Covenant Theology: The Covenant of Grace in the New Testament (Part Five)

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Welcome to our final session on covenant theology, and specifically, we are looking at part two of our understanding of the covenant of grace.

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By way of reminder, in our last session, we talked about how the covenant of grace was promised throughout the

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Old Testament and revealed in farther steps throughout the Old Testament. But now, in this session, we are actually going to look at how the covenant of grace is established and inaugurated specifically in what commonly

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Scripture refers to as the New Covenant. John, why don't you give us a good reminding definition of the covenant of grace?

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The covenant always has parties involved. We have two parties involved. We have God who is initiating the covenant.

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He is giving the covenant. Then you have the recipients of the covenant, which is the elect, those to whom he in the covenant of redemption chose before the foundation of the world.

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What makes this covenant unique is that it is an unconditional covenant.

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That means that it is unconditional to salvation. What God is promising to do in the covenant is to save the elect, and there is nothing left for them to do.

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They are parties, or they are in this covenant by faith through grace alone because of Jesus Christ.

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That is what we are going to be working with. There are some distinctions, and the New Testament often compares the

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Old versus the New to help you understand why the New is needed and how the

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Old is a shadow of the New. Let's start there. Justin Perdue What is it that makes the

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New Covenant new? That is a good question to ask. When we talk about the Old Covenant, that we understand to be comprised of the

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Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Davidic Covenant. Those three covenants together make up what would be referred to even in the

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New Testament as the Old Covenant. That covenant, as compared to the

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New, was a covenant of temporal blessing, not eternal blessing. It was a covenant that was conditioned upon obedience rather than it being unconditional, grounded in the grace of God in Christ Jesus.

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Jon Moffitt Justin, would you mind just explaining what you mean by temporal blessing? Justin Perdue Temporal meaning earthly and in this life.

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Jon Moffitt That's right. There was an end to it. In other words, the promises of the Old Covenant had an end in it.

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The promises of the New Covenant have no end in sight. They are eternal. They are eternal. As we compare the

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New Covenant and the Old Covenant, we see the fulfillment of circumcision, which is the circumcision of the heart.

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If we're mindful of Moses' words in Deuteronomy 30 and verse 6, he says that the Lord will circumcise your hearts.

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This promise exists a long time ago, and then it's realized in the New Covenant, in the covenant of grace, as we understand it.

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Jon Moffitt I would add to that. As we have been talking about throughout the series, this is a great type and shadow.

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There's a cutting away of the flesh, and then there is identification with the community or the covenant.

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In the New Covenant, it is the cutting away of the heart, or it's bringing in a heart of flesh. This is also making you part of the identification of this

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New Covenant community. Justin Perdue We'll talk more about that in a minute. When we say the

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New Covenant, that is synonymous for us in terms of the covenant of grace established is the New Covenant.

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It's not just promised and revealed, it's established, inaugurated, and accomplished through Christ in the

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New Covenant. It is grounded upon not our obedience, but it's grounded upon the obedience of Christ received by faith.

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Jon Moffitt That's why it's called grace. Justin Perdue I want to be clear here, because a lot of people confuse faith with a work.

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That faith is still something that we need to conjure up within ourselves. It's so important, and the

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New Testament is very clear on this, that faith itself is a gift. Faith itself is something that God bestows.

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The writer of the Hebrews talks about how Jesus is the founder and perfecter of our faith, that Jesus is the one who finds us.

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Jesus is the one who initiates towards us. Jesus is the one who bestows faith in our hearts.

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We have to remember when we say covenant of grace, we truly mean of grace. Even faith itself is a gift of grace bestowed on us.

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Justin Perdue That's entirely right. Another thing that we could talk about is the New Covenant. The covenant of grace is characterized by an indwelling of God's Holy Spirit in us.

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This is the language of Ezekiel 36, where God promises in the New Covenant to put his Spirit within his people.

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This was not true before. The Spirit of God was upon people. There was certainly an anointing of particular persons for particular tasks.

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The Spirit of God would have been with the people, but the Spirit of God now lives in us in the New Covenant.

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In that sense, it's new. Justin Perdue He specifically says in Ezekiel that the Spirit causes us to actually have the capacity to obey.

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Whereas the law was there to govern them, now the Spirit is here to govern us. The law of God, to pick up on that, does not only exist outside of us in the

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New Covenant. The law of God has now been written on our hearts. The law has been fulfilled for us, so it no longer condemns us.

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It no longer threatens us. It is our kind advisor, to use Calvin's language. That's because of what

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Jesus has done. Now it's been written on our hearts, and we have become obedient from the heart. Romans 6 verse 17.

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Because of the indwelling reality of the Holy Spirit and the law being written there, we now delight in the law of God in our inner man.

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Jon Moffitt Yes. These are all the benefits of what we know of the covenant.

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It's unconditional, meaning that in the Old Covenant, they obeyed, they received land promises, they received protection.

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In the New Covenant, Christ obeys, and we receive justification, meaning that our sins are forgiven and the perfect obedience of Jesus is given to us.

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That's our justification. Then we receive sanctification, which is the Holy Spirit coming in and changing us as we wait for the most important promise, which is our glorification.

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The moment we will then be fully transformed into the image of Christ. What are the benefits of the covenant of grace?

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Eternal life, nothing short of it. Eternal life, meaning you have it now and you will have it in the future.

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Jon Moffitt If I were to summarize the Christian life,

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I would say this. In what's given to us the benefits of the covenant of grace, sanctification is getting used to our justification.

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Sanctification is living in such a way as God has already called us to be. God has said, you are my son.

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To be justified means to be declared right. God in the cosmic courtroom has said, because of Christ's merits,

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I declare you right in my eyes. Sanctification is a lifelong process. It's definite.

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We have been set apart by God, but also it's a continual setting apart. We're getting used to that idea of justification while we await the glorious resurrection of our physical bodies or the return of Christ.

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We are glorified and we live in the presence of God for eternity. These are the benefits.

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Frankly, when we have a covenantal understanding of Scripture, when we truly begin to steep ourselves in this covenant of grace, these categories and these things become less of realities that we need to conjure up within ourselves and more of resting places that we freely have in the gospel and the covenant of grace.

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Jon Moffitt Well, the story begins in Eden. What did they lose in Eden? They lost their innocence, they failed their obedience, and they are no longer in the presence of God.

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The Old Covenant never promised to restore that. The New Covenant is the promise of the full restoration of innocence, righteousness, and the presence of God here on earth again.

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Justin Perdue I wasn't even planning to say this now. It just comes to mind the very last verse of Ezekiel.

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Talking about that city that will come and it will be called the Lord is there. It's remarkable.

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Jon Moffitt Even Isaiah talks about the presence of the Lord will be with his people.

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Justin Perdue In thinking about some of the things you guys have just said, I'm going to go ahead and read a text that I was planning to read later because I think it just fits beautifully now.

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In thinking about the nature of the New Covenant and the covenant of grace and the certainty that is a part of this for all those who are under it.

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Hebrews 10, beginning verse 11, Every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

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That's an Old Covenant reality. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.

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He sat down because it's over. Waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet, and then this, for by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.

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That is so rock solid, airtight, and certain. This is covenant of grace language.

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We have been perfected for all time. It's as good as done, and we are being sanctified.

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The idea that there would be people under the covenant of grace who that is not true for is not a biblical teaching.

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And to contrast that with the Old and the New Testament, we'll get into this later, but to contrast it with the Old, Paul says multiple times all of the children of Israel that come from Abraham, they're not all the children of God.

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They're not all the spiritual children. In one covenant, you have people who do believe by faith in the promise and those who do not.

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This is important. Very briefly, we said the New Covenant is unconditional and eternal.

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We could also say it is spiritual in that regard. It's not a biological, physical seed reality.

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It's a spiritual seed reality. Those who, for example, are of faith are the children of Abraham spiritually.

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The listener will understand some of what we mean from things we've said in previous sessions, which makes the

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New Covenant necessary. We're beginning to move there. We're talking about the distinctions that we see between the

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New and the Old Covenant. I just want to read a couple verses from Hebrews chapter 8, where the writer of the

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Hebrews says this in chapter 8 verse 6, But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

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For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

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For he finds fault when he says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

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So clearly, in the New Testament's mind, if I could personify the New Testament, there is a sharp distinction between the

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New and Old Covenant. We've talked about types and shadows. Maybe now let's have a conversation of how these types and shadows that we saw in the

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Old Covenant, that we've talked about for almost four sessions now, find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ.

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Jon Moffitt And I would say to that verse, the moment that God inaugurates or begins to promise the covenant of grace, when the

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Old Covenant was given, there was always the anticipation of the New Covenant because the Old Covenant was never designed to bring salvation.

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The Old Covenant was designed to set up salvation, which is what we're going to talk about now. It was designed to reveal the coming redemption of the

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Lord. One verse to go ahead and read now as we're getting ready to launch into this types and shadows conversation is 2

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Corinthians 1 .20. For all the promises of God, find there yes in him being

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Christ. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory.

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That's what we're going to start talking about now, is how all the promises of God, in particular all the promises of God as it relates to salvation, find their yes and their amen in Christ.

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Justin Perdue When you begin to see the formation of the

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Old Covenant, the original covenant that was made to establish, you have a people that are being established.

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The purpose of those people, according to Abraham, is that from him all the nations of the world will be blessed. There's a seed coming. I can remember the first time

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I began to discover covenant theology and reading the Mosaic Covenant. Christ became glorious because I, for the first time, understood what prophet, priest, and king those titles to Jesus meant.

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Before it was like, somehow that's connected to the Old Testament. I don't really know how. The relationship that Israel has with the priest is very important to them because they cannot continue to live in the land.

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They cannot be in the presence of God unless they have their sins temporarily covered.

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What is Christ described as? The final and ultimate priest. He is the one who is the mediator.

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He goes between God and us, and so he becomes himself the sacrifice that is necessary.

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In John 1 .29, when John the Baptist sees Jesus walking towards him, he gives you the explanation of the shadow of the

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Lamb that's being constantly crucified on the Day of Atonement. What does he say? Behold the

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Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. The shadow that these people lived underneath for thousands of years is what

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John is saying. This is it. The picture of the final sacrifice, which you have seen year after year, the substance of it, the anti -type is what we see in the

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Old Testament. Elijah is significant, no doubt, but the prototypical prophet in the

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Old Testament is Moses. We could also say that Moses depicts for us the role of a mediator.

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Moses himself says in Deuteronomy 18 verses 15 and following, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from among your brothers.

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It is to him you shall listen. The Lord is saying this.

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I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

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We see Jesus come on the scene in this sense as the prophet, the greater

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Moses. This is the language of the writer of the Hebrews. Jesus is greater than everything.

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He's greater than Moses. He's a son. He's not a servant, he's a son.

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He is the prophet of God's people, and he is the mediator. He's also better than Aaron, which is the priesthood, which we can talk about in a minute.

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Jimmy, go ahead. What was the role of a prophet? The prophet was a mouthpiece for God.

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One of the greatest passages we have that depicts Jesus as a prophet, and we often don't think of one, is

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John chapter one, where John introduces Jesus how?

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That in the beginning was the Word, the message. Jesus himself becomes the

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Word, the living Word, the living message to God's people. In the beginning was the

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Word, and the was with God, and the Word was God. In John's mind,

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I think clearly he understands that Jesus is the final fulfillment. Jesus is the great prophet that has come to bring

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God's words to God's people. That's right. John 1 .18 says, No one has ever seen

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God, the only God who is at the Father's side. Who is that? That's Jesus.

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That's the word. That's the divine word, the divine logos. That's God the Son made flesh. He has made him known.

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It's the language of Hebrews 1, the introduction to the letter of the Hebrews. God in various times and various ways spoke to us by the prophets and all this stuff, but now in these last days, he has spoken to us by his

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Son. I know we spent quite a bit of time in our last episode on Jesus as King.

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The promises to Abraham Fuller were explained and identified in Mosaic, and then the

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Davidic covenant. All of those are pushing us towards the ultimate King, the final

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King, the real King of Kings, which is Christ. Can I talk about the priesthood real quick?

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We've talked about the offices of prophet, priest, and King, and we did spend a lot of time, as you said, John, on the

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King piece. How Jesus is the greater David, who would come and represent the nation, would represent God's people, and would accomplish righteousness for them, and would be the satisfaction for their sins, and would represent them.

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Thinking about the role of the priesthood, again in the letter of the Hebrews, it's just replete with language of how

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Jesus is greater than Aaron, and how he is a high priest of his people.

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He sympathizes with us in our weakness, but he's a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek just shows up and doesn't have this lineage and everything else.

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Jesus shows up and is an eternal high priest. These words are remarkable from Hebrews 7.

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The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office.

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The priests died, but Jesus holds his priesthood permanently because he has an indestructible life.

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The writer had said that earlier. He holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever.

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Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

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Thank God for Jesus, who is this kind of high priest. He has an unshakable life, lives forever, and continues on forever to intercede for his own, to mediate, and to reconcile us to God.

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Let's think about these roles of prophet, priest, and king in the Old Testament or under the

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Old Covenant in a summarizing way. Prophets revealed God's words and God's will to God's people, priests through the sacrificial system atoned for the sins of God's people, and kings ruled over God's people.

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These all find their ultimate fulfillment in Christ. He fulfills all three of these roles himself.

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In his earthly ministry, what does he do? As the Word, as the message, he reveals

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God's heart and God's will to God's people, but he is also the great high priest who himself, through his own blood and his own death, atones for the sins of God's people, but then is raised, glorified, and seated at the right hand of God.

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He says in Matthew 28, all authority has been given to me. That is kingly language. Jesus speaks

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God's will to God's people, but he atones for the sins of God's people, and now he has been raised to be the king of God's people, not under the

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Old Covenant, but rather underneath the New. Jon Moffitt We said early on in this series that everyone in all of the world has only been saved by faith in Christ.

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In the Old Testament, they believed that God would fulfill his promise to redeem them.

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Paul says in Romans 3, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, the garden, and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, the fulfillment of all the shadows whom

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God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to receive by faith. This was to show

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God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance he passed over former sins.

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The blood of bulls and goats is what the temporary passing over that he's talking of.

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The shadows, the children of Israel, those in the Old Covenant looked for the moment when

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God would bring the final sacrifice. Paul is saying here that those of the old were not saved by the

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Old Covenant. They were saved by the New, looking forward to the promise. Paul is saying now in the

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New that it has retrospectively moved back. Justin Perdue Retrospectively, we would understand that all of the benefits of Christ are applied to Old Testament saints.

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That matters. That language is important. Even as they were trusting the promises of God realized in Messiah, based upon the revelation that they had, the benefits of Christ were counted to them.

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This can be very confusing for people because there can be, when we misunderstand

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Scripture, a little bit of cognitive dissonance. I think a simple way of putting it is this.

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In the same way that we, who are saints in Christ today, look back to the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Christ as our grounds of salvation and assurance, the saints of old looked forward to the promises of God to be revealed finally in Jesus Christ, even if they did not see it.

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We look back, they looked forward. What's important is that very definite time in history when

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Christ fulfilled all that needed to be fulfilled in his life and his death and resurrection.

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Justin Perdue As we've said, when you arrive in the new covenant, when you come to the gospel accounts and Jesus shows up on the scene, everything that came before were types and shadows.

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There were promises, there was revelation, but the covenant of grace itself, accomplished and established, is happening as Messiah shows up on the scene.

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We are no longer in types and shadows territory. The real thing has come. The point of all the promises that were made is now here.

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Galatians 3 .16 is a significant verse. We talked a lot about Abraham in the previous session, but to see there the language of Paul, that he understands that the promises

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God made to Abraham, and by promise we would understand the unconditional promise that God made to Abraham, it is realized through the promised offspring.

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It's not the physical children of Abraham, it is the promised offspring, namely Christ, who will fulfill and accomplish all of these things for all of Abraham's spiritual children.

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Another verse which is connected to that is Romans 15 .8 where he says, For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show

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God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the

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Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy, as it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.

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The purpose of the nation of Israel is to save the nations.

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Israel had a purpose and that purpose is now fulfilled as Christ shows up on the scene.

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It matters that we would say this. A lot of times the perception of many people is that Israel was the point or is the point, and the church is the parenthesis.

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Actually, it's the opposite. The church, meaning the people of God from every tribe, language, and nation around the throne of God in the new heaven and new earth, that was always the point.

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Israel is the parenthesis. Israel is the vehicle through which Messiah comes and through which the nations will be saved.

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Jimmy Buehler Well, and that's really the promise that's made to Abraham that through him, through his offspring, the nations of the world would be blessed.

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That is what we are seeing in ultimate fulfillment, as you mentioned in Revelation, where we have members of God's people from every tribe, every tongue, every language, and every nation around the throne of God because of the

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Lamb of God who was slain to take away their sins. We want to be very clear that Israel's purpose was to bring us the

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Messiah, and that was accomplished at the coming of Christ. This is where you start to see

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Paul language. The beautiful mystery of the gospel is that they now, under the new covenant, are welcoming the

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Gentiles. It is no longer just the nation of Israel, but rather it becomes

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God's people from every tribe. It becomes God's people from every nation.

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Israel has served its purpose. Jon Moffitt Israel as a nation, but the people of God. Sometimes you hear this language like somehow we believe that God replaces

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Israel with the church. Justin Perdue No, it's fulfillment. Jon Moffitt It's fulfillment. God is adding to these people of God, and now there is a structure by which

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He doesn't work within the nation now. He works within the local church. He works, of course, in the global church, but God's mission now is being fulfilled in the local church with His people, the people of God, as part of this new covenant.

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That's the fulfillment of it. It's finding its completion. Justin Perdue We talked in a previous session about the idea of a theocracy, or God setting up a nation under God's law.

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What we see in the new covenant is how God rules. He rules by the

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Spirit through the hearts of His people. This is how God extends His kingdom. Through the means of the preaching of the gospel through the local church, sinners are converted unto

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Christ by grace through faith. This is how God's rule is now extended.

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It's no longer through conquering nations by the sword, but rather it's the sword of the

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Spirit cutting through the hearts of sinners. That is how

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God's kingdom now expands. Another thing that we should talk about is how the old covenant and the new covenant are different.

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How there is a distinction between the two. They're not the same. This would be the conversation about how it is that the people of God are marked off.

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In the old covenant, which represented Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic covenants, the people of God were marked off by circumcision.

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In the new covenant, the covenant of grace, as we are arguing for, the people of God are marked off by something different.

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It is by regeneration, namely the circumcision of the heart, which is a great example of a type and a fulfillment.

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We talked about Jeremiah 31, where God says He's going to make a new covenant. One of the things He promises to do is write

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His law on the hearts of His people. He says no one will have to say to his brother, know the

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Lord, because they'll all know Him. Ezekiel 36, I'll put my Spirit in you. I'll give you a new heart.

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Then Galatians 2 and 3, just very briefly, Paul asks this question.

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Let me ask you only this to the Galatian Christians. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? In particular, did you receive the

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Spirit by works of the law or by faith? People who are familiar with the context of Galatians know that the main work of the law that keeps coming up over and over again is circumcision.

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Did you receive the Spirit by circumcision? No. Did you become a part of the people of God by circumcision?

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No. How did you become a part of the people of God? It was by faith. We understand that regeneration and faith go together.

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Regeneration, the new birth, is what produces faith in Christ. Colossians 2 .11

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would be another way Paul describes this. He says, in him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.

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He's using the type or the shadow to give you this example. By putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the power of the working of God who raised him from the dead.

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He's using an illustration of marking a group off of people. You are now the people of God because you have died with Christ and been raised with him.

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You've been circumcised with the circumcision of Christ, and going on in Colossians 2, you were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, but God made you alive together with Christ, having forgiven you your sins.

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So there's a difference between those who were a part of the Abraham covenant, those who were part of the nation of Israel.

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You did not have to have a regenerate heart in order to be a part of that nation and have those blessings.

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But what we're being described here in this new covenant and this community of this covenant, they have a new heart.

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They are the ones who have gone from death to life. Jimmy Buehler And just to go back to Abraham, can you imagine being

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Abraham and God gives him the covenant of circumcision, and you're like, I have to do what now?

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But again, as we go throughout the Old Testament, its farther steps further reveal that eventually what we see is under the

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Old Covenant, people were marked off by circumcision.

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But now, as Jeremiah says, as Ezekiel says, as we see the New Testament writers talk about, we are marked off by the

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Spirit's work in our hearts to circumcise the foreskin of our hearts, the hardness of our hearts.

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That is how God's people are now identified. It's kind of like you hear this collective, oh, from the heavens, as Abraham is like,

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I get it. I didn't see it clearly then, but I believed God and it was counted to me as righteousness.

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But now it finds its ultimate fulfillment. Even the language of Jesus in John chapter 3, when he talks to Nicodemus, I tell you, unless one is born again or born from above, you can't see the kingdom of God.

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You can't see my kingdom. Then he goes on two verses later in verse 5 to say that unless one is born of water and the

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Spirit, you cannot enter my kingdom. But what's that water and the Spirit a reference to? It's Ezekiel 36.

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It's Ezekiel 36, 26, and 27 where God says, I'll give you a new heart and a new

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Spirit I'll put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

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But before that, the water piece, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses and from all your idols.

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I will cleanse you. Born of the water and the Spirit, it's like Jesus is saying this, that you will not enter my kingdom.

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You want to be a part of my kingdom, you will experience this reality. Jon Moffitt I just want to be really clear here, almost as an aside.

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A lot of times people can hear this language and they can say, this just seems so odd and mysterious and spiritual.

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How do I know? How can I be sure? I don't think that's what the writers of the Scriptures are trying to do in our hearts and minds.

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Rather, what I think they're seeking to do is to bring us confidence and assurance and peace and joy. This is what

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God does. This is God's work. This is not something that we conjure up in and of ourselves.

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Justin, you like to say all the time, can you change your own heart?

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The answer to that is an emphatic no. Something outside of you needs to come within and change your heart.

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This is what Scriptures are declaring. This is why we see it in a sharp juxtaposition against the law.

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The law says do this and live. The Old Covenant says be circumcised and be a part of the people of God.

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The New Covenant says be born again, which God will do for you. Even in the

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Old Testament, they had signs that pointed towards what was going to happen. Now we New Covenant members have signs that point us back to remind us and strengthen us.

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We call them means of grace. Baptism and the Lord's Table are two physical realities that are perfect pictures where the

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Spirit comes and strengthens our faith to remind us what did happen. Jimmy Buehler Let's talk about those for a moment.

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A lot of times we can be almost a little bit gnostic that we reject anything physical, but when you see the writers of the

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New Testament talk about baptism, baptism didn't come out of nowhere. I think that's a common misnomer, but what do we see?

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We see in the Exodus that they walk through the judgment waters out of slavery and they become a new people.

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This is exactly what we see now. The waters of baptism point us to this reality that we have been buried with Christ in His death, but we are raised with Christ's new life.

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The Lord's Table is not weird. That's the Passover that Jesus says.

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A lot of people don't realize this. How has the world fallen into sin?

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Through eating. Jesus takes that and says, no Satan, you're not going to take that from my people.

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The serpent said to Adam and Eve, take this, eat this, and you will be like God. Jesus says, take and eat and taste and see that the

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Lord is good and steadfast love endures forever. Justin Perdue You have been washed and cleansed and buried and resurrected and united to Christ Jesus and you're in Him.

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The Lord's Supper happens. It's instituted literally as Passover is occurring.

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You cannot make this up. It's Passover. He's eating a meal with his disciples.

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He's going to die the next day and he starts to use this language of, this is my body broken for you.

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This is the cup of the new covenant in my blood. My blood is what is accomplishing this new covenant and it is the seal of it in that sense.

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Now take and eat and receive what I am doing for you and have done for you.

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Jon Moffitt You use the language of means of grace. Lest we get left in subjective swamp,

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God doesn't do that. He says, no, I've given you these physical means so that as surely as the water has gone over you, you can trust that the washing of the regeneration of the

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Holy Spirit is there. Justin Perdue As surely as that bread and wine goes into your mouth, Christ has done this for you.

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Jon Moffitt That is the language of Colossians. He says, having been buried with him in baptism, that's the cleansing.

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Then he says, in which you were also raised with him through faith. I think it's important here that he is pointing to people.

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If you're in the covenant, these are your realities. Justin Perdue The sacraments of baptism and the

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Lord's Supper, I think it's great that we're talking about this. If I were pressed, what are they about most fundamentally?

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They're about union with Christ. We've talked some about baptism and even more on the table.

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Think of Jesus in John chapter 6 with all of his language about the manna that your fathers ate in the wilderness.

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What was the manna about? It was about Christ because he says, I'm the bread that comes down from heaven. I'm the true bread that comes down from heaven.

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Think about this. The manna was bread from heaven that sustained God's people during their pilgrimage in the wilderness.

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Christ is the true bread from heaven that sustains his people as we are on our pilgrimage to the heavenly city.

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And the rock in the wilderness, you referenced that, is that I am the living water that sustains you.

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It's about union with Christ. Christ sustains us, and I think we see that in the

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Supper. Justin Perdue I like that you brought up the rock. You're referencing when Moses struck the rock to bring about water, that Jesus is the rock.

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He interprets that passage and says, that's about me. Think of it this way. Jesus is the rock that receives the blows of our disobedience and yet pours forth the water of life.

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Justin Perdue I don't think we're putting that on the text. Justin Perdue Jesus does this stuff all the time.

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This is just fun for us to sit around and talk about. We're mentioning all this stuff in the book of John.

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Again, with Nicodemus, he talks about the snake that was raised up in the wilderness, Numbers 21. The people had grumbled.

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God sends fiery serpents, people are getting bit, people are dying. Then he tells Moses to make a serpent out of bronze and put it on a pole and raise it up.

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When anybody looks to that snake that's lifted up to be saved, Christ says that that's me. That's what

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I'm coming to do. Types and shadows, man. Justin Perdue Jesus is the good shepherd.

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Justin Perdue Ezekiel 34, the Lord says, I will be the shepherd of my people. I will seek them out. I will save them. I will set over them my servant

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David, and he will be their shepherd. Then Christ shows up saying, I'm the good shepherd. For those of you listening to this and perhaps you're new, go with fresh eyes to the book of John and look at all of the

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I Am statements of Christ. Now think of them with a fresh mindset that all the types and shadows of the

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Old Testament, Jesus is like, that's me, there I was, there I am. The I Am statements reference even the word

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I am. That is how God refers to himself, Yahweh. I am who

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I say I am. It's of no little value that Christ says,

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I am this, I am that. As we wrap up this entire series on covenant theology, which has just been a whole lot of fun for us.

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We're descending into the airport. At the end of the day, who cares?

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Why should we care about covenant theology? It changes the way in which you interact with God and his word.

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When you go to the word now, you are seeing how God fulfills the promise given to Eve.

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It's just page after page after page of God's faithfulness to prove that God can complete what he promises.

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When you read it, you aren't reading, this is what I must do in order to please and honor God, because Israel proves no one can do that.

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This is what God did to save unsavable people. They can't save themselves. This is why we say language like unconditional promise versus conditional.

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Your assurance is pushed towards God and away from you constantly.

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Justin Perdue Why does this matter? It matters for assurance. It matters for rest and peace. As we understand

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Scripture this way and as we look to God's word and we see these things that we've been talking about for several sessions now, we see that redemption has been planned by God, that it has been accomplished by God, and it has been applied to us by God through faith in Christ.

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We realize with this covenantal framework that comes out of the text that there really is nothing left to do because we look at it and say, what else could be done?

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Christ has done everything. This was always about him. Everything that humanity has ever blown,

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Christ has recovered for us and has given to us. He has restored it all.

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He has saved us and rescued us from everything that we have done to ourselves through sin. Jon Moffitt I think also as we think about this, when we think about covenant theology, it is the key to the map of the

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Bible. It helps us to understand that the Scriptures are not there to make us morally improving people.

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The Scriptures are not there to give us a list of moral commands that we do and do not. Rather, the

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Scriptures are to give us this grand drama of redemption that is revealed in types and shadows in the

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Old Testament, but finally fulfilled in Christ in the New. We look to it and say, my goodness, the

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Bible is beautiful. It is not this obscure text, but the Bible is a history of redemption that I find myself in under the covenant of grace in Christ.

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Jon Moffitt In the narrative, as Israel had rules by which they would live in the presence of God, as new covenant members, as those under the covenant of grace, we too have been given ways in which we are to live and conduct ourselves.

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As those who have received grace and love, we give grace and love, and we are accomplishing those missions.

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Sometimes people hear us say that covenant theology must not be about obedience at all. Of course not. My point is that those who are part of the new covenant have ways in which we conduct ourselves.

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As we say at Theocast, it's never to gain or maintain your entrance into the new covenant.

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It's because you're in the new covenant. Think of the whole idea of adoption.

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If you were to adopt a child, you wouldn't look at that child and say, hey, you better behave yourself if you want to be a

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Buehler, or you want to be a Purdue, or you want to be a Moffitt. You would say, because you are my son, because I have adopted you into this family, this is who you are now.

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Something that I say to our church all the time is that when God calls us to live or, dare I say, behave in particular ways,

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He's calling you to live in light of who He's already declared you to be. That is the beauty of adoption.

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Justin Perdue I'm going to come back to one final thought. We talk a lot about the sufficiency of Jesus.

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Covenant theology has everything to do with that. We use the phrase in our church a lot that Christ is enough.

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That's what we mean. That flows out of and comes from this covenantal understanding that Christ is enough to save.

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He is able to save. He is mighty to save, and he has saved us. Horatius Bonar has a lot of things to write and say, but he has a little anecdote that's really cool about writing about an anxious soul who has no peace before the

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Lord. He goes through this story of all these things that this person is doing to try to find peace before God.

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Surely this will do. Surely this will do. Surely this will do. I'll do this, and then I'll have peace. The conclusion that this person comes to at some point after he's done all these things is that none of these things will do, but Christ will do.

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For me, Christ will do. It comes from this covenantal understanding of Scripture. Justin Perdue We pray that there may have been a spark to bring your hope alive and to make the

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Bible actually enjoyable, to give it structure. It's beautiful, it's glorious, and the hope that we have in Scripture is that one day, as Isaiah 11 says, we will live with the

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King in his glorious land of rest. We pray that you find that. We want to thank you for going through this journey with us.

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We would love to produce more series like this, but it does cost money.

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If you've enjoyed this and you have the means, we'd ask you to help support or donate so that we can provide more education series like this.