The Abrahamic Covenant - Part I

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Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 15:1-21

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God's covenant with Abram, we're considering the whole storyline of the
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Bible, the whole redemptive movement of Scripture, and how it all points to and culminates in the person and work of our
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Savior Jesus Christ. And so with that beacon in front of us, I want to begin looking at the
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Abrahamic covenant. Now there's some false advertising that we have, unfortunately. I titled this sermon and had every hope to fulfill the title by calling it the
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Abrahamic covenant, and it will be no such thing. It will be the prelude or the introduction to the
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Abrahamic covenant, because we won't actually be looking at the verses in chapter 15 beginning in verse 7 and following.
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We won't actually look at, in any great detail, the Abrahamic covenant this morning.
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But I'm setting us up to do just that next week. And so this introduction is very important, and I hope it will be very helpful as we actually work through, verse by verse, the covenant next week.
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So we want to consider the larger context of covenant. Covenant as a theme.
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Covenant as a organizing principle. And we're going to do that in a very specific way.
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This morning we're going to look at the first three divine human covenants.
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The first three divine human covenants. Divine hyphen human covenants.
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And those are the Adamic covenant, or sometimes what's called the creation covenant, the
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Noahic covenant, God's covenant with Noah, and fittingly the Abrahamic covenant.
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Those are the first three. There are three more divine human covenants that we're not going to cover this morning or next week, but actually when we get to chapter 17.
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And that will carry us through the latter three, which are the Mosaic covenant, God's covenant with Moses, the
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Davidic covenant, his covenant with David, and the New Covenant, which is in the blood of Christ Jesus.
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And so these are the divine human covenants. Six altogether. Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, New.
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The New Covenant. Now you'll notice I said divine human. That's very important because technically if we're talking about covenant, we would begin not with the divine human covenant, but just with the divine covenant.
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In other words, in our tradition, we begin with the covenant that existed in eternity between the persons of the
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Godhead. This is called by theologians the covenant of redemption. And we're not going to spend any time looking at that or considering that this morning.
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We're only going to be looking at the divine human covenants that unfold within history as recorded in Scripture.
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But Scripture itself does attest to this this plan of God, this purpose of God, which existed outside of time and before time.
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This purpose of God to redeem a people for himself and exalt and magnify his glorious Son.
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And so that is the covenant of redemption. But we're looking at the divine human covenants from here all the way back to Genesis 1.
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Now it is hard to say anything about any covenant without saying everything.
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It's hard to say anything about any covenant without saying something about all of the covenants. And I found this to be quite a challenge in preparing this week.
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I'm hoping that the time we'll spend shows how useful it is to put together the storyline of Scripture in terms of covenant.
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Covenants have always been here. They've always been recognized. The biblical writers wrote in terms of covenant.
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The biblical prophets and the apostles preached in terms of covenant. The earliest believers and the church fathers, they understood the significance of covenant.
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In our tradition that becomes even more significant. As Reformed Christians, covenantal theology is a hallmark of the way we approach
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Scriptures, the way we understand God's work among his people and God's work in this world.
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And so covenant theology is a hallmark. I know many of you are fans of Wadi Bakr, as I am myself.
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He would define being reformed as three C's. And so the first would be
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Calvinistic, the second would be covenantal, and the third would be creedal or confessional.
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I think that's a fitting description of what it means to be reformed. So we're big C covenantalists.
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We really take God's display of his person and work seriously, and we do that by way of covenant.
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All of the covenants, every single one of them, as all of the
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Scripture, is ultimately a bout Jesus Christ. The covenants can be a little bit difficult to understand at first, but as you commit to understanding them, as you understand the significance of how
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God is using them and how they're carrying forward history in the Scriptures, you'll start to see how they simplify the
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Bible. The best illustration I can think of for this, there's a number of artists,
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I can't think of the name in particular, who, they're contemporary artists, and if you were to see their work, you would walk into a room, maybe something about this size, and as you walk in you would see all sorts of things being suspended from the ceiling, things on stands, all different items, poles, pieces of concrete, crumpled up newspapers, all different things, and it just looks like suspended and hanging mess.
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But there's a little mark in the middle of the floor, and so you're looking at this kale, what is all this?
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Why do all this? And then you come to the mark on the floor, and all of those things line up and they create a perfect portrait, a perfect portrait.
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That's exactly what covenant theology is like. When you first come to the Scriptures, there's things hanging in from nowhere, things that you don't understand, odd rituals and commands and and figures that are being used in surprising ways.
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What does this have to do? Do we just kind of leave this aside? Let's just get to Jesus, let's just go to the
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Gospels, that's safer for us, we can't understand all of this until you understand the covenants.
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The covenants are a key that, once you line them up, they form this perfect portrait of who
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Jesus is and what he was called to do. And so the covenants streamline for us how
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Scripture is a testimony of Jesus Christ. Now, since we're going to be light on application today and heavy on lecture, and I was already feeling the pressure from my wife, oh no, it's gonna be one of those sermons, let me at least give some application here.
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If it's true that the covenants are the most helpful key to understand
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God's purpose and redemption, and they show us how, as in all of Scripture, the ultimate focus is on Jesus Christ himself, here's the preacher question for you.
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How do you approach the Bible? How do you approach the Scriptures? Now, it's easy to say, oh well, of course,
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I, you know, in the same way, I know it's all about Jesus and I read it for him. Really? In my experience, even the most dedicated
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Reformed Christians who understand the significance of Christ and how ultimately
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God's Word is a testimony of him and his work and what God has done through him, they will tend to approach the
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Scriptures only according to what they need or what they think others need. Now, please understand me, there is a right place,
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God is concerned about our lives exactly where they are. He has a word for tax collectors, a word for soldiers, a word for farmers, a word for struggling
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Christians, a word for people that are bitter, right? God has written his Word in this way, it's meant to be applied, but what
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I'm saying is, so often believers will only come to the Word in that way. What's in it for me today?
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What can I find that seems to apply to me today? And over time they step away from or they lose sight of finding
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Christ in all of Scripture, and so instead of approaching God's Word as a revelation of his true
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Word, capital W, his Son, Jesus Christ, they begin to approach the Bible as a self -help manual.
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Covenant and covenant theology will prevent you from doing that. Covenant theology will prevent you from approaching the
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Scripture as a get well soon message, or as a self -help manual, as a compendium of resources to encourage you, because the
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Scripture is not ultimately about you, it's ultimately about him. And so how do you approach the
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Scriptures? Grahams Goldsworthy, wonderful biblical theologian, says the meaning of all the
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Scriptures is unlocked by the death and resurrection of Jesus. I would say amen to that and go a step further.
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The key that unlocks all the Scriptures accordingly is the covenantal structure, and I hope you'll see that, if not this morning, at least then by chapter 17.
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When it comes to understanding the movement of Scripture, a lot of people, for instance, they fixate on the end times, on things that are speculative, and they lose this idea that Christ is the key, not just to the things at the very end, but to the whole thing.
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Christ is key to all of Scripture, and that's easily forgotten. He's not full just at the end, he's not full just when he arrives on the scene in Bethlehem, he is the fullness from the very beginning to the very end.
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All of the Bible finds its fullness and its yes and its amen in Christ Jesus.
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The drama of redemption is this panoramic vision that extends from the foundation of the world to the foundation of a new world, and all of that testifies to the purpose of God through creation.
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We call this redemptive history. The entire Bible is a testimony of God redeeming what he has created, and so we must begin at the beginning, as we've been doing in Genesis, in order to understand everything else that follows.
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And when we lop off the beginning, we will not be able to understand the significance of what follows.
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I hope you'll see how the covenants, the three that we're looking at this morning, demonstrate that.
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There's a clarity and a simplicity that comes with the covenantal structure, and you start to see how creation is connecting the dots to the new creation.
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And so we gaze upon the entire panorama of redemption from a distance. The story begins with creation.
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We were there in Genesis 1 and 2, and then Adam fell.
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This is the backdrop. This is redemptive history in motion, and from that vantage point, everything that follows is looking toward the final goal, the redemptive reversal, the redemptive accomplishment.
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Not paradise merely regained, but paradise glorified.
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God's purpose in creation consummated. That's the storyline of Scripture. So, we have these divine human covenants, and we have another distinction to make, even between the three we're looking at today.
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That distinction is between what we can call common grace covenants, and perhaps special grace covenants, or salvific grace.
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So common grace, meaning universal in scope. Please understand what's not being said.
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We're not saying that there's different shades of grace. There's kind of watered -down grace that God gives, and then there's really, really special grace that's a lot more pure.
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And we're not saying it's a quality of grace, it's the scope of grace. Common would be something universal in scope.
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Special would be something limited. That's the distinction we're making. And so of the covenants, there's this division between the common grace and the special grace.
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The common grace are the Adamic and the Noahic. The special grace begins with the
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Abrahamic and carries all the way through to the new. We'll rehearse this again. So we have two groups in this divine human covenant.
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The Adamic and the Noahic, because they apply to all of mankind, and they remain in force today.
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You will never meet a human being, you will never see a blade of grass, or a seagull flying overhead, or a molecule of water that does not exist within this covenantal structure.
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God's creation covenant, not just with mankind, but with all of creation, which
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Romans 8 says is groaning and laboring to be restored. Every other covenant that follows is of special grace.
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God is not concerned with all of creation, all of humanity. He's concerned with his people, a people he reserves for himself, a people chosen from the foundation of eternity to be his through Christ by faith.
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So let's consider first, and some of this will be reviewed, I hope, if you were paying attention, some of this will be reviewed, but let's consider first the
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Adamic covenant, and then we'll look at the Noahic and introduce the Abrahamic. So first, the
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Adamic covenant. Now some people have argued there is no Adamic covenant.
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Some look at the Scriptures, certain scholars look at the Scriptures, and they say there's no covenant here, at least it's never called a covenant.
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When we get to Noah, God specifically calls his promise to Noah a covenant, and so here we have a covenant with Noah, and some have argued, well that must be the first covenant then, there's nothing here between God and Adam representing all humanity.
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But if we go to Genesis 9 where God makes this covenant with Noah, as William D 'Ambrel points out, we find all of the language of covenant that implies a renewal.
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In other words, Noah's covenant is not something brand new, it's a renewal of something already existing.
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Every time we come to a renewal of a treaty or a covenant in Scripture, we have certain verbal structure.
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That's what we have in Genesis 9. So God is renewing a covenant with Noah that has already been in existence, and that brings us back to a covenant that he made with Adam and Eve.
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Now because it's a creational covenant, meaning God creates the world, creates
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Adam and Eve, puts them within the Garden of Eden, we can already understand something of the purpose of God when he created humanity.
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We go back to this covenant and it's before sin has entered the world, and from that we can understand why human beings are, and what human beings are, and what human beings are meant to do, meant to be.
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We understand that man is made in the image of God, male and female he created them,
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Genesis 126. And so both a man and a woman in a unique way, apart from all creation, bear the image of their
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Creator. They bear the image of God. And then Genesis 128.
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God charges them when he puts them in this place of Eden where he will dwell with them. We said Eden was this garden temple.
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Adam was meant to be as it were a priest within that temple. A royal priest because he's also co -reigning with God.
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A vice -regent of sorts. And he's a prophet declaring the Word of God as he receives it from God, as he infers it from all that God has made.
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So Adam is a prophet, a priest, and a king. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be truly human in the world that God has made.
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Functionally we have this imageness, this likeness to God, and that leads to the dominion mandate.
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Be fruitful, multiply, increase. We have some ladies that are fulfilling their obligations to this mandate present among us this morning.
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God gives this miracle of life to man and woman to create life after their own image, after their own likeness, to fulfill his purpose for humanity in the world as stewards, heirs, co -reigners, dwelling in his presence, enjoying him for everlasting time.
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All of this points us again to the purpose of God when he created man.
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But as we've said, in eternity God had purposed to glorify his
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Son. So God did not just intend for this to go endlessly, age by age, trillions of ages, and just this would be what it would be like.
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This was God's intention from the very beginning and then Adam blew it to the shock and horror of God. We cannot say that because God had foreordained, had fore -purposed to glorify his
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Son by saving a people for himself. How do we understand this?
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We understand that part of the Adamic covenant was that there was a higher calling, a higher reward that was being held out to Adam in the garden.
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What were the terms of this covenant stipulation? Of all these trees
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I've given you to eat, but you must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for in the day you eat of it you shall die.
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So here's the covenantal curse in the setting of covenantal blessing. What we imply from that is if Adam were to fulfill this time of testing, this probation, this test of all of these trees
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I can eat and God told me not to eat of this one tree and I'm to trust his word, not what looks good to me, not what
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I think, but what God has said. So here's my faith in God's Word and it's being tested. There's nothing magical about this tree as we said, nothing magical about the fruit upon it, it's just a tree that is forbidden because God forbade it.
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It's a test of Adam. If Adam passes this test, if he withstands the temptation and does not fall into sin, he enters into a reward of life.
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That presence of God and that purpose of God is confirmed, it's established forever, and so our own confession is picking up on this.
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This is a broad understanding, a broad theology. Our own confession, chapter 7 .1,
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the distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures owe obedience to him as their creator, why do you obey
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God? Because he made you. It's his world, you're his creature. I read a wonderful blog post this past week that said we can look at everything that's going on in our culture today, all of the depravity, the defiance, the chaos, and we can essentially reduce it down to this.
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There are people who are trying to defend their right to be creatures. This is
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God's world and we're his creatures and he has told us what we're meant to be and what we're meant to do. Over against people who are demanding their right to be creators, we will create ourselves, our destiny, our way according to our will.
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Are we God's creatures obeying him because he is God and we are not? Are we asserting our own right as fallen rebellious dust to be creators as though we could be?
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7 .1, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some condescension on God's part which he's been pleased to express by way of covenant.
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And so there they're reflecting this idea that Adam's life, though he was created in righteousness, has not yet been confirmed.
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There yet remains this reward of life, the security, a status and a place in which sin could not enter, a serpent could not roam to the tree, a way in which
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Adam could never possibly be tempted or fall. His relationship with God would be secure eternally in the blessedness of God his creator.
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That's the reward of life that's held out to Adam. Now we said God created
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Adam in original righteousness. Adam was holy as God was holy.
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He reflected perfectly the holiness of God even as Jesus, the last
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Adam, comes and reflects perfectly the holiness of God. Now of course
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Adam still had to obey God as a creature but there was something more in the
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Garden of Eden between God and Adam, something more than this relationship of creature and creator.
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There was this blessing, this reward of life, this everlasting paradise of Eden in the presence of God.
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That was the blessing of that covenantal condition not to eat of the tree, that was the blessing.
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If you don't eat of this you will gain this, this will be yours forever and you will not be able to lose it. The curse is if you eat of this tree you die, you're separated from God, your mind is darkened from God.
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Now everything about your life is an act of rebellion against God and your mind is so darkened that you can't even see that rebellion.
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And so Scripture could say it's as though you're dead in trespass and sin. Ezekiel 37 uses this imagery of a corpse needing the
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Spirit of God to breathe upon it and bring it to new life. Jesus brings this over in John 4 to talk about how needful it is for the
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Spirit of God to bear someone life again, to have a born -again relationship to God coming out of that darkness and separation.
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This is the covenantal curse. Adam and Eve are now pulled away into exile from the presence of God and the place of blessing.
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Why? Because they broke the covenant, that's the significant thing, they broke the covenant.
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Eden, Richard Barcello says, Eden though a glorious place was not the end, it was the beginning to an end.
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Within Eden were seeds of a better world, a world where sin could not enter, a world which could never lapse into a curse.
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And I would add, man, meaning Adam and all in Adam, though made in glory was not the end, it was just the beginning to the end.
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You can only understand the end when you understand the person and work of Christ, the
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Son of God. We were made as human beings to exist with our
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Creator, to be co -rulers with Him, stewards of what
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He had made, exercising dominion over the cosmos, enjoying the splendor of His artistry and His goodness and the joy of dwelling with Him.
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And there being no darkness, no stains, no bitterness, no relational breakdowns, no corruption, just everything good, if good is even a word that could capture what
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God intended for humanity. But Adam broke the covenant. He fell and he murdered the human race.
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He dragged all of us into the condition and the stain and the defilement of sin. And so Hosea 6 -7 can say, and this is
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God speaking, like Adam they've broken the covenant. Like Adam, Israel has broken.
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When Adam and Eve broke the covenant, they were essentially rejecting the authority of God as their good
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Creator who had given them every good thing, and they accepted the serpent who is a murderer from the beginning.
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They said, we're listening to your word. We're listening to what you declare, serpent.
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In other words, they're embracing now the serpent as it were a ruler over them, as an authority over them, giving him legal entree into the world.
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Remember how a few weeks ago we talked about the suzerain and the vassal, that the suzerain is the great king and the vassal is the lesser king.
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To put it in New Testament language, Augustus, the Roman Emperor, he's the suzerain. Herod is a vassal.
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He has to pay tribute to Rome. Essentially, Adam and Eve, who were vassals to Yahweh, now switch their allegiance over to Satan, the deceiver, the serpent.
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Now they become vassals to him. No wonder 2 Corinthians 4 -4 can say he's the god of this world.
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That doesn't mean that Yahweh does not have ultimate rule. He is sovereign over all, but it means in covenantal terms,
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Adam and Eve rejected the authority and relation of God and embraced it to the seed of the serpent.
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As a result of breaking the covenant, Adam and Eve are dragged into exile. No wonder Hosea 6 -7 can say, like Adam, they broke my covenant.
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Israel is repeating the history of Adam, rejecting the word of their God, rejecting their
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Savior, following after idols and deceptions and delusions, and when they break the covenant
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God makes with them, like Adam, they're dragged into exile. They're dragged out of the land that was given to them, the place in which
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God was meant to dwell with them. Now this connects the storyline to Abram, because remember, and we'll see this in a few moments, remember that when
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God comes to Abram back in chapter 12, the promise was to give him earth.
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It was to give him an inheritance, a land, and the idea was that this land would be a return to Eden, a return to the dwelling of God, a place where God would begin to restore his purpose for the world.
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That would begin in Canaan through Abram, specifically through the seed of Abram. And so all of this still is reacting to, and an answer to, what's taking place with the
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Adamic Covenant. The Adamic Covenant sets up everything that follows in the biblical storyline, including the
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Abrahamic Covenant. And so as William D 'Umbrell says, great book, hard reading, great book,
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Creation and Covenant by William D 'Umbrell. He writes this, from the fall onward, this hoped -for restoration, restoration to the presence of God, restoration to the paradise of God, is an ingredient in the biblical expectation for the end.
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The hope for the removal of the curse upon the ground is to some degree symbolically met when
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God grants the land to Israel, and that is because he grants it to Abram.
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With sin, with the fall, with the breaking of the covenant,
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God gives a promise. God gives a promise. He does not give a covenant yet, but he gives a promise in the midst of the covenantal cursing.
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In pain you'll bring forth children, he says to the woman. And yet out of that curse, out of that pain, will come a seed that will crush the serpent's head.
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And so in the midst of this breaking of a covenant with God, becoming dead to God, becoming rebellious to God, God comes in mercy and he gives a promise.
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This will not be the end for you. This will not be the end for mankind. This will not ruin my purpose for this world.
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Genesis 12, the call of Abram, is another promise, and it brings us so much closer to the covenant that God makes with Abram, which is the first covenant where God begins to unfold this promise from Genesis 3, 15.
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The universal scope of Eden, which was meant to be, as it were, the starting point of man bringing the glory of God throughout the world, bringing the order and the glory and the artistry of God as image bearers upon all of creation.
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That's what Canaan is meant to be. That's what Israel is meant to do, to carry out this work of keeping and tending the presence of God, expanding it to the nations that do not know him.
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And then we come to the Noahic covenant. Secondly, we have in this covenant with Noah, as we said, a renewal of God's covenant with Adam, a renewal of God's creation covenant.
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And so God is not doing something new with Noah. He's renewing something that already was. He gives unilateral promises this time.
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Notice that there's not this condition of a tree. There's not this condition that brings
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Noah into a period of testing like Adam. Rather, it's just completely unilateral. This is what
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I'm going to do for the world, Noah. And God is reassuring Noah because humanity has just been wiped off the face of the earth.
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All except Noah and his family are gone. They've perished under the mighty hand of God.
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It was a consuming fire. And so, you know, if anyone was ever feeling anxious about looking around, consider
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Noah. Are you worried about the headlines today? Consider Noah coming off that stinking ark filled with all the refuse and stench of animals.
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You go to a farm in the open air and you kind of have to turn back. Imagine being in an enclosed boat covered with pitch.
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And he comes as it were out of this coffin, out of this place of death, into an empty world.
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And he sacrifices in worship to God. And God, in this covenant, is almost giving divine reassurance.
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Don't worry, Noah. I'm not gonna do this again. I'm not gonna do this again.
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The world will never perish by a flood again. And I make this covenant with you that I will sustain the seasons and the generations.
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And these things will continue. There will be springtime and winter. There will be sowing and harvesting.
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There will be marriage and being given in marriage. These things will continue, Noah. So this is a, you would almost want to say, well this is a totally a covenant of grace.
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This is a covenant of, it's totally unilateral. No one needs to do nothing to receive this.
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God just does it. He makes this covenant one -sided. Why can we call it common grace then?
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Because it applies to all humanity. And so the Adamic covenant never was canceled.
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That covenant that God made with Adam and through Adam, with all humanity, this covenant of works and the curse of death that comes with that covenant, that's in full effect.
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And with the Noahic covenant becomes sort of a legal package, as it were. And so the whole world is currently under this
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Noahic covenant, a renewal of God's creation covenant. And it's all of grace.
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The whole covenant is of grace. Remember what we said back when we looked at it in Genesis 9.
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I quoted there Louis Burckhoff, the great Dutch theologian, and this is what he said. The covenant with Noah was not only universal, but was destined to remain all -inclusive.
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Every human being forever, until there are no more human beings being born, is a part of this covenant.
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God bestows on man not only unmerited favors, he doesn't owe you a harvest, he doesn't owe you a generation.
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If we think about what you're owed, it's just judgment. And that's the point that Burckhoff is making.
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He doesn't just bestow unmerited favors, but blessings that were forfeited by sin.
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This is God's covenant with Noah. You come off the heels of God regretting that he had made man because of the wickedness that is rising from the face of the earth.
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Murderers, liars, traitors, deceivers, doing abominable things in the sight of God, against God and against man who is made in his image.
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And God wipes the earth clean and you would think, what kind of vengeful wrathful God is that? Well you better keep reading, because look at the covenant he makes with humanity afterward.
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All these blessings were forfeited in Genesis 3 as a result of the fall. Man is not meant to be able to receive blessing, to be able to multiply and increase, to have birthday parties and and anniversary cards and and beautiful meals at wonderful restaurants and and laughter and enjoyment of the world and casting the fly -fishing rod and going for a hike at the top of Wachusett.
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These things were forfeited by sin, but God gives them as a blessing to humanity indiscriminately, because he's a good
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God. He's a good God. By nature,
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Burkhoff says, man has no claim whatsoever to these natural blessings.
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God just gives them by grace, common grace. And it's hard to be in a church sometimes where you see people who know
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God and they love God and they serve God and it seems like they haven't received these blessings.
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They find it hard to put something on the table. They don't have a son or a daughter. They're struggling to make sense of whether God's hand is heavy upon them.
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Then you look at people who hate God and they blaspheme God and they're given these gifts.
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It can be hard to see that sometimes, but with the eye of faith we understand what
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Asaph understood in Psalm 77. My foot almost slipped. My foot almost slipped.
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Why do the wicked prosper? Until I saw their end. I saw the end of the wicked.
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Yes, these blessings are given by the goodness of God, but there's a reckoning that comes. There's always a reckoning with a covenant, always.
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God says to Noah, as for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, every beast of the earth with you.
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This is total creation. It's creational. It's just like the Adamic Covenant. Thus I establish my covenant with you.
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Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
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And so again we see God acting toward creation, toward humanity, by way of covenant.
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God is sustaining that which he has made so that he can bring about his promise in Genesis 315.
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There needs to be some regularity. There needs to be nations of many tribes and many tongues if God has promised to bring about a seed who will be the
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Savior of many tribes and many tongues. This is what the creation covenant through Noah is establishing.
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And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, every bird of the air, all that moves on the earth, all the fish of the sea.
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They're given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives will be food for you. I've given you all things, even as green herbs.
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So here again this is being renewed. Man has dominion as he had in the Adamic Covenant, but now the situation has changed.
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Now lost is this harmony that Adam was meant to have with all of nature as a steward, as a co -ruler with God.
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Now because of sin every relationship in creation is distorted. Not only is man distorted in his relationship with his wife, distorted in his relationship with his children, distorted in his relationship with his neighbors, distorted in his relationship with God, distorted also in his relationship with nature.
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Nature is now red in tooth and claw. And so God in this renewal changes the terms because man is sinful and all of creation is under the curse.
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God in his grace puts the fear of man into animal. Do you ever just pray with Thanksgiving for that?
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If we lived in sub -saharan nations I think we would. Wasn't there a report just a few weeks ago about a tiger on the loose in Texas?
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Do you ever thank God that he put the fear of man into animals? And so again
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God is adjusting this creational covenant for the reality of sin, the reality of a broken world.
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He accommodates and condescends to allow there to be blessing and hope in the midst of a world that has gone to chaos, the chaos of sin.
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And God blesses Noah. Be fruitful, he says. Multiply. Fill the earth. He's literally renewing the
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Adamic covenant with Noah. Be fruitful. Here's the dominion mandate all over again. And so this again is part of the the common grace that God has given.
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It's the answer for God's curse upon the ground, the dominion that man is meant to bring. And you remember what
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Noah's name meant and the prophecy that it was attached to it. Rest. And how it was prophesied over Noah by Lamech.
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This one will bring us rest. And we talked about how ultimately this is bringing us forward to Christ as the one who will exercise dominion over the earth, the head of a new creation, a new humanity.
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Christ is the ultimate Noah in that sense, and he brings the rest of God, the rest of judgment.
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How does that ultimate Noah do it? He becomes consumed by the flood of judgment upon the cross.
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That's how he establishes peace with God. And Noah, of course, throughout this whole covenant, he's not working, he's not giving conditions, he's not giving instructions, he's not being tested.
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He's simply standing at the altar over the sacrifice, and the scent of that sacrifice reached in this figurative language the nostrils of God, and it soothed him.
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And so here is Noah. He's at the altar of sacrifice, and it's because of the sacrifice that God is soothed.
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It's as though his wrath is now subsided, and he moves to make peace. My wrath has been satisfied by the sacrifice, and now
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I'm going to bless. I'm going to establish. I'm going to fulfill what you were meant to fulfill.
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And notice the similarity between Noah and Abram. What do we say about Abram in chapter 15, verse 6?
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He's done nothing to warrant God giving him a promise, nothing to warrant God giving him a covenant.
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He simply stands there, believes what God has said, and the fact that he believes it, it's credited to him as righteousness.
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Genesis 15, 6. Well, that's Noah. He simply stands at the altar and receives it by faith.
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God, you're going to do this. I believe you. And that is credited to Noah as righteousness.
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Genesis 6 says Noah was a righteous man. Habakkuk 2, 4 says the righteous live by faith.
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And then God gives this covenantal symbol, a sign of the covenant. Notice that we're starting to see symbolism, starting to see pictures given with each covenant.
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We'll see that next week in Genesis 15, an amazing image. And I had to fight tooth and nail to hold out till next week, because I'm bursting at the seam to preach the way that God establishes his covenant with Abram in chapter 15.
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But here with Noah, God gives a rainbow. He's the warrior who, Psalm 29 says, sits enthroned above the flood, and the rainbow, it's like he's hanging his bow.
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The battle has been done. I've completed my warfare against those who have broken my covenant, and I'm hanging my bow, as it were, in the clouds.
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I've now completed that conquest through the flood. And here's the sign, when that rain comes,
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Noah, those first few rainstorms, that rainy season comes, and your heart begins to pound, because you think, maybe because I've sinned this past week, or this past month, or this morning, maybe because I've sinned now,
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God's judgment's coming for me. And you look, and you see that covenantal sign. I've established my covenant with you,
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Noah. One more point about the Noahic covenant, a very important point.
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This covenant is called an everlasting covenant. It's an everlasting covenant. Now, it's certainly true in the sense that, as we've said, because it's a creational renewal, a creational covenant renewal, that it's everlasting to the end of this time -space creation.
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This is going to be in full effect until Christ returns and ushers in the end. So, in that sense, it's everlasting.
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But this word everlasting is very tricky. In the Hebrew, it's olam, and it's often put together with covenants.
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And so, you have everlasting covenant throughout the scriptures, and we automatically read that, we automatically follow that, and we go, okay, so this has to, if it's everlasting, this has to carry all the way through.
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If it's everlasting, it can't be revoked, it can't be dissolved, it has to be in full effect until the very end.
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Now, this is very important, you may not get a lot of this here, but this is very important when we get to Genesis 17 and we start talking about the land promises to Israel, and these promises being everlasting, and the charge goes, this is an everlasting covenant, this can't be dissolved, this can't be revoked, this must yet be fulfilled in some future millennial kingdom.
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No, that's a misunderstanding of the word olam. The root meaning is in part or hidden, something that is yet to be revealed.
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And so, it doesn't mean everlasting meaning, you know, all the way to infinity or all the way to the very end of time and space, it means something hidden, something unrevealed.
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So, it can have the connotation of the end is not known, so it's everlasting, but it can also be used in other ways.
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For instance, a virgin in the Old Testament is often spoken of as olam, and the language there would mean, you know, there's something yet to be revealed about her status as a virgin, right, that will be revealed when she marries and finds a spouse.
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So, the ideas are something hid from view. Another example, Isaiah 63 talks about the days of Moses being olam, the days of Moses being everlasting.
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No, he was not immortal, he died and was buried, but Isaiah 63 is saying there was something hidden about the days of Moses.
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So, that's very important when we apply it to the land promise, take that for what you will. When we understand this covenant being in effect, we come to certain passages where it most clearly is referenced, and I think if we're projecting this toward the end times, we come to a passage like Isaiah 24, which is loaded with the imagery of creation, and here
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Isaiah 24 uses this word everlasting, uses this word olam, and this is what Isaiah 24 verse 5 says, the everlasting covenant has been broken, the earth lies broken.
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Now, other covenants have that word olam, everlasting, attached to them, but those covenants never apply to the whole earth.
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Only this covenant with Noah has the whole earth in view. So, Isaiah 24 seems to say the whole earth has broken the covenant with Noah.
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The whole earth lies broken. Why? Because it broke the covenant with Noah. So, in this covenant, humanity is given a new start, there are new stewards of creation,
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God has reduced sin all the way down to one family. Did you ever think, oh, if I just didn't have unbelieving friends, if I just didn't have to go to work with my co -workers,
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I could really live for righteousness. Really? If God wiped the earth clean and it was just you and your family, you couldn't live without sin.
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And here are these, here's this covenant with Noah, a renewal of the creation covenant, and God is saying it's been transgressed, it lies broken.
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That means we cannot look to this covenant for salvation. Here's something that has all mankind in view, and Noah has broken it, and the whole world has broken it, and the whole world lies broken, and so there's still even no hope here.
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Adam's covenant, a failed covenant, but with a promise. Noah's covenant, a failed covenant, but with a promise.
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And now we step outside of these common grace covenants and we come to Genesis 12. As we've said,
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Genesis 1 through 11 is just the introduction to chapter 12, it's the prologue to chapter 12, and here that promise that God makes to the woman who will bear the seed that will crush the serpent and bring back that humanity that was lost into the dwelling place of God forever and secure them in that place, here we find that movement take a massive step forward when
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God calls a man named Abram out of a pagan city called Ur of the Chaldeans, and he makes promises to him, and that's the
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Abrahamic Covenant. Now again, we're not looking at this in any detail till next week, and so I just want to give you a few points.
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Jeffrey Niehaus, who's written a number of books on the covenants and they're so helpful, he's a very precise thinker, he says the
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Abrahamic Covenant is unprecedented because up to this point all humans, like Abram, have only ever stood in a common grace relationship to God.
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Every covenant up till Abram has had all of humanity in view, all of the earth in view, it's been totally universal, but then we come to Abram and now we begin a series of special grace covenants that are all about the redemption of a people, all about the redemption of an elect.
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Larry Hellyer, the call of Abraham represents a decisive moment in the unfolding history of redemption.
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The great question of Genesis 11 concerning the scattering of the nations begins to receive an answer.
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The Lord will bless these nations, but it will be through the seed of Abram. Remember how he called
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Abram, I will make you a blessing, blessing
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I will bless you, and through you all the families of the earth will be blessed. How did those families get spread out and divided across the earth?
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It was the downfall of Babel, wasn't it? So again you see God's purpose, restraining sin but allowing it to accomplish that which is necessary for redemption to move forward.
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Keep in mind where Genesis 11 has left us. The builders of Babel aimed for the things that Christ accomplishes.
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They tried to do it in the arm of the flesh. They wanted to have a great people, a mighty people, united as one.
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They wanted to be close to God, build a tower to the heavens. They aimed to do all of this against the way of God and against the will of God.
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This was not listening to God's Word and living meekly in the reality of sin. This was taking things by the reins.
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Self -exaltation, human pride, human arrogance, not yielding to the Spirit of God but moving and striving against the
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Spirit of God. And so what does God do as an answer to that counter -creation, that rebellion?
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He calls this man Abram by his grace, this pagan worshiper who had spent most of his life living and worshiping fertility goddesses with his barren wife, sacrificing who knows what to false gods.
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And God calls him by his grace and he says, come out, come out of your country, come to a land that I'm going to give you.
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I'm going to bless you. I'm going to bless you. Blessing, I'm going to bless you. I'm gonna make you a blessing.
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Six times he uses the language of blessing. Do you know the word curse from this point in the narrative in 1 through 11 is used six times?
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The curse, the curse of the fall, the curse of creation, the curse of the seed of Lamech, the curse of the
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Canaanites. Curse, curse, curse, curse, curse. And then he calls Abram, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing through your seed, through your seed, through the seed.
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That blessing is going to undo a divided people cast throughout the earth, a people in exile from the presence of God, a people divided against neighbor and against God.
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It's going to unite them, make them a royal priesthood, a holy nation, clothe them in righteousness, make them a light shining to a dark world, make them salt in the midst of a broken world.
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This is the blessing that God promises Abram. And Jesus says in John 8 56, Abraham saw my day from afar and he was glad and he rejoiced.
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The Abrahamic Covenant is the platform for God's grace.
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It is the foundation of the gospel. You cannot understand what God has done, was planning to do, and has done, unless you look at Jesus Christ through the covenant that God makes with Abraham.
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The Abrahamic Covenant leads both directly and indirectly to all the covenants that follow.
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In the one sense, the Abrahamic Covenant forms a highway and it goes directly to the New Covenant, goes directly to fulfillment.
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We'll see some of that next week. But it also has a little detour, and the Abrahamic Covenant also goes towards the
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Mosaic, and it sets up something carnal, something earthly and historical, and that ends up leading to Davidic, and the
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Davidic then brings us to the New. So whether we go straight to the New from Abraham or around through the story of Israel and David to the
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New, all roads from Abraham lead to the New Covenant in the blood of Christ Jesus.
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How important then is this covenant with Abraham? Next week we'll look through it verse by verse.
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We'll see that the glorious promise of Christ shown forth. We'll see what God will do to fulfill the promise he made to the woman in Genesis 3 15.
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We'll see what God will do to fulfill his calling and his promise to Abram in Genesis 12. We'll see what
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God will do and the promise he made to us as heirs with Christ and those who received the promise of the
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Spirit that was first promised to him. Galatians 3, the gospel was preached beforehand to Abraham.
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Ultimately the point is this, ultimately the grace of God, not the obedience of Abram, not the disobedience of Adam, not the failure of Noah, not your failure, not your disobedience, not the fact that you've broken the covenant and you've broken your word and you've broken your vow and you've broken what you were designed to do.
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You broke that original righteousness. You rebelled. You were distant. You are cold.
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You want to be apart from God. You don't want to use the means of grace. You don't want to know him deeper, know him more.
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Despite that, blessing, blessing, blessing through the seed, blessing through the
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God who is a covenantal God, who keeps covenant. No wonder, no wonder
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Abram doesn't have to walk through those bloody carcasses. It is the grace of God.
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It is the grace of God and the obedience of God's Son, not our obedience, nor our disobedience, but the grace of God.
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If sin is now pregnanting humanity, if sin is now native because of the fall, if sin now has its inky stains covering all of this cosmos, it is safe to say that God's grace alone brings salvation.
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And how does God bring about salvation? He does it by way of covenant, and so from this place we look forward to the one who will fulfill what
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Adam broke, who will bring about what Noah displayed, who will be the yes and amen to what
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God promised Abram. We look forward to Christ because he's the yes and amen of all of the promises of God, and he is the substance of the covenants.
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He is the covenant of God to a broken and needy people. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you, we thank you for your Word. Lord, I feel like we've just been chiseling the very tip of the iceberg.
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How deep, how rich, how glorious is your Word, and these things that fit together,
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Lord, I wish we had the whole day just to try to rehearse some of them. The tapestry,
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Lord, of your plan, which was one from the very beginning, a plan to save a humanity that fell into sin and to death by rejecting you and rejecting your
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Word, by being deceived about your goodness and your holiness, by trying to find goodness and holiness in themselves, like the babble builders being arrogant and prideful, not looking to what you would provide, not looking in hope to the promise.
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And as 2 Peter 2 says, Lord, we are waiting according to your promise for a new heavens and a new earth.
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We are those who have faith in what you've provided, we are those who wait. Help us,
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Lord, to understand, even as we approach the Scriptures, that we're not looking for something to get us through the day, something to meet our needs in the week, not something that will give us a little pep in our step for a season, but,
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Lord, we're looking to behold the glory and the person and the work of our Savior and our
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Creator and our Redeemer, that that will be what changes us, Lord. Not some fortune cookie sentiment, but actually beholding our
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Maker and our God and our Redeemer and having our face lit aflame when we behold him.
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Forgive us, Lord, if we've ever approached your Word with less or for less. Let us be found in him.
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Let us be as the Apostle who strive to know Christ. Let it not be that we have lived this life longer and longer year by year and we know less and less of Christ.
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God forbid. May you not say to any of us what you said to your disciple, have you been with me so long and yet you do not know me.
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May those who are in this room, Lord, who have known you so long by the hearing of the year, actually behold you with eyes of faith.
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May their lives show the difference. May they bear the fruit of having encountered the crucified and risen
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Savior, their Maker and their God. These things we ask in your Son's name, amen.