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We're all standing here, if I 
can get organized. Chapter 7 of God's covenant. So, paragraph 1. The distance 
between God and the creature is so great that, although reasonable 
creatures do owe obedience to him as their creator, yet they 
could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary 
condescension on God's part, which he has been pleased to 
express by way of covenant. Moreover, man having brought 
himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased the 
Lord to make a covenant of grace wherein he freely offers unto 
sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them 
faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give 
unto those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit 
to make them willing and able to believe. This covenant is 
revealed in the gospel, first of all to Adam in the promise 
of salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther 
steps until the full discovery thereof was completed in the 
New Testament. And it is founded in that eternal 
covenant transaction that was between the father and the son 
about the redemption of the elect. And it is alone by the grace 
of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen Adam that 
ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality, Man 
being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those 
terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency. So the 
first paragraph here deals with the gracious nature of the covenant 
of works. So paragraph one is dealing with 
the covenant of works. And it begins by saying that 
the distance between God and the creature is so great that 
reasonable creatures, they owe obedience to him. So we have, 
there's a distance between God and his creation. There's a gap there, and that 
is not a result of the fall. The separation between God and 
man that it's referring to here is not a result of the fall, 
but rather this is the creator-creature distinction, that God is holy, 
God is uncreated, self-existent, pure being. Everything else that 
is, is created. And therefore, there is this 
separation between God and the creature. So I'll start with 
that. Now, you're going to have to 
forgive me because writing on a whiteboard is a learned skill. Whiteboards 
are slippery, and you can't write neat on them. So we have God. And then we have a separation. And then we have all of, everything 
else is below that. Now, in terms of covenants, we're 
dealing with humanity. So I'm going to put humanity 
on this side for sake of the diagram as we go. We have a separation 
between God and humanity. And then, so what the confession 
says that just by virtue of this distinction, that we are creatures, 
God is creator, we owe obedience to God. It's our duty to obey 
our creator, regardless of if there's a reward for this obedience 
or not. That's just simply our duty to do so, that we don't 
deserve a reward, Sorry, standing on an uneven 
floor. We don't deserve, it's just simply, 
we are called, we ought to obey by nature of us being the creature 
and the creator telling us this is what you had to do. And it 
quotes, or the verse that the confession gives, or Luke 17 
verse 10, that Jesus is talking there about the slaves there 
and saying, you know, do you reward a slave for what he is 
supposed to do? No, you don't. You don't have 
to, put it that way. He's just there. He's supposed 
to do his duty. That's the idea there. Man is 
just supposed to, should just obey God. They owe Him that obedience. 
So they could have never attained the reward of life, here it says, 
but by voluntary condescension on God's part. So it pleased 
God, then, to offer a reward for obedience to Him. So, um, 
which is, which is eternal life there. So, um, and again, we 
have to, and then eternal life is, is eternal life with God. We could say access to God for, 
for all eternity is, is being in that fixed state of glory 
for, for all eternity. So we have to, we have to remember 
that Adam, Adam was not created in a state of glory. He was created 
in a state of innocence. We see that in, in chapter nine 
of the confession of the, of the states of, uh, or of free 
will. And it talks about the, about the four states of man. 
Paragraph two, man in a state of innocency. This is pre-lapsarian, 
pre-fall. Adam was created in a state of 
innocency. He had the freedom and power 
to will and to do that which was good and well-pleasing to 
God, but yet was unstable so that he might fall from it. So 
Adam was not in this fixed state of glory where he was not able 
to sin. He was in the state of innocence, 
being able to do good, and obey God's law, but he was also able 
to sin there. So what the confession is saying 
is God could have left man in that state where man was always 
in this state of being able to sin, but also being able to do 
good. And therefore, as long as Adam 
did good, he would be preserved. The second he sinned, he would 
have been destroyed. you know, without any reward. 
And, you know, hypothetically speaking, Adam, you know, did 
that long enough to have children. Their children would have been 
born in a state of innocency. And then, you know, but as soon 
as they sinned, then they would have been destroyed. God could 
have done that because of because he is the creator, but rather 
God graciously, voluntary condescension on God's part, it says here that 
he offers the reward of life for full obedience to his law. So, if Adam obeyed the law, fully 
obeyed this law, then the reward was eternal life. And then it 
says here that God was pleased to express by way of covenant, 
and that's what we call the covenant of works. Some have called it 
the covenant of life, which I actually, I like that, but I don't want 
to rock the boat and change things. So covenant of works, and that's 
what I'll put in between here, this way of access to to the 
Father in terms of eternal life, the covenant of works is what 
had to have been met, and then man would have been given this 
eternal life. So we have the covenant of works. We can look at the terms of this 
covenant, and if you turn to chapter 19 of the Confession, 
that gives us the terms there. Chapter 19 of the Law of God. 
So God gave to Adam a law of universal obedience written in 
his heart and a particular precept of not eating the fruit of the 
tree of knowledge of good and evil by which he bound him and 
all his posterity to personal, exact, entire, and perpetual 
obedience, promised life upon the fulfilling, and threatened 
death upon the breach of it. So that's your, that's the terms 
there is, terms is law, God's law. And then we have the rewards 
of the covenant. The reward for obedience is eternal 
life. And then the reward for disobedience 
is eternal death. So we'll do, we have obey, we 
have life, disobey is death. separation from God. Eternal 
death is eternal separation from God. Eternal life is eternally 
with God in that state of glory. So those are the terms. Now, 
do we find this in the Bible, the covenant of works? It's often 
been argued that there's no such thing as a covenant of works 
because it doesn't talk about covenant in Genesis 1, 2, or 
3. But I think a couple texts, if 
you want to turn there briefly to see that, I think we do find 
explicit reference, just not in Genesis. Hosea 6, verse 7 
is one. Hosea 6. So Hosea is calling the children 
of Israel to repentance. And the reason is in chapter 
six, verse seven, he says, but like men, they transgress the 
covenant. Now, if you look at your, if 
you have a new King James, there's probably a little footnote there 
that says, or like Adam. Now, I think Adam is a perfectly 
legitimate translation in this book. In this instance here, 
based on the Hebrew grammar, I have to remember Adam and man 
is the same word in the Hebrew. Now, sometimes the article is 
there and sometimes it's not. Anyways, I'm not going to bore 
you with that. But Adam is a legitimate translation there. It's a singular 
man. they transgressed the covenant. 
So Israel transgressed the covenant just like Adam did. We're going 
to look at that as we get farther into this. And then the other 
passage is Isaiah 24. Isaiah 24, and this is speaking 
now of a judgment that's going to come upon all of the earth, 
not just Israel here, not just talking 
about the Mosaic Covenant, you know, but it's talking about 
the whole earth is, and look in verse 4, the earth mourns 
and fades away, the world languishes and fades away. The haughty people 
of the earth languish, the earth is defiled under its inhabitants 
because they transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, 
and broke the everlasting covenant. Speaking there of the depravity, 
the state of the world, because they broke the everlasting covenant. So I believe that's a reference 
as well to this covenant that God made in terms of his law. And Isaiah gives that it was 
broken, and that's why the earth is in the state that it's in. 
So, that's the covenant of works. Now, important to understand, 
this covenant never changes. This covenant lasts for all of 
time. the covenant of works. It is 
not after the fall, it's not annulled, whatever it may be. 
This is always the terms of how man can come to God. If you obey 
the law, you're given life. If you disobey, you are worthy 
of eternal death. So, important to understand that. 
That's fundamental in understanding the work of Christ. What Christ 
came to this earth, why he had to become a man, because the 
covenant was with humanity there. That was why Christ had to become 
a man. So he could earn that, and as a man, could meet those 
terms of the covenant. So, remember that. This covenant does not change. Now, continuing then quickly 
in the covenant of works, we know the first covenant was made 
with Adam as representative. of all humanity. Adam represents 
all of humanity there. And then we see that in Romans 
5, 18, 1 Corinthians 15, 22 as well. Those are both kind of 
the two classic passages we can look at, at Romans 5, 18, just 
as through one man's Through one man's offense, judgment came 
to all men, resulting in condemnation. So very, you know, one, Adam 
represented all of humanity in this covenant, because, you know, 
by nature being the first human being. So what makes someone 
in Adam? Or, you know, as 1 Corinthians 
15, I didn't read it, but as in Adam, all die, even so in 
Christ, all shall be made alive. What makes someone in Adam? Well, 
that's just being human. Which is which is what I'm going 
to call natural generation for sake of Argument and as we as 
we look at this natural generation We can say just by by birth or 
or I'm gonna call it natural natural generation Is what is 
what makes someone in Adam? so So then, now, Adam had to obey, 
obviously, this, and then he would have had eternal life. 
But we understand, we know that Adam disobeyed, broke that, and 
now him and all his posterity, everyone who is naturally generated, 
is born as a human being, is now worthy of eternal death. 
So if we want to say, is there any access, to the father, no, 
that's broken. There's no longer access there. And then we see that at the end 
of paragraph 3 here in the Confession, the last line there, that man 
is now utterly incapable of acceptance with God on those terms on which 
Adam stood in the state of his innocency. So because of that 
representative nature there, Adam broke it, everyone is in 
sin, there's no access that way anymore. So man, So, now moving 
on to paragraph two. Moreover, man having brought 
himself under the curse of the law by his fault. So, excuse 
me. A lot of talking left to do today 
yet, so hopefully. Okay, so now, Adam is under the 
curse of the law. Now, we understand... What's 
also important to understand, then, is what happened in this 
situation here, is that this whole circle of humanity is now 
in darkness, and what the Bible calls the kingdom of darkness. That's going to be important 
to understand as well, as we... Especially as we get in, and 
we'll see in actually both sermons today, we'll see this concept 
of the kingdom of darkness being called out of that kingdom of 
darkness by Christ. So, remember Adam was supposed to have dominion 
over the earth. He was supposed to rule it. When Adam fell, Satan 
was given the dominion of the earth. We find that all through 
the Bible there. And that's important to understand. 
So that is now this kingdom of darkness governed by Satan. And again, like I said, we need 
to understand that that's where the crushing of the head of the 
serpent becomes meaningless if we don't realize that situation 
there, that Satan is now in control of this kingdom of darkness. So then, now moving on, then 
it says in the confession, it says, it pleased the Lord to 
make a covenant of grace wherein he freely offers unto sinners 
life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him. 
So God made a covenant of grace. Now this does not replace the 
covenant of works. We have to remember that. This 
is not replacing the covenant of works. This is a covenant 
here where he offers, it says he offers life and salvation 
by Jesus Christ. So it's salvation from the state 
that they're in of worthy of death and being in darkness, 
salvation from that and then worthy of life. So what the covenant 
of grace is, We have a new circle here. We have, through Jesus 
Christ, we have a transfer from darkness, from out of this, into 
being in Christ. So Christ, so this is what, and 
this is what we call the covenant of grace. wherein this transfer of a representative 
in the covenant of works takes place. So that's what the, and 
again, I'm not gonna go into the work of Christ. I think we're 
familiar with that in terms of what Christ is doing in this 
covenant. So Christ offers life and salvation, it says here, 
because we know, for one, Christ obeyed the law, his righteousness, 
and he earned eternal life. So now Christ, there is access 
to the Father through Christ because of that obedience, but 
Christ also fulfilled the curse of the law here, this punishment 
for death, and he did that because of those whom he rescues out 
of here are worthy of that. So we understand that. I think 
that's not new to us. That's what we call the active 
and passive obedience of Christ. Active, wherein he actively obeys 
the law, pass of wherein he fulfills the curse of the law. Galatians 
3.13, Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having 
become a curse for us. So now whoever is in Christ is 
now worthy of eternal life because of Christ has met the terms of 
the covenant of works. Now, who is in Christ? Now, what are the terms of this 
covenant here? And the terms that it says here 
in the confession that we know is faith, wherein He requires 
of them faith in Him. So the terms is faith. Maybe I can put that here. terms is faith, and then the 
reward is being in Christ, in Christ's kingdom. So if this 
is the kingdom of darkness, this is the kingdom, I'll call it 
Christ's kingdom, the Bible calls it his marvelous light, or the 
kingdom of the son of his love, whatever it may be, but we have 
this, we have Christ's kingdom here. The reward is all of the 
benefits that come with being in Christ. Primarily, obviously, 
the access to the Father. So the terms is faith. The reward 
is this transfer of representation in the covenant of works. Now 
we have to understand, what precedes faith in terms of, and what the 
confession says here as well, that He promises to give to all 
those that are ordained unto eternal life. So that's those 
who are being, we'll call them the elect. are the ones who are 
in there. So, but he promises to give unto 
them his Holy Spirit to make them willing and able to believe. 
So that, so what precedes faith is spiritual regeneration. So this is natural generation. 
Spiritual regeneration is what gets someone into this state. Kingdom. Again, very important 
to understand that distinction as we get into the Abrahamic 
covenant. So, again, John 3, verses 6, 
that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
of the spirit is spirit. So we have a natural union with 
Adam by means of our birth. We have a spiritual union with 
Christ by means of our regeneration there. John 1, verses 12, but 
as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children 
of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, not 
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of 
man, but of God." So, a few things to note regarding the covenant 
of grace. We have the first thing is the 
spiritual regeneration. So we'll call that number one. We'll see that as we go. The 
second thing is that faith is in Romans 4.16, it says that 
it is of faith that it might be of grace. So the first thing 
is being in this covenant is spiritual regeneration. Number two is grace. We see that in 
Romans 4.16. And then the third thing to note 
about this covenant is that it is unbreakable. Those are three things to remember. I'll just erase this so we can 
see that. There. These three things. It's 
spiritual regeneration, grace, and it's unbreakable. And this 
unbreakableness, we find that in Hebrews 8, the fact that the 
old one was breakable. John 10, 28 as well, that Jesus 
says that nobody can snatch them out of my hand or out of my Father's 
hand. So there's, you know, once you're 
in Christ, We know it's because he rescues us, right? He takes 
us out of there. He conquers us from this darkness. 
He's in there now. Nobody can snatch us out of his 
hand. So it is an unbreakable covenant. So that's the covenant of grace. 
Now, we're gonna look at the history of the revelation of 
the covenant of grace. That's paragraph three there. So the covenant is first revealed 
in the gospel, or is revealed in the gospel, first of all, 
to Adam, in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman. So 
first, you know, the first, Genesis 3, 15, that, you know, the one 
would come who would, you know, crush the head of the serpent, 
and You know, salvation would be by the seed of the woman, 
someone there. So the promise of this new mediator 
is first revealed in Genesis 3, and then afterwards by further 
steps. Actually, just on that note briefly 
there, in terms of the crushing of the head of the serpent, 1 
John 3, verse 8, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested 
that He might destroy the works of the devil. So he's going to 
undo what the devil... We know Adam was responsible 
for his sin and his fall, but Satan was, we know, as the serpent 
in the garden there, was the one who came and tricked and 
got him into this mess, and now has authority over the kingdom 
of darkness. So Jesus, this seed, is going 
to come and undo the works of the devil, as John says there, 
or destroy the works of the devil. So then we have these further 
steps that the Confession says here, and this is primarily in 
the historical covenants. Now, when I say historical covenants, 
these are covenants that take place in history, in time and 
in history, that give us a picture of this. They give us a picture 
of this whole relationship here in terms of the covenant of grace. 
There, so the first, um, so we have, and those are primarily 
the two, the two covenants are the covenant of, um, the Abrahamic 
covenant and covenant. These ones, these ones give us, 
you know, a, a, a picture of, of this. And then we have other, 
the other texts of it, the, the Noahic covenant and the Davidic 
covenant. They give, they, they, they teach of these, of these 
things. We'll see if we have time, um, on those ones. But 
for now, I want to look at the Abrahamic covenant. Now that's 
in, if, it's important now to understand the Abrahamic Covenant, 
we find that in Genesis 11 and 12, or the 12 anyways, the beginning 
of this covenant. But it's Genesis 12 comes right 
after Genesis 11. And in Genesis 11 we have the 
Tower of Babel. The Tower of Babel is representative 
of the kingdom of darkness. We know what was going on in 
the Tower of Babel was all the nations coming together against 
God. It was Satan launching an attack against God. So it's this 
kingdom of darkness there. And what happens in, and we'll 
look at that actually in the sermon this morning too, there's 
a lot of parallels here that we'll see. But in Genesis 12, 
or in a Tower of Babel, God disperses this kingdom of darkness and 
he allots it into various nations, groups, but he takes one group 
out of that. So maybe I'll draw that over 
here. So we have Abrahamic covenant 
here. That says Abrahamic, I promise. 
So we have Babel, which equals the kingdom of darkness. Now, 
the interesting thing to note is that Babel in the Hebrew is 
exactly the same word as Babylon. There's a reason why we translate 
Tower of Babel as Babel, and then once we get to the city 
of Babylon, translating it as Babylon, but it is exactly the 
same word in Hebrew. Babel is the transliteration 
of that Hebrew word. So that's the kingdom of darkness. 
And then we have God coming, rescuing Abraham. out of that, and he's making, 
and then he's going to make a nation out of Abraham. So this is the 
Abrahamic covenant there, this rescue out of the kingdom of 
darkness, which is what exactly is happening in the covenant 
of grace. We have Christ is rescuing his kingdom, the people that 
he's making into his kingdom, out of the kingdom of darkness, 
which is exactly what Yahweh did Here, in this instance, with 
Babel, we have the kingdom of darkness, and then we have a 
rescue of one whom God will make into a nation out of the kingdom 
of darkness. So there's parallels there. Now, we have a few things to 
note then on this. One is that there's a gracious 
nature to this, of course. We have this rescue. We see that 
in Deuteronomy 7, now this is building, this is after the Mosaic 
Covenant, of course, but it's still building off of this. This 
concept of Israel being a special nation, this is where it originates, 
back at the Tower of Babel. If you're in Deuteronomy, you 
can turn to Deuteronomy 7 to see this gracious nature of this 
action here. So, verse 6, for you are a holy 
people to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen 
you to be a people for himself, a special treasure above all 
the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set his 
love on you, nor choose you, because you were more in number 
than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples, 
but because the Lord loves you." So that is, so that, that, that, 
you know, being a special people of God was, it was, it was, you 
know, the same thing here. Grace, there was a gracious aspect 
to it. So we can't miss that. And that's 
where we learn. We'll see in the sermon today 
this concept of God graciously rescuing Abraham, paralleling 
this covenant of grace. But now it's important. We saw 
these three distinctives here. We'll look at that there and 
see how they line up in the Abrahamic covenant. Okay, so we have the gracious 
nature now, but we have the terms of this covenant. We see that 
in Genesis 17, where God gives the terms of this covenant, that 
as for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your descendants 
after you, every male among you shall be circumcised. So we have 
this, we have now, the terms are not faith, but it's circumcision, 
in order This is what we need to understand. Abram had to keep 
himself in this covenant relationship now. Abram had to do something 
to keep himself in there, and that was the terms circumcision. So that's the terms. the reward 
was that you would be a nation, a special nation, Yahweh's special 
people, and then you would be given this promised land as an 
inheritance. So again, we see parallels here, 
to be sure, with the covenant of grace, that given a promised 
land, these being Yahweh's special people, but these are limited 
to earthly Blessings, you know a plot of 
land in the in the in the Middle East, you know a blessed life 
in that land You know, these were these are temporal blessings 
So this there's parallels to be sure we can we can you know, 
it's not hard to make those those connections But again, there 
these are these are temporal rewards or not. They're not heavenly 
but this is how this is how the Covenant of Grace is being revealed 
as the as paragraph 3 says here by these further steps, so these 
these you know, these these blessings the rewards of being Yahweh's people, the land, etc. These are things 
that give us a picture of the spiritual blessings that are 
in the covenant of grace. But again, like I said, it was 
up to Abraham and his children to keep themselves in that covenant 
there. You know, and in Genesis 17, 
verse 14, it says, So very clearly there, if, you know, the terms 
were circumcision, if they were uncircumcised, they were cut 
off, they were no longer in this special relationship there. So now, the things that we need 
to know in terms of parallels here. First of all, this is natural 
generation. That is how someone Someone entered 
into this covenant where they were born as a seed of Abraham, 
as a Jew. Through Abraham, they were in 
that covenant. The promise was to you and your 
descendants after you. We saw that in Genesis 17, 9. 
Also, we see there that it's a works-based covenant. So the fact that they had to 
do something, they had to be circumcised. It's a works-based 
covenant. And then as we saw, they can be cut off. So it's a breakable covenant. there. And now this is, again, 
so we have, now we, knowing these three things, seeing these three 
things, now we, this is, this is where a paedo-baptist covenant 
structure runs into problems, because we don't, we have three 
different aspects or characteristics of 
these covenants here. So, they're very different. So, 
you know, the Paedo-Baptists, they want to say that this is 
the covenant of grace, somehow. You know, but again, but look, 
it comes through natural generation, it's works-based, and it's a 
breakable covenant. So, You know, so what do they 
do with their children in this, you know, because we know natural 
generation. So they want to include natural 
generation somehow in the covenant of grace. So what do they do 
with it? Well, there's a lot of different 
flavors, if I can use that word, of Paedo-Baptist covenant theology. There's very many different ones 
because all these three are contradictory to one another. So there's various 
ways of of their different, like I said, 
flavors of paedo-baptism. So either they take the terms 
of the covenant, you know, the circumcision, which they, you 
know, which they replace with baptism, and then, so they want 
to take the terms, and they want to take the rewards of the old 
covenant, and say, you know, it doesn't have anything to do 
with your salvation. But then you're living in the old covenant, which the 
Bible tells us very clearly the old covenant is over, it's obsolete 
in Hebrews chapter 8. And for one, they're not Jews. The covenant was for Abraham 
and for his descendants, his physical descendants. that were 
naturally born to him. So those are living in the old 
covenant. It doesn't work. That old covenant 
is, like I said, it's obsolete. We're now in the new covenant. 
So then they'll try to add their children into this relationship 
somehow here. And they, you know, so they'll 
take, so they take the terms of the covenant, circumcision, 
meaning baptism, they take those terms, and then they, you know, 
so, but then what is the reward for that? Is the reward being 
in Christ, which is what this reward is? Write that so we can 
see that. in Christ, meaning represented 
by Christ. So if you take the terms from this one, but they 
want to take the reward from this one, some of them will try 
to do that. So if you do that, does Christ 
represent you before God or does he not? Now, if they say, well, 
no, he doesn't represent us before God. Well, then you're still 
in Adam. You're still on this side. You're 
still represented by Adam. Bible's very clear. In Adam, 
all die. In Christ, all shall be made 
alive. So if you're saying that if you're in the reward of being 
in Christ, but it's not, so you have the terms of here. of this 
covenant, trying to apply it into here. So if they say, well, 
if you're not represented by Christ, well, then you're still 
in Adam. If they say that, you know, you 
are in Christ, you know, then that means that they're saved. 
But the thing is, but they haven't met the terms of this covenant, 
which is faith, which is what the Bible says very clearly. 
So they've met the terms of the Abrahamic covenant, but they 
have not met the terms of this covenant, but yet they want the 
reward of this covenant with the terms of this covenant. So 
they're taking the two different covenants and trying to conflate 
them there. We might think, well, that's 
pretty drastic, that's a big step, because it's so obviously 
contradictory here. We know we're saved by faith, 
but yet they want to have the reward there. And now it's interesting, 
if any of you are familiar with the the infant baptism, the form 
that the Dutch Reformed circles say, that form explicitly says 
that. It explicitly says that baptism, 
which is the terms, for sake of argument, we'll let them say 
that baptism replaces circumcision. So they take the terms of this 
covenant and they explicitly say that they receive the rewards 
of this covenant here. It says that the Father adopts 
them as His children and heirs. The Son washes them in His blood 
and unites them to Himself in His life. So they're saying explicitly 
that they're in Christ now. They're united in His life, death, 
and resurrection. And that the Spirit indwells 
them as members of Christ. So they've taken the rewards 
of this one, but the terms of this covenant. So you see the 
contradiction there. You see why it doesn't work. And now 
there's another version of this paedobaptism. This is, again, 
I don't wanna, I like to try and not call out by name, but 
I will. The Canadian Reformed version 
of paedobaptism and their covenant is they take all of these distinctives 
of the Abrahamic covenant and they apply it to this, to the, 
the covenant of grace, they basically, they say, yes, we affirm that 
it's spiritually regenerated grace, it's unbreakable, those, 
well, actually, I shouldn't say the last one. They say that, 
but what they, in practice and in teaching, what they say is 
that you're in by natural generation, if you're born there, and then, 
of course, you receive the sign, so they look at it as a sign 
of the covenant. You're in by natural generation. 
And then they make it a works-based covenant. But they use the term 
faith. They say, yes, we're in by faith. But by faith, what they mean 
is faithfulness. So basically, what it is, it's 
a paedo-baptist version of the New Perspective on Paul, where 
faith is not Faith is not the terms, but faithfulness. It's 
up to you to keep yourself in this covenant. So they're being 
a bit more consistent with their covenant view, because Abraham 
and his children, they had to keep themselves in this covenant 
through the terms of circumcision. And then they also bring in the 
Mosaic covenant of law-keeping. as well, but, you know, you had 
to keep yourself in this relationship. So they will say, you know, that 
it's, that, you know, through your faithfulness, through your, 
you know, you're living a life of obedience, you're coming to 
church, you're, you know, in times of trials and difficulties, 
that you, you know, you stay strong and trusty in God, and 
if you do that till the end, then you will be saved. So they 
look at these three things now, so natural generation, works-based, 
meaning faithfulness in there, or what they call faith, meaning 
faithfulness, which is works, and then it is also a breakable 
covenant, and they believe if you If you stop going to church, 
you stop in difficulties, you stop trusting God in the trials 
of life, you stop trusting God and you have then broken the 
covenant, and then they use the terminology that you will be 
blotted out of the book of life. We find that terminology in the 
Bible, but we have to understand that. you're not in and then blotted 
out again. When these terminology of blotted out are, you know, 
we can't take one verse or two verses that say that and apply, 
you know, apply everything else around that. That obviously has 
to mean something else in terms of blotted out, meaning you in 
fact never were in there in the first place. But, so that is 
kind of, I hope it helps to understand why why the Abrahamic covenant 
is not the covenant of grace, is because of these three distinctives 
there. So as Reformed Baptists, we don't 
have those inconsistencies because we separate the two. So we say, 
you know, we learn things, it reveals things about this covenant 
from here, but it is not, we can't make, we don't conflate 
the two and then start taking terms and rewards and mix and 
match, however we sort of feel, you know, like I said, the different 
flavor we want in terms of which ones, one, two, or three we want 
to pick from each covenant and make our own version of one. 
So that is the the the reformed baptist model 
separating the two make and then it's again understanding this 
one is revealing something about that history it's these further 
it's one of the further steps that is that is revealed now 
it within this covenant we also have god also gave a promise 
right a promise that in him one day all the nations of the earth 
would be blessed. So not just Him, but all the 
nations, all the ones that are in darkness. It's a picture, 
going back to here, of all humanity that's in darkness. This kingdom 
of Christ is going to be for—it's not just for Abraham, but it's 
for all of humanity, from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation. 
So that's the promise, but the promise is distinct from the 
covenant. The promise is not is not the covenant. The promise 
is distinct. It's through this process of 
God taking a nation for himself and carrying them through history. 
It's through that process by which he would bring the mediator 
of this covenant, the mediator of the better covenant, the new 
covenant, There, so again, Abraham was not saved 
by virtue of this covenant. He was saved by virtue of this 
covenant there. It's important to understand 
that as well. So then, so that's the Abrahamic 
covenant. Now, the Mosaic covenant, I'm 
gonna try to zip through this a little quicker here. The Mosaic 
covenant is, is, again, we have very similar things going on 
here in the Mosaic Covenant. So in the Mosaic Covenant, for 
one, we have Egypt. We have Israel is in Egypt, which 
is also darkness. And then we have God rescuing 
them out, redemption, the exodus, we could say, rescuing out, bringing 
his people to his kingdom, in His promised land. So we have, 
we see that, we see that same picture going on there. But, 
so that, so we have that, I don't want to gloss over that too quickly, 
but we, you know, the exodus is of course a picture of redemption 
here. This, you know, God coming, rescuing 
them from bondage, rescuing them from darkness, taking them out, 
bringing them into making them, bringing them to His, making 
a kingdom out of them and into the receiving the promised land. 
those kind of things. So, and that's a huge aspect 
of the Mosaic Covenant and of this, you know, of pointing forward, 
revealing something about this covenant here. But what the Mosaic 
Covenant also is, is a republication Pastor Butler uses that word, 
republication of the covenant of works scenario. It's this scenario here, but 
now in history, brought out in history, not on a spiritual level, 
but in a historical level. That was what we saw last week 
in 1 Peter chapter two, talking about that cornerstone, that 
prophecy and this, because it's, It's picturing this. I'll show 
you here. So we have the same thing here. We have God. We'll draw the separation 
here. And then we have, we'll say through 
Moses as the representative here, we have Israel. And then the 
same thing happens. This time now we have, we'll 
call it the Mosaic Covenant. And the terms, Same as this one. The law. God 
giving it the law at Sinai. Now, we have for obedience, the 
rewards, we have life. This is life in the land. That says land. Life in the land, 
in the promised land. This is not eternal life. This 
is life in the land. Disobedience, is expulsion from the land. So, in Deuteronomy, we find that, 
Deuteronomy 28, we find that the blessings and the curses 
there, I'll just read to you the curse for a second. The blessing 
is, you know, the first half of chapter 28, you know, a glorious, 
beautiful life in the land. Cursing, On this, there's lots 
of cursing there going on at the end of the chapter 63 and 
64. And it shall be that just as 
the Lord rejoiced over you to do good and multiply you, so 
the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you 
out to nothing. And you shall be plucked from 
off the land which you go to possess. Then the Lord will scatter 
you among all peoples from one end of the earth to the other, 
and there you shall serve other gods which neither you nor your 
fathers have known, wood or stone. So, very clear, very explicit, 
if you obey, glorious life in the land. If you disobey, you're 
scattered out, you're no longer my people there. Now, and what happened? Well, we understand Israel broke 
the covenant. They broke the law many times 
over, but for many years, but ultimately, like Adam, they broke 
the covenant of works. Remember, we saw that in Hosea 
6, verse 7. Like Adam, they broke my covenant. They didn't break 
the covenant of works, sorry, they broke the Mosaic covenant. 
This one here, so like Adam broke the covenant of works, Israel 
broke my covenant. What happened to Israel? They 
went into exile in Babylon. which equals the kingdom of darkness. Just like the Tower of Babel, 
in the Abrahamic Covenant, Babylon is the kingdom of darkness, representative 
of the kingdom of darkness. We see that in Revelation, I 
think it's 19 as well, where Babylon is, you know, Babylon 
is destroyed. Babylon is that kingdom of darkness 
is destroyed at the end of the age by Christ. cast into the 
lake of fire. So they're exiled into Babylon. And then this is where we saw 
last week with that prophecy of Isaiah, just like Genesis 
3.15 prophesied that, you know, one was going to come who would restore out of darkness. In Isaiah, we saw the promise 
that, you know, there was this cornerstone, this foundation 
was there. There was going to be a restoration. 
And, you know, so there's going to be a bringing out of Babylon 
back into the promised land. We see that the Messiah, in this 
situation, is Cyrus, king of Persia. Isaiah 45, the first 
chapter, God says, you know, thus says God to my Messiah, 
to my anointed one. Meshach is the Hebrew word for 
Messiah. Thus says Yahweh to my Meshach, my Messiah, to Cyrus. And we know Cyrus was the one 
who came and destroyed the Babylonian Empire and allowed the... what's the word, the remnant 
or the exiles to return back to the promised land. So we have 
this, so Cyrus is the one who rescues there in this picture 
that is given, and he's the one who rescues them from bondage 
in the kingdom of darkness in Babylon, rescues them out of 
that and lets them go back into this promised land here, again, 
which is the blessing that we see in this one, of the 
blessing of the promised land being spiritual, being the new 
heavens, the new earth, wherein righteousness dwells, that's 
the reward of being in Christ. So we have that same thing here, 
but now on a temporal, earthly level, being into the promised 
land, they were allowed to return back from that. So, excuse me. Again, so this is, so the Mosaic 
covenant to use the word republication or type or whatever you want 
to call it, is a picture of the same thing that's going on here. 
They were given a covenant, they broke it, they were brought in, 
they were exiled into darkness, same as like Adam was, you know, 
into bondage of the kingdom of darkness, Babylon here, and then 
Messiah comes, rescues them out of it and brings them back, lets 
them return back to the promised, back to the promised land here. promised land, you know, the 
kingdom, God's people. So that's the sort of a broad 
overview of the Mosaic Covenant representing that. Now we know 
that within the, much more in terms of the Mosaic Covenant 
could be could be said about it in terms of all of the ways 
in which it reveals this covenant of grace. There's, you know, 
and all the typology that we find in here, not so much in 
this picture, but just within the civil laws and the ceremonial 
laws, you know, the sacrifices that pointed to Christ, you know. 
So, but this covenant highlights the importance of law-keeping 
for access to God. And then through the sacrificial 
system, it highlights the sinfulness of man, the failure to have access 
to God. So like Adam, there was no access 
because of their sin. And therefore, we have sacrifice, that atonement, 
that blood atonement that was necessary to fulfill the curse 
of the law. So we see lots of things revealed 
in the Mosaic Covenant about different elements of this. Again, so like I said, this is 
not everything is a one-to-one typology. We can't take every 
aspect of a certain covenant and just apply it into this one 
here. There's certain elements of it that we can, certain things, 
but the covenants are made in certain times, for certain 
people, and God, we cannot make unnecessary steps. I think Sam 
Renahan in his book, that's the one that hopefully the church 
is going to be going through, the theology study, that's kind 
of his opening introduction or chapter, or maybe chapter one 
or the introduction, but talking about how covenants, you can't 
just simply, you can't simply take everything from one covenant 
and naturally, by natural reason, by necessary reason, apply it 
all into another covenant. They're specific to times, to 
people, to certain laws, those types of things. So, again, now, let's see here. Yeah, we're pretty much out of 
time. So we have, like I said earlier, we have the Noahic Covenant 
that also reveals elements of it. It is not a picture in the 
sense of mirroring what's going on, typology. The Noahic Covenant 
gives us the promise and the framework in which creation will 
be preserved by common grace until the fulfillment of the 
promise. That's from Dr. Renahan or Sam Renahan. Yeah, that's his quote there. 
The framework in which creation will be preserved by common grace 
until the fulfillment of the promise. So until the arrival 
of the Messiah and the building of his kingdom, you know, there. 
So we have the, that's the Noahic Covenant. The Davidic Covenant, 
you know, that solidifies that promise to Abraham that in him, 
you know, from his family, it further narrows it down that 
he's going to be a son of David. It reveals truth, more truth 
about it, that he'd be a son of David, a son of God. He's 
going to rule eternally as a king over the household of God. So 
it gives us a lot clearer picture of who this new mediator would 
be there. Now, just again, real quick before 
we go, it says here it's founded in the eternal covenant transaction 
that was between the father and the son about the redemption 
of the elect in paragraph three. This is the covenant of redemption, 
we call that, that this whole, this picture, and primarily Christ 
being the mediator, being a new mediator in this, in the covenant 
of works. That was founded in eternity 
past in this inter-Trinitarian covenant between the Father and 
the Son. And again, so the idea is for us to realize that this 
was not plan B. Christ's coming as mediator was 
not plan B in terms of God's ultimate sovereignty. It wasn't 
that Adam Adam was plan A, Adam failed, and then therefore God 
had to come up with plan B, and then therefore he decided that 
Christ would be the one to do it. This was God's plan through 
all of eternity. So it's just important for us 
to always understand the sovereignty of God in all things. Yes, Adam's 
responsible for his failure, to be sure. You know, this was God's plan 
from eternity past. Titus 1 verse 2 says, "...in 
hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before 
time began." That's probably one of the clearest biblical 
statements on the covenant of redemption. There, so again, 
this is, and then the exclusivity of the covenant of grace, that 
last line there, that Adam failed, he broke it, Adam can no longer 
meet these terms here. Well, he can in the sense of 
the curse. That's the only thing he's worthy 
of now is the curse of this, which is eternal death, which 
is suffering in hell for all of eternity, so that there's 
no more access to God in terms of eternal life. through Adam, 
but it's only through Christ, and it's only through faith, 
through meeting the terms of faith by which one is transferred 
from Adam to a new representative Christ in this covenant there, 
and then therefore have access to the Father. So the Old Testament 
saints, Abraham, Moses, every faithful Israelite, You know, 
they look forward to this one who would come and undo what 
Adam did. The New Testament saints, we 
look back on the work of Christ. We also look forward to what, 
to, you know, Christ is still building His kingdom. He's still, 
you know, He's still building this kingdom here, and then one, 
you know, one day is going to deliver it to the Father, and, 
you know, we will be partakers of the new heavens, the new earth, 
wherein righteousness dwells. So that is, we'll close there 
before I get too late here, but we'll close briefly. Our Father 
in heaven, we do thank you for your covenant. Lord, we thank 
you for this new mediator of the covenant, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who came and rescued us, conquered us out of darkness, 
brought us into his marvelous lights. Lord, I do pray that 
we would rejoice in your covenant and your covenant faithfulness, 
rejoice in our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and that today 
we would glorify you in all that we do, and especially here in 
this next hour as we worship you together with your people 
here. We pray your blessing on us.