Christ upholding the covenant

Status
Not open for further replies.

steadfast7

Puritan Board Junior
I went to a downtown lunch communion service at a non-PCA Presbyterian church and the Pastor spoke on the covenant. I'd like your thoughts as to how it squares with Reformed orthodoxy.

... So, finally, God decided to take the ultimate step – to send One to walk among us, to bridge the gap between the human and the divine, to establish a new and lasting covenant that could not be broken.

And we remember the establishment of that covenant every time that we celebrate this sacrament, every time that we recite words that the Gospels suggest that Jesus spoke when he broke bread and shared the cup with his friends on the night before he was killed. “This is the new covenant sealed in my blood.”

But, one might ask, covenants get broken. What makes this covenant any different from any other covenant?

The mystery and the wonder of this new covenant is that Christ himself holds up both sides of this covenant. Jesus’ divinity holds up the divine side of this new relationship, this new bridge between God and humanity; Jesus’ perfect humanity holds up the human side of this new relationship. And it is for that reason why it no longer depends on our goodness, our obedience, our perfection, our faithfulness – it depends, instead on Christ’s goodness, Christ’s obedience, Christ’s perfection, Christ’s faithfulness. Jesus proved, even in the face of temptation, and ultimately, in the face of death, that he would not waver from obedience, from faithfulness.

note the idea that the two natures of Christ upholds the two sides of the covenant and gurantees its unbrokenness.

thoughts?

thanks.
 
John Owen, commenting on Hebrews 8:10-12 says

How it was needful that this mediator should be God and man in one
person; how he became so to undertake for us, and in our stead; what was
the especial covenant between God and him as unto the work which he
undertook personally to perform; have, according unto our poor weak
measure and dark apprehension of these heavenly things, been declared at
large in our Exercitations on this epistle, and yet more fully in our
discourse of the mystery and glory of the person of Christ.f11 Wherefore,
as unto this new covenant, it was firstly made with Jesus Christ, the
surety of it and undertaker in it. For, —
(1.) God neither would nor, “salva justitia, sapientia, et honore,” could,
treat immediately with sinful, rebellious men on terms of grace for the
future, until satisfaction was undertaken to be made for sins past, or such
as should afterwards fall out. This was done by Christ alone; who was
therefore the πρωτον δεκτικόν of this covenant and all the grace of it.
See <470519>2 Corinthians 5:19, 20; <480313>Galatians 3:13, 14; <450325>Romans 3:25.
(2.) No restipulation of obedience unto God could be made by man, that
might be a ground of entering into a covenant intended to be firm and
stable. For whereas we had broken our first covenant engagement with
God in our best condition, we were not likely of ourselves to make good a
new engagement of a higher nature than the former. Who will take the
word or the security of a bankrupt for thousands, who is known not to be
worth one farthing; especially if he have wasted a former estate in luxury
and riot, continuing an open slave to the same lusts? Wherefore it was
absolutely necessary that in this covenant there should be a surety, to
undertake for our answering and firm standing unto the terms of it.
Without this, the event of this new covenant, which God would make as a
singular effect of his wisdom and grace, would neither have been glory to
him nor advantage unto us.
(3.) That grace which was to be the spring of all the blessings of this
covenant, unto the glory of God and salvation of the church, was to be
deposited in some safe hand, for the accomplishment of these ends. In the
first covenant, God at once committed unto man that whole stock of grace
which was necessary to enable him unto the obedience of it. And the grace
of reward which he was to receive upon the performance of it, God
reserved absolutely in his own hand; yea, so as that perhaps man did not
fully understand what it was. But all was lost at once that was committed
unto our keeping, so as that nothing at all was left to give us the least relief
as unto any new endeavors. Wherefore God will now secure all the good
things of this covenant, both as to grace and glory, in a third hand, in the
hand of a mediator. Hereon the promises are made unto him, and the
fullness of grace is laid up in him, <430114>John 1:14; <510119>Colossians 1:19, 2:3;
<490308>Ephesians 3:8; <470120>2 Corinthians 1:20.
(4.) As he was the mediator of this covenant, God became his God, and he
became the servant of God in a peculiar manner. For he stood before God
in this covenant as a public representative of all the elect. See our comment
on <580105>Hebrews 1:5, 8, 9, 2:13. God is a God unto him in all the promises
he received on the behalf of his mystical body; and he was his servant in
the accomplishment of them, as the pleasure of the Lord was to prosper in
his hand.
(5.) God being in this covenant a God and Father unto Christ, he came by
virtue thereof to be our God and Father, <432017>John 20:17; <580212>Hebrews 2:12,
13. Anti we became “heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ;” and his
people, to yield him all sincere obedience.
And these things may suffice briefly to declare the foundation of that
covenant relation which is here expressed. Wherefore, —
Obs. XI. The Lord Christ, God and man, undertaking to be the mediator
between God and man, and a surety on our behalf, is the spring and head
of the new covenant, which is made and established with us in him.
 
Remember that you can be in the Covenant in an outward sense by water baptism and yet not be in the Covenant in an inward sense by regeneration (baptism into Christ by/with the Spirit). See the discussion of this in e.g. Louis Berkhof's Systematic Theology. Our Apostle (the Apostle to the Gentiles) tells the Corinthians who were baptised with water and taking the Lord's Supper - and thus in the Covenant administration - to examine themselves.

But where that inner reality is of being not only in the administration of the Covenant of Grace (Bond of Love), but also in its life, then Christ in His Person and Work is the surety/guarantor of the Covenant and is even called "a Covenant" in Scripture (Isa. 42:6; Isa. 49:8).

In what is often called the Covenant of Redemption (Pactum Salutis) in Reformed Theology, between the Father and the Son in eternity, the Son "agreed" to fulfil the terms of the Covenant of Works, previously broken by Man in Adam, to provide the basis for a Covenant of Grace with God's people.

The Spirit "agreed" to apply the benefits of Christ's work to God's people.

There are three religious administrations of the Covenant of Grace, during all of which people are saved by grace through faith:-

(a) The Patriarchal from Adam to Moses

(b) The Mosaic from Moses to Christ

(c) The Christian from Christ to the Eschaton.
 
Last edited:
it no longer depends on our goodness,
This gives me pause because we have never been saved by grace. I'd also like to know the broader context of this person's thinking -- might he be justifying antinomianism.
 
And it is for that reason why it no longer depends on our goodness, our obedience, our perfection, our faithfulness – it depends, instead on Christ’s goodness, Christ’s obedience, Christ’s perfection, Christ’s faithfulness.

He doesn't say whether we are still under the law as a rule of life, but not as a Covenant of Works.

---------- Post added at 11:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 PM ----------

it no longer depends on our goodness,
This gives me pause because we have never been saved by grace. I'd also like to know the broader context of this person's thinking -- might he be justifying antinomianism.

We are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone. But we are never saved without works, because salvation is a broader reality than justification and includes also sanctification.

Even the converted Thief on the Cross evidenced good works produced by grace between his conversion and his death, for which he would have received a reward additional to (alongside) his salvation by Christ's life and death.
 
I went to a downtown lunch communion service at a non-PCA Presbyterian church and the Pastor spoke on the covenant. I'd like your thoughts as to how it squares with Reformed orthodoxy.

The mystery and the wonder of this new covenant is that Christ himself holds up both sides of this covenant. Jesus’ divinity holds up the divine side of this new relationship, this new bridge between God and humanity; Jesus’ perfect humanity holds up the human side of this new relationship.

note the idea that the two natures of Christ upholds the two sides of the covenant and gurantees its unbrokenness.

thoughts?

thanks.

I can understand why this might have seemed like a neat idea to the pastor, but I think it's fundamentally mistaken. Covenants are made between and kept by persons, not by natures. It is the one Person of Christ who acts, though of course some acts are proper only to one nature (e.g., to suffer is not proper to the divine nature, but to the human; and yet because of the unity of the Person, Paul can speak of the crucifixion of the Lord of Glory).
I think it also ignores that the covenant is between God and the last Adam. Thus Thomas Boston teaches (A View of the Covenant of Grace) that "The parties contractor in this covenant are, God, and his chosen, the last Adam..... On heaven's side is God himself, the party proposer of the covenant.... On man's side, then, is God's Chosen, or chosen one."
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top