Postscript: Christ in All the Scriptures

I would like you to turn to Luke chapter 24. This is a PS to what I was saying last hour. This isn't an answer to our next question, which is, what is the new covenant? So this is kind of a freebie.

I didn't know where to put this. I noticed that I skipped over something in my notes, and I started saying it over there to guys that were asking questions. So where do we put this in the flow of the lectures? We don't. a freebie down there someplace.

You know how John Owen, if you read the Puritans, sometimes he'll be going along, your follower, and then suddenly, this digression, that's what this is. It's connected. I'm not sure how. No, I think you'll see how.

Luke chapter 24, verse 7, saying, excuse me, verse 6, he is not here, but he has risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee, saying that this is what Jesus taught when he was in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again. Then turn over to verses 25 through 27 of the same passage, and he said to them, this is the resurrected Christ, O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets of the Old Testament have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?

Sufferings and glory, according to Jesus, find their revelational taproots in the prophets of the Old Testament. Then, beginning with Moses, a prophet, writing prophet, and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures. Then turn over to verse 44. Now he said to them, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you.

That all things which are written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms are called scripture here. to understand the scriptures and he said to them, this is fascinating, thus it is written, now this is not a direct quotation of the Old Testament, it's indirect. Thus it is written, number one, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead. So the sufferings and the entrance of glory of the Christ are in the Old Testament. rise from the dead, the third day, the third day resurrection, the prophets wrote about it.

And this is in the Old Testament as well, that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem. Why do you think Paul writes to the Jew first and then to the Greek? Is it just a historical fact that Jesus was a Jew, the apostles were Jews, they started in Jerusalem, so of course they preached to Jews first and then they go to Greeks. Is it just historical or is there something more to Jew first than Greek?

This says all this is connected to that which has been written, proclamation of the forgiveness of sins in the name of the Messiah was going to go to all nations according to the prophets, but it was going to start from Jerusalem. If you read the prophets of the Old Testament, you'll see a theology of Messiah to come connected to a remnant of believers, believing Jews, that occurs in Jerusalem, and that after that, Gentiles are brought into the covenant people of God. That's what Jesus is saying. The Old Testament said I was going to come, I was going to suffer, enter into glory, and then proclamation of the forgiveness of sins in my name was going to go through the apostles to the Jews first and then to the nations of the world.

That's all found in the Old Testament according to Jesus. Then turn over to Acts chapter 26. Acts chapter 26. Verse 19, so King Agrippa, I did not prove, this is Paul, I didn't prove disobedient to the heavenly vision, but kept declaring both to those of Damascus first, and also at Jerusalem, and then throughout all the region of Judea, and even to the Gentiles.

By the way, Acts 1.8, that's kind of an echo of Acts 1.8. You know how people say, Acts 1.8 to Jerusalem, then all Judea, and to the remotest parts of the earth. Everybody has a Jerusalem. Everybody has a Judea.

Everybody has a wider sphere of ministry. That's not how Acts 1.8 is supposed to be. You know what Acts 1.8 is? It's a microcosm of what the prophet said was going to happen when Messiah came and the proclamation of forgiveness of sins would occur through his designated servants.

That's what it is, but I digress. That they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds appropriate to repentance. For this reason some Jews seized me in the temple and tried to put me to death. So, having obtained help from God, I stand to this day testifying both to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place.

That Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of his resurrection from the dead, he would be the first to proclaim light both to the people, the Jewish people, and to the Gentiles. Sufferings and glory. First written about through the prophets, including Moses, of the Old Testament. So the Old Testament points to the sufferings and glory of the Messiah.

And the Gospels record the sufferings and the glory of the Messiah and the resurrection and ascension for us. And the rest of the New Testament is God's interpretation and application of the events recorded for us in the Gospels, the interpretation and application brought to the churches in the first century. So God acts covenantally in space and time on the Earth. Then God interprets his covenantal acts through the inspired written word of God.

So that's just kind of a PS to the first hour. I skipped that. I think I got lost in my notes at some point. And I skipped other things, too, but I'm not going to go back to them.

So no more PSs.

Introduction: What Is the New Covenant?

We have a second question, or a third question. What is the new covenant? The first question is, what is a divine covenant? Second question is, what is covenant theology?

Can we justify it? Third is, what is the New Covenant? Remember, I said we were going to kind of go chronologically backwards by starting at the New Testament. And I'm going to fudge on even that.

But to answer this question, what is the New Covenant, we'll look at how the Old Testament promises the New Covenant and how the New Testament explains and applies the New Covenant. OK, I think it's a faulty hermeneutical move just to look at the Old Testament all by itself. The Old Testament is not a book that can stand on its own, irrespective of what Walter C. Kaiser said many, many years ago.

He said this, the Old Testament can stand on its own. It did so for many years before the New Testament was written. Now, why was the New Testament written? Because the Old Testament couldn't stand on its own.

Because the Old Testament promised that God was going to do something greater than the old exodus. And he did it through the skull-crushing seed of his woman, the Lord Jesus Christ. And then God explained what he did in Christ in the New Testament. The Old Testament, it can't stand on its own, Dr.

Kaiser. So we'll look at the Old Testament. But we're going to look at the New Testament which is the full, mature explanation and application of that which was promised in the Old Testament, in our case, the new covenant. We'll see it in its inauguration and formal establishment, the death of the blood or death of Christ.

And then we'll see the apostles applying it briefly.

The New Covenant in the Old Testament

So let's look, first of all, at the Old Testament. What is the new covenant? Let's go to the Old Testament. Jeremiah chapter 31.

In case I go too long and we don't have time for questions, which is probably going to happen, your pastor would be glad to answer any questions you might have, especially difficult ones, thorny ones, hard ones, after I leave. The only types of Q&A I like is when I write the questions. at the pastor's conference last fall. I knew none of the guys were going to write questions or ask many questions. So I wrote all the questions.

And then I was on the panel that got to answer them as well. So if we could do it that way, I get to ask the questions and answer them. That would be great. Jeremiah 31, of course, this is the classic passage in the Old Testament that actually uses the phrase new covenant.

The phrase new covenant is used I forgot, six or seven times in the New Testament, only once in the Old Testament, here in Jeremiah 31. So

Jeremiah 31: The New Covenant Promised

Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34. Let's read the text, and then I'll make a few observations. Behold, days are coming. Sometimes the prophets say, in that day.

Sometimes in that day or coming days is near historical. It's a judgment that's coming or whatever. At other times, in this case, it's far historical. It's farther out than just a contemporary judgment or a blessing for the people of God.

Days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and on their heart I will write it. And I will be their God, and they should be my people.

They will not teach again each man his neighbor, and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord for they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest of them declares the Lord for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more for I will forgive their iniquity that word for is very important why why is it that they will all know me Now, this isn't just a knowledge about God. Everybody possesses the knowledge of God, and even unconverted people, they suppress it unrighteously. It's not something that they can acquire if they put their mind to it. It's something that is innate, that we already have.

If everybody has the knowledge of God, we just push it away, okay? That's not what he's talking about here. For they will all know me. What does he mean?

They'll all know about me. They'll be taught about me. They'll be instructed. They'll sit in classes like this.

They can say, oh, I know about God. I know about the Lord. They all know me, for I'll forgive their iniquity. These are saved people.

These are people with their sins forgiven. This knowledge of God is a covenantal or a saving knowledge of God that he's talking about here. Let me make three observations and we'll go to another text in the Old Testament about the New Covenant. This New Covenant is promised to be revealed as a covenant to be formally inaugurated in the future.

Its formal inauguration, its actual historical establishment will be in the future. Verse 31, behold, days are coming. So this is a prophecy. of the future. A second observation is that this covenant is not like the covenant at Sinai, a covenant which could be and was broken by old covenant Israel, verse 32.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant which they broke. The new covenant's not like that. It can't be broken.

Once you're in, you're in. Third, the new covenant secures various blessings for all in the covenant. You have the law written on the heart in verse 32, that is God himself tinkering with our souls. God comes in from the outside, God enters into the life and the soul and the experience of a sinner and the heart has the law written on it. you can ask your pastor what all that means, practically speaking.

Secondly, the universal saving knowledge of God within the community is also a promise here in the New Covenant, different from the Old Covenant. In the New Covenant, it says here, for all will know me for I'll forgive their iniquities. Everybody in the old covenant knew about God, but didn't necessarily have saving communion with God, because the old covenant didn't ensure the forgiveness of the sins of every single person that was in the covenant, the actual forgiveness of sins, the personal forgiveness of sins. So here we have the universal saving knowledge of God within the covenant community.

Everybody in this covenant community knows God savingly. Why? Their sins are forgiven, which is another blessing, the universal forgiveness of sins within the covenant community. Everybody in this covenant community has their sins forgiven.

And it's hard not to read this in the light of the New Testament. Why are their sins forgiven? Because an objective, exhaustive, expiation for their sins was offered once and for all. It was completed and finished in the suffering death under obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jeremiah 32 and Ezekiel 36: Everlasting Covenant

Jeremiah 32, 40. Notice I'm just kind of picking, I'm just going in, just picking a verse here and there or a passage. We can't do all the exposition. Your pastor will provide that for you.

He's like John Gill. By the time he's finished, he's going to have gone through every single book of the Bible and commented on it, except some. You've got a lot of wind in you, man. And some of what Jim says is actually worth hearing.

It's true of all of us. There's only one infallible interpreter of the Holy Scripture, and it is the Holy Spirit in the Holy Scripture. He's not an infallible interpreter of Holy Scripture. Neither am I.

No one is. No churches, no body of men, no theologians, no women, no boys, no girls, no nothing, except the only infallible being in the universe could be the only infallible interpreter of the Word of God has to be God Himself. Jeremiah 32, 40, just picking this one out there, I will make an everlasting covenant with them. Isaiah also calls what ends up being called the New Covenant by Jeremiah and the writers in the New Testament.

Isaiah calls it an everlasting or eternal covenant. Paul or whoever wrote Hebrews, who do you say wrote Hebrews? Paul wrote Hebrews. Thank you.

Paul will just say in Hebrews 13, 20 calls the new covenant, an everlasting or eternal covenant, I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them to do them good. And I will put the fear of me in their hearts. I'm not going to turn away from them to do them good, and they're not going to turn away from me either. I'm going to put my fear in their hearts so that they will not turn away from me.

So here we have the language of everlasting covenant Isaiah 61.8 and then Hebrews 13.20 uses the same or similar language. God will not turn away from those in this covenant like He did when old covenant Israel broke the covenant by turning away from Him. And then God will work in their hearts and none in this covenant will turn away from Him. These are not conditions.

God's not saying, if you don't turn away from me, guess what? I'm not going to turn away from you. Let's sign that baby. That's not what it is.

God's saying, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to go in there, I'm going to change their hearts. I'm not going to turn away from them, they're not going to turn away from me. You can bank on it.

This is not like the covenant that He made with the fathers, which they broke. This is different. Ezekiel chapter 36, Ezekiel chapter 36, verses 24 through 27. For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land.

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you. There's a justification for sprinkling as a mode of baptism. I'm kidding. But I think Matthew Henry or somebody does use that text.

John Gill doesn't. Then I will sprinkle clean, Jim Butler better not. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

Moreover, I will give you a new heart echoes of Jeremiah here, and put a new spirit within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. Nicodemus, you should have known this, Jesus tells us later in the Bible. I will put my spirit within you, and here it is, cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will be careful to observe my ordinances. Just three observations.

Number one, everyone in this covenant will be forgiven of all their sins. Verse 25, then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

All past, all present, and all the ugly future sins that we're gonna commit. If you're in Christ, You're forgiven. Why? He exhausted the wrath of God for us.

God is promising the forgiveness of all the sins of all the people that will be the beneficiaries of this covenant. Secondly, everyone in this covenant will have a new heart. This is the promise of regeneration, a new heart for everybody in this covenant. Verse 26, moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I forgot to accentuate, I will. I heard Sam Waldron preach this passage, or maybe the Jeremiah. God says, I will, nine times, brother, or whatever.

Maybe it was seven. That's the number of perfection. And every time you read it, I will. I will.

And the paint started coming off the walls. Some of you know Waldron. He just looks like a beast. He's really a sweet teddy bear.

But notice the divine initiation. Okay, this is coming from God to men. No negotiations. This is what God is going to do.

And then third, everyone in this covenant will possess the Spirit of God as the effective cause of their obedience. Verse 27, again, this is a blessing. This is not a condition. God is not saying, if you obey my law, I'll give you my spirit.

No, he says, look, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to put my spirit in you. He's going to cause you to obey my law. So it is not the result, the spirit being my privilege to possess, is not the result of my obedience.

It's not the condition. If you obey, you get the Spirit. It's, you're gonna obey. Now, here's why.

There's gonna be this vertical, top-down, from heaven to your soul, work done in your soul that causes you to obey. Verse 27, I'll put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. You will be careful to observe my ordinances. So everything promised by God is ensured by what?

Our sincere obedience? By God. I don't usually say this, but this is a God thing. God is acting.

When God says he's going to act, God's going to act. And when God acts, Who can, as David or somebody said, Daniel, who's going to thwart his hand? Who's going to hit God's hand? How dare you come in here and try to change my heart and give me the Spirit and forgive me of all my sins and make me love the truth and make me repent and believe and make me obey you.

How dare you do that? We don't do that. God does that. That's why we call it, when did you get saved?

What does that imply? I didn't save myself. I was passive. Something outside of me came, and I was transformed from the inside out.

I remember right after I was converted, I was standing in a Burger King. Do you guys have Burger King up here? I think it's a Burger King or Burger Place. Big line.

I'm standing there waiting, and behind me, somebody taps on me. I turn around, it was a buddy from college, Robert, and he says, Barcelos, is that you? I said, yeah. He said, I heard you got religious.

And I looked at him, I said, I didn't do anything. This happened to me. I mean, yeah, I repented, I believe, but God, I didn't know how to explain it then. I'd say, what do you think?

I'm an Arminian? I'm a Calvinist. I didn't know what those words were. But I knew that whatever this text is saying, now that I'm Arminian, I'm going, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's happened.

God did that graciously, OK, without my invitation. No, I subsequently received the gospel. I repented of my sins. I believed in Christ all by grace.

God acting. So everything promised is to be given. As I said before, several times in both these passages, God says, I will. I will.

And the result of those I wills is pardon of sin, a new heart, and obedience to the law of God. So everything required is provided. And in this sense, the new covenant is not like the old covenant. The blessings of the old covenant, remember, were conditioned upon Israel's obedience to the law.

There's Exodus 19, 4 through 6, we already read, but you could read Leviticus 26 and other places, the if, then, if, then, if, then. If you obey this, then I'll do this. If you obey this, then I'll do this. The blessings of the old covenant were temporal for the promised land in ancient Palestine, ancient Israel, and conditioned upon the obedience of the covenant people.

And when they violated to the point that God would no longer be patient with them, then the sanctions came upon them. And they end up getting exiled from the special place of God on the earth that he gave them. their land. By the way, they weren't the first sons of God to be exiled. You know Israel was a son of God, right?

In Exodus chapter 4, verses 22 and 23, Moses is going, you know, what am I going to tell Pharaoh? And God says, tell him to let my people go. My son, my firstborn, that's Israel. Israel was God's son, God's firstborn, exiled from the special place that God appointed them to live in.

But the first son that got exiled out of a special place that God put him to live in and serve him in was Adam, right? Anyway, I don't know why we did that, but we just did that. Oh, Old Covenant Israel. The blessings of the Old Covenant were conditioned upon Israel's obedience to the law.

In the new covenant, though, God bestows all the blessings of the covenant to all its members as a result of what God does to them and in them they obey. God acts graciously toward us and in us, and the fruit of that is obedience, which is one of the promises, very promises, of the new covenant, one of the I wills. I'll work in them, and my work in them will produce fruit out of them. But the condition in order to gain the benefits of this covenant is not They're working out for me.

They're law-keeping. That is the fruit of having received the work of God. It is not a condition for receiving blessings from God. Their obedience is not a condition to be met in order to be blessed.

It is the result of having been blessed. You have any obedience in your life, you have any sanctification in your life, It's the result of having been blessed by God through Jesus Christ. It's the result of grace coming to the soul and God blessing the means of grace to further your soul into Christ-likeness. It's not the condition upon which your sins are forgiven.

It's not the condition upon which you get the promised benefits of the New Covenant. The promised benefits of the New Covenant are lavished freely upon us in the Beloved One. They were earned, but not by us. What are the benefits of redemption?

Justification, adoption, sanctification, glorification, at least those four. Do we earn justification? A verdict from heaven towards sinners. But even though you're still a sinner, I consider you righteous.

Based on your own righteousness? No, it's the righteousness of Christ. Adoption into the family of God, full privileges, all that which is going to be inherited by one and every true son or daughter of God is yours. Based on what?

My goodness? I was a child of wrath. Based on the obedient son, Christ again. sanctification, obeying God's law. Where does that come?

By grace, glorification. We get glorified only if we have more law keeping than law breaking. What is our glorification based on? The righteous obedience of Christ and Him alone.

All the benefits of the new covenant have conditions. The sufferings, Christ. And we know that his sufferings, his obedience, was received by the Father. He raised him from the dead.

He entered him into glory. He exalted human nature in the Incarnate Son from death to life. And now he sits at the right hand of the Father. This obedience is the fruit of covenant membership, not the condition of covenant membership.

The obedience in us is that which is produced in us by the grace of God coming to us because of the merit of Jesus Christ.

The New Covenant in the New Testament

That's the Old Testament kind of theology of the New Covenant. And let's look at the New Covenant in the New Testament. The New Covenant in the New Testament. This will probably be quicker. 1130 is good?

Inauguration by the Blood of Christ

It's inaugurated by the shed blood of Christ. Now this is in a few places in the Gospels. Let's look at, well, we'll start at Matthew 26. Matthew 26. 26 through 29.

But if you're taking notes, Mark 14, 22 through 24, and Luke 22, 19 and 20, Matthew 26, 26, while they were eating. Now, we didn't read Exodus 24, one through eight. If you're interested, read Matthew 26, 26 through 29, then go read Exodus 24, one through eight. And then just try to make some mental notes, some parallels, some things that are common here.

It's the inauguration of the old covenant with the shedding of blood. God is there, present in a special way with a select few of the covenant community who represent the others. There's bloodshed. God's specially present.

It's on a mountain. And it says, and they ate with God. I think it's Exodus 24, verse 8. Very interesting parallels with this passage. passages we did in the Old Testament.

What do you think Jesus is talking about here? Something never revealed before? Jesus, what in the world are you talking about? They're totally disconnected from all the revelation already given in Moses and the prophets.

I don't think that's what's going on here. This is connected to revelation already given. It's the blood of the new covenant. But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from you until that day when I drink it with you in my Father's kingdom, the kingdom, the eternal kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter says in chapter 2.

By the way, as a footnote, the Lord's Supper has an eschatological or an anticipatory element to it. Jesus said in the eschaton, there's going to be drinking of the fruit of the vine with the glorified saints and their Savior. So the Lord's Supper should cause us to look forward as well as not only to look back, but that's a side note. Now the other passage in Luke 22 is the one I want to look at.

Luke 22, verse 19. Just to show you something. Luke 22, 19, and when he had taken some bread and Given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

And in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup, which is poured out for you, is the new covenant in my blood." So if Matthew wasn't clear enough, Luke is. By the way, it's interesting, and Jim, you might be you probably are, since you're like John Gill, you preach through all the books of the Bible. You've already preached probably through both of these, right? Matthew and Luke?

Okay. Okay. Matthew doesn't use New Covenant. Luke does.

Now if you think about the audiences, most likely from all that we know for those two Gospels, the Gospel of Matthew was written by a Jew. I think he wrote it in Jerusalem. I think he wrote it relatively early compared to the other books in the New Testament. Sorry.

And well, this much is true. A Jew wrote it, probably to Jews, probably in Jerusalem or around Jerusalem. And Matthew is a very Jewish Old Testament. So if he doesn't use the phrase, new covenant.

But the concept is there. His readers, boom, boom, like that, would know it. Luke, probably, from what we can tell, even from Luke's own pen at the beginning of Luke and Acts, He's probably writing to a Gentile audience. So using the phrase New Covenant might be more appropriate.

Gentiles not as well steeped in, of course, the theology of the Old Testament. But nonetheless, we know that the New Covenant is said to be inaugurated by the shed blood of Christ. In other words, Christ brings the blessings of the New Covenant to us through what he has done for us. So redemption accomplished, what he did for us, becomes redemption applied, what he does to or in us.

The blessings of the New Covenant are conditioned upon what Christ did not upon what we do. Okay? The New Covenant doesn't come to us and God doesn't say, okay, if you do this and if you do that, I'll give you a long life in the land. See, it's not conditioned like the older Mosaic Covenant, is it?

It does have, in one sense, it is conditioned upon obedience. the obedience of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Blessings Shared by Jew and Gentile

Another thing about the New Covenant in the New Testament is that it's very clear its blessings are enjoyed by those in the church, both Jew and Gentile. Second Corinthians chapter 3, verses 1 through 3 and 6, in the context of Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, writing to a Gentile church, he says basically that the results of the inaugurated New Covenant have been are illustrated in your lives because God, through my preaching, changed your souls in fulfillment of that which He said way back in Jeremiah 31. He said, a new covenant I'd make, and He's made it, and you're the fruit, you're the evidence, you're the testimony that my apostolic ministry is actually blessed by the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Only God did through my preaching only what God can do.

He tinkered with your soul. He made you alive together with Christ. And he goes back to the theology of the promised new covenant in Jeremiah chapter 31 in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, which is very fascinating. I didn't make this comment, but when we're reading Jeremiah 31, it says, I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

And then he drops Judah. And it just says, House of Israel could be the other way around. The second time, and that's caused some interpreters, some of us were talking about this at the break, to say, oh, that's for the Jews. But that's not the way the New Testament reads the application of the new covenant.

There's a new covenant for the Jews. Some of you know that an older dispensational scholar actually said there's two new covenants, one for Jews, one for Gentiles. That's not the way Jesus or the apostles read it. They saw one new covenant promised by the Old Testament, by the prophets of the Old Testament, inaugurated through the obedience and shed blood and exaltation in the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and applied by the power of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with the proclamation of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

One new covenant shared in by both Jew and Gentile. You ever thought a little about the concept of mystery? You know how, especially like in Colossians and elsewhere in the New Testament, it talks about the mystery, Christ in you, the hope of glory, Colossians 1, 26, I think. It's a great mystery.

Some people looked at mystery as, and they said this, oh, a mystery is something that's, it's never been revealed before. It's new, okay? So they looked at the church as the mystery. Church, not revealed in the Old Testament.

Two Gentiles in one body under Christ, not revealed in the Old Testament. It's a mystery. And the reason why the church came into existence, this is old school dispensationalism, is because the Jews kicked Jesus in the shins in Matthew chapter 12. They committed this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit and then Jesus changed.

He stopped offering the millennial kingdom to the Jews and then he preached through the parables, okay, to confuse them, Matthew 13. That's not what mystery means. It doesn't mean unrevealed, okay? When you read a mystery novel, things are being revealed, right?

And then by the time you finish, you look back and go, wow, that's chapter one. And then you think back to chapter two, oh, man, now I can see it, okay? That's the concept of mystery most often in the New Testament. That which was revealed has been clearly now explained as far as the details of fulfillment by the New Testament.

So, and I'm not sure why I did that, except this, the Jew-Gentile thing, okay? What was the mystery? Gentiles coming to the Lord, is that the mystery? Never ever revealed before by the Old Testament?

It was way back to Abraham. You're going to be a conduit through which the blessing is going to come to the nations of the earth. Jesus, at the end of Luke 24, remember we read that? He said, hey, Moses and the prophets and the Psalms said this would happen, that the Messiah would come. that the Messiah would suffer, that he would be raised on the third day, that he would enter into glory, that proclamation of the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name first in Jerusalem.

The implication is then elsewhere, to the Jew first, and then to the Greek as its taproots. in the Old Testament. And the promise of the New Covenant was by one of Israel's prophets revealed by God through the prophet to the Old Covenant people in the language of the Old Covenant, but it's clear in the New Testament. The fulfillment is in Christ. The application is to the Jew Gentile Church.

Another observation is that

Virtue Extending to All the Saved

its virtue, the virtue of the New Covenant, is that by which all true believers were saved prior to its formal inauguration. Listen to these words in the book of Hebrews. This is so liberating to be able to say this. Turn to Paul's letter to the Hebrews.

I'm at home here, brother, Pastor Butler said. Hebrews 9.5. Let me say this again. The virtue of the new covenant, the blessings, that which it brings to sinners, is that by which all true believers were saved prior to its formal inauguration.

That's a fancy way of saying this. Anybody throughout the history of the world that's been saved has been saved by virtue of the sufferings and entrance into glory of the Lord of glory. Before he became a man, after he became a man. Christ is always the object of the saved sinner's faith, no matter what period of this world's history that he or she might live in.

Hebrews 9, 15. For this reason, he, Christ, is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. Okay, so people committed transgressions under the First Covenant, but they weren't saved, or their sins weren't dealt with in an eternal kind of a way. The sacrifices of the Old Covenant were temporary pictures of what God would do in the Son.

Hebrews chapter 10, verses 1 through 4. for the law since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things can never by the same sacrifices the laws of the old covenant which they offer continually year by year make perfect those who draw near otherwise would they not have ceased to be offered because the worshippers having once been cleansed would no longer have had consciences consciousness of sins but In those sacrifices, there is a reminder of sins year by year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." So anyone and everyone who has been the beneficiary of eternal life, who's saved, is saved by virtue of what Christ does. This is why our confession reads this way in chapter 8, verse paragraph 6. Although the price of redemption was not actually paid by Christ till after his incarnation, yet the virtue, efficacy, and benefit thereof were communicated to the elect in all ages, successively. from the beginning of the world in and by those promises, types, and sacrifices wherein he was revealed and signified to be the seed which should bruise the serpent's head, the lamb slain from the foundation of the world being the same yesterday and today and forever."

The New Covenant Is Permanent and Better

Another observation on the New Testament theology of the New Covenant is that it is permanent, unlike the Old Covenant. It's permanent. It's called eternal. in Hebrews 13 20 in Isaiah chapter 61 verse 8 Hebrews 8 7 very clear that the old covenant became obsolete new covenants never gonna become obsolete because he it has to do with the eternal redemption not just temporary blessings of a particular people, but the eternal redemption of sinners. Fourth or fifth, it's better than the Old Covenant because it had better promises.

This book on covenant theology by E.M.I. Cox and John Owen. It's John Owen's exposition of Hebrews chapter 8, verses 6 through 13. and of the various things he covers is this, the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant because it has better promises. What are the better promises, or at least some of the better promises of the New Covenant?

The forgiveness of all your sins. The universal saving knowledge of God for everybody in the Covenant. The law written on the heart of everybody in the Covenant.

Justification, Sanctification, and Glorification Secured

Sixth, this New Covenant ensures the justification, sanctification, and glorification of all of its participants in Hebrews chapter 9 verses 11 and 12. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. This covenant ensures the eternal redemption of everyone in the covenant. That is, justification, sanctification, and glorification are benefits of the new covenant enjoyed by everybody in the new covenant, which, by the way, which benefits were also enjoyed by people before This new covenant was actually formally inaugurated.

It is by the grace and benefits of this covenant that anyone and everyone that has been, is, and will be saved was saved. And

All of Grace, Apart from Works of the Law

another observation, this covenant is all of grace apart from any and all works of the law. It's not conditioned upon our obedience to the law. of God. Justification, sanctification, glorification are gifts, benefits brought to us. The efficacy of this covenant is based on what Christ did for us and has nothing to do with what we do for Christ, okay?

It's not just that Christ died under the wrath of God and absolved us of our past sins, and now in order to get there, okay, we got our sins forgiven. Now to get there, we have to offer our obedience to contribute to that which Christ has already done. Christ did His part, we do our part. His part was to suffer because of our sins.

Ours is to obey God to finally get there so at the judgment day we can say, hey, I have some works to contribute to this thing. No, the efficacy of this covenant is based on what Christ did for us alone and has nothing to do with what we do for Christ. You see, if your motive for obeying the Lord is, I need to contribute to the final verdict, I don't think there's anybody in here, I hope there's nobody in here that thinks that way. That's death to your soul.

You really want to contribute to the verdict that you are righteous? How are you gonna, you're gonna offer up, God's gonna take what, sincere obedience? As perfect obedience? No, God's requirement for perfect obedience has never changed.

Now our confession uses the language of sincere obedience. But not in the chapter on justification. Sincere, imperfect obedience, amazing thought is received gladly by the Father through the Son, from His children, but not as the grounds or basis of the justifying verdict that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ. Okay?

He receives our weak-kneed obedience, and he is pleased to do that, but not in order to get us to glory, but as a token of thankfulness that because of Christ, I'm going to glory, not because of me.

Application and Conclusion

So, in conclusion, this covenant secures all the blessings promised by it through the work of Christ. Christ earns the blessings of the covenant by obeying. By the way, the first Adam sinned, didn't he? The last Adam obeys.

Christ fully satisfies all the demands of God's law. He also exhausted damnation for us on the cross. He also earned the gift of the Spirit for us by his obedience, Acts 2.33. And he confers upon us all the benefits of the New Covenant through the means of faith and faith alone.

So that is what is the New Covenant. We looked at the Old Testament. We looked at the New Testament. The next section, which I want to do at Sunday school, tomorrow is why is the New Covenant necessary?

Why is the New Covenant necessary? And that's when we'll go backwards in our Bibles and we're going to end up, well ultimately, where Pastor Butler preached in the Covenant of Redemption, but we're going to end up in the Garden of Eden because I think that's where it all started. That's where Covenant theology started. That's where the first divine covenant was, divine human covenant was, God imposing this relationship with man in order to have communion with him and the stipulations or the conditions upon which that communion would not only be maintained, but I think brought to another more permanent level.

Adam was put on the earth to obey and he sinned. Christ didn't sin. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Adam was the first sinner, so what did he fall short of?

The glory of God. Adam wasn't created in an eternal kind of a conditioned state. Adam was created in such a way as he could fall. He could change the state of his soul and his relationship with God by his sin or obedience.

Christ didn't sin. Therefore, he didn't fall short of the glory of God. But he suffered because of our sins, and he entered into glory. And he's going to bring many sons, Hebrews 2.10, to glory.

And the gospel is preached to us for one reason, that we might understand that we're going to share, 2 Thessalonians 2.13, or 14, or 12, something like that. It could be 14. We're going to share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we're going to end up in the Garden of Eden in our study as far as the necessity of the New Covenant because it's Adam's sin.

But we'll do that tomorrow. Let's pray and then you can go to Pastor Butler's study and ask any questions of him that you'd like.

Closing Prayer

Lord, we thank you for the Word of God. And we pray that you would send your spirit to make clear to our minds what your Word teaches, which I fully confess that is not necessarily all that I have said this morning. But surely something that I have said accurately reflects the Word of God. And we know that that's what the Spirit blesses.

So blow away, weed out anything that was not true and right, and cement in our souls that which was true and right. And we know that is only that which reflects Your Word. Bless your word, our souls, and we thank you for the opportunity as well for later today to rejoice in your goodness to this congregation for many years, and we look forward also in anticipation of the Lord's Day for your blessings upon public worship, and we ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.

Scripture References

• Exodus 4:22-23; 19:4-6; 24:1-8
• Leviticus 26
• Isaiah 61:8
• Jeremiah 31:31-34; 32:40
• Ezekiel 36:24-27
• Matthew 12; 13; 26:26-29
• Mark 14:22-24
• Luke 22:19-20; 24:6; 24:25-27; 24:44
• Acts 1:8; 2:33; 26:19
• 2 Corinthians 3:1-3; 3:6
• Colossians 1:26
• 2 Thessalonians 2:13
• Hebrews 2:10; 8:6-13; 9:11-12; 9:15; 10:1-4; 13:20