TiL- Reformed Covenant Theology p 7

Cling to the cross, then put both arms around it.

Hold to the crucified and never let him go. Come afresh to the cross at this moment and rest there now and forever.

Then with the power of God resting upon you, go forth and preach the cross.

Welcome to the Truth and Love Podcast. We are grateful to be back with you. And we have been joined, another co -host has joined the

Truth and Love Podcast. Welcome Claude Ramsey. We'll do a better introduction here in a second, but we're back in Reformed Covenant Theology part chapter number seven.

Stick with us. Okay, finally, we're back.

How's it going, brothers? Uh -oh. Maybe when we get our glorified bodies, we'll look as cool as the avatars that you had for us on the intro.

One can only hope. Let me tell you what I typed into AI to get those pictures.

I typed in muscular bald man with dark beard from the 1920s.

Oh, it turned out pretty good. You look good, Dan. Yeah, got to somewhere.

Well, we are happy on the Truth and Love Podcast to be joined by Claude Ramsey. He is gonna be joining us as a co -host, hopefully for a good while, but we appreciate him being with us on Monday night.

And we are gonna continue our talk in Reformed Covenant Theology by Harrison Perkins. Before we get started,

I wanted to share with these guys, and I wanted to share with you a little bit about my experience from this weekend from my church.

Several men went to a neighboring church to a men's conference, and the conference was on purity, abstaining from sexual immorality, along those lines.

And it was a really good conference. The teacher, really great.

I would take every bit of his advice. I wouldn't put aside any of it, but as I was, of course, listening to everything that he was saying,

I couldn't help but think through all those things, through the eyes and mind of this covenant theology that we've been working through.

And so I was filtering everything through that. And we talked about, from the beginning, you have the covenant of works that God made with Adam, and Adam messed it all up, brought sin into the world.

And so therefore, God brought the covenant of grace, which was his son coming to redeem mankind.

And all this is part of the covenant of redemption where God makes a covenant, the

Trinity makes a covenant within themselves to redeem mankind. And so since man couldn't do it,

I mean, here was the key that I was holding onto. Since man couldn't do it, God had to do it.

And God made this covenant amongst himself so that he could show off his grace, his loving kindness, his redemption, his forgiveness to his elect.

And so as I'm listening to this teaching, and it was beautiful teaching, it was really good.

Like I said, I would share all of his advice, but here's the motivation, and I'm guilty of it.

And you guys can chime in and tell me your thoughts on my conclusion. But I'm guilty of it.

So many of us are guilty of it, but here's where we start normally in our trying to persuade people.

Here's your motivation for listening and applying this teaching. So if you're obedient to God and you remain pure and you don't fall into sexual immorality, then there's blessing, there's success.

But if you fall into sexual immorality and you're not pure, especially if you, and of course the most recent example, he didn't use any names, but many of us knew he was talking about the most recent example of a pastor, 70 some years old falling because of sexual immorality.

You have all this ministry, all this good ministry built up, and now everything has been taken down because of sexual immorality.

And so your kingdom will fall. Everything will come crashing down.

You'll lose it all, especially if you've worked so hard in ministry and trying to lead others to Christ.

And I'm like, I feel like we're still missing the main point if that's our motivation, because I don't want my motivation to be that my kingdom doesn't fall, that my ministry, ultimately, primarily, that my ministry doesn't fall or that my ministry is successful.

I don't want to remain pure so that my ministry will be successful. I was reflecting on God's word, where he says, my word will not return to me void.

So there's this idea that God's word, primarily, we were going through Proverbs chapter seven, and it was reminded to us that God's word is a protection for us.

God's word is a sanctifier for us, but primarily and ultimately, God's word is not for us, it's going to return to him.

And if you think about the passage where it's the word that washes the bride, but the bride is ultimately given over as a gift to the father.

So the word does its work, and yes, we receive a blessing from it.

We receive fruit from the word, but it's ultimately going back to the father and blessing him.

It's not about my satisfaction, it's about his satisfaction. And so my obedience in this area of purity, sexual immorality or whatever other teaching that we're listening to,

I felt like that's maybe the better place to start.

That my motivation is to glorify God, because his word is not primarily about my happiness or about my satisfaction, but it's about his.

And so therefore when he is satisfied, I'll receive the fruits from that. Does that make sense to you guys?

It does, it does. In fact, I just preached on this yesterday, as we found out Sunday was yesterday.

I forgot about that. But 1 Peter 4, starting with verse seven, says the end of all things is at hand, talking about we're all on a collision course with the judgment seat of Christ.

And it says, therefore be of sound thinking, sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. You need to be of sound minds for the purpose of your prayer, your relationship with God.

Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another because love covers a multitude of sins.

We love one another, we let things go between each other, we forgive each other. Verse nine, be hospitable to one another without grumbling.

These are all things that we do now. Look at what happens at the end of it. These are things we're called to do and be as Christians.

Verse 10, as each one has received a gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God for whoever speaks is one speaking the oracles of God.

Whoever serves is one serving by the strength which God supplies. So that you're doing all these things, you're trying to remain pure, you're trying to love your neighbor, you're trying to do all the things that God says so that, where'd

I go? So that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and might forever and ever.

Because what happens is when we show ourselves to be faithful to what God is saying and what he has done in us to the redemption that he's brought to us, what we're doing is saying,

Christ has conquered me. He has planted the flag in me saying, here,

I'm gonna do something great and awesome. I'm gonna do it in this individual. So as we respond and we do things that are positive and right, we do maintain purity.

We look out for each other. We pray for one another. We serve our neighbor the best way that we can. We do keep our ministry free from sin.

We do it all so that God can get the glory in the end because that is God showing his grace in us as we go out through our daily lives.

Amen. Sounds very similar to question and answer one to the

Westminster, right? What is the chief end of man? Glorify God and enjoy him forever.

Enjoy him forever. And do you think that order is purposeful?

Glorify him, number one, and then enjoy him forever. That's right. That's right.

Let me read the passage that the chapter opens up with chapter seven in the book.

It says, for even the son of man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom from any mark, chapter 10, verse 45.

Chapter seven is the last Adam and his people. Dan, lead us off.

Sure. Well, first off, who was the first Adam? Adam.

Yeah. Now, and I ask that because I just got done with the class. You drank us.

No, I wasn't. But I just got done with this class yesterday. The class got over and the class was on origins.

And the very last paper I had to write was a defense of a historical Adam, because there are a lot of interpretations out there where Adam either wasn't a real guy or he was some sort of, what do they call him,

Homo heidelbergus or something, where he was before the

Neanderthal man. About 750 ,000 years ago in that God said, well, all right, at this point in redemption or this point in evolution,

I'm gonna make that the first. So he sectioned off a tribe and caused them to know

God. It was like, oh my goodness, what are y 'all gonna do when we get to Romans five? If we're looking at the second

Adam, then the first Adam needs to be a real guy created by God, exactly like you said, made from the dust of the ground.

So I wasn't trying to get y 'all, I'm just saying it was important. Yeah, I got y 'all choked up over there.

That was sarcasm that I was using. You all said

I'm here for entertainment purposes. So I'm just. It makes no sense to,

Dana, we were talking about a couple of episodes ago, we were talking about defense of young earth creation.

And then you have all these different theories of how God created things. Well, if you have Adam before the fall, before the fall, it makes absolutely no sense according to scripture.

I can't understand how a Christian can believe that man was before the fall.

Man had to be before the fall, but I think we know what you're trying to say. Yeah, you know what I'm trying to say. You know what

I'm trying to say. Right, if man had died before the fall.

Yeah, that's right. There was no death before the fall, but there was death and death came through Adam and Adam's sin.

And that's kind of what the chapter is getting at. Because we had our first representative, Adam, who was made by God, put in the garden, called to tend it and take care of it, to be fruitful, fill the earth, multiply, to eat of all the trees of the garden, except for that one right over there.

And then since he disobeyed God, ate of the tree and fell, now what? And so he's done a lot in the previous chapters talking about, well, what has

God done as he's planned this out? You know, what of redemption? What's coming?

You know, the inner workings of the Trinity, as much as we can peer into those, because we can't obviously know anything other than what's revealed to us.

So when we come to this chapter, he likens, not just him, but the

Bible, theologians throughout the whole of church history, liken Christ to the last

Adam. So as we were made human in the first Adam, and then we fell into sin, we're now made into a new humanity in Christ, perfect and sinless throughout all eternity.

My head hurt after that one. But let me ask you this question. And I'll jump in here too.

This is just on the next page. And this question comes from me wrestling with this question and I'm sure many others like us hopefully have wrestled with this question.

But it says David Dixon's speech at the Scottish General Assembly in 1638 was the first occurrence of the term covenant of redemption.

The Westminster Assembly began its work in 1642, shortly after the term first appeared. So we're speaking of, we're teaching on, talking about believing in a covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace.

But here he's kind of giving us a confessional history of the term.

And so we want to rely primarily on scripture when we're studying to get our theology, understanding of God.

And we have these conversations all the time, especially in eschatology right now, it's popular. Who has the oldest?

You know, eschatology is historic, pre -male, dispensational, pre -trib, post -millennialism.

You know, which one is the oldest? And is that credible because one's newer?

How do you wrestle with that? You know, here he's confessing that this term wasn't used until 1638, but we're saying it's a biblical term.

And maybe the, not a complete history of this in particular, but a defense on how do we wrestle with that?

I think he was directing it to you,

Dan. Either one, either one. I was waiting for the, he kind of abruptly ended the question.

I didn't know if there was more. Yeah, we have terms that pop up all the time.

Terms just start when people start using them. So what he does is he goes to show that the term was first used in 1638.

And I think he does that because the name of the book is Reformed Covenant Theology. So he's trying not to only give a biblical defense, but also a traditional defense as well.

So this is what we have believed, and here's why. So when he says it was in 1638, he notes that to say it was just before the

Westminster Assembly came together. So you do see the idea sprinkled all throughout the

Westminster Confession, the shorter, larger catechism, the larger catechism, iffy a little bit.

But it's still there. The idea is still there. Even if the term might not necessarily be there as much as other terms are there.

But then he goes on further to talk about different folks, I believe it was Irenaeus and some other folks who, while they didn't use the term

Covenant of Redemption, talked about the inter -Trinitarian covenant between the members of the

Godhead before the foundation of the earth. And that's really what he was trying to get at, was to show that just because the term wasn't coined until the 1600s, doesn't mean that the idea wasn't in Scripture and throughout church history already present.

So we see where things that talk about Christ being the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, a plan that worked itself out in eternity past, different things, you know, through the

Psalms and different places, where you see

God working out salvation from, like, this was his plan. This wasn't a plan B. It's not like he caught him off guard and he had to react to it.

He was, he planned this out from the get -go. And that's what the Covenant of Redemption is really trying to get at with that term, that God has planned out salvation, how it's going to work, how it's going to end, and, you know, is it gonna be efficient, sufficient?

Now, how's it gonna work out? God worked it out and he did it then, and we call that the Covenant of Redemption because it wasn't just one person of the

Trinity. It was all three of them working to, still weird to say, it was the triunity of God working together for the one purpose of God in the salvation of mankind.

So that's why he brought it up, that the term wasn't around until the mid 1600s.

For the audio people only, let me read the question. What would y 'all say to the thought process that oldest system doesn't mean that much because even the churches the apostle

Paul planted found themselves in grievous error before the end of the canon?

Mr. Troy, I'll put that question. Go ahead,

Claude, I've been talking a lot. It's okay, I'm, like the thing says,

I'm the third wheel. I'm just glad to be here, y 'all. We're glad to have you. But again, to that, so to direct back to Troy's question there, what would y 'all say to the thought process that the oldest system doesn't mean that much?

Again, I think that what Dan said here, right at the beginning here and actually even before we went on air,

Dan talked about how that the book is really going through this, the understanding of covenant theology from a biblical theology perspective as opposed to a systematic theology perspective.

So we see the overall aim and focus of God's covenants and how they relate to man.

So to say that the oldest is the best or the newest is the best is,

I think, deviating in a very real sense from just the biblical theology that the focus of this chapter seems to be.

And again, I'm coming in directly, this is my first chapter in this book with you all, but what

I'm seeing is that in understanding the idea, good evening,

Josh, the idea and the overarching theme of the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation is redemption.

And that had to be the foundation. That's the covenant of redemption, right?

That's what that foundation is. That's that umbrella that arcs over the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

That is the covenant of redemption that everything stems and comes from.

So what Troy said is absolutely correct there because even New Testament churches found themselves in error over matters of covenant theology, right?

Because there was always trying to be a blending of the two covenants there, so. Yeah, go ahead.

I would add on to that, that the oldness, oldness, is that a thing?

Anyway, how old a system of doctrine is, is a good indication of whether or not, let me take that back or reword it a little bit.

If something finds its way all the way back in church history, it's a good thing to take seriously as you look into it.

Obviously things that just, there was no recording of it for the first 1 ,600 years of the church, probably shouldn't put a lot of credence to it.

But if it goes all the way back, you should at least look into it. But we don't look into it based on the history itself.

If it doesn't have an exegetical basis in the text of scripture, the historicity of the system or the doctrine doesn't really matter all that much.

If it's not rooted and grounded in the word of not, it being historical, we know that the

Holy Spirit leads his church in all truth. So you're going to see the truth taught throughout church history, but it's gotta have that basis in the exegesis of the text.

And it's gotta be found there first before it can be found throughout history.

And it seems like the test for that would be, if you're gonna use old as an argument, then it needs to still be legitimate today.

And so that would kind of be thrown in what you're talking about,

Dan. So it has been tested. People have looked into scripture based on that.

So just using the word old or just because of its age doesn't necessarily mean it's scriptural, but if it's scriptural and still has legitimacy today, it's because it's been tested by scripture.

Right, Gnosticism is old, but we shouldn't be Gnostics. Right. But the Trinity is also old and we should be

Trinitarian because it's found in the word of God. Yeah. It comes to discernment and discernment based on the standard of the scriptures.

Ready for you to take us to our next. Sounds good. Where were we? Yeah. So let's get into this theme of the last

Adam. He starts picking up the theme of the last

Adam so that way we can start to understand what's going on in the scriptures. He picks it up in the gospels.

Well, actually in first Corinthians, but he picks up in the gospels, I would say. That's the first thing

I wrote down. I don't know what it was that he wrote down. It's the first note that I took was that he put something in the gospels.

But what was interesting about it was that he brought up the fact that the gospels kind of, they don't just record

Christ's redemption in his passion, burial and resurrection.

He also records Christ's redemption as he secured righteousness for us through his active obedience, which

I thought was a really good point to bring up because it's not just the fact that he was sinless and then died.

It was the fact that he was actively righteous throughout his life, doing the things that we did not do.

And he contrasts that with our first Adam. The first Adam who being given everything created by God, dust of the ground, here's everything you need to succeed and he fell into sin.

Now here's the second Adam. Here's people trying to kill you from your birth. Here is a governmental system that's not great.

Here are some whiny people who don't like water and they'd rather have some wine. You know, there's a whole bunch of stuff.

Here's the blessing of God upon him as he was baptized and then came up the

Holy Spirit. This is my son to whom I am well pleased. And then where Adam was tempted in the garden by Satan and fell,

Christ was tempted by Satan in the wilderness and he succeeded.

He didn't fall. Where Adam fell, Christ did not. So where Adam was a bad man,

I don't know, bad humanity, humanity gone wrong, Christ is at redemption of humanity going forward.

I thought that was an incredible point to make. What do y 'all think about that? It reminds me of this quote that I was just looking at.

He says, this is from Perkins. So the covenant of redemption clarifies Christ's work precisely and how he succeeded where Adam failed and earned citizenship in the new creation for those whom the father gave to him.

I like it. Yeah. In relationship to what you were talking about too, and you may have wanted to get to this later on, but I have a hard time understanding as well, those folks who have a hard time justifying penal substitutionary atonement.

How can you not? But then just like you were talking about, I think we sometimes are also guilty of leaving out that part that what you're talking about of Christ's redemptive work.

We lay a big emphasis on penal substitutionary atonement, Christ taking our place on the cross and we don't emphasize enough his righteousness, his obedience to the father, the life that he lived.

Just looking back over my lifetime, and I think that the case more times than not, that we emphasize this, which is good, we should, but we fail to emphasize his life, the righteousness that he earned where he pleased the father and also gives to us.

Yeah, how do you put that? You put it as, the gospels are not just long introductions that lead to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

Like the long introduction means something. What were you gonna say,

Claude? I was just gonna say that in relation to the doctrines of the passive obedience of Christ and the active obedience of Christ, I think that has been over the years, one of the lesser details of the gospel that have been left out by many preachers of the gospel.

It's like a vehicle, right? Nobody, we don't think about it. We get in the car, we push a button, we hit the gas, we hit the brake and we go right until we're out of gas, but then we got a lot that tells that, not how the engine works.

And it's the same, it's that very same concept when it comes to the active and the passive obedience of Christ.

Very few people are concerned about the inner workings of salvation, right?

And again, this is not something that someone has to be able to articulate before they can have a valid profession of faith, but it is something very much that strengthens the believer, that aids the believer in appreciating and loving

God for what he has done in sending his son and in appreciating the son of God who did these things for us, right?

And appreciating the Holy Spirit who applies this work of Christ to the elect of God.

So it comes down to that. It's just, it's something that folks think they don't need to know, but once they know it, it's like, man,

I wish I would have known that 25 years ago. Man, I thought

I was happy in the Lord then, but now, man, this is even better. Yeah, and even that active obedience of Christ, in and of itself, that has its own depths that we could dig out those treasures.

But even more than that, I think this is also part of it, and he brings it out in this chapter, how

I think he uses the word recapitulates. I keep hoping

I use that word correctly, that here was Adam's life.

This is what he did, and this is where he fell. And in Christ, he followed that same pattern, but was successful.

But you see that all throughout the Old Testament as well, where here was Israel, here was

Israel, and then here was Christ, here was Christ. He's the better Israel. He went through the wilderness.

He was in. We are beginning to preach through acts at church, and in small group

Sunday, I couldn't help but think, wow, how deep could we go in acts when we're beginning to look at Pentecost, and we're looking at Mount Zion, and the 40 days and the 50 days.

What does that reflect in this recapitulation? The depths and the beauty of this, the treasures that we could find, it'd be amazing.

Dan, you mentioned the significance of the first Adam and the second Adam, and then

Rob just brought up recapitulation again. This is the scarlet thread of redemption that runs throughout the

Bible from beginning to end. It's a telling, starting in Genesis, a retelling, right, of the failure in the sin of Adam and the result of that, and then in the

New Testament. It's what makes the New Testament new. It's what makes the new covenant a better covenant, right, because it's based on better promises, by better sacrifice, so on and so forth, but it is that recapitulation, that retelling from different angles all over the place of the story of fall and redemption.

Sorry if I jumped ahead of anything there. I gotta get - No, you did good. I did wanna pose this to you guys too, because that small group and going through the beginning of Acts there made me think about this.

This come up, this was a, in one of our earlier episodes in this book, Dan, we were talking about how, what it would have looked like for Adam.

He was told to be obedient in these areas, and so if sin had not entered the picture,

God had a plan for him that was even better than the garden and he was, in his obedience, he could have worked towards that plan.

Christ did it. He did it successfully, and the transfigured, or the translation from, for him was the ascension, because we were trying to just imagine what it would have been like for Adam, you know, if he would have continued in perfect obedience, what that transition would have been like for him, that, and I can't recall -

What would have been like when he was Adam obedient, but not glorified or rewarded, versus what would

Adam have been like rewarded? Right, yeah. Really, what you're looking at, if you look at it through Christ, is

Christ before his glorification and afterwards.

What he purchased for us was redemption, and that redemption leads to a future glorification where obviously he never had sin, but we'll gain that, but also all of those other benefits where we're able to go before the throne of God, we're able to see into heaven and have a deeper relationship.

His body worked differently when he was glorified? Apparently anyway, I mean, I guess we don't really know.

It may have been divine working, or I don't know how he showed up in a room.

I don't know if that, I don't know how that worked, but there's something there to it where our bodies, our experience will be much more different, much more glorious, and much more able to enjoy the presence and glory of God.

Not to just enjoy it, but to show it. We'll be able to show it better. And this is an area where we can glory in Christ even more because we talk about his recapitulation.

He went through what Adam went through and was successful. And because he was successful, he was able to experience the reward that you're talking about, which

Adam did not. Right. And so we can glory in him because of his success. Yeah.

So this is a good time to bring up Romans 5, I believe, because it really digs down kind of into that contrast between the first Adam and the last

Adam. So y 'all got your Bibles. We could just kind of run through that for,

I don't know, the next 17 years or so. But we can try to knock it out in the next few minutes.

Just keep things moving. I don't know where we want to stop.

You get started in Romans, it's hard to quit. I mean, every line's a goldmine in there.

Anyway. Anyway. 512, sorry, 512.

All right, let me back up. I'm not gonna read it. But chapter five starts off, therefore,

I said I wasn't gonna read it, I'm going to. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our

Lord Jesus Christ. He's saying that we are justified or made right, declared righteous in the sight of God on the basis of faith.

With, in Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ has done upon the cross. So when he comes back into, then he goes on and he explains that a lot.

When he gets back into verse 12, he says, therefore, therefore, because of what

Christ has done, because of our being justified on the basis of faith, on the basis of what Christ has done for us, he says, therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin.

So just like Adam had death enter into the world through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sin, for unto the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespass of Adam.

So even if you didn't do exactly what Adam did, you still were a sinner too.

That's right. My wife had to tell the kids this the other day. Oh goodness, the weather's not that great here.

So my one light's flickering, we'll see what happens. She said, if you're on a team and one person commits a foul, the whole team gets penalized for it.

That's right. Yeah, that makes sense. So Adam represented us in the garden. Adam sinned for humanity.

So that means that now all of us have that sin on our plate.

And we all sin on our, and then she said, and then we all sin on our own even if we don't do it like he did.

That's right. It's like, man, that's good stuff, babe. Tell them kids. Yeah.

And that's what it's getting at here. Even if we hadn't sinned in the way that Adam did, we all have sin on us.

Who had not sinned in the likeness of the trespasser, who is a type of him who was to come. So Adam was a type, he was a forerunner, one who shows an aspect of who

Christ is, the one who was to come. So now you run into verse 15.

This is where it starts getting into the really, really good stuff. But the gracious gift, that'd be salvation through Jesus Christ by faith, is not like the transgression.

So it is, but it's not. It's like it like this. For if by the transgression of the one, many died, much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man,

Jesus Christ abound to the many. So here's the thing. If you are going to be held responsible for Adam's sin because we are human and we are, and that sin passed on to us, not only that it came with its own guilt, but that we want to sin and do sin too, just so Christ came to give life to mankind as well.

And for those who repent of their sins and trust in Christ, they find that redemption, that perfection that was in Christ given to them.

Because just as Christ was perfect in his active and passive obedience, he had righteousness not only as divine in heaven, but he came as a man upon the earth and was perfectly righteous there too.

That humanity is now passed on to all who are his. Just as the sin of Adam was passed on to all who are his, the righteousness of Christ is passed on to all who are his as well.

And that is just incredible. Amen. I mean, that's like, what did we do to deserve the righteousness of Christ?

Nothing. Nothing. That's right. Absolutely nothing. You say, well, it's not fair that I'll be blamed for Adam's sin.

Well, it's not fair that God would save you on the basis of Christ's righteousness either. That's right. But trust in Christ and believe in him, knowing that he will produce righteousness in you, just like the sin of Adam produced right or sin in you when you went off sinning.

Which is, by the way, first Peter says, that is times past. The time for sinning is over. Those things are going to be judged.

So please have everyone repent and believe in Christ Jesus today. Find that second Adam to be your savior.

You all say something and then we're going to go on to verse 16. Well, that goes back to verse one, believe.

Right. Believe. Because in believing, that's where you have peace with God.

Amen. So verse 16.

And the gift, which is salvation, is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

For on the one hand, judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

But on the other hand, the gracious gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

What does that mean? Let's get there. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who received the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one

Jesus Christ. It only took one sin for us to fall into sin completely.

But through Christ's righteousness, not just one sin is forgiven, but all sins are forgiven in Christ.

I was reading somewhere, I don't know, maybe it was this book, I forget. But he was talking about a difference between a principle and a penalty.

That there is a bit of sin that you have committed and then there's all the compoundings, the one that caused you to be guilty in the first place, that it requires eternal punishment for that sin and then all the other ones that come after it.

Yeah. Christ take care of all of them. Amen. Every single one of them.

There's not too much or too many that Christ's obedience and righteousness cannot wash away of your sin.

Amen. And this is why we look at this through, this was the plan of God throughout all of history.

This is why Adam was created. He knew what was gonna happen. He planned it out from eternity past and said, here's this guy,

Adam, but guess what? Here's Christ, he's so much better. This guy may bring death and sin, but this one, not just guy, this one.

Yeah, this man. When he spoke the world into existence is now bringing righteousness to men.

Amen. Much more than Adam ever did. So much better, so much cooler.

I don't know, cooler seems a little irreverent, but he is anyway. I don't know where we're gonna stop.

I knew that we had, I wanted to get to that portion today in Romans five.

What do y 'all gotta say? I got another question for you. Sure, go ahead. We'll let

Claude answer it. I'm on page 167 and of course we're looking at Adam and we're looking at Jesus, the last

Adam. And what was the temptation? The temptation that the serpent brought to Adam and Eve was to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.

You will know good and evil. You will be like God and you will know good and evil. The question

I had right there in that section that come out to me was for Adam, what was so tempting about knowledge?

Go ahead, Dan. I don't know as if that was his temptation.

And I take that from, think to 1 Timothy. 1

Timothy says that Paul does not allow a woman to teach or to hold authority over man.

Then he points back to the garden of Eden and Adam and Eve. And he says, because Eve was deceived, the day basically says that Adam went willingly.

I don't know if the knowledge was what was tempting Adam. I think that in Eve's deception,

I mean, I don't know what was running through his head, but it may have been that he wanted to be with her or he thought, well, if she's going down,

I'm going down with her, or maybe it was knowledge. But I really don't know what the temptation was.

But I do know this, for some reason, he thought that whatever he was thinking was smarter than what

God had told them. So maybe that is the knowledge that he thought he could make up and understand better than what

God was saying. Whatever the presenting circumstance was in his mind, he tried to step out and say something that it wasn't right because he was,

I don't know, he was missing the point. Yeah, let me tack on to what you're saying there too.

And I'll say this again. Yeah, make it make sense because I'm kind of fuzzy a little bit too. That there is a thread that runs throughout the scripture from beginning to end, right?

So the theme is this, there is a God and you ain't him.

Right, that's the thing, that God created the heavens and the earth,

God created everything, God created man. Adam, well, the scripture, just what the scripture said, right?

Going to Genesis 3, one, the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field the

Lord God had made. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree, right?

Called any question. The woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said that we should not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither should we touch it lest we die.

But the serpent said to the woman, oh, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

That was the actual train of thought. Eat it and you'll be like God, right?

We have that in the text of scripture. So Eve took the fruit, the scripture says, gave it to her husband.

There was no arguments. But with the concerning covenants, right?

And concerning the theme of first Adam, second Adam, there had to be a federal head or a figurehead, figurehead, federal head, however you want to phrase it there.

And that was Adam. And because like what you read to us, that smoking hot gospel that you read to us there, that Adam sinned.

And because of Adam's sin, there out of that flows the doctrine of election and reprobation.

Another two doctrines that nobody likes to talk about. The thing about election and reprobation is, election is all of God and reprobation is all of man.

The good news and the bad news is this, you don't have to try to be considered reprobate.

We're born sinners, reprobate rebels against the

Lord. But election, in that election, which ties to covenant, which brings us back into the theme and then

I'll hush after this, but brings us back into the theme of covenant.

Election is the working of God and God has chosen from the very beginning to work, whether they've been, as we started out tonight, whether they've been named, right?

Quote, unquote, covenant of works, covenant of redemption, covenant of grace, so on and so forth.

Whether they've been given a title, that is beginning to end in the scripture.

So to that, hopefully that was helpful there. Praise the

Lord. The connection that I was making with knowledge and this thing with Adam and Eve was, if you lack knowledge, you're always gonna be here underneath somebody.

And so if you gain knowledge, I guess in their case, the gaining of knowledge wouldn't have necessarily brought them above God, but it would have at least brought them, in their mind, equal with God.

That was the tie -in that I was bringing in with knowledge. If you're lacking in knowledge, you're always gonna be underneath somebody.

And it would have brought them here. And the saying, we've all heard the saying, ignorance is bliss.

Have we not all heard that saying? Ignorance is, have you heard that saying, Dan? Well, that's a lie.

Ignorance may be bliss until it kills you. And then, what are you gonna do, right?

There's no excuse for it. So this knowledge that they so sought after was, in fact, the knowledge of good and evil, where they only had the knowledge of God, which who is himself good to the core.

But what happened? They ate it. And again, another old adage, you need to be careful what you ask for.

Yeah. Because the moment they ate of that fruit, the scripture says their eyes were opened.

And all of a sudden, they knew. That word is key there, right?

Because that was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. They didn't have knowledge of evil, but now they had knowledge of evil.

And what was the first thing they realized when they had the knowledge? That they were naked.

That they were not all that they thought they were cracked up to be. Right? It's amazing when just the simplicity of those texts.

So I'm sorry, guys, I'll let you. No, but when ignorance is bliss, comes up to bite you, the next thing we say is hindsight is 20 -20.

That's it. And that's what happened. When you say ignorance comes up to bite you, it comes up to bite you in the hindsight.

Yeah, that's right. You knew what I was thinking. I don't know, mixing metaphors or not, that would seem to work.

That's a reasonable metaphor there. I like it. Man, I'm gonna write that one down.

But yeah, I had another thought. Maybe it'll come back to me.

But it's not coming quickly. I'll tell you that. Well, I will fill in while you're thinking.

There you go. Go team. First Corinthians 15, 20, right?

20, yeah. But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

So he was the first one to enter into the grave, first one to get up, the first one to enter into the grave, who was getting up for good, securing redemption.

So this is what that means. The first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.

For since by man came death, speaking of Adam, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

Whereas in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

But each in his order. Christ the first fruits after those who are, after that those who are

Christ at his coming. So what is the only reason that anyone would be raised up from the dead?

Christ. Amen. Those who are raised up to life will be raised up because Christ raised from the dead.

Those who are raised up to judgment will be raised up to judgment because Christ got out of the dead, came up from the grave after defeating sin, death and the devil, by putting death in his place.

So each one that's resurrected is resurrected on the basis of Christ's resurrection, either in holiness and righteousness with him or unto eternal judgment because he's defeated all of those things.

Amen. So just as in Adam, we die because of sin, because of Christ, we are resurrected because of his resurrection.

And I wanted to bring that up because that was the other text that I don't know. I think it started the chapter off with,

I just kind of skipped it. But we'll be all right. We got like three minutes.

Can we hit something up real quick? I just want to get y 'all's thoughts on it real quick and then we'll kind of be done.

This is in my words, it's kind of like at the very beginning of the book, not beginning of the book, beginning of the chapter, he said he wanted to do three things.

Historical question about confessions and stuff. Wanted to go over the theme of the second

Adam. Then he wanted to talk about, and I don't know how he put it, but the way that I understood it was, he wanted to kind of talk about the covenant of redemption as a hermeneutical guidepost.

How to kind of, you look at the covenant of redemption in scripture and then as you interpret scripture going along, just kind of seeing things in light of what the covenant of redemption is along the way, which is a lot like what

Claude was talking about with that scarlet thread of redemption. So if y 'all talk about that just a little bit,

I think that'd be a good place to end because if we can't find a gospel theme there, we need to find something else to do with our lives.

So we'll go with that. And I guess we'll find whoever lands on the gospel, and we'll pick someone else to pray.

I guess I don't want to take your spot, Rob. That's what you do. You give out those instructions. I just made sense.

We're all equal here, brother. Go ahead,

Claude. You go. I'm done for the evening. Well, you'll have to forgive me.

Give me a little bit more, Dan, of what I was looking at something else. So he said,

I'll pull it up. Very first page, he gives a guide on what he wants to do in this chapter.

I'll read it. I'll read it for you. After addressing a historical question about the covenant of redemption in the

Reformed Confessions, this chapter thickens our description of the covenant of redemption by looking at the theme of Christ as the second

Adam from the perspective of biblical theology, and by thinking about the implications of Christ's appointment to represent specifically those whom the father gave to him.

Right. So then it says the chapter closes with some reflections about how the covenant of redemption provides some points to help us interpret the whole

Bible well. So I was just asking for some thoughts on that last sentence of the covenant of redemption helping to guide us as we interpret the entire

Bible in a good way. Right. Well, it goes back to our conversation that we were talking about off air.

You know, when you have an assignment and your assignment comes from the

Old Testament and you were viewing like you should, you were viewing that assignment from the

Old Testament from the lens of the New Testament, from the new covenant from Christ and his covenant of redemption fulfilled and successful.

And so that's, you were seeing God's work fulfilled and in the

Old Testament. And so it's not

Christ's success and work in the covenant of redemption is not only good for finding peace in life, but like you said, it's helpful in understanding scripture because we're understanding who

God is, how he worked. I mean, that's been the whole unraveling of this book is, well, who is

God? How did he decide to work? And it goes back to our historical question.

We coined the phrase in the 1600s, but that's only because we coined it in that way so we could understand it in our own minds, in our own language.

But we've been understanding that's how God has been working throughout this whole time. We can't make up a

God in our own image, how we want him to work. He reveals to us and he has revealed to us who he is by how he works.

And so when we understand the covenant of redemption and what Christ has done, we understand who

God is. And by understanding the covenant of redemption, we understand that God is, that's how we understand that God is love, that God is kind, that God is merciful and gracious.

I mean, you nailed it on the head just a few minutes ago that people ask the question, is it fair that we all inherit the sinfulness of Adam?

Well, is it fair that God would save a wretch like me? No, it's not fair because we've sinned against the

Holy God. Adam did it first, yes, but I have done it and I willingly done it and I willingly continue to do it.

Now having the Holy Spirit, I do it more begrudgingly, but because I'm fallen man,

I've sinned against the Holy God. So it is not fair that he would rescue me from the pit of hell and the punishment that I rightly deserve because the right and just and fair punishment for me, a sinner is to spend that eternity separated apart the complete full wrath of whatever he feels is just, which he describes as a place called hell.

That is just for me to spend that eternity there because he is eternally Holy God. So that's why it is not fair, but merciful, not fair, but gracious, not fair, but kind.

And so as we understand and as it is revealed to us, this understanding of the covenant redemption, we learn about who our

God is, who our creator is. And just as he made this creation out of nothing, he made us a new creation.

Those of us who not only, we weren't just nothing, we were ill deserving of anything good.

And so we were his enemies and he made us his friends. That's what we learned through the covenant of redemption.

And it ties in with this wonderful thought. I wanted to add this to Adams.

Adam's job was to make a good creation pristine. That's how Perkins describes it.

Adam's job, that one job was to make a good creation pristine, but Christ as the new

Adamic King had to wage war on the kingdom of darkness. So we had a fallen world and Christ had to come wage war on the kingdom of darkness and was successful.

And now the fruit of that is continuing and his throne will be forever.

His kingdom will never end. Amen. And he has made us his children, his subjects, his new creation forever along with him.

And so that's what I find as so helpful in understanding or why the covenant of redemption is so helpful when understanding the rest of scripture.

Amen. Let's pray.

Well, we do want to say this too, that if you're listening or if you want to share this, our goal is to give this, information that we just did because it's all about Christ and his redemptive work.

And so if you have not turned to him, if you've not turned from your sins and turned to Christ, we would plead with you to do that.

And if you feel like this will be helpful for someone else to point them to Christ, not to us, but to point to Christ, we will be grateful to be a useful tool in that endeavor.

So we appreciate you. Paul, would you mind to close us in prayer? Yes, sir.

Oh, great God and heavenly father, we praise you, magnify you, we exalt your name.

Dear God, we truly do lift your name on high.

Lord, we praise you for your grace, for your mercy, for your goodness. God, I praise you for your wrath, for were it not in your

Holy spirit, regenerating us, recreating us, making our inner man new, we would be unable to understand the severity of your wrath.

But it is because of the knowledge of your wrath and the understanding of your holy standards, that we are able to come to understand and to know, even if it's to a small degree, the fear of the

Lord. And your word teaches us God, that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

And in that, in the new Testament, we know that according to your word in Corinthians, that Jesus Christ has been made unto us wisdom and righteousness.

And redemption. And so Lord, we praise you for that. We thank you for this time that you've given us with these men.

We pray that you bless their hearts, bless their minds, bless their homes, bless their families, continue to grow them in grace and then in the knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ and help us as we go about our daily lives to bring glory and honor to you.

For it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Love you brothers.

Thank you for watching the Truth and Love podcast. And remember as always, that Jesus is

King. Go live in the victory of Christ, speak with the authority of Christ and go share the gospel of Christ.