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The Bible is the story of God redeeming the world. But how is that story structured? In this lesson, we begin our discussion of Covenant Theology. Bible passages: Ephesians 1:3-14
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The Bible is the story of God redeeming the world. But how is that story structured? In this lesson, we begin our discussion of Covenant Theology. Bible passages: Ephesians 1:3-14
Comment
The Bible is the story of God redeeming the world. But how is that story structured? In this lesson, we begin our discussion of Covenant Theology. Bible passages: Ephesians 1:3-14
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The Bible should be interpreted as a story of redemption, rather than a rule book or guide book. Stories have a structure and the structure of the Bible is framed around covenants. Covenants are solemn promises between two or more parties, usually with God involved, and they have associated blessings and curses. Covenants do not require both parties to be on equal footing, and they help define the relationship between God and man. Conditions are what must be done to fulfill the covenant, beneficiaries receive the blessings or curses of the covenant, and federal heads are representatives for one of the parties in the covenant. Last week we cleared up some false assumptions about the Bible, false assumptions about how we usually approach the Bible, whether it's about thinking the Bible is primarily a rule book or a guide book, or whether we think we need to interpret the Bible as exhaustive, meaning it answers everything. We got all those out of the way, and we said that we need to interpret the Bible as the story of redemption, that the Bible is primarily a story more than it is a rule book or a guide book or anything like that. There are rules in it, there are commandments in it, of course, but it is primarily a story. But, all stories need a structure, all stories have structure to them, stories are built around something, whether it's a search for some item or some person, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a murder mystery, stories are built around something, they have a structure to them. It's something that gives the story a framework from which it can go and tell the meat of the story, which has to do with the motivations and changing parts of the characters. So, we know that the meat of the story of the Bible is the story of the redemption of the world by God through Christ, that's the story. But now, what is the structure of that story, what is it framed around? Because that's a good starting point, right, okay, we know this is about redemption, we know Jesus is the main character, we know that he is the one that saves us, we know he's the central point of the Bible, even though he's not in the entire Bible presently. But how is the story structured? The answer to that is, the story of the Bible is structured around covenants, okay? Covenants are covenants. What? Covenants are covenants. Well, I was just about to ask you guys, what is a covenant? A promise. A promise? Okay. Okay. Anyone else have other definitions? Is a promise more solemnly confirmed? Is there some sort of ritual, or like how God walked through the anvil that was passed down, to confirm that it's not going to be broken? Right. Contract? Contract is another word. Legally, like the term covenant, legally, usually refers to some type of contract. So you are correct there. Yes? He's not even saying the exact definition, I know, but it's fine. Okay. Wow. Okay, so, promise is good. That is sort of at the heart of what a covenant is. But we all agree that there are some promises that are more serious than others. Like, if one of you says, hey, can I get a ride to work tomorrow? And I'm like, okay, yeah. That is a promise. That is a covenant. That is a promise. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. That is a covenant. A good definition is a solemn bond between two or more parties, sovereignly administered meaning looked over by God, God has a hand in it, with associated blessings and curses. So it's a solemn promise between two parties at least, with God either as one of the parties or present, and there's blessings for obedience, and there are curses for disobedience. We'll use marriage typically as the example because that's just the most common covenant we see today. Marriage is a solemn bond between a man and a woman, administered by God, God established marriage, with benefits for staying faithful and potential penalties for breaking that covenant. If you commit adultery, there could be divorce, there could be, I mean in ancient Israel, there could be the death penalty for that. There could be serious penalties for breaking this covenant. Not to mention obviously the spiritual and social and financial ramifications of that. So marriage is a good example of what a covenant is in the modern day because it's not a term we really use anymore. But in the ancient world, this was a pretty frequent practice. So covenants were an ancient practice. Typically you would see them between victorious kings and the kings they just defeated. So I'll just say Gilgamesh walked up, he just defeated this other guy, and he says, all right, I just defeated you, here's the covenant I'm going to make with you. You're going to be one of my governors, you will pay me taxes, and in return I will protect your land. And then the defeated king would usually sign that agreement unless he was very proud and prideful, in which case he'd probably be killed. What this tells us though is something important. It tells us that covenants do not require both parties to be on equal footing. The victorious king is not on the same level of footing as the defeated king by nature of the fact that he is victorious. He could end this man's life and continue to destroy his country, but he's saying, I'm going to form this covenant with you because X, Y, Z reasons. So they don't have to be on the same level, playing field. That's kind of different than a contract that we think of today where legally both parties are on the same playing field. Even though one may have more money or power or whatever, legally they're still on the same playing field. But that doesn't work between God and us. God is not on our level at all. He's way above us. And he doesn't have to make a covenant with us. He could just force us to do whatever. And covenants are a way that he does enforce his laws, but he still is merciful enough to put it in the form of an agreement and not just, here, do this. So, biblical covenants also help form the relationship between God and man. It gives us a formal relationship with God. We already have a natural relationship with God because he's the creator and we are the creature. That is one relationship, but we're not just any creature. We're made in his image. And as a reflection of that, God has chosen to enter into covenant with mankind. So they give a formality to the relationship between God and man. Covenants define that relationship. We'll look at some covenant terms just so you're familiar with it. I'm going to go ahead and tell you this now. The majority of this series will be going through covenants because they are that essential to understanding scripture and the story of it. So, first term, conditions. Fine. I should just talk slower. What did you say? No, I'm fine, thank you. Okay. Okay, no, sorry, you took too long. All right, conditions. This is the first term. Conditions, they are simply what must be done to fulfill the covenant. Okay. If these are not met or maintained, then the covenant... I'm sorry, if these are met or maintained, the covenant blessings are given. If they're not, the covenant curses are given, right? So, going back to marriage, if you are faithful to your spouse, you receive the blessings of that. You receive the blessings of that. You receive general harmony in your household, right? Your spouse likes you, your kids like you, you have stability in the household, and generally all the other blessings that come from that. If you break that, then curses come. Now, there can be forgiveness and reconciliation, thankfully, but there is still the damage that can be done from that. Okay, so conditions. That is the first term. It's just simple. Do this, and you will receive this. Okay. Beneficiary. I know these sound like legal terms, but just bear with me. They're fairly simple to get. Beneficiary just means the ones who receive the blessings, and also the ones who would receive the curses, too. But beneficiaries don't necessarily have to be parties in the covenant. So, for example, children are a beneficiary to the marriage covenant, even though they're not a party in the covenant, right? You're not a part of your parents' marriage, but you receive the blessings of that marriage. If it's a good marriage, if they love each other, if they're faithful to each other, then you receive two parents that love each other. That love is going to overflow onto you and your siblings. Right, so beneficiaries. This is important to remember, because not all parties in the covenant, or sorry, not all beneficiaries are parties in the covenant. Some people just receive the blessings of a covenant of which they're not a part of. Next is federal head. This is the representative for one of the parties in a covenant. Usually in the Bible, covenants aren't just made with individuals. They are made with groups of people, whether that's all of humanity, whether that's the church, whether that's Israel, whether that's a family. They're made with groups, primarily. And when God does this, he singles out one person to be the covenant head, or the federal head, I should say. But it means their obedience will result in blessings, and their disobedience will result in curses. Example of this, Adam. Adam is humanity's, or was humanity's, federal head. When he was in the garden, and we'll talk about this in more detail later, but when he was in the garden, God makes a covenant with him, essentially. He says, hey, if you obey, you and your posterity will all receive paternal life. If you don't, you and your posterity will face death. He broke it, they faced death. You can say, well, that's not fair. Okay, but then you also have to say that the gospel isn't fair. Which, yeah, it isn't. It's gracious. Things can be gracious and not fair. In fact, they usually are, because grace is getting something that you don't deserve. Getting something good you don't deserve, I should say. All right, next is covenant succession. This just means that the covenant, covenants typically last longer than the lifetime of one person. And so this means that the covenant is passed down to children, right? And typically it's passed down from the father to the children. Throughout the scriptures we see this. This is why you read the genealogies and it's always so-and-so father, so-and-so, or so-and-so fathered, so-and-so, so-and-so fathered, so-and-so, or so-and-so son of so-and-so, right? It's not because the Bible is just misogynistic. It's because that is the line of the covenant blessings that are being carried down. Okay? Because we're all under Adam's federal headship. He is our first father, right? And every father since then has carried on the curses of his sin. And then last is covenant signs. So this is a visual or physical seal of the covenant promises. Okay? So examples of this from scripture. Covenant with Noah. What was the covenant sign with that one? The rainbow. For Abraham it was circumcision. For Christians in the New Covenant it's baptism. You could even say that wedding rings are kind of a covenant sign. I've never heard them described that way, but I suppose they are. Probably because most wedding rings... I think wedding rings weren't popular until like 150 years ago, and that was thanks to a marketing campaign by a jewelry company. That is true. It was either wedding rings or just engagement rings. It could have been one of those two. I don't know. This way of viewing the whole scripture as structured by covenants is called covenant theology. Right? Did anyone need to go back to the last slide? I'll go ahead and ask this now. Okay, are we good? All right. So this view is called covenant theology. Now, up until this point, when I have mentioned covenants, you probably thought, oh yeah, Old Covenant and New Covenant. Or maybe Noahic Covenant and Davidic Covenant. Right? The covenant with David. And those are certainly vital to the story of scripture, and we will go into them at a future point. But that's not really what I'm talking about here. And that's not really what covenant theology is primarily concerned with. Covenant theology views scripture as a whole as being based around three overarching covenants. These covenants are not named explicitly in scripture, but they are there, and we'll get into the proof for them. But here are the three overarching covenants in scripture. Overarching means they basically go from Genesis, the first couple chapters of Genesis, or before, to Revelation. Right? So, the first is called the covenant of redemption. Okay? And again, these are not terms that are explicitly in the Bible, but these terms describe something that we find in scripture. Just like how Trinity is not in the Bible, but it describes what we find in the Bible. Right? So the covenant of redemption is an agreement within the Trinity itself, so within the Godhead, between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And they make this agreement to create and redeem a world. Right? And, obviously, redeeming the world is both the physical world and the elect. Right? So whenever we hear Jesus speak of doing the Father's work or fulfilling the Father's plan, this is what he's talking about. Right? It's all over the Gospels. Right? He says, I must do my Father's work. Right? What is he talking about? He's talking about this covenant. The Father said, we're going to make this world, Jesus, I'm going to give this group of people, this church, to you as a bride, but you have to redeem them. And he says, absolutely. Okay? Now, even in that language itself, that wouldn't capture what the dynamics of the Trinity are, but, you know, I'm limited because I'm a finite creature. We're all finite creatures. That is true, yes. So whenever he talks about fulfilling the Father's plan, he's talking about the covenant of redemption. And this covenant was formed before creation, and it continues until the final resurrection. Okay? Next is the covenant of works. Now, when you hear covenant of works, you might think of Moses and the Old Covenant. That's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about the agreement between God and Adam in Genesis 2, where he said, you can eat of any tree of the garden, but not the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The day you eat of that, you die. Which means that if he did not eat of it, then he would live forever. Him and his posterity would live forever. Okay? So this means that fulfilling this covenant was based on Adam's works. Adam had to perform in order to receive the blessings. So it's based on works. In a sense, all these covenants are based on the works of somebody, but here it's called the covenant of works because it's based on the working of a human being. Right? So because Adam failed to keep this covenant, God decided to establish another covenant with humanity, and this is called the covenant of grace. Okay, so you see works. We failed to keep the works, but now God is going to save us through a covenant based on grace. And this is an agreement between God and Christ, with Christ representing the elect. Right? Those who are saved. Those who trust in Christ. And that's the promise of the covenant of grace, that hey, Adam failed to earn eternal life for you, but Christ succeeded in earning eternal life for you, and so if you trust in him, you will have eternal life as well. Okay, that's the covenant of grace. And unlike the covenant of works, it's based on God's pure grace. God choosing to open people's eyes to their sin and to repent. So everyone who has been saved or will be saved or is currently saved is in the covenant of grace. If you're saved, you're in the covenant of grace. When you were born, you were born into the covenant of works because you were born sinful, you were born a member of Adam's covenant, and whenever you came to faith, whenever that was, it could be very early on or very recently, or still to come, you will be in the covenant of grace. So these are the three overarching covenants of the Bible. Now, like I said, these covenants are not listed by name in the Bible, and so that causes some to think, well, is covenant theology even biblical? And the answer is yes. Otherwise, I wouldn't be talking about it. So this is understandable, right? Because if you start hearing terms that aren't in the Bible, sometimes you're like, are you adding in stuff that shouldn't be there? What are you doing here? So that's understandable. But we also have to remember the word concept theology, which is where you say if the word or the phrase or the name doesn't appear in Scripture, then the concept must not be there. But again, if you follow that to its logical conclusion, you have to deny the Trinity because the word Trinity isn't in the Bible, and that's heresy. So we're not just going to throw these away just because, well, the phrase covenant of works or covenant of grace is not explicitly in the Bible. No, covenant of works, the phrase doesn't appear in Scripture, but God made a solemn promise to Adam that he would live forever if he obeyed. That's clear. No one's denying that. And so covenant of works is just a shorthand way of saying that. That way we don't have to spit out a mouthful every time we're talking about this thing that we all know about, right? But just to be safe, we're going to give a few examples of where these covenants appear in Scripture. So for the covenant of redemption, which is this first one here, we see the father promises the son, the elect, in John chapter 10, verses 27 through 29. Primarily in 27, he says, He says, the father has already given them to me. He's done that because they made this covenant before time even began. In that sense, he's already given Jesus the elect. He's already promised him the elect. Jesus just has to now come and do the work needed to redeem us. So again, that's there. Even though we don't have the phrase covenant of redemption, we see there is a promise between the father and the son to create and redeem and sanctify this group of people. Covenant of works. Romans 5.12, right? We die because of Adam's failure. Romans 5.12, So sin came in through Adam, and because he sinned, death is coming through sin. And death spread to all men because all sinned. And all men sin because they are sons or daughters of Adam. That is why we sin. We sin because we are sinners. And we are sinners because we are descended from Adam. That's covenant succession. That's how this works. But then, covenant of grace, Jesus succeeds where Adam failed. So just in the same chapter, five verses down, Romans 5.17, So Romans 5, Paul is comparing Adam and Jesus. He's saying Adam failed, Adam trespassed, Adam broke the law, and he brought death to everyone. But Christ succeeded in following the law, and he brought this gift of righteousness. Because that's what you need. That's what we actually need. We need righteousness. But we can't get it because we are sinners. And so when Christ obeyed the law and then died and rose again, and when he gives you his spirit, he's giving you his righteousness. He's giving you credit for what he did. So that when God looks on you, he doesn't see the sinner, he sees his son. So these covenants are biblical, even if they're not named in Scripture. That's what I wanted to get across here. Now, why does this matter? This may sound like nerdy theology stuff, and it is. You can really go in deep on a lot of this. But why does this matter to you, and especially as you're studying the Bible? There's three reasons. One, like I said, covenant theology gives structure to the story of redemption. It gives structure to it. Because the Bible is 66 books, I'm sure you've felt this sometimes if you've ever tried to read through the whole Bible. It can feel a little disconnected sometimes. If you're reading through Nahum, you're like, how on earth does this connect to Jesus? Or how does this connect to the Gospel? What does this even mean for me? Covenant, that's the answer. The answer is covenant. Covenant links all the books of the Bible together, even though they may not explicitly mention covenants. It's there. It connects Amos to Acts, it connects Job to Revelation, it connects Leviticus to Philippians, it connects the whole Bible. Because it's always there. The whole Bible is the outpolling of the covenant of redemption. So that alone connects the whole Bible, but the other two are there as well. So it connects the whole Bible, it gives structure to the story of redemption. When we read the Bible starting in Genesis, we're looking for, okay, God made this covenant that he's going to send an offspring to crush the serpent's head. Now how is that going to be fulfilled? And you read through Genesis and Exodus and the rest of the Old Testament, and then finally you get to the New Testament, and it's, oh, here's Jesus. He's the one that's going to do it. And speaking of Jesus, it also connects Jesus to the entire Bible. Now it's easy to say, oh, Jesus is in every book of the Bible. But that can kind of be vague. Like, okay, well then what does it mean that Jesus is in the whole Bible? Does it mean you can find an analogy for Jesus in every book of the Bible? Yeah, you probably can. You can probably do that. But the covenants help us see that Jesus is saving people in the Old and New Testament in the exact same way. When you go and read the Old Testament, and you see that Noah and Abraham and Moses and David and Solomon, all these guys were big, fat sinners. They sinned a lot. They sinned in ways that if we knew someone that sinned in the way they did, we would probably question their salvation. If you knew someone that had 700 wives and 300 concubines, you'd be a little suspicious, okay? Yeah, you'd be a little suspicious. But God saved all of them. He was gracious to all of them. And if you're just reading the Old Testament, that can kind of be like, well, this doesn't really make any sense because God said you have to follow the covenant. You have to follow the law in order to receive life. Yet God is giving grace to these people. Why is he doing that? And then you get to Christ, and you say, oh, this is why. Because they trusted in God. They trusted that someone would come to fulfill the covenant that Adam broke. That's why they talk about, that's what the sacrifices point to. That's what circumcision points to. That's what the nation of Israel as a whole pointed to. But they all pointed to that. And we'll get into that in a future lesson. Lastly, C.T. reminds us that God always keeps his promises. This is the most important part. This is why studying the covenants is so great. Because God cares so much about keeping his word that he swears oaths, binding oaths, to sinful, covenant-breaking humans like us. The covenants show us why the gospel is not only necessary, but why it's glorious. We have broken God's covenant and deserve no second chance. God could have just left us to be. Or he could have killed Adam and Eve right there and just said, okay, go on to the next thing. Or he could have let them reproduce and have all these people and just have them be ranked horrible sinners. But no. He swore to himself that he would save us out of his pure mercy and grace. God always keeps his promises. I believe it's in Galatians. Galatians or Hebrews where it says, when God made this covenant with Abraham, he swore by his own name because there is no higher name to swear by. He swore by himself. And that means it cannot be broken. Because God himself is truth. Truth cannot contradict self. So, that's first half-ish of this lesson. For the rest of it, we're going to just look at the covenant of redemption specifically. The majority of this series is going to focus on covenant of grace because that has the most parts to it. That's where we're going to look into Abraham and Moses and that. But for the rest of this lesson, we're going to go into the covenant of redemption since it's the simplest, but it's the most foundational. This is really the big covenant that unites everything. You can turn to Ephesians chapter 1. It's going to be on the screen too. But you can turn there if you'd like. Because this is really where the covenant of redemption is shown most explicitly. This spells everything out. As you look at Ephesians 1, it's really structured in a way where it tells you what the Father is doing, what the Son is doing, and what the Spirit does. We'll look at the first four verses here, starting in verse 3. It says, We'll stop there for a second. Right there, verse 4. We'll just pause there. The Father shows us. The covenant of redemption is the context of election, the context of predestination. When we say God predestines you, it's not like He just randomly chose us one day when He was bored. No, it was a solemn bond between the Father and the Son and the Spirit. Election gives us confidence God won't change His mind already. But now we have even more confidence that we're not going to be cut off, that God's not going to change His mind, because He swore an oath to Himself, which cannot be broken. So that's when He chose us when? Before the foundation of the world. This means that the true beginning of the Bible is actually not Genesis 1. Chronologically speaking, it's not Genesis 1. It's this. It's the covenant of redemption. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit making this pact to create and redeem the world. That's the beginning. And so if you read through the Bible with that in mind, that's going to change how you view things, right? Things are going to feel less random. They're going to feel less just like, God's just doing weird things here. And yeah, if you were living in the moment, it would look like God's doing weird things, just like we live right now and it seems like God's doing weird things. But if you have this in mind, that, oh, God's made this pact, He's going to redeem the world, it makes sense of a lot of things. So we'll move on. He chose in Him before the foundation of the world. Why? That we should be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will. Okay, so He didn't just choose us to be saved. He chose to adopt us as sons and daughters. Right? He adopted us. He chose us. Literally, that's how adoption parents choose a child they're going to adopt. That's what the image you should have in mind for predestination. That God sees you. Yes? Gentlemen, is something funny? Are you adopted? You don't look adopted. You look like both of your parents. Yeah, we are. Yes, you are. Now... I'm not even going to ask what was said. I don't really care all that much. Oh, your brother, Logan, right. I didn't know who you meant when you said Logan. So, that's the image you should have in your mind when you think of predestination. You don't think of God like tallying up all these numbers and being like, okay, these people are going to go to heaven. These people, whatever, they're going to go to hell. It's fine. Like, no. God's saying, I want those children. I want them. I want to redeem them and cleanse them. Okay? Now, why did He do this? Why did God choose us? Why did He make this covenant with Himself? Down here. According to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved. Okay? The reason He's doing this is so that He can receive glory. And that sounds selfish. It sounds selfish for God to do all of this so that He can be glorified. Okay? But we have to remember two things. One, God is triune. Okay? He's three persons. So when God glorifies Himself, it's still selfless because it's one person doing something for another person. Right? It's the Father doing something for the Son, and the Son doing something for the Spirit, and the Spirit doing something for the Father, and everything in between. Right? So even when we say God loves Himself more than He loves us, that's still not selfish because it's the Father loving the Son more than the Father loves the Church, even though the Father still loves the Church very much. Okay? And two, when God is glorified, we benefit. God is being glorified in verse 6 because of His grace, which is what He used to save us. Okay? So God is doing this so that He can be glorified, yet we benefit from it. Okay? We benefit more from this than from anything else. So don't think that, oh, if God's just doing this for Himself, then somehow I'm getting cheated out of something. No, you're not. Right? You're getting far more than you deserve. Far more. Okay? So just be aware of that. But also remember, when God is glorified, I benefit the most. Okay? So that's what the Father does. The Father chose us to adopt us, and He did this before the foundation of the world, and He's doing this for His glory. Next we go on to the Son. Would anyone else like to read this? Because I don't want to do all the reading. Go ahead. Okay, thank you. So the second section here focuses on the work of Jesus, the work of the Son. So, what are the requirements of the Son in this covenant of redemption? Well, verse 7 tells us, says, In Him, we have... Another great thing about Ephesians 1 is that the way it uses pronouns in relation to the names of God are interchangeable. Because, like, when you leave off of verse 6, it almost sounds like the hymn should be Christ, but then it could also be God, because it says, Through His blood, which He set forth in Christ. So it's interchanging the pronouns with Christ and God and the Father and the Son, because they're all the same being, but they're different persons. Right? So one of those things, the way the New Testament authors write, they almost write as though you already kind of know the Trinity is a thing, and it makes sense, because the early church would have been a church that saw Jesus in the flesh, had the Holy Spirit present in them in a way that it hasn't really been since, and they may have even heard the Father speak when Jesus was baptized. So they experienced the entire Trinity in a very vibrant way. So that's why the New Testament authors kind of write as though the people already kind of know this, because experientially they did. Right? They already experienced it. Anyway, that was as far as I know. So, verse 7 says, in Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. Okay? Redemption through blood. Okay? Through the blood of Christ. So the Father elected the church, He chose the members of the church, but these people are still going to sin against God, right? He's choosing them out of a sinful mass, right? Sin cannot go unatoned for, or God would be going against His own character, right? God is just, and if He is just, then He must punish sin. But no member of Adam's race can be the substitute for sin, because they're all sinners, right? In order to be the substitute, they must be a man, right? So they can represent mankind, but they also have to be God, so that He can overcome death by His own power. Now, while I was preparing this, my brain went into the crazy hypotheticals, and this has nothing to do with the lesson, but I'm just going to talk about it anyway. I barely go on rabbit trails, so no one complained about this, okay? I'm very well behaved. So I was thinking, like, okay, what if God could, like, make an angel give Him, like, a human body? Could He have been a sacrifice? Because He would be perfect, right? If the angel doesn't sin, which there are angels that don't sin, they're called angels. The other ones, they're all demons. Could that have worked? And I was trying to, because I always, I always think that you guys will ask questions like this. None of you, none of you do, which is fine. Yes? It wouldn't work because the angels are not ready to come in. That is, that is also true. I actually didn't think about that one. It's a good answer. Very good. But another reason, I have to jump into the mind of a heretic sometimes. Another reason is because an angel wouldn't be able to raise itself by its own power. Right? The reason that, one of the reasons Christ's resurrection is so amazing is because it is His own power that rose Him from the dead, right? The Bible will say that the Father, you know, raised Christ from the dead, but it will also say Christ raised Himself from the dead because of the same being but different persons. Okay? So anyway, that was just a fun thing where I was like, or I'm always like, what's the craziest question I could be asked? That's like, that's about half of my lesson prep. That's why I spend a lot of time on this is because I'm like, hypothetically, what could they ask? Yes? Maybe. Because I'm, because I'm, because when I was in youth group, we would ask some strange questions. Okay? Like, yeah, I do that sometimes. Maybe I'll send out like main points. This is one thing I always, I talk to, I talk to people and I'm like, I'm like, these kids agree with me too much. I'm suspicious. And I was like, I don't know if they agree with me too much, just that I'm like, way on this end of like thinking of crazy hypotheticals. They just haven't caught up with me yet. I'm scared. Anyway, I forget where I was. Anyway, I'm coming back. I'm coming back. Okay, we're coming back to the lesson. So, anyway, all that aside, the substitute has to be man and God because that's the, man so he can represent mankind, God so he can raise himself by his own power. So, God the Son took on all these aspects of humanity minus sin, but sin's not an essential aspect of humanity. It's something that was added on because of Adam. He took on all these aspects of humanity. He lived, he died, he rose again on our behalf so that the Father's plan would be accomplished. Okay, this also puts to death that ridiculous notion that the Father is like this angry, the angry person of the Godhead that just wants to smite sinners down and Jesus is like, but I'll save these people so you don't have to smite them down. No, this was the Father's plan all along. And the Son was always willing to carry it out. There was never any conflict between the two. Okay. So, by Christ's work, our sins are forgiven. Right? We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses. But, this goes beyond the forgiveness of individual sins. Look down here. Where's Mel? According to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, here we go, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. Something that's not talked about enough, or maybe it's something that's kind of missed, at least in my opinion, is that we kind of just think of the gospel as solely the forgiveness of individuals who will then get to go to heaven. Right? Now, that obviously is important. The forgiveness of sins is at the heart of the gospel. But, the gospel is actually not just about the forgiveness of sins. The gospel, in its fullest sense, is about uniting heaven and earth together again. Right? Bringing everything together in Christ. This is why I said the story of the Bible is the story of the redemption of the world. What I mean by that is not everyone's going to be saved. But I mean, like, the world will be saved. God is going to redeem creation itself. That's the ultimate end of the gospel. And that, the gospel is good news. That is good news. It's not just limited to, oh, God's going to forgive your sins and you're going to get to go to heaven. Yes, that is true. But that's only part of it. The other part is that you'll get to go to heaven, you'll be raised from the dead physically, and you will live on a renewed earth. Right? The earth, the body you inhabit right now will be made better. It will be sinless. It will be resistant to any type of sin or destruction or damage. Right? You will live in a physical body forever. Because God's going to redeem everything. Including the physical world. I can touch heaven. Let's see what happens. No. Oh. That's not what happens right now. You will still die. Your body will still receive corruption. Which is why God will then have to raise it from the dead. But it will still, I think it's still pretty much going to look the same. Like, you're going to generally look how you look now. Except those dark circles. Probably not. And probably like good eyesight. And I say that because I wear contacts and my eyesight's not that great. I don't know how age is going to work. Don't ask me. I like to think you can switch between ages however you want to. That'd be awesome. That's true. Switch to like a two year old to get in small places and then you can grow back up to a full grown adult. That would be awesome. But, wait. When you have this into a two year old do we have to get older again so then you would... No. It's completely at will. Oh. Yeah. Anyway. Wait. Does that mean that when somebody is Abraham he could be like a five year old? I don't know. What I'm thinking more is like how are we going to know who is Abraham? We're like okay. All the people with long beards wearing tunics line up here and introduce yourself. It's like an AA meeting or something. There's only one Abraham in the entire church. Maybe. Anyway. But. All right. Let's get back. We don't have actually too much longer so that's what I mean. The full gospel is about the redemption of the world. Right? The redemption of the cosmos. This is the mystery of God's will which mystery just means like a great knowledge. Something that was hidden but is now revealed. So it's not a mystery to us anymore. Right? The mystery of God's will is that heaven and earth would be united in Christ. Now in one sense Jesus already kind of did this when he became man. Right? He united divinity with humanity. And now there is a human nature that is always going to be part of the Godhead forever. Okay? So we already kind of did this. This is something that Eastern Orthodox talk about a lot and I think they're actually pretty good on it. They will talk about how matter itself is now more sanctified because God took on flesh. So it's such a great way of thinking about it. So Jesus is the unity of heaven and earth exemplified. He is God and man together. And he's an example of what will happen when he returns. He's going to wash creation clean by the divine nature. We will all share in the divine nature. We're not going to be God but we will be like God. I think 2 Peter 1 is where he says we share in the divine nature. Okay, last one. Ephesians 1, 11-14. Does anyone want to read this? Ethel? Me. What we have stated in here has been that for the purpose of man's work also important to mention also that we were the first to hope in Christ Christ Jesus Christ in the world. It can't be lost that we were the first to worship God so that salvation can be received through the promises of the Holy Spirit through the guarantee of our salvation to be part of the blessing of His grace. Okay, thank you. So the final section highlights the work of the Spirit or at least the last couple verses do that. So the Father chose us the Son died for us and rose again. So what does the Spirit do next? What is His job? Holy Spirit is usually overlooked and part of that is intentional. People say the Holy Spirit is shy. He wants to draw attention to Jesus and the Father far more. Which is true. But what does He do? The Spirit takes the work of Jesus which happened 2,000 years ago on a cross and He applies it to you right now in 2024. That's what the Holy Spirit does. He brings Christ from the past to you. And He also did that for the people living in the Old Testament. He brought Christ from the future to them. He applies the work in their hearts because it's like okay, Jesus died on that cross but how does that get to me? The Holy Spirit, that's how. He takes His work He applies it to you. Right? He is the means by which righteousness goes from Christ to you and by which your sin goes from you back to Christ on the cross where He pays for it. Okay? And God's outside of time. That's how this can happen. Okay? Because the Spirit causes this exchange to happen He becomes the seal of your salvation. So you can kind of say the Holy Spirit is the covenant sign of the covenant of redemption. Obviously He's not a physical or visible sign but He is the seal. Right? The seal of your salvation of your inheritance a.k.a. your eternal life. Right? That is the true seal. That is the mark of the Christian. Okay? In Revelation it talks about the mark on the forehead the mark of the Lamb that's the Holy Spirit. Okay? Lastly, verse 11 backing up a bit so we talk about the Holy Spirit down here. Verse 11 reminds us that God works all things towards His end goal. Right? It says, in Him we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. All things. Right? God is sovereign over all and works through all that exists. Nothing can happen outside of His sovereignty. And this is important to remember as you read through Scripture because there are times where it looks like things are absolutely not going to plan. And even in our own lives we see this. Right? We struggle with sin we backslide we relapse we do all these things and we say, why isn't it going to plan? You think something's got to be wrong here. And yes, it's called struggling with the sinful flesh but that's still part of God's sovereign plan. It doesn't mean good morally speaking. Sin is always evil. But God is not going to just leave you in that. God has a plan that is so broad it even incorporates sin itself. If you don't believe me Genesis 50 where Joseph's talking to his brothers and his brothers are sort of apologizing to him about leaving him for dead and selling him to slavery. And he says, what you intended for evil God meant it for good. He meant for them to do evil so that good would come out of it. And that's how we have to look at Scripture and that's how we have to look at the world. That's not to say evil is fine because God's doing something with it. No, evil's not good. But it doesn't happen outside of God's sovereignty. And that's what you want. Because the other option is a God who had no control over the evil in this world and may not be able to defeat it at all. So I would rather take the option where I have to sit and ponder about how does evil work with a God who is sovereign than be absolutely terrified that God is not strong enough to overcome evil. I'll take option one. Okay. And when we're when we're in the midst of despair it's easy for people to just kind of come and try to slap a band-aid on it and say, well, God's in control. God's in control. Everything's fine. Stop worrying. Jesus said, don't worry. Stop worrying, you sinner. And it's like, yes, that is true. But the question we always ask ourselves is like, but to what end? Like, what is God where is God going if this had to happen in my life? Right. Why did God have to have my parent die or my sister get sick or, you know, us to lose our house in a fire? Why did God have to have this happen? Okay. The answer is the redemption of the world. Everything that happens in your life is in some way related to God's plan to redeem the world. Everything. Down to what you eat for breakfast. It is related to God's redemption for the world. This is why we do everything to the glory of God. Whether we eat or we drink. So how do we eat waffles to the glory of God? You eat them. And you enjoy them. But how is that to the glory of God? Because God made waffles to taste good. And God made milk. God made taste buds. He made the people who then had the idea about waffles and then that. So waffles are always legendary. No. Yeah, there was a waffle tree in the garden. Waffles are pancakes. No, hang on. Hang on, we're holding that table like this until after the lesson. We're almost done here. No, I'm getting ahead of this. Alright, this is just an overview of the covenant. So you have the parties. God the Father, Son and Spirit. Conditions. Father elects. Son pays their debts. Spirit resurrects. That's a rhyme from a theological rap album that I found which is actually pretty good. I know it sounds cringy but it's actually pretty good. Beneficiary. Us. The elect. We benefit from the covenant of redemption even though we're actually not one of the parties. We just benefit from it. And the blessings. Eternal life. Redemption of the world. Curses. None. Because God's not going to fail. There's no need for curses. God's not going to fail this. So. The main point of this. This is the last slide by the way. The main point is that you remember this covenant when you are reading through scripture. But more importantly when you are struggling with doubts regarding your standing before God you remember this. God has sworn an oath to you. That's the covenant of grace. We'll talk about that later. He's sworn an oath to you that he's going to save you. That's already good enough. But now he's also sworn an oath to himself and he did it before anything even existed. Before you were even alive to have these feelings of doubt. He already swore this oath to himself that he would save you. That's not only good for scripture. That's good for life. That's what you need in life. You need that assurance. You need that knowledge that regardless of what happens in here the promise has already been made out there and it's been applied to me. It's outside of me which means I can trust it because I know I am unreliable. God has sworn an oath to himself to save you and that oath will never be broken. Next week we will talk about the covenant of works but we'll leave that for now.
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