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CPC Sunday School | Covenant Theology #7 (2/18/2024)
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The speaker begins with a prayer, praising God as the covenant-making and covenant-keeping God. They discuss how the covenant promises began with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and the nation of Israel, and were fulfilled in Jesus Christ. They emphasize the importance of the new covenant and its application to the Christian life. They review the definition of a covenant as a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. They also mention the definition from the kids' catechism and the discussion of the covenant in the Westminster Confession of Faith. They highlight the heartbeat of the covenant as "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." They briefly review the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David. All right, let's begin with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we do praise You. We praise You that You are the covenant-making, the covenant-keeping God. We praise You that as we have looked at Your covenant promises, this glorious covenant of grace, that You've come down to be with us as our God, saying, I will be Your God and You shall be my people, as we have seen that this began with Your servant Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with the nation of Israel, and we saw even last week with King David, all of these great, rich covenant promises, that today we get to see are fulfilled, are consummated in the Lord Jesus Christ, that He is the true Emmanuel, He is the one who has come down to be with us, that all the promises of God do indeed find their yes, find their amen in Him. We praise You for the glorious truth of the new covenant that You have given Him as our mediator, that He is the head over all things given to the church, even today as we think of being a particular church, we are reminded and celebrating that Christ has promised to build His church, that the gates of Hades will not prevail against us, that we get to see a small instance of that this morning, all to Your praise and to Your glory. We pray these things in the name of our one, our only mediator, the Lord Jesus. Amen. Okay, so we are covering the new covenant today. I know some of you have not, of course, been with us through this series, so don't despair because we're going to review briefly what we have covered up to this point. We'll do some of the basics, cover what is so new about the new covenant, and what I think is just as important is what is not new in the new covenant, which is potentially where some of our misunderstandings come from, and then as always, how can we apply this to our Christian life? Okay, so just as a review, who would want to offer up, what's the definition we've been using for a covenant? A seal and bond in blood. Very good. Yeah, okay, so the definition we've been using has been a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. We've said it's unilateral, right? Adam does not sin, and then it's not as if Adam goes to God and says, God, let's make a deal. Here are some terms of the agreement. Do you consent to this agreement? No, not at all. God is the one who sovereignly imposes, graciously imposes His covenant promises. They are signed and sealed in blood, and then I would only add there are blessings for obedience that are attended to the covenant, and curses for disobedience. You could read through Deuteronomy, for instance. Deuteronomy, you could almost say the whole book of Deuteronomy is a book of covenant, right? Do these things and you will live, and then you get to chapters 27 and 28, and there's this long list of, hey, as you do these things, here are the blessings that will come to you as a people. As you don't do these things, here are the curses that will come to you as a people, and of course, those curses do come to Israel, climaxing in exile from the land. Here's another definition. This is actually from the kids' catechism. I think this is not a bad definition, so kids, here's one you could remember. The covenant is simply a relationship that God establishes with us, and He secures it by His word. He guarantees it by His word. That's right from the kids' catechism. Not a bad definition. Another place the covenant is discussed is in the Westminster Confession of Faith. Who knows the chapter in the Westminster Confession of Faith? Chapter 7. Chapter 7. Very good. Yeah, chapter 7. I love 7.1, which says that the distance between God and man, and it doesn't mean spatial distance. God is, you know, a million miles away from us, but how great of a being God is as Creator, us, His creatures. That distance is so great that man, we, we could not have any fruition of having God as our blessedness, of having God as our reward, unless, and I like this term, God's voluntary condescension. Condescension has a negative connotation in our day, but just think of what the word condescend means. You're up here, and you say, I'm going to descend. I'm going to come down to be with my people. God condescends, comes down to be with us, and He does that voluntarily, unilaterally. Graciously would be a fine word to express this. God does not have to do this. He voluntarily comes down to be with us, and then the confession goes on to say He expresses this by way of, who knows the word, by way of, Charles, by way of covenant. That's how God expresses this. How does God come down to be with us? He expresses this and does this by way of covenant, Westminster Confession chapter 7.1. Okay, we've covered, too, the heartbeat. If you, if you have forced me and said, you know, put covenant in, in one sentence, what is the heartbeat of the covenant? This would not be a bad sentence. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. This is how God reveals Himself when He takes the people unto Himself. This is pretty cool. These are all the verses. You see that formula in the Old Testament and New Testament. You see it there in Genesis. That would be with Abraham. Exodus 19, that would have been right before the giving of the law, littered throughout Deuteronomy, which makes sense. Deuteronomy, you could almost say, is a covenantal handbook. In 2 Samuel 7, what happens there in 2 Samuel 7? John, what happens there? The Davidic covenant. And so you see it show up with the Davidic covenant. The prophets come, and they repeat it over and over again, sometimes as an encouragement, sometimes as a very stern rebuke. Hey, God took you to be His people, and you are, you are stiffening your neck. You are rebelling against your God. And then, of course, you see it repeated in the New Testament, going all the way to Revelation. So it's all throughout Old and New Testament. All right. Now, let's just briefly review the one by one that we did. So we started with Adam, covenant of work, sometimes called covenant of life. There Adam is in the garden, and Adam is meant to make progress, to advance, to be confirmed in a state of glory by giving God perfect, personal, exact obedience. Adam of course failed in this. It's an interesting contrast. You can make several of these. Adam grasped at the fruit while he's in paradise. Christ in much harder circumstances, born of the sin and miseries of this life, does not grasp at equality with God, but renders Himself, humbling Himself as a servant. We cover that Adam is a covenant head. When Adam sinned, he does not sin as just a private individual. He does individually sin, but when Adam sins, he plunges all of us, all mankind, into sin and death. The only way that could be possible is by a covenantal arrangement. That's the only way that could actually be true. So Adam, as the head of humanity, when he sins, he plunges all of us into death. We sinned in him, you could say. What we saw, the good news, was that right there in Genesis 3, what's sometimes called the Proto-Evangelium, a million dollar word for just the first gospel, the first gospel rides in. Right? Don't worry, from the fruit of the womb will come one who will crush the head of the serpent. Passed in. Next question. Yeah, I mean, it said so, I mean, yeah, that is a speculative question, but it is said that he would be confirmed in eternal glory, that Christ would still be mediator, but mediator of glory, not of mediator of redemption. But delete that from the tape, because I don't want to be on record saying that, yeah, because that is a speculative question. Yeah, no, you're good. You're good. All right. Noah. We cover Noah. The covenant with creation. A lot of the things you saw with Adam are reiterated with Noah, right? God tells Noah, be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth. I'm making this covenant, not just with you, Noah, as an individual, but with you and your seed after you. So many of the things we saw with Adam are reinstated with Noah. We saw it was a covenant of justice, Genesis 9, you know, by if a man kills another man, his blood shall be shed. And what was a little interesting is it's with all of creation, right? There's this universal scope with the Noahic covenant, seed time and harvest. We covered the bow, the rainbow of God's covenant signed. The Abrahamic, land, seed and blessing would be a simple way to express what is promised to Abraham. And we saw that's with the sign and seal of circumcision. Okay, the Mosaic covenant. We saw that it's a covenant of law. Yet, how about Nate did a great job of showing how...remember the preamble to the Ten Commandments right before God gives the Ten Commandments. He tells them, I'm the Lord your God, I redeemed you, I brought you out of the land of Egypt. So it's post-redemptive, God says, here I am giving you the law. And that's a very important point. We saw it's also God's peculiar grace for His covenant people. So just a reminder, though, however, what we started to uncover in the Mosaic covenant, that what the law demands, which is perfect, personal, exact, obedience, it does not provide...there's a kind of deficiency built into the Mosaic covenant that we'll cover a little bit later on. And then lastly, last week, we covered the Davidic covenant. It's important to remember, all these covenants are in great continuity. So even the Davidic covenant, where do you see kings first mentioned? Hey, don't worry, kings are going to come from you. Where would you find that? Deuteronomy, yep, Deuteronomy 17. And where else? Where else could you find it? Yep, yep, and let's go even further back to that, who does God tell, you know, kings will come from you? What's that? Abraham, right, even with Abraham comes this promise, kings are going to come from you. We covered in 2 Samuel 7, you see this great covenant promise that He's going to be a son to me, there will not be, we will not lack a man to sit upon the throne. God has done a great job of showing God's faithfulness in stark contrast to our faithlessness. You cannot read through kings, you can hardly make your way through kings without seeing, okay, here's a failed king, and another failed king, and another failed king. This guy's so-so, here's another failed king, right, just failure after failure after failure, and we see God's hesed, God's covenant faithfulness to provide Israel with a king. So try and putting all that together, what we're just saying is the covenant of grace, a word not found in the Bible, but biblical, if you trace through all those covenants, you see this is the thread, this runs throughout all of these covenants, Adam's failure, Israel's failure, the king's failure, we can just go on and on, with Noah, every thought of man is only evil continually, what is the common thread that runs through all of these? Is this theme of grace, God saying, I will be your God, you will be my people, and your sins will not cancel out my covenant of grace. Here's one other way to think of it. Now that said, you don't want to so condense it to say, well, they're all identical, all these covenants are the same. No, you'd want to recognize, just as these cords are different, they're different colors in this instance, the Adamic is not the same as the Noahic. The Noahic is not the same as the Abrahamic. There are progressions and developments and things new in each covenant. The Davidic, for instance, we saw, okay, kingship is what's being brought to the fore in this covenant. In the Mosaic, law is being brought to the fore in this particular covenant. Now there would have been law in other covenants, but this is what is focalized and highlighted, and so on and so forth. So that's why you can think of it as there's many cords, many administrations, but they all come together, threaded as the one covenant of grace. And today, what we're going to try and see, that's by way of review, any questions on that review part? Is to try and see how all those come together, thread together, and reach their culmination in Christ. All of them for signifying, typifying, finding their substance in Jesus Christ. There's a very good verse from the New Testament on this that is in 2 Corinthians, all the promises of God find their amen in Christ. Here's another way to think of it that I think is also helpful, is you could say that what God intended for Adam is carried forward to Israel, is carried forward to Christ. What's kind of interesting is all three of these persons and entities are called sons of God. So Adam is a son of God. Israel is explicitly called a son of God in Exodus 4, you know, out of Egypt I called my son. And then Christ, of course, is son of God. Luke makes an explicit connection of Christ being son of Adam and Christ being son of God. So this idea of sonship is threaded throughout from Adam to Israel. You could, of course, include all the Davidic covenants right through to Christ. All right, now, on to the New Covenant. What is so new about the New Covenant? That's a very hard question. That is harder than it might seem at first, and that's a question that theologians often wrestle with and split hairs about and find a lot of nuance in, which is good. But to keep it simple, and I really do believe this, I really think this is the simplest answer and the best answer to start with, and then you can add complexity on top of it, that truly Christ is what is new about the New Covenant. And so that's what I want to try and unpack today, as in Christ has come, He has died, He has risen, He has fulfilled the law, He has poured out His Spirit, that all those things, that is the newness of the New Covenant. And we can split hairs later, but if you like force me, give me a one-word answer, what's new about the New Covenant? I really would say Christ. That's what's new about the New Covenant. And hopefully as we go along, maybe that comes a little bit clearer. But let's look at a text. What is, and maybe the most important text in the Old Testament on the New Covenant? Okay, that's good? Yep. What's one maybe that goes into, that's more explicit, as in here is the New Covenant that's coming down, coming down the pipe in the Old Testament? Oh, that's a good, yeah, Joel's a good reference, I'm looking for one other, it's in the Prophets. Jeremiah, Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah 31 is what I had in mind. So let's read Jeremiah 31, so here's a good, very good, explicit kind of locus classicus of the New Covenant, okay? All right, this is the Prophet Jeremiah, remember this is in the time of exile, so the curses have come upon Israel, we're in an exilic mindset, under God's curse. And here's what Jeremiah says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make, this is the Hebrew word karati, cut, so literally cut, a covenant, you can think back to Abraham, they cut those carcasses, they lay these carcasses one against another, this cutting of a covenant. So I will make or cut a New Covenant, and that's the word right from the Hebrew, barit harashah, New Covenant, and let's just pay attention to these terms, because this is what we're going to talk about. With the house of Israel and the house of Judah, it's not going to be like the covenant, so there's our kind of tip number one, that I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand and I led them out of the land of Egypt. There's this, this covenant, that they broke, though I was their husband, husband is of course covenantal language, God, husband, us, bride, right, God takes us to Himself as His bride. Okay, we keep going. This is the covenant, now here's the positive statement, this is what I'm going to do, alright, I'm going to put my law within them, I'm going to write it on their hearts, there's that verse that you know, well, I will be their God, they shall be my people. We get some more information, no longer shall each one teach his neighbor, shall teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, know the Lord, why, because they will all know me from the least all the way to the greatest, declares the Lord, and I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sins no more. So, let's pull from that four ways, and there are more, so this is not an exhaustive list, but I'm trying to hit the majors, four ways the new is not like. Remember, Jeremiah said, it's not going to be like the one that I made when I took them out of the land of Egypt. Number one, and here's my method, I'm going to share the principle and then a New Testament verse, principle, New Testament verse, alright, God's law written upon the heart, God writes His law upon our hearts, okay, we just saw, this is what Jeremiah said, I will write, God says, I will write it, meaning the law, on their hearts. Remember back to the mosaic, one of the things we covered is that the very thing the law demands, it does not provide the power to fulfill. But in the New Covenant, we see this writing of the law, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of our heart, we get this sanctifying grace provided richly in the New Covenant. One of the phrases I'm going to keep saying over and over, just to bear in mind, we're talking a difference of degree, not in kind, and I'll explain that more later as we go along. But even in terms of the law, right, what is it, the psalmist, for instance, says over and over, I have stored up your law in my heart, oh how I love your law, right, I meditate on your law day and night. So you wouldn't want to turn to the psalmist and go, too bad for you, you don't have the law written upon your heart, we're making a difference in degree, not in kind, a difference in intensity, you might say. All right, so that's number one, write it on their heart, here's a New Testament verse that says it so clearly, Romans 8, very famous section, beginning, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ, then we get this great sanctifying verse that we have the spirit, why, in order that the righteous requirement of the law, God's law, would be fulfilled in us, in you and I. How could that be possible? Well because we walk, not according to the flesh, which would be dead, of no profit, no power, no ability to obey the law, instead, we can walk according to the spirit. Okay, so that's the first one we saw from Jeremiah. Second one, this immediate, intimate knowledge of God, this is what Jeremiah said, so right from Jeremiah 31, he says this phrase, they shall all know me, from the least to the greatest. There's this pervasive knowledge of God in the New Covenant, unlike the Old Covenant. And how is that so? Well, just think of how, you know, limited or mediated the knowledge of God was in the Old Covenant. That knowledge came to you through a prophet, through a priest, through a king, you can think of Moses as a good example, right, Moses, who all gets to go up to the mountain to meet with God? Everybody? No, right? It's this limited, small circle that gets to go up and meet with God, so it's limited in the Old Covenant. Again, difference of degree, not in kind. Now what's a verse, here's a test, 50,000 gold stars, what's a verse in the New Testament that talks about us being anointed and having all knowledge? What book might you find a verse like that in? What? Peter, okay. Maybe perhaps it's a book you might be hearing a lot of lately. First John, okay. I don't know who's preaching through First John, but they are not doing a good job. Right, right in First John, right, we just saw this. John says, you don't have any need to be taught, right? You don't need teachers anymore, and we covered that, of course, doesn't mean that I'm out of a job after today, but what that means is, right, we've got this anointing that teaches you about everything and is true, and so you see this. And there's several more verses like that throughout the New Testament, that in the New Covenant, there's this heightened intimacy, access, pervasive knowledge of God that is not constrained by prophet, priest, and king as you see in the Old Covenant, right? They shall all know me from the least to the greatest. Again, that's a difference in degree, not in kind. Okay, third one, forgiveness is a key word, accomplished, secured, final, consummated. Certainly, that's a difference in degree, not in kind, right? You would not look back on the Old Testament saint and say, you know, you have no forgiveness. But there is a huge difference in that the forgiveness we receive is fulfilled, accomplished, consummated, so on and so forth. So here's Jeremiah's word, I will forgive their iniquity, I will remember their sin no more. In the Old Covenant, of course, you would have that forgiveness, but it's certainly coming through those veil of ceremonies. You know, you're making, I mean, just think all of the book of Leviticus, for instance. So, and I want to camp out on this point, again, of it being a difference of degree, not in kind. Was the Old Testament saint forgiven? Yes. Yes. Did they know that they were forgiven? Yes. Yes. So that's a very important point, right? They knew that they were forgiven, they did experience forgiveness of sins, but they are doing it prospectively, right? They're looking forward to the cross, and they're having to, you know, squint through this veil of ceremonies that we do not have to squint through, right? They're looking through that veil, as 2 Corinthians 3 says. All right, what's a great New Testament book that unpacks the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old Covenant? Hebrews. Hebrews, yeah, very good. So, I won't read all of this, but the author of Hebrews says, by this, and he's referring to all the priestly duties that the priest is having to do. By this, the Holy Spirit indicates that the way into the holy places was not yet opened, and then here's this really important verse, according to that arrangement, that Old Covenant arrangement, they cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper. Right, if you're sitting there doing, you know, Adonai, we are doing sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice, we have the Day of Atonement, all these washings, you would start to become embedded in your mind, huh, there seems to be a kind of deficiency in what we're doing. There's such a repetitiveness to this that this seems to be not the end of the story. You know, I'm, these types are having me look forward to a greater fulfillment, so these are good, this is what God has given us for this time, but there seems to be a pointing forward to of when there would be no more sacrifices because a kind of once for all sacrifice has come, right, make sense? And then another very famous verse, the blood of goats and bulls, very important phrase, how much more, and that's a phrase, you know, much more, Paul likes using that phrase as more as well, but you see this emphasis on how much more than will the blood of Christ purify our conscience? And that's the sense of contrast, and that's what I mean we're talking a difference of degree not in kind, that with those Old Testament sacrifices pointed forward to that were good and right for their time, how much more then is Christ going to do with those things we're just pointing forward to? Does that make sense? Any questions on that? Very important point. So we're saying forgiveness accomplished in the New Covenant of which the Old Covenant believer was squinting through in the veil of ceremonies. So here's another way to think of it just on a chart. Old Testament is full of types and shadows. In the New Testament, the fullness has come. You have promise in the Old Testament, whereas in the New Testament, you have fulfillment. Again, that's a difference of degree not in kind. We, of course, have a lot of promises in the New Testament as well. And then what is more particular and limited, namely constrained to the nation of Israel becomes universal in the New Testament. Okay, at the risk of a tangent, let me now address the kids. All right, kids, I'm going to try an analogy. Stay with me on this one. Okay, to help you reading the Old Testament in light of the New. Kids, give me a movie you've watched recently that you like. Star Wars. Good. Okay. Unbroken. Okay. Audrey. Noah. Nate. Just any movie. You had one job. You guys had one job and you failed. All right. The point I want to make is you guys know when you watch a movie, you have the movie, but there's also a trailer, a preview to a movie, right? How long is the trailer? Roughly? Yeah, three minutes, right? Okay. Now, what do you say, kids, if you've seen a trailer, say you saw the trailer to, in this case, Spider-Man, you saw the three minute trailer. Would you walk away and say, I've seen the movie? I've seen the whole movie. No, right? You've only seen a preview, and that preview has given you a true indication of the movie. It's given you a sense of the movie, but it's not the whole movie, right? You wouldn't walk away and say, I've seen the whole movie, okay? That's one way to think about when you read the Old Testament, you're reading through Leviticus. You could think of, man, God is giving them and us a kind of preview of what's to come, a true indication of what's to come. And then when I get to the New Testament, now I get to see the full movie, as it were. I get to see the full depiction of everything that the Old Testament was pointing forward to. Does that make sense, kids? All right. I'll take it. I'll take it. All right. Fourthly, Jeremiah said, I'm making this covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Why is that a significant statement in light of exile, when Jeremiah is writing this? Because... Yeah, now it's with the Gentiles as well. And not to mention those houses would have been divided houses, right? Okay, New Testament verse, there's a gazillion, I just picked one, but you see Christ comes and from Him we have every nation, all tribes, all peoples, all languages standing before the throne. Something certainly embedded in the Old Covenant, but not reaching its fullness, okay? So let's just sum all that up. What's so new about the New Covenant? These four things. The law is internalized via the Spirit, right? God said, I'm going to write the law upon the heart. We enjoy this intimate, immediate access of God, 1 John, you have no need that anyone should teach you anymore because you've been anointed and you have the Spirit. Forgiveness accomplished, right? The once for all sacrifice has been done, the need of blood of bulls and goats, no more. And it's expansive, all of creation, as Jeremy said, going now to the Gentiles, going now to the four corners of the earth, all the families of the earth being blessed, all the nations of the earth being blessed. And I didn't cover this, but it's obvious as you read it, as you read through the Old Testament that the Old Covenant has a built-in obsolescence to it. It is limited, it's got an expiration date on it, right? Once this expires, it's going to give way to that which is perpetual to the end of time until Christ returns. All right, now what is just as important, this is what's new, and there's more, I'm just trying to hit kind of a broad brush. What is not new, and this is just as important, what is not new in the New Covenant, we would not want to say, oh, now we have grace, oh, now there's forgiveness, now there's salvation by faith alone, by Christ alone, now there's the Holy Spirit. They did not have the Holy Spirit, we now do have the Holy Spirit. And this one, particularly egregious, as if there's a shift to kind of a personal, individual relationship rather than the corporate relationship that you see in the Old Covenant. You would not want to, at least simplistically say, oh yeah, these are things that are new in the New Covenant. No, all of these are present in the Old Covenant in their typical form, pointing forward to the fulfillment in the New Covenant. Questions on that? Very important just to have that in your mind. A lot of errors come from, which we've covered in dispensationalism, as well as other errors of other theology of saying that these things were new in the New Covenant. Any questions on that slide? The role of the Holy Spirit in the Old Covenant? Yeah, yes, and there'd be, right, again, difference in degree, not in kind. But yeah, you do certainly see a major difference in the role of the Holy Spirit, and Christ coming, having the Spirit without measure, which is new. That is a new thing. So there'd be nuance to it. I'm just trying to, again, my difference in degree, not in kind, yeah, yeah, but no, good point. What is the relationship between commandment and covenant? So, for example, when God says fill the earth and we'll do it, you know, these people will fill the earth and we'll do it. We now have more power to be able to do His commandments. Yeah, we're covering, we will cover that, yeah. Okay, so new, you know, new in what sense? That's one way you could just think of it as new, not meaning entirely novel or like completely innovative, as if God's, you know, starting with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, now we've got something we've never before seen. The burden of this class has been to try and show that all of these covenants have this common thread and they lead up to and they have continuity with and fulfillment in Jesus Christ. So consummation, or whatever other adjective you want to use, is a better way of thinking of it rather than entirely novel. I've hammered this, I'll continue to hammer it, our superiority is a difference of degree, not in kind. And if you had to answer that question, okay, well, why is there a heightened excellency in the new covenant? What would your answer be? Yeah, I do think, I really do think, like, the best answer you can give is Christ has come. He's come, He's died, He's risen. So we'll, we'll, we'll unpack that more later. All right, so let's, let's, let's go that route exactly. Let's see how all of these covenants find their fulfillment in, in Christ. And we'll just do them one by one, quick flyover. All right, Adamic. Over and over, New Testament, 1 Corinthians 15, other verses say Christ comes as the second Adam, as the last Adam. He does what Adam failed to do, he crushes the serpent head. Again, he does that in far harder circumstances than Adam did in paradise. Adam had access to the tree of life, held out to them. That was, of course, barred off. But Christ, you see in Revelation, opens up access to the tree of life and He shares it with us. Brian, your point, that creation mandate given to Adam, be fruitful and multiply, now we have that in its fullness in Christ. The only way this is so is in terms of headship. Adam is constituted as a federal head. When Adam sins, we sin in him. Same, same with Christ. That principle carries over right to Christ. In Christ we have life. And that's why the phrase, much more, is so important. You see it over and over again. How much, Adam did this, how much more will Christ do that? You know, Christ does not just bring it, He does not just, you know, undo what Adam did and bring us to the garden. You have a, no, I'm going to bring you all the way to perfect blessedness and communion with God that Adam failed to do. Okay, Noahic. You see Christ fulfilling the Noahic covenant. He undergoes the flood of judgment that was typified in the flood. He, of course, undergoes that upon the cross. As far as creation being sustained and then redeemed, you see Christ fulfills that. And a thing we didn't get to cover a whole, well, we might have, but this idea of rest. That's the Hebrew word, Noah. Noah, what does your name mean? Noah, what is your name? Where's Noah? Where's big Noah? Gone? Anyway, Noah, Noah is very related to the Hebrew word rest, which is what, which is the name purposely, of course, given to Noah. And you see throughout the new covenant, Christ comes and He gives rest. He gives peace. So, He fulfills the Noahic covenant in that regard and many, many more. Abrahamic, I mean, we could spend all day on this. Christ, of course, is the seed of Abraham. He is circumcised. We, therefore, are circumcised with a circumcision without hands, without flesh. What is circumcised for us? Our hearts, which, of course, is the original design of circumcision to begin with. So, again, that's not new, that's present in the old covenant. We become sons of Abraham, right? The blessing of Abraham comes to us, all of us in this room, I think, are Gentiles. We get to receive the promise of Abraham by faith of Abraham, counted to us as righteousness. And look at that, the land is regained and restored. You see it in Romans 4.13 that the land, how big is the land in the new covenant that is regained? Is it Palestine, is it, how big is it? All of it, yeah, yeah, all of it, all of it, all of creation, heaven and earth, regained and restored through Christ, the seed of Abraham. Okay, Mosaic, very important. Galatians makes this point explicitly that Christ is born under the law. Very important that Christ is born under the law and so keeps the law in our place because He is our covenant head. He obeys that law. He renders active, what some have called active obedience. Not only that, He suffers the penalty of the law. And not only that, we don't want to skip over this point, by the Spirit, the law is written on our hearts. Now we are able to obey and keep the law. The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in us who walk not by the flesh but by the Spirit. And then with sometimes like the end of exile, you know, imagine you're a first century Jew, you're under Roman occupation, Roman emperor, his king, you're thinking, man, we are under the curse of God. Like we are still in exile, we're under the curse of God, and then Christ comes and He fulfills that, which is why it would be so hard, you know, if you're imagining a Messiah who comes in, defeats the Roman empire, defeats the Roman emperor, and instead you have this crucified Messiah, whew, this is different than what many would have been expecting. But He does so and through His death, He brings about the end of exile and the restoration of all things. Okay, Davidic covenant, this one's fairly more obvious. He comes as the wise king, He defeats the greater Goliath, He inaugurates the kingdom, that's a very important point. We've seen that in 1 John, the last hour is now upon us, and as far as when that kingdom is inaugurated is a bit of a debate, you know, was that when Christ was born, was that when He died, was that when He rose again? For my money, I would say Pentecost is when the kingdom is formally inaugurated. And then remember, and John talked about this last week, you know, David goes to build the temple, God says, no, you're a man of bloodshed, your son's going to build the temple. Christ comes and He builds the true temple, right? He builds the everlasting temple, which is us, yeah, Christ is building us, we are living stones that He has built up, and of course His throne, which was the heart of the Davidic covenant, is an eternal throne, right? We will never lack a man to sit upon that throne. So it's important to see Christ is counted as, constituted as, a covenant breaker, right? When He is on the cross, the curses of the covenant are what is falling upon Him. Curses is everyone who hangs on a tree, right, that is a covenantal curse. Isaiah 53, He is considered, numbered, accounted as a transgressor. Each one of these would all be, you know, if I just threw those up there and said who am I talking about, and He didn't know anything else, He would say, you are talking about a cursed person, someone who is bearing the covenantal curses of God. And that's what Christ did for us as our head, as one being born of the law and accounted as a transgressor. Not only that, His blood specifically is what ratifies or confirms the covenant, and this is what makes Him the mediator of a new covenant that is enacted on better promises. Hebrews also contrasts, you think of Moses, right? He's the better Moses. He mediates the covenant in a way that Moses failed to do and could not do. Moses being faithful as a servant, Christ being faithful as a...as a son. Okay, we need to keep going. So, He's born of the law, He's counted as a covenant breaker, covenant transgressor, but perhaps just as...well, just as important, not perhaps, He also, this is sometimes overlooked, He Himself, He receives the covenant blessings. You know, Psalm 2, I will give you the ends of the earth as your possession. Ask of Me and you can have the nations, right? And God says, here you are, Son, here are the ends of the earth, here are the riches of your inheritance. So, we need to see Christ Himself first receives all the...He undergoes the covenant curse and then He receives all the covenant blessings of God in their most hyper-awesome form. And you see all that here. And there's more. I mean, this is just...I'm just putting things that are trying to paint with a broad brush. But to get the flow of that is that Christ Himself first receives it as head and then that is communicated to us, the church, as His body. You know, you think of oil running down Aaron's head, it goes from Aaron's head down to his robe. And same thing, right? Christ is head, right? Here comes this precious oil going from Him down to us, communicated to us as His body. So, that's why you see...and there's so many more than this. When Christ dies, He is there representing us, right? When He dies, we die. When He rises, He is representing us as our captain, you could call it. When He rises as the firstfruits, it is though all of us are rising with Him. And again, the only way...the only way that could be true is if Christ is a...what? A covenant head. That is the only way that's true. As goes the head, so goes the body. So, you can see why covenant is at the absolute heartbeat of salvation and of the salvation story, okay? Okay, so that said, let's talk about New Covenant and the Christian life. We could do a gazillion things, I'm just going to pick three. Headship obviously we've covered a ton, so headship, very important point, right? For someone who's a pastor, husband, father, I would...you could throw in there politicians that...you could think of a good counterexample, Saul, right? Saul is the head, he's the king of Israel, he makes this sacrifice, Samuel comes to him, man, knucklehead Saul, what have you done? And what does Saul do? Saul just imitates Adam, no, it wasn't me, it was the people, they're the ones that did it, I was afraid of them, it was the wife you gave me, essentially saying what Adam did and fails to be a good covenant head, you know, and Saul...as Samuel tells him, you know, why do you think...why do you consider yourself so little in your eyes? Do you not realize you are the head of Israel? Your sin impacts the whole nation, right? When you sin, you're bringing the whole nation into your sin. And that's just a great principle for us as heads, those of us who are heads to remember, right? Pastors as heads, husbands, fathers, so on and so forth, and it's certainly, of course, the greats against the egalitarianism that we see so prevalent in our day. Let me give one political example, won't have time to go into it, this is from...I won't read all this. Kids, what do you think this is? This was written in 1620 New England, what would that be? 1620 New England, what would have been written at that time? 1620 Cape Cod, New England, in America? Mayflower Compact, yeah, very good. I don't know who your dad is, but man. Alright. Just kidding. Okay, so, I won't read it, but just note, right, there they are, and just key terms here, right? They're agreeing solemnly, right here in the middle, solemnly and mutually in the presence of God and with one another, and they see themselves as doing what they're in red. We covenant together, we're going to combine ourselves together into a civil body politic. So you see they're there thinking of themselves as covenanting together. We're going to have this agreement to come together that will govern our civil life. And you can put that in huge contrast to social contract theory of men like Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, that unfortunately tend to have more influence over us than did this. But even in those words, social contract versus covenant, as we've covered in this class, big difference between those two words, right? With covenant comes this idea of solemn responsibilities, duties, benevolent use of hierarchy, sacrifice, so on and so forth, whereas contract, much more conditional, and so on and so forth. Okay, so that's just one example. We could go on down the list of more and more. Okay, obviously for our life as a church, Christ is our head. I mean, this goes without saying. As Ephesians says, God has given Christ as head over all things to the church. I mean, how amazing is that? God could have put Christ as head over all things in any area. He says, no, I'm giving you as head over all things to the church to rule and reign over the church. And what that means in particular is we are the Israel of God, not replacing, which would be a poor choice of words because the burden of this class has been to show the continuity we have, that we are called, as Galatians says, the Israel of God. Jew and Gentile, the promises made to Adam, Abraham, Israel, David, so on and so forth, comes to their fullness in the Israel of God that is the church. There's obviously a big difference between that understanding and the Baptist understanding, right? Sign and seal of the covenant is always applied to covenant members. That is an Old Testament reality. Abraham applies it to Jacob and Esau. That same principle carries forward to the new covenant, Lydia and her household. And you can multiply examples after that. Spares great weight in terms of church discipline, right? The only way church discipline would make any kind of sense whatsoever is in terms of covenant. The meal that we take today is a covenantal meal, right? Christ is head. He's dispensing himself spiritually. We are communing with Christ. And that's what makes sense of passages like this, right? This judgment is being made upon those who don't eat and drink in a worthy manner. We can see that as covenantal discipline or even covenantal judgment, if you will, depending upon the context. This is why you see this principle throughout the New Testament, not just Old, that it's worse, worse off to taste of the fruits of light, partake of the Holy Spirit, to have blessings come to you, and then to walk away from those blessings than to have never believed at all. All right. I think we can cover this. This is one area we'd have big difference with the Baptists. The Baptists' understanding is that the New Covenant is identical to the elect, that the New Covenant is the same circle as the elect. The Reformed understanding would be more like this. The substance, of course, certainly is the elect. The administration of the covenant of grace goes to, includes the non-elect just as it did in the Old Covenant, just as it does in the New Covenant. So there would be a significant departure from the common Baptist understanding. All right. And then lastly, I think one of the things we ought to just consider and relish and cherish is that, again, because Christ has come, because the Spirit has been poured out, because we receive the Spirit of Christ who takes the things of Christ and makes them real to us, we really do have a unique power in the New Covenant to do that which the Old Covenant believer tasted but did not get to have it in its fullness, to walk in an obedience to God that is very unique because Christ has come and he has accomplished all the work his Father gave him to do. Okay, let's leave a little time for questions if there are any. Questions on the New Covenant? Yeah, I mean, so I'd start with the simple principle, again, covenant sign and seal, always, always, always, always applied to covenant members. You see this in the Old Covenant, you see the exact same principle carried forward into the New Covenant. I think the reason we differ is, going back to that slide, the Baptist understanding would be, well, New Covenant means, New Covenant is identical to regenerate, elect, Christian. And from that you see this principle of, well, therefore, we're only going to baptize someone if we can discern they really are regenerated and they've given this profession of faith and that's why we're going to wait until they're, whatever, 12, 17, 22, whatever the number might be, based off this understanding of New Covenant being identical, coterminous to the elect. The Reformed understanding, Presbyterian understanding, again, covenant sign and seal, always, always, always applied to all covenant members. Jacob and Esau, Abraham's applying that sign and knowing Jacob being elect, Esau being unelect. And that same principle carries forward to the New Covenant. No, this would be us, over here on the right. The substance certainly is the elect, as far as true partakers you might say, but always administered. It's always going to include the non-believer, in terms of administration. That's just the nature of the reality of the visible church. The visible church is always made up of, you know, elect and the non-elect. Yeah, I mean, one way you can think of that is, like, you could talk about, say, the Paschal Lamb. You see in there, when that law is being given, you have the child asking the father, you know, Dad, what are we doing? Dad's explaining to the child, son, this is why we're doing this. We were slaves in the land of Egypt. God brought us out of the land of Egypt. We're commemorating that deliverance. So if you drew that parallel to, say, the Lord's Supper, same thing. This child person is aware. I'm communing with Christ. This is what God has done for us. We were once slaves to our sin. He redeemed us by Jesus Christ. He set us free. Come and commune with Christ by faith. Helpful question? Yeah, so initiatory for baptism, and then you could say education, nourishment, encouragement, Lord's Supper, sanctifying, Lord's Supper, so on and so forth. Oh, and Lord's Supper between Baptists and… Oh, sorry. I was not answering your question. Yeah, I mean, and this is not… I mean, some Baptists would hold to the pure memorial view that when we have the Lord's Supper, all we are doing is we're just remembering the death of Christ. So it's just entire… all it is is remembrance. It's just pure memorial. We would agree it is memorial. It is a memorial view, but more than that, that Christ is spiritually present here with us, feeding us with his very self, spiritually feeding us with his very self. Spiritual is not code word for fake. Like, no, that's all the more real. Christ is really, truly, spiritually communicating himself to us when we commune by faith. Does that answer your question or more answer your question? All right, any other questions? All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you. We praise you for what we have considered this morning, how awesome it is indeed that you have given us Christ as our Lord, as our head, that he came, that he was born under the law in our place, that he kept the law in our place, that he suffered the covenant penalties in our place, that he lived the very life we ought to live, that he died the very death that we were deserving of. We praise you that this was not the end, that you have raised up the Lord Jesus by the power of your might, and that because he is our head, we are also raised up with him to everlasting life, that even right now, there's a very true sense in which we have been raised with Christ to sit in the heavenly places, even as we wait that final day, when you will indeed make all things new, a new heavens and a new earth, and you will be all in all. We praise you that he has poured out his spirit into our hearts, making no new love to us, that we can cry out, Abba, Father, we do pray, help us to walk, not according to our flesh, but according to the Spirit, to live in a way that is pleasing to you. And we pray for today, we are thankful that we get to worship you. As we particularize, we do pray, we would do nothing other than celebrate your covenant faithfulness to your church that we have seen from the time of Adam all the way up to this current moment, and will continue to the very end of the age. In his name we pray. Amen.
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