of grace is the result of the covenant of redemption. When God the Father, God the Son, God the

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Holy Spirit said, this is what's gonna take place in history. And so there are these two kinds of covenants.

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The covenant of works. Let's talk about that a little bit and then we'll talk a little more about the covenant of grace.

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Again, a covenant of works is based upon doing the works of God's law in order to earn or deserve his favor and favorable treatment.

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Again, when God made this covenant with Adam, God bound the entire race through all human history to this covenant.

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Everyone born in this world comes into the world relating to God based upon this covenant of works.

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Our confession of faith, which is a tool that just basically teaches what we believe the

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Bible teaches, puts it forth this way. God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in his heart and a particular precept of not eating the fruit and the tree of knowledge of good and evil by which he bound him, that's

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God bound Adam and all his posterity, that's you and me, to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience.

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That is no sin whatsoever. Promised life upon the fulfilling and threatened death upon the breach of it and endued him, that is

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Adam, with power and ability to keep it. Adam didn't have to sin. He wasn't a sinner.

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He became a sinner when he sinned. And we're all sinners because of what he did.

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And so God established his covenant relationship with Adam and his descendants, the entire human race, conditioned on Adam keeping

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God's law. And so when God placed Adam and Eve in the garden, he said to them, the

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Lord God took the man, put him in the garden of Eden to work, keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.

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And they did die spiritually with regard to their relationship. Their physical death was sealed that day, but would take place later, of course.

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The requirement God placed on Adam was that his covenant was based upon obedience,

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Adam's obedience. The failure to keep his covenant, that is, to disobey or transgress

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God's law, would result in death, spiritual and physical. So under the covenant of works,

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Adam's obedience to God's law, gain access to life from God. They could be blessed in the garden. God rewarded obedience with life, but God required complete obedience because God is holy and sin cannot dwell in his presence.

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The least infraction of God's law would result in death. And so by Adam's obedience, he would have earned everlasting life for himself and for all humanity if he had never sinned.

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But we read of Adam's rebellion against God as seen in his breaking this covenant of works with God, his creator.

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And so he incurred the guilt of that broken covenant and the sentence of death and damnation for himself and all the human race.

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Actually, when Adam sinned against the one command that God had expressly given him, he ate of that fruit, he broke all of God's law.

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All of God's law really in its weight came down upon him. James wrote,

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For whoever shall keep the whole law yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. The entire weight of the law.

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But oftentimes the transgression of the one law can contain in itself a number of infractions against other laws of God.

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Now God's law is summarily recorded, summarized in the Ten Commandments. Arthur Pink, who died in 1952, the great modern theologian, he quoted in one of his books,

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The Doctrine of Depravity, I think it was, that he read a fellow named

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Usher. And Usher was the one who first set dates for the Old Testament.

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Sometimes you see that in the old King James Bibles, like creation was in 4004 B .C. He was wrong in the date setting, but Usher was quite a theologian.

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Anyway, he quoted Usher and another man whom

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Usher relied upon and showed how when Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he broke all

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Ten Commandments. And I put this paragraph here because I found it interesting. And so this is

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Pink writing in the 20th century. 300 years ago that profound theologian James Usher pointed out that it had wrapped up in it the breach of the whole law of God.

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Summarizing in her own language what the Bishop of Armagh developed at length. Now that would have been

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Usher. Adam's violation of all the Ten Commandments of the moral law may be set forth thus.

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The first commandment, he broke by choosing him another God when he followed the counsel of Satan.

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The second commandment, he idolized his palate, making a god of his belly by eating the forbidden food.

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You shall have no other gods before me. The third, by believing not

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God's threatening, therein taking his name in vain. Fourth, by breaking the sinless rest which he had been placed.

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Broke the Sabbath. Fifth, thereby dishonoring his father in heaven. The sixth, by slaying himself and all his posterity.

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Thou shall not kill. Seventh, by committing spiritual adultery and preferring the creature above the creator.

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Eighth, by laying hands upon to which he had no right. Thou shall not steal.

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The ninth, by accepting the servant's false witness of God. Thou shall not bear false witness.

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And tenth, by coveting that which God had not given to him. He broke all ten commandments in his one sin.

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Well, he broke that covenant of works. In order for mankind to be saved from his sin, debt thereafter, that mankind owed to the justice of God, that justice had to be paid for.

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That debt to God's justice had to be paid. God's holy justice must be satisfied in order for salvation to take place.

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And so after Adam's sin, the covenant of works could no longer be a way of salvation. That covenant was no longer possible because one transgression rendered that covenant of works null and void in its ability to bring forth life to people.

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How foolish it is for people to try to relate to God, think that they're going to be saved by the good things that they do.

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No, the covenant of works is no longer capable of bringing life to people.

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It only brings damnation. It did and does. Man cannot redeem himself through the covenant of works.

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It can only damn him. And really all religions of the world, apart from biblical Christianity, are in error in this respect.

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The people of these religions, whether it be the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons or the Hindus or Muslims, wherever you go, the animists in Africa, whoever you go to, wherever you go, apart from biblical

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Christianity, they believe, they're taught by their leaders, that through their performance of their works, their religion, the law of God as they understand it or perceive it, will enable them to acquire and sustain a relationship with God or gods.

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They all relate. It's natural for fallen man to think that he can relate to God based upon a covenant of works.

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That's off the table. It is no more. Adam's one sin rendered that way of relating with God impossible for fallen man.

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That is impossible unless a sinless man came forward, one who could represent his people, who would both atone for all the sins that his people committed and keep the covenant of works on behalf of man.

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And, of course, that's what Jesus Christ did, didn't he? The sinless one who came and obeyed

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God's law perfectly throughout his own life. And he died, but he couldn't remain in the state of death because the state of death is the punishment for sinners.

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And so Jesus Christ kept the covenant of works, and that's why Christ is called the last

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Adam or the second Adam because he did what the first Adam failed to do.

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Jesus Christ kept the covenant of works on behalf of his people just as Adam broke the covenant of works on behalf of his people.

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The entire human race, Jesus Christ kept the covenant of works on behalf of his people, those who believe on him, those who have faith in him, those who believe the gospel, all beginning with Genesis 3 .15

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and all the way throughout the Bible, those who believe that good news are basically entrusting the seed of the woman, this

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Savior coming, who will release them from the power of the devil because he will do what

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Adam failed to do. He will obey God and thereby obtain the blessing of God for himself and all his people who are in union with him just as we were damned because of our union in Adam.

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And so this, what Jesus Christ came to do, he kept the covenant of works on our behalf so we could relate to God through a covenant of grace when we believe on Jesus.

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And so forgiveness of sins is freely extended to those who believe on Jesus as their

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Lord and Savior. Yes, God, I'm a sinner and I'm damned, doomed to hell and rightly so, but I pray you accept me,

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Father, for Jesus' sake, for who he is and what he did, not because of who

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I am and what I do. And the one who believes on Jesus begins to relate with God based upon this covenant of grace and is no longer condemned due to the covenant of works in which he was born.

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And so down to the bottom of page 3, if you're looking at your notes, we have this covenant of grace further explained. Other than the covenant of works,

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God purposed to relate to man based on another kind of covenant, the covenant of grace. In the covenant of grace,

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God does for man which man could not do for himself. God himself brings salvation to his people.

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They couldn't save themselves. And so this covenant of grace, as we said earlier, was formulated.

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If we can use that term formulated, you know, God is infinite. It's in a single act, you know, all of these things were determined in what has been commonly called this covenant of redemption and been devised and committed to before creation by the three persons of the

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Holy Trinity. In that covenant of redemption, God made provision to save guilty sinners even before he created the heaven and the earth, man in the garden, before sin entered the world.

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There is a verse in Hebrews 13 .20 and 21, I quote it quite often as a benediction to our service, and it speaks to this everlasting, this eternal covenant,

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I think this covenant of redemption. Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with every good thing that you may do

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His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.

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Eternal covenant, set in eternity. And so let's consider the details of the covenant of redemption, which again the outworking was the covenant of grace by which you and I can relate to God.

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And we'll quote, we've done this before, I think this is so beautiful, and that's why I've quoted it probably three or four times over the years, words of Charles Spurgeon as he was trying to illustrate this.

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Obviously this is not, Spurgeon wasn't in on the council of the Trinity, but this is in effect what must have happened in human terms.

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And so Spurgeon said it in a way that it would seem only he could. With regard to the

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Father, the Father had certain terms in this covenant, commitments. So did the

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Son, so did the Holy Spirit. And so it says, if the Father said,

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I, the most high Jehovah, do promise to give to you, my dear son, a people countless in number drawn from every nation on earth.

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And I will, on account of you, cease my warfare with them and become to them a God of peace.

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For I will pardon and wash them from their sin and deliver them from the power of sin and thereby the wrath which is upon them due to their sin.

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And I will give them unto you and will deliver each and every one of them into your kingdom which I will cause you to establish.

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I covenant by oath and swear by myself that I will do this thing, this people whom

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I have chosen will be given to you, every one of them, not one will be lost. And them

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I will forgive through the merit of your life and the payment for your blood on their behalf. But I too do swear that upon your death on their behalf due to your righteousness,

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I will raise you from the death to reign forevermore, giving you a name above every name.

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And all of these whom I have given you will be with you and me, for I will give eternal life so that they will ever be with you and myself, dwelling and reigning with us through eternity.

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Now that's the role, purpose of God the Father even before creation. And then there were terms of God the

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Holy Spirit. I the Holy Spirit will in time, that is in history, ensure that these given to you, speaking to the

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Son of the Father, will come to you and I will make them alive, that's the new birth, give them a heart to seek you, put faith in their minds and hearts to believe you.

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I will work in them every grace, sanctifying them, preserving them unto your kingdom.

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And so this was one side of the covenant. Again, there are two parties. One side, the

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Father, the Holy Spirit, and then we have the Son concurring and committing himself to certain terms.

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The terms of God the Son, my Father, I will become one of them. I will take upon myself the form and nature of the fallen race.

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And I will live in their wretched world and for my people will I keep your law perfectly. And I will be obedient to you, even to death, as I work out a spotless righteousness, which will be acceptable to the demands of thy just and holy law.

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And when that time comes, I will suffer and die on behalf of these you've given me, on behalf of my sheep.

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I will be the good shepherd and lay down my life. And so, based on this eternal covenant of grace, or sometimes called covenant of redemption,

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God decreed creation and he's ordered all events in history. And the

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Father has been true to his word, the Holy Spirit has been true to his word, and of course Jesus Christ has been true to his word.

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And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, trusting in the merits of Christ's life and death, if you're numbered among his sheep, hearing his voice and following him, then this

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God is a God of peace to you. Hebrews 13, 20, 21. Through the blood of the eternal covenant, which is a covenant of God's grace.

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Now that's reassuring, isn't it? Covenant of grace is not what you do, but what God has done through Jesus Christ on your behalf.

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It takes it off of your shoulders, doesn't it? You can see why, you know, the only thing left is peace, right?

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Put it on him, he can handle it. Well, the history of the

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Bible from Genesis 3, 15 all the way to the end is a record of God's dealings with mankind.

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God relating to man based on these two covenants, the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

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We already stated that when Adam was serving God in the garden, he was on probation for he related to God according to the covenant of works.

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Again, had Adam been successful in obeying God's law, his work of obedience would have earned him and his posterity, the human race, eternal life with his

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God. He was laboring, as it were, to enter into rest there in the garden, a rest that God himself has said to illustrate when he rested the seventh day after creation with God not to recuperate.

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God wasn't tired because he created, but rather he sat back, stood back and enjoyed and reflected upon what he did and created and everything was good.

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He took pleasure from it. And so, right from the beginning, the

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Sabbath rest becomes a symbol or goal of mankind. Rest. Chuck Herndon entered into rest yesterday.

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Last couple weeks, he was not in a state of rest. He is now a

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Sabbath rest, an eternal rest. God's rest is an emblem of eternal life.

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An eternal Sabbath rest with God is reflected in Hebrews 4. Therefore, since the promise remains of entering his rest, he was writing to Christians, let us fear, lest any of you seem to have come short of it.

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In other words, he said, don't forsake Jesus and fall short of it. Don't apostatize.

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For indeed, the gospel, good news, was preached to us just as it was to them, referring to the people of Israel.

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But the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

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He's talking about the generation of Israel that Moses led out of Egypt, went to the wilderness, they came to Kadesh Barnea, about ready to enter the promised land.

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And the promised land was set forth as a place of rest. They had labored for generations in Egypt and now they were going to rest in the promised land.

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And God told them, you go in and take it and I'm going to help you. But they failed to believe

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God and so they disobeyed God. And so that whole generation was consigned to dwell in the wilderness and die there.

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And the writer to the Hebrews says to these Christians, don't you be like them and stop believing on Jesus, but continue to believe even until you enter that heavenly rest.

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And so he quotes that event in the Old Testament. For we who have believed do enter that rest, as he has said, so I swore in my wrath they shall not enter my rest, although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.

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He links that event of failing to enter the promised land as rest back to the rest of God with creation.

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As he's spoken, in a certain place on the seventh day in this way, God rested on the seventh day from all his works and again in this place they shall not enter my rest.

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Since, therefore, it remains that some must enter it and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience.

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Again, God designates a certain day, saying to David, this was hundreds of years after they failed to enter the promised land.

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He says to David, today, after such a long time it's been said, today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.

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This is a difficult argument for us to maybe perceive that the writer is laying out. But he's basically saying that everybody thought that the earthly promised land was the rest that God was promising.

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And the writer is saying, no, no, no, because hundreds of years later, David exhorted the people to enter

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God's rest. He was living in the promised land. So, obviously, the earthly promised land was not the rest that God was promising.

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And, therefore, there remains a rest before in front of the people of God. Even heaven is what he's arguing.

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His whole argument there in Hebrews chapter 4. And then he reasons in verse 8, for if Joshua had given them that rest when they entered the promised land, he would not, that God wouldn't have spoken of another day afterwards through David.

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And, therefore, he concludes, therefore, there remains a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his.

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There you have the covenant of grace. Ceased from his works. Let us, therefore, be diligent.

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In other words, work hard that you enter into this rest. Talking about obedience through faith, trusting

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Christ, continuing to persevere in faith. To enter that rest lest anyone, according to the same example of disobedience, in other words, lest you apostatize, come to reject

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Jesus. And so, after Adam had sinned in the beginning, the curse of God came upon him as posterity.

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God graciously announced, again, Genesis 3 .15, he would deliver them from their sin.

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And so, this covenant of grace was initiated. And it continues down through the biblical story.

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Top of page 6 in your notes. Now, the history of the world has been described like a dramatic stage.

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A stage in which what God is doing in history is played out, displayed before angels, before us.

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It's been said that if the world is a theater, or stage, then the story being played out is a courtroom drama.

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The whole Bible record, there's a divine witness in the courtroom setting who testifies of God's goodness and faithfulness and the rightness of all his dealings with man.

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This is the faithful witness of the Holy Spirit. But there's also a false witness who is the devil.

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He advocates lies against God and promotes idolatry as a substitute for the true God. And this courtroom setting,

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God declaring his truth, the devil declaring his lies, played out through the entire

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Bible story. Who are you going to believe? Who did Adam believe? He believed the servant, didn't he?

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He believed that God didn't tell the truth, that there was something good he was withholding, and the accusation of the devil that this was this

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God that you have chosen to worship. And so the story of the

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Bible is that of God making a covenant with man, his servant in his garden, the covenant he broke, but then he tells of the redemption that God brings to save his people from the fate they deservedly brought upon themselves.

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And so the Bible in the beginning records the loss of this garden paradise, the

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Garden of Eden, due to having man broken, the covenant of works God made with him.

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And the story of the Bible as a whole is that of God restoring fallen men to paradise through the covenant of grace that he works out in history.

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And so in the early account of Genesis, we read of a beautiful creation of paradise, a land in which

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Adam and Eve live as kings and priests in the kingdom over which God reigns. But the original paradise land was lost to mankind through sin.

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And nevertheless, at the conclusion of the biblical story, you turn over to the last page of the

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Bible, and we read of a more glorious new creation, don't we? A more glorious garden paradise than what

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Adam lost that Jesus Christ restores to his people. It's a glorious land, as Bunyan described it, a celestial city in which

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God dwells with his people who he has redeemed from sin through Jesus Christ. And it's a kingdom, a glorious kingdom.

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The Garden of Eden was a kingdom, the kingdom of God, where God's rule was to be manifested. But the city whose builder and maker is

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God, the city built without hands, in other words, without the works of man, a city built on God's grace, the new

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Jerusalem, is much more glorious. And so Eden is presented as the inaugural kingdom, the beginning kingdom of God, and then the new

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Jerusalem is presented as the consummated kingdom. And so, yeah, the beginning, the end, and the whole story of the

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Bible is how you get from one place to the other. And it's all through the covenant of grace that God has purposed through Jesus Christ.

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And this plot, this overall plot of the entire Bible actually can be seen in miniature repeatedly throughout the

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Holy Scriptures. The clearest example of this may be with the entire history of the nation of Israel.

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It began with God's gracious call of Abraham, who would become the father of the nation of Israel.

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God called Abraham, gave him great promises, all promises of grace, things that God committed

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He would do for Abraham and his descendants. And when God brought Israel out of Egypt, God established

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His covenant with Israel and Mount Sinai. The law of Sinai was given by God as a manifestation of His grace.

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You love me, show it by keeping these commandments. And then

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God gave His law as a standard to His people by which they were to order their life after entering the promised land to show forth their faith and their love for God.

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But there was an aspect of the covenant works also in the Mosaic law.

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This is a difficult matter to sort through, and we don't have time, again, this morning to go through it.

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But even though God gave His law graciously to His people at Mount Sinai, nevertheless, within that law, there is also a warning that if you try to relate to God based upon a covenant of works, you will be destroyed.

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And what Israel's big failure was in history is they took that Mosaic law and Mosaic covenant, and instead of seeing it as a manifestation of God's covenant of grace, whereby they were to believe on Him and look to the

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Messiah to whom all the sacrifices pointed, rather they saw that law as works they were to do in order to earn salvation.

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And that's what brought them damnation. They turned the covenant of grace into a covenant of works.

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And thereby were damned by the law that God has so graciously given to them.

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In your own time, I'd like you to read Herman Babbink's comments on page seven and ending on the top of page eight that speaks of this difficult but important matter.

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Israel failed. Israel came under condemnation because they broke God's law as a covenant of works.

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But God promised even in their transgression and breaking of the law that He would come and relate to them once again in the manifestation of His covenant of grace through Jesus Christ the

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Messiah whom He would send. And so on page nine of your notes, I just want to look at that quote in Isaiah 42 as we begin to wrap things up here.

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Instead of the law itself being the basis of a covenant, a covenant of works, we have a prophecy of Jesus Christ becoming the basis of the covenant.

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And so in Isaiah 42, verse six and following, the prophet declared, Behold my servant whom

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I uphold. This is a prophecy of Jesus Christ, the servant of God. My elect one in whom my soul delights.

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This is God the Father speaking of His Son. I have put my spirit upon Him.

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That's what happened at Jesus' baptism. He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.

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That is God's righteous rule to the world of Gentiles. He will not cry out nor raise

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His voice nor cause His voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed He'll not break.

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A smoking flax He'll not quench. And that describes the character of Jesus as He went about meekly serving in obedience to His Father.

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Until He bring forth justice for truth, He'll not fail nor be discouraged. Until He has established justice in the earth and even the coastlands.

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That's where the Gentiles live. Even the coastlands will wait for His law. Speaking about the expansion of the kingdom after Pentecost when the gospel went into the world and people all over the world, known world, began to embrace

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Jesus as their King. And thus says God the Lord who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread forth the earth which comes upon it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk on it.

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I the Lord, He's talking to the Son now, have called you in righteousness and will hold your hand.

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See, the God the Father, you know, back in the covenant of redemption that Spurgeon was describing, God the

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Father said I will help you, Son, in accomplishing this. And here in Isaiah 42, I will keep you and hold your hand.

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Keep you and give you as a covenant to the people. What's being declared? The Father is saying to the

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Son, the promised Son, I will cause you to be a covenant for the people. Jesus Christ is the basis of our relationship with God.

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Not Ten Commandments, not a law, but the Son, Christ, the serpent.

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And of course, the night our Lord was betrayed, He took that cup, gave it to His disciples, drank this cup, all of it, for in this cup is a new covenant in my blood.

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Jesus Christ Himself is the covenant, the basis of our relating with the

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Holy God, even as sinners. Christ came as the prophet, priest, and king.

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But when He saves us, He causes us to be seated in heavenly places with Him. He makes us to be kings as well.

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And we're priests before God. And we're prophets also in telling forth the word of God within God's kingdom.

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And so we serve under our Lord Jesus Christ, the faithful son over against Israel, who had been the unfaithful son.

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And so Jesus Christ has won back that which was lost to Adam.

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Last word. Again, the entire Bible reveals to us there is only one who could keep

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God's law that God imposed upon His creation. It's imposed upon you. The covenant of works did not come to an end when

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Adam failed in sin. The covenant of works is still in force. And every person born into this world relates to God the

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Creator based upon the covenant of works. They're damned. Everyone needs salvation. But the only way of salvation is

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Jesus Christ. I am the way and the truth and the life He declared. And no one comes unto the

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Father except through me. And so He is the

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Savior and it's a covenant of grace. Salvation is not based upon what you do.

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Salvation is based upon what Jesus Christ did, thankfully. And so when we embrace that, you can trust that, you can be at peace in that.

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And then He'll give you the Holy Spirit when you need Him, you know, to obey Him and resist and fight temptation, thankfully.

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But He has purposed to bring you into His heavenly rest. And He is a faithful shepherd who starts out with a hundred sheep and He doesn't end up with ninety -nine.

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He's going to bring you two, isn't He? If you're in that covenant relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

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Amen? I wish we could have covered it all, but we've got the substance of it.

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Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for Your Word and for the blessing and assurance of our salvation because it doesn't rest upon our shoulders, but rather was born by our

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who stands even now making intercession before You, our

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Father, on our behalf. And so even in our weakness, even in our failings and failures,

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He is a faithful high priest, is praying to You and bestowing the Spirit upon us to enable us to be recovered and to once again walk in that path toward our glorious rest that stands before us.

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Help us, our Lord, to be faithful to the Lord Jesus. Help us to hold forth Him, our

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God, and have our trust and hope solely in Him. For it's in His name we pray.