The Covenant of Works?

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the

Apostle Paul said, But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered -down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you.

By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes, as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her

King. Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth. Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. It is finally a

Tuesday, and finally we have Tuesday Guy back. Welcome back. Yay, yay for me. Purgatory. How was it?

How was Tuesday Purgatory for the Tuesday Guy? It was, it was terrible. I suffered mightily. Hebrews 1, it talks about purgatory.

Did you know that? Jesus purged our sins. That's the only purging

I know of in the Bible. Did you preach it that way? Did you say the purgatory? I probably said, you know, if you look at purge, when you think of the word purge, what goes through your mind?

Is there a longer word that has that root in it, purgatory? We don't need any purgatory since Hebrews 1, 1 to 3 is in the text.

See, you know me. I probably would have used that just as an opportunity to just like go on a 10 minute dissertation about purgatory.

Well, what's happened over the years, I think that like the last seven, last six chapters of Hebrews, I think

I went at a good pace, not a lot of systematic theology, you know, deviations. But the first six chapters, the first 13 chapters, first seven chapters,

I think I did too many of those. So now I'm working through a second Peter in advance. And so I think

I could do second Peter in like nine messages, right? I'm just faster pace, moving quickly.

So I can't do those rabbit trails like I used to do. Well, some rabbit trails are necessary, others, you know, maybe not so much.

Well, I was even looking at scripture and Paul, he will go off on rabbit trails as they were.

I mean, divinely inspired when he starts talking about, he's thinking, oh, well, let's think of the family in Ephesians five and the husbands love and the wives submit.

He does do that divine rabbit trail for like 10 verses. And then he says, well, you know what, let's get back to it in verse 33, husbands love your wives, wives respect your husbands.

So that's a divine rabbit trail. Indeed. You know, when we were taking classes, theology classes, we, when

I was at school, and maybe you did the same thing, we tried to get the professor on rabbit trails because those seemed to be the most interesting, or at least they would break things up.

Yeah. The problem with those, of course, is a rabbit trail was never going to be on an exam.

And I was like, I was pretty exam focused in those days. Well, we try to get certain professors to even say something bad about a

Benny Hinn and we couldn't get him to do that because he was such a generous guy. Oh, really?

I think I know. Yeah. I do know. Yeah. He was, he was, he was gracious. I mean, you know, talked about him before, loved him.

And his writing was, once you got used to what he was doing, you know, you could read behind the, read behind the words and go, okay,

I know what he's talking about. Yep. Well, to be fair, he did say you shouldn't listen to this guy or follow him.

Right. He definitely didn't say anything bad about his person. No. He was gracious, gracious, gracious, gracious man.

Interesting. I was reading Second Peter today, this morning, and some of the things

Peter says about those false teachers, I know. I think several people would get kicked out of their ministries today because I don't think some of those words have ever gone through the minds of the congregation, let alone putting them on a

PowerPoint. Not too loving, Pastor. By the way, since our internet doesn't work too well, the wifi around here,

I'm having a hard time uploading my PowerPoints to the sound room and stuff. Yeah.

That is a problem. What about the film clips? Are those going through? No. No, but I'm on a crash diet this week for several reasons.

One, Shepherd's Conference is coming up, and so I want to make sure I can fit into all my clothes.

Two, I saw the new high -def cameras at Bethlehem Bible Church that people who are listening can watch the videos.

And the straight -on camera, we have two new cameras, the straight -on camera looks fine, no problem.

The side camera shows somebody's gut and it's not yours. And I'm like,

I cannot have that. Even if the shirt was not tucked in tightly, it's still like, okay, something's got to be done.

Yeah, that high -def camera, I mean, it shows my face like a roadmap. I'm like, I need some makeup or something.

It's just like... Yeah, from Scripture reading. So Steve, you have a home group on Friday nights, and of course with all the

COVID stuff and everything else, I mean, probably some people who are listening to us, they meet live, some are

Zoom, some don't meet at all or whatever. And you've tried to pick some topics these days that are fairly spicy.

And so tell me what you're teaching at your home group now. Well, we're going to be... A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the

Noahic Covenant because I just thought, it's interesting to me because when you think about the

Noahic Covenant, what do you think about? I mean, for me, all I thought it was rainbows, right?

Which is good. Right. But I mean, it really is God's promise to mankind and to the animal realm and everything else that he's going to preserve things the way they are until his

Son comes back and sets things right. But, you know, I mean,

I don't want to do that whole thing, but it was just kind of interesting the things that are in it that we don't normally talk about.

So I did one on that. And then tonight, we're going to be talking about the Covenant of Works, which again,

I think is something that we don't, you know, going back to Genesis 2, we talk about the fall of Adam.

You know, maybe we talk about a probationary period of Adam or these kind of things, but Covenant of Works is not something we typically talk about.

And I think people will be like, what's Covenant of Works, right? So... I think our background lends itself for us to understand where people are coming from.

There are certain topics in the Bible that maybe don't have a word for them.

I guess, you know, the easy one is Trinity, right? We don't see the word Trinity anywhere in the

Bible. Actually, we don't see any English words in the Bible. As odd as that is,

I used to like to do that to the Jehovah's Witnesses. The word Trinity is not in the Bible. And I would look at them and say, oh, and did you know the word

Bible is not in the Bible, nor any English word? And so there are theological concepts that,

I mean, and even the Bible does this, right? If I say blood, then that should tell me, well, here's in the context of redemption, and therefore, it's not just the blood of Jesus and hemoglobin and other things, it's a word that summarizes his substituentary death, including blood, right, a metonym.

And now we have other theological words like the covenant of works that you can't search for in the back of your concordance or in your concordance.

But we see this is a covenant, and it does have to do with the works and doing things.

And therefore, I don't think our listeners should have any problem with the theological concept of the covenant of works, even if they want to call it a covenant of creation or something else.

But when they read a book by some reformers, and they go, oh, they're using covenant of works, we want them to know what it means.

I agree. Okay. So, when you do your Bible study, your home group, you have some quiz formats regularly.

That's a good format. Why do you do that? I learned.

Well, besides that, what's the benefit of it? Well, the benefit is it keeps kind of, well, it keeps people interested.

First of all, nobody likes to be, it's funny, because even if you think, I don't know anything about this topic, you don't want to be wrong, right?

Isn't that true? Right? It's so true. And when you look at your true and false statements, we've all been taught in school, if anything's false, then the entire thing's false.

Right. Right. But to be true, it all has to be true. Right. So, sometimes I get a little tricky, you know, like I didn't, I don't remember what the question was, but the

Noahic covenant, everybody's like, they said true, and I go, oh, but this one little thing here, it's false.

So, that whole thing is false. You know what? I should have come to your home group or tuned in. I didn't think it was on the Noahic covenant.

I thought it was on euthetic covenant. Jay Adams, may peace be upon him.

I know. He's in glory now, and lots of good things. And thankful to be there.

Yeah. Okay. So, we've got a Q &A on covenant of works and covenant of grace. How do you, how do you want today's show to go?

What would help you? I want it to go well. How about, how about I'll just, I'll just, I'll just ask you a question and you can answer it.

Okay. Well, I have this, I have this stuff in front of me. Yeah, but you know, no cheating. Okay. I'll just try to put my message

Bible over it. Okay. Oh yeah. Sure. We can use some message moments. Okay.

Number one, true or false, Bethlehem Bible Church teaches the covenant of works. That's a good question. It is a good question.

You know what? I hope I know the answer to this because what

I like, first of all, and we can turn this into of course more than one show, but if it's, we make up our own statement of faith or if it's whatever

I say as the pastor goes, then I think people have to scramble, right?

You have to go, well, I don't want to contradict Mike. And the people are like, you know, Sunday school teachers and other home group leaders.

Well, what does Mike say on this topic? The good news is it doesn't say here, what does, you know, what the pastor says goes.

It's like, what does the Bible, what does BBC teach, right? So that lends itself to a confession or a creed or sometimes a statement of faith.

What does the church teach? And I know this is a long answer to your question, Steve, but that doesn't restrict.

It gives freedom, right? The people can teach. You can teach whatever you want and as long as it goes with the statement of faith, we're set.

So I like that. Right. That's good. Yeah. True or false, BBC teaches a covenant of works. The answer is true.

We do teach covenant of works. Yes. I know. I knew that answer, but I wanted to just - It was just, your last sermon was filled with it.

Well, okay, that's not true. A week ago on Tuesday, which seemed like 10 minutes ago for us, we talked about teaching fifth graders or eighth graders or 12th graders important theological concepts and Machen was good at that.

How would we tell young people, this is the covenant of works, just something simple.

Young kids. We're teaching high school group, junior high group. Good question.

Would it be something like, I mean, I caught you off guard because you're looking forward to some of those quotes there. A covenant of works is simply you've got

Adam. He was in the garden and God created him and therefore he's the creature Adam is and he's supposed to obey.

And if he would have obeyed God, no matter what God would have asked for, and we know some of the things he said are to do or not to do,

Adam would have been in good shape. Yes. Right? We might not know about how long a probationary period might've been.

We don't know about any of that, but there'd be no reason for God to say, be away from my presence.

I banished to hell, kicked out of the garden if you obey me. Right? So when I think of covenant of works,

I'm thinking about humans working, doing, keeping the law in order for them to respond rightly to a creator.

Is that a good place to start? I think it's a great place to start. But I mean, typically when we think about it, it's like, okay, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Right? I mean, that is the one kind of focal point, but that misses a lot of it.

And, you know, things like this, in that, even in that context,

God created man in his own image. Well, what does that mean? It means right away that man has,

I mean, we tend to think, well, he has a, man has a rational nature. You know, he's able to take the transitory attributes and, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

But how about this? The fact that we're created in God's image obligates us to be imitators of God.

Yeah. That is so true. Steve, as you were talking about that, I thought of a

Bible passage that would illustrate the covenant of works. And we're not talking about, are we still under a formal covenant of works now or this, that, or the other, but just, you know, obey

God and you're in good shape. And behold, a lawyer stood up to test Jesus, teacher, what shall

I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, what is written in the law? How do you read it?

And he answered, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

And he said to him, you have answered it correctly. And Jesus said, and here's the covenant of works, do this and live and you will live.

And see that it's so good when we think, you know, here, here's, I mean, this isn't,

I guess this could be in my quiz, maybe it should be. Was, you know, was

Adam obligated to obey the 10 commandments? True or false?

Adam, I could put it that way. Adam was obligated to obey the 10 commandments. Well, I think the answer has to be true because whatever verbal communication

God gave revelation to do things, but he also, on his conscience, he knew what

God's moral law was as a created being. Exactly. You know, so, so the idea of murder, you know, all these lust, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, not committing idolatry, these things are all in man's heart from the beginning.

God put it there. So, he's got a conscience. He knows what he, let's put it this way, what he ought to do, right?

And the fact that he then falls by partaking of the fruit is kind of a,

I mean, that's an after the fact, right? I mean, it's like MacArthur says, you don't fall out of the tree without climbing up first.

Well, you don't partake of the tree without, without falling first. Adam had already decided that God was wrong, right, when he, when he does that.

But anyway, we're going somewhere else here now. That's okay. We're still talking about the covenant of works here at No Compromise Radio.

Steve, before we read what our confession teaches that you've got here in your notes, which I like, this is the message

Bible. Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life? What is written in God's law?

How do you interpret it? That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.

Jesus said, good answer. Do it and you will live. Looking for a loophole, he asked, and just how should, would you define neighbor?

And some of it's not bad. Some of it's bad, but the whole thing is to do. Yeah. I thought

I was doing pretty well until he said muscle, then I go, okay, I'm smoked. My muscle doesn't love.

Now, before we read the London Baptist Confession or any other quote that you've got here, Reformation study Bible. It's interesting when

I think of the covenant of works, Steve, this principle that I need to obey God's law in order to be right with God.

And of course this is all leading to, we can't do it right. I think of Romans 2, 13 and Romans 2, 13 says the doers of the law shall be justified.

And of course it's not in chapter six, it's in chapter two, six and seven is sanctification. Chapter two, he's trying to show people the law so they realize they need a savior.

So if you'd like to be good while you're not like the pagans in chapter one, if you're a doer of the law, you'll be justified.

That's the covenant of works. Piece of cake. Just go ahead and do it. I know. And I can't believe how many people take

Romans 2, 13 and jam it into sanctification. By the way, if you want to be justified, you have to have enough works to show that you are.

And actually John Calvin said that if that's your interpretation, that's

Roman Catholic and that children should laugh at you. That's a good quote, right?

So Steve, when I was younger, I'd always go to a certain Bible translation that might be new and I'd say, well, how do they translate

Isaiah 7, 14 or 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture which is inspired versus all scripture is inspired.

What are the weasel things? So now for commentaries in Romans, I just go to Romans 2, 13 and double check to see how weasely they are.

Except S. Lewis Johnson's, I used his old data and I think he was wrong with that. So what's the

London Baptist Confession say about the covenant of works? The covenant of works being broken by sin and made unprofitable unto life.

God was pleased to give forth the promise of Christ, the seed of the woman as the means of calling the elect and be getting them in faith and repentance.

In this promise, the gospel as to the substance of it was revealed and is therefore effectual for the conversion and salvation of sinners.

Okay, good. So there's lots there and the confession in 20 .1, but it says the covenant of works was broken by sin.

So your point is we actually teach the covenant of works because it was broken. Right. Now, to be fair, the 1689 is not as, doesn't talk about the covenant of works as much as the

Westminster Confession of Faith. It's not as explicit in there, you're right. But I actually think London Baptist Confession might be more explicit in active obedience than the

Westminster Confession of Faith. Yes, yes it is. Isn't that interesting? Yeah, it is. I have that book, Steve, The Harmony of the

Confessions by Beakey and Ferguson. It doesn't have the Baptist stuff in there, but that's very helpful to have columns like with the

Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Harmony of the Confessions because you pull up justification and there it's

Helvetic, it's all the other things. That's helpful. Yeah, I might need that. Uh -huh. It's worth it. A little pricey,

I think, but that's excellent for our listeners. $2 ,000. I know. So Steve, let's, you probably get into this later, but for the sake of time, at least for today, tell me about Jesus.

Was he under the covenant of works? Was it a covenant of works principle? Tell me what was going on there.

Yeah, well, in fact, I have, you know, true or false. Oh, you do? I didn't see that. True or false, number seven, true or false,

Jesus lived his life under the covenant of grace. Oh, okay. Good. Well, I would answer that no.

False. It is false. But I mean, you know, we want to, I think it's going to be hard for people to figure out because we don't talk about covenants probably enough.

But the reason why is, what's the reason it's false? What's the most obvious reason that Jesus didn't live his life?

And I mean, we live under the covenant of grace, right? Well, I would say Jesus doesn't need grace.

Yeah. Because he has no demerited favor, right? It's just like, if we go back to the, to the fall, was there grace?

You know, this is an argument with non -covenant theologians. Oh, there's grace before the fall. Well, in the sense that God is gracious, right?

That's part of his, who he is. But there needed to be no grace exercised because there was none needed, right?

It's not really part of who he is. Sorry, I stand corrected. I stand corrected.

That's good. No, no, that's very important. That's right. No parts or passions.

That's what I teach. I just, I need an editor. Well, so back to the point,

Jesus, he was under the law. And so he was born of a woman, Galatians chapter four, born under law, not for his own righteousness because he already was righteous, right?

His life was for us. His death was for us. His resurrection proved that.

And therefore, if somebody asked me, is Jesus under a covenant of grace? The answer is no, he's under the covenant of works.

He needs no grace. He's the law keeper in our place. Good. I like this quote from the

Reformation Study Bible. Only one human being has ever kept the covenant of works.

That person was Jesus. His work as the second or new Adam fulfilled all the terms of our original covenant with God.

His merit in achieving this is available to all who put their trust in him. So good.

Steve, in the time we have left, let's just talk to our friends who maybe are dispensational. Maybe they're not reformed.

Maybe they don't like the terminology covenant of works, and they might disagree with Hebrews six, excuse me,

Hosea six, seven, or something like that. But don't they really believe this anyway, even if we don't use this term covenant of works?

Well, I think they do because, you know, if we come to first Corinthians 15 and we talk about the last

Adam, well, what does that mean? Why is Jesus the last Adam? And obviously it has reference to the first Adam.

So he essentially is, you know, Adam was the first,

I mean, this would be wrong thinking, but I'm going to kind of clean it up here in a second. Adam was the first one in the game, right?

And he failed. And so the substitute is Jesus. Jesus comes in and he succeeds.

And it's wrong because, you know, it's not like God changed players or changed his mind or something.

This was the plan from the beginning. That makes sense. And why I ask the question,

Steve, is because I regularly talk to some of my friends, some of my old schoolmates and others, and they'll say, we don't really believe in the covenant of redemption or of grace or of works.

And I would say to them, well, covenant of redemption, this promise with the Father and the Son witnessed by the

Spirit, you know, guys like John MacArthur say that's a covenant of redemption in his Titus one sermon.

And if you don't want to say covenant, was there a promise? What does it mean as you preach through John? He was sent.

He sent. He sent. An agreement. You know, I mean, you can frame it. Yeah. You can frame it however you want.

But if God determines, you know, within the triune Godhead, they determined to do something.

The persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Spirit determined to do something. Well, what is that? And, you know, can it be violated?

Is God going to fail in his promise essentially to himself? And the answer is a thousand times, you know, may genitoi, you know, may it never be.

It cannot happen. So I talk to dispensationalists and non -covenant theologians and say,

I think you do believe in a covenant of redemption. Just don't call it that, but just believe the essence of it. And I think the same thing is true for covenant of works.

Covenant of grace is harder and is it a republication? But I think for covenant of works, don't you think

Adam was in the garden? What if he did obey? And why is Jesus the last Adamant? And why does he obey?

If Herod would have killed him as a baby, the Lord Jesus, would that have affected salvation for you?

And so there's lots of ways to talk about it. I mean, we needed somebody to complete this covenant of works.

And you know, and I mean, that's part of the quiz too. You know, why is it still enforced today?

Because God's moral character does not change, right? His standard does not change.

He said to Adam, you know, basically be perfect. Just do what I tell you. And Adam didn't do that.

Well, somebody has to. And if it's not Jesus, then it has to be you and you can't do it, right?

Because you're fallen in Adam. So. Steve, I like what you said. We got 30 seconds to go. But I liked the idea of when you think of law, you have to tie that to God's character.

There's not an abstract kind of law floating out there. It's always tied into God's character and his nature and his holiness and therefore

God's holy. And he wants to be obeyed. And he is a law giver.

And so we believe in the covenant of works around here, don't we? Yes, we do. And we believe that Jesus fulfilled that and that all who believe in him have his righteousness imputed to them so that they can go into heaven.

Amen. No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston.

Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We're right on route 110 in West Boylston.

You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.