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Well, you can turn to chapter 
7 in your confession of faith of God's covenant, of God's covenant. If you don't have a copy of the 
confession, perhaps you can raise your hand and one will be made 
available to you. All right. So chapter 7, I'll 
read the three paragraphs, and then we'll look at it in some 
detail. The distance between God and 
the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures 
do owe obedience unto 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 hath 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 offereth unto 
sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them 
faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give 
unto all 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 afterward by father's 
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 of the posterity of fallen Adam 
that ever were saved did obtain life and a blessed immortality, 
man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those 
terms on which Adam stood in his state of innocency. Amen. Well, as Reformed Baptists, that 
means we hold to or confess covenant theology as a means by which 
we understand the teaching of scripture. And Jim Renahan makes 
this observation concerning covenant theology. He says, we believe 
that the structure of scripture is properly defined by what has 
been designated as covenant theology. To grasp this fact is to grasp 
the central architecture of the entire Bible. So it's a means 
by which we come to the Bible. And there are various hermeneutical 
approaches. And again, this is a hermeneutical 
approach. It's the way that we approach 
a method by which we employ to understand texts of scripture. So you have covenant theology, 
something that this particular chapter articulates. And it has 
been well articulated in the Reformed faith. If you look at 
not only the Second London Confession, but the Westminster Confession, 
and the Three Forms of Unity, along with the Savoy Declaration, 
you will notice that all of the Reformed confess covenant theology. Now, there are some intramural 
debates, to be sure, among the Baptists, say, for instance, 
in the Paedo-Baptists. But the way of approach to the 
Bible is covenantal. As well, there's something called 
dispensationalism, and essentially dispensationalism is a system 
of biblical interpretation and of theology which divides God's 
working into different periods or dispensations which he administers 
in different ways. Now typically this is associated 
with premillennial eschatology, but that's not necessarily helpful. Premillennial eschatology has 
been around since the early church. Some of the church fathers, I 
think it's over-exaggerated at times, the amount of fathers 
that were committed to a premillennial scheme, but nevertheless there 
were fathers that were premillennial. such that some have suggested 
that the predominating eschatology in the early church was premillennialism. Again, I think that's debatable, 
but nevertheless, there's always been what's called historic premillennialism. But in the 1800s, there was something 
called dispensational premillennialism. And while the premillennialism 
is the same between historic and dispensational, they approach 
it from widely different angles such that historic premill can 
be seen as fully confessional. Our chapters on eschatology do 
not exclude premillennialists. does not exclude the likes of 
John Gill, does not exclude, some suggest C.H. Spurgeon was 
premillennial. Again, I think that's debatable. 
Those men aren't excluded by a reformed confession of faith 
because historic premillennialism is pretty legit through and through. 
Dispensationalism, however, has so tampered with the Bible, so 
affected the Bible in such a way that they could not find comfort 
or find the ability to confess what we have in the Reformed 
confessions. The biggest issue for the dispensationalists 
is the big distinction between Jews and Gentiles. That is something 
to me that is insurmountable in terms of a defense for it. They cannot. But as well, to 
propagate it continually and maintain that this is what the 
Bible teaches really is is a pretty ludicrous opinion in my estimation. But dispensationalism, as I said, 
is a way of approaching the Bible and looking at it in different 
dispensations. It leads to the unrighteous sort 
of implication that people in the Old Testament were actually 
saved by law. That is untenable. It was not 
the case that Abraham obeyed God and God accounted it to him 
for righteousness. Genesis 15-6 emphasizes justification 
by grace through faith in the coming Messiah. And so a dispensational 
reading of much of the Bible is faulty in terms of these sorts 
of things. And then over the last few years 
there's been something called New Covenant theology. And so 
New Covenant theology comes in between covenant and dispensationalism 
and tries to have a mediating position. And essentially, what 
you have are basically covenantal guys that reject the Sabbath, 
reject regulative principle of worship, and a few other particulars. 
But that's the three sort of popular views among evangelicals 
and Reform on how to interpret the Bible. Now, in terms of the 
relation of these schemes to exegesis, some of the major things 
affected by the way we approach the Bible are things like, in 
the first place, continuity and discontinuity between the Testaments. How do we know we're not supposed 
to eat shellfish as New Covenant believers? Well, our hermeneutic 
ought to be able to yield answers. How do we know that bestiality 
is still condemned in the New Covenant, even though there's 
no text that prohibits bestiality? Well, our methodology and our 
hermeneutic will be able to deal with, or it should be able to 
deal with those particular issues. So things that continue and things 
that are discontinuous between the two covenants. Very important. 
If we have a dispensational mindset or a covenant theology mindset, 
we're going to come to widely different positions on some of 
these issues. Secondly, the role of ethnic 
Israel. What's ethnic Israel's role in 
the world today? Are they still God's special 
people? Is there a geopolitical future 
for the nation state of Israel? Those are things that are affected 
by our understanding of biblical prophecy, the application of 
prophecy, and so on and so forth. As well, the place of the church 
in relation to Israel. If, for the dispensationalists, 
there is a great distinction between Jews and Gentiles, well, 
that will certainly affect our view of the Church and her relationship 
to the nation-state of Israel. As well, the sacraments of the 
Church, when it comes to particular Baptists, And when it comes to 
Paedobaptists, or Cradobaptists and Paedobaptists, the thing 
affecting the subjects of baptism is covenant. How do we understand 
the people of God? And covenant speaks to that issue 
of the people of God. So our view of covenant theology 
will yield whether or not we baptize and include infants, 
or whether we exclude infants, not from the covenant of grace, 
as if we could do that, but from those sacraments that are attached 
to the covenant of grace, predicated upon faith and repentance. So 
the idea of the sacraments of the Church is affected by our 
view of God's covenant. And then the law of God in the 
new covenant. The law of God. Chapter 19, for 
instance, is in a covenantal sort of a scheme or format. Chapter 
19 of the Law of God is most excellent in our confession of 
faith because chapter 7 is most excellent in our confession of 
faith. Now whether you've made all these 
connections or not, I just put them out there to underscore 
how important covenant theology is. It's not simply for academics, 
it's not simply for seminarians, it's not simply for, you know, 
the doctors of the church, but it's for all of us. And it's 
not just how do we deal with texts of Scripture and how do 
we have a methodology or a hermeneutical sort of set of principles to 
interpret isolated texts, but does the Bible yield comfort 
and encouragement to the people of God? I would suggest that 
it most certainly does, and one of those foundational places 
comfort and encouragement for the people of God is in covenant 
theology, the understanding that God is in Christ reconciling 
the world to himself to encourage the blood-bought children of 
God in terms of their Christian life and of their status before 
a thrice holy God. So it is a most important subject. 
Again, there's a lot of disagreements at the intramural level. We will 
differ with the Paedo-Baptists, we will differ with the You know, 
the Savoy Declaration, there's some differences between this 
chapter 7 here and what you have in chapter 7 in the Westminster 
Confession. Most noticeably is the exclusion 
of Westminster's paragraph 2 from our chapter 7. They don't indicate 
or they don't give what chapter 7 paragraph 2 in the Westminster 
Confession contains, and I'll just read that. It says, the 
first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein 
life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon 
condition of perfect and personal obedience. So that reference 
to the covenant of works, having been excluded by the particular 
Baptist in the 17th century, has led to the interpretation 
or conclusion that Reformed Baptists reject the covenant of works. 
That is not what's going on in this particular chapter. And 
we'll see that as we move through the chapter, that the Reformed 
Baptists, or particular Baptists, did confess and affirm the covenant 
of works. The Bible teaches it, so they 
certainly would have held to it. And there are places, many 
places, in the confession that underscores that covenant. But 
then as well, with reference to the Westminster, the Westminster 
sees the Old Covenant as a covenant of grace. They see it as an administration 
of the covenant of grace. Our Confession does not do that. It was the position of many of 
the particular Baptists, along with some Pato Baptists, most 
noteworthy, John Owen and Samuel Pato, who saw that the Old Covenant 
was not a covenant of grace, but it was a republication of 
the covenant of works. It's the position that I hold 
to. I think that's what the Bible teaches. And I think there are 
various reasons why one should understand it that way. But just 
pointing out two obvious differences between the Second London and 
the Westminster, the exclusion of the covenant of works statement 
in chapter 7 of the Baptist Confession, and then this idea that the old 
covenant was a covenant of grace under a different administration, 
not duplicated by our Baptist brethren. So that's just sort 
of a flyover introduction. Notice in paragraph 1 you have 
the necessity of God's covenant. The necessity of God's covenant, 
and once again the confession underscores the creator-creature 
distinction. Having come out of chapter 2, 
we know that there is a great distinction between the creator 
and the creature. We understand his perfections, 
chapter 2, paragraph 1. We understand his relation to 
his creatures in paragraph 2. And then we understand his internal 
relations in paragraph 3 of chapter 2. So God is wholly other. God is transcendent God is removed 
and this is underscored here. The distance between God and 
the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures 
do obedience unto him as their creator, yet they could never 
have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension 
on God's part. So after man falls into sin, 
after he rebels against God, after he raises the fist, after 
he rejects the command of Yahweh, then God condescends, as the 
Confession says, engages in this voluntary condescension, And 
then it says, which he hath been pleased to express by way of 
covenant. So God has expressed his grace 
and mercy to save his people from their sins by this idea 
or concept of covenant. Again, Renaghan, we believe that 
the structure of scripture is properly defined by what has 
been designated as covenant theology. To grasp this fact is to grasp 
the central architecture of the entire Bible. I like that language, 
the central architecture of the entire Bible. It's the skeleton 
upon which everything else hangs. You get the skeleton wrong and 
you're going to end up with an anomaly. You're going to end 
up with something that is very problematic. Now notice in paragraph 
2, the essential characteristics of God's covenant. Notice in 
the first place there is a subsequent necessity. Moreover, man having 
brought himself under the curse of the law by his fall, it pleased 
the Lord to make a covenant of grace. If there was a way of 
recovery, it must be specified, it must be determined, it must 
be decreed by God Almighty. It pleased the Lord to make a 
covenant of grace. Notice as well the gracious nature 
of that covenant of grace. And incidentally, this is why 
Renehan suggests the exclusion of the paragraph dealing specifically 
with the covenant of works and the Baptist Confesset. He says that the emphasis, the 
accent, the The primary point in this chapter is on the covenant 
of grace. And so that's why they didn't 
include paragraph 2. I don't know if that's the case. 
But again, the fact that the covenant of works is contained 
in paragraph 3 indicates that they weren't opposed to the concept 
in a theological way. So notice, you've got the gracious 
nature, wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation 
by Jesus Christ, and then the specific elements involved in 
this covenant. Notice, that they may be saved 
and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto 
eternal life, His Holy Spirit to make them willing and able 
to believe. So God not only orchestrates or purposes the end, which is 
that they may be saved, but God provides everything necessary 
to that. Again, it's a covenant of grace. Some suggest that the Abrahamic 
Covenant is the rationale behind paedo-baptism. But I would suggest 
that to read the Abrahamic Covenant strictly as the covenant of grace 
is faulty. In Genesis chapter 17, God says, 
if you're not circumcised, you'll be cut off from the body politic. That's not grace, brethren. That's 
law. That's obedience. That's doing 
what you're supposed to do in order to not be cut off by God 
Most High. So when it comes to this idea 
of a covenant of grace, not only has God provided the mediator 
in the person and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, but 
he provides the spirit such that the spirit takes the dead sinner, 
makes him or her alive by grace, and grants them the graces of 
faith and repentance so that they are willing and able to 
believe. Notice that language. excuse 
me, promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto 
eternal life His Holy Spirit to make them willing and able 
to believe. So faith itself, that instrument 
that is absolutely crucial for attachment to Jesus Christ or 
union with Jesus Christ, is a gift given by God Himself. So God 
not only sets forth the parameters, He provides the mediator and 
He even gives the gifts necessary such that sinners who are dead 
in their trespasses and sins can be made alive together with 
Christ and can by grace believe on Him that they may be saved. And that brings us to the third 
paragraph, the biblical revelation, excuse me, of God's covenant. 
And what you find in paragraph three is allusion to the three 
theological covenants. I don't know if other guys call 
them theological covenants. I do. I think it's fitting. And 
what I mean by that is the covenant of works, the covenant of redemption, 
the covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace. 
Those are theological covenants, but as well in paragraph 3 there 
is an allusion to or a statement concerning the historical covenants. So you have historical covenants. 
God spoke to Abraham, for instance. God spoke to Moses, for instance. 
God spoke to David, for instance. God made covenant with them. 
Those are historical covenants. that furthered along the promise 
of God in the garden to save His people from their sins by 
Jesus Christ. But when I speak about the three 
theological covenants, you have the covenant of grace, covenant 
of redemption, covenant of works, that's the order of paragraph 
three. So that's where we're going to 
spend the rest of our time this morning and perhaps next time. 
But notice the biblical revelation of God's covenant in paragraph 
3, and three things to see. First, the revelation of the 
covenant of grace. Secondly, the foundation in the 
covenant of redemption. And thirdly, the divine response 
to the broken covenant of works. So you've got the covenant of 
grace, covenant of redemption, covenant of works. Again, these 
things are biblical, they're taught in scripture, and what 
we have in the confession of faith is a good summary statement 
of that biblical teaching put in short compass for the people 
of God to receive, to be able to confess, and to be edified 
and strengthened as a result of that. But notice the revelation 
of the covenant of grace. It begins in the garden. Notice, 
this covenant is revealed in the gospel. First of all, to 
Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman. You 
can return to Genesis chapter three. Genesis chapter three. This is where the confession 
begins in terms of this tracing of the three theological covenants. Notice in Genesis chapter 3 at 
verse 14, so the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have 
done this, you are more cursed than all cattle, and more than 
every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and 
you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put 
enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed, excuse 
me, and her seed, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise 
his heel. So we have the promise in the 
Garden concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. As it says in the Confession, 
this covenant is revealed in the Gospel first of all to Adam 
in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman. Genesis 
3.15 underscores that the promised Redeemer would be a man born 
of a woman. And some see the virgin birth 
here because it's only the woman that is indicated in verse 15. 
Now it's not a fully developed Isaiah or Matthew approach to 
the virgin birth, but notice it says between you and the woman. And the fact that only the woman 
is singled out underscores something that later on we see is quite 
interesting. That Christ was born of a woman, 
conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. But the basic sort 
of trajectory of this promise is that the promised Redeemer 
would be a man born of a woman. As well, the promised Redeemer 
would accomplish victory over Satan. So already in the garden, 
in Genesis chapter 3, the devil comes in, he wreaks chaos, he 
wreaks mayhem, he solicits, or he induces, or he entices, or 
he seduces Eve. Eve, of course, and I don't mean 
that in a sexual way, I know there's weird readings of Genesis 
chapter 3, but he brought the woman to that point where she 
then grabs the fruit, gives it to her husband, and they rebel 
against the living and true God. So already on the heels of that 
act of transgression and rebellion, we have the promised Redeemer 
that would accomplish victory over Satan. Notice, I will put 
enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. 
He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. There's 
a comparative bruising. He gets bruised in the heel, 
the devil gets bruised in the head. If I were to ask you, if 
you fell on the ice today, would you rather hurt your heel or 
would you rather hurt your head? You'd probably say, I'd rather 
hurt neither and not slip on the ice, but if I had to choose, 
I'd rather hurt my heel. It's a comparative statement 
concerning the gravity of the crushing that is going to obtain. 
So in the midst of redemption, the suffering servant will be 
bruised, but the devil will be crushed. So you've got the promised 
Redeemer would be a man born of a woman, you've got the promised 
Redeemer would accomplish victory over Satan, and then you have 
the promised Redeemer would accomplish victory over Satan by his suffering 
and death. Again, most persons see this 
whole idea of suffering. He shall bruise your head, the 
death blow concerning the devil, and you shall bruise his heel. 
There will be suffering on the part of the Savior. I think Michael 
Reitlnick, though, takes it one further and says, this is not 
only an allusion to the suffering of the Savior, but it's also 
an allusion to the death of the Savior, such that we could say 
he would accomplish victory over Satan by his suffering and death. Listen to Reitlnick. He says, 
And in the case of this animal, the Hebrew generally uses it 
to speak of a venomous and lethal snake. Most likely, therefore, the text 
is speaking of two comparable death blows. The future Redeemer 
will strike the head of the tempter and thereby kill it. And at the 
same time, the tempter will strike the heel of the Redeemer and 
kill him. Now it's not the case that it's 
the devil specifically that kills Jesus, but it It translates out 
or it alludes to what will come in redemptive history. You shall 
bruise his heel. It is the suffering and the death 
of the promised seed of the woman that is the means or vehicle 
by which he obtains this skull-crushing defeat over the devil himself. 
Now notice what the confession goes on to say, still speaking 
of the revelation of the covenant of grace. It says, first of all 
to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman, and 
then notice, and afterward by farther steps. Afterward by farther 
steps. There is your historical covenants. There are the covenants made 
with various persons in redemptive history. And essentially you 
have what Paul alludes to in Ephesians 2. He talks about the 
covenants of promise. And there is this promise made 
by God in Genesis 3.15 to save his people from their sins. And 
that promise in Genesis 3.15 is advanced by those covenants 
of promise. It's like football. The ball 
is moved down the field, you know, by 10 yards here, by 20 
yards here, by 30 yards here, until it lands in the end zone. 
There is trajectory and movement in redemptive history, and we 
have these historic covenants, or in the language of the Confession, 
these farther steps. So the promise made to Adam concerning 
the man that would be born of a woman, the man who would achieve 
total victory over the devil, and the man who would achieve 
total victory over the devil by his own suffering and death, 
that promise is further advanced down the field by these historical 
covenants. So in the first place you have 
the Noahic Covenant in Genesis chapter 6 and Genesis chapter 
9. God makes a covenant with Noah. 
Now this is not technically advancing the covenant of grace. What you 
have in the Noahic Covenant is what is called common grace. 
And essentially, the Noahic Covenant provides security for the created 
order so that the preaching of God's special grace can go forth. In other words, without that 
sort of general stability given by God to the created order, 
there would be no place for redemptive preaching. There'd be no place 
because God's judgment would come upon us every time there 
was acts of transgression and rebellion. Remember that Genesis 
6 and the covenant made with Noah and later ratified and affirmed 
in Genesis chapter 9 is God's response to the judgment that 
he imposed on man. He would never again flood the 
earth for the sins of man. There would never be a worldwide 
catechismic flood and the rainbow in the sky does not secure sexual 
perversion but the stability of God's created order. That's 
what the rainbow points to. So the Noahic Covenant, while 
it doesn't specifically speak concerning redemptive grace, 
it provides the arena for the outflow of God's redemptive grace. The next farther step in terms 
of redemptive history is the Abrahamic Covenant. Now the Abrahamic 
Covenant is probably one of the most difficult to try and deal 
with, because as I said earlier, our paedo-baptist brethren like 
to take Abraham and make him the mediator and tell us who 
it is we're supposed to baptize and who we're not. You can't 
read the Abrahamic Covenant that simplistically. The Abrahamic 
Covenant obviously operates on two levels. There is a spiritual 
component, a spiritual aspect. You see Paul make that sort of 
reference in Romans chapter 4, but there's a temporal, there's 
a national, there is a badge of national authority appended 
to to the act of circumcision and identification with the civil 
polity in the Commonwealth of Israel. To simply read Abraham 
as if it's an expression of the covenant of grace does not do 
justice to Abraham or to the covenant of grace. As well, if 
Abraham is the mediator of the Abrahamic covenant, then Abraham 
gets to define for us and stipulate for us who's supposed to be circumcised. But Christ is the mediator of 
the new covenant. It's Christ that we ask, who 
do we baptize? In other words, it's the covenant 
mediator for the respective covenant that sets the parameters for 
the covenant sacraments. And for us to ask Abraham, who 
should we baptize, it's to go backwards in redemptive history. 
So you've got to appreciate with reference to Abraham, it's a 
dichotomous covenant. Yes, there's a spiritual element 
to be sure, but there is a temporal element, and again, that's where 
the Genesis 17 admonition, the command, the stipulation, whoever 
is not circumcised will be cut off from the people of God. They 
will be excluded from the commonwealth of Israel. So you could have 
Esau, you could have Ishmael, and as long as they had the circumcision, 
as long as they had the covenant signed, they were fine in the 
civil polity. They were perfectly acceptable 
in the commonwealth of Israel. I mean, that was just the way 
it was. So when it comes to Abraham, 
to simply say that Abraham is a purveyor of the covenant of 
grace I think it's to mess up Abraham and the Covenant of Grace. Thirdly, you have the Mosaic, 
or what we call the Old Covenant. You see that most specifically 
in Exodus 20-24. In fact, turn to chapter 24 in 
the book of Exodus, and I'll show you why I think we're dealing 
with a republication of the Covenant of Works. You have Adam in the 
garden given a covenant of works. You have Israel in the wilderness 
given a covenant of works. You have Jesus who is the last 
Adam, the true Israel given a covenant of works. Adam fails, Israel 
fails, and Jesus is victorious. Notice in Exodus chapter 24 This 
is the ratification of the Old Covenant. The ratification, sometimes 
it's called the Mosaic Covenant, sometimes the Sinai Covenant, 
whatever you want to call it. The New Testament calls it the 
Old Covenant, so that's a good identifier. But notice what happens 
here. Exodus 24. Now he said to Moses, 
Come up to the Lord, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy 
of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar. And Moses 
alone shall come near the Lord, but they shall not come near, 
nor shall the people go up with him. So Moses came and told the 
people all the words of the Lord and all the judgments. And all 
the people answered with one voice and said, All the words 
which the Lord has said we will do. They understood it as a covenant 
of words. They understood it as divine 
command and obedience on their part. If they do not obey, they 
will be cast out from the land. If they do not obey, they will 
reap the curses associated with breaking the covenant. Notice 
down in verse 7, He took the book of the covenant and read 
it in the hearing of the people. And they said, all that the Lord 
has said we will do and be obedient." So that is just, you know, an 
incidental almost. There's so many places we could 
go to to try and show or underscore that the Old Covenant was primarily, 
not that there was no gracious aspects or elements, not that 
there was no typological function in the old covenant, it was primarily 
a covenant of works to show the children of Israel and to constantly 
affirm to the children of Israel their need for Messiah, their 
need for the Redeemer, their need for the Lord Jesus Christ 
and the provision of God in sending His Son to save His people from 
their sins. And then you have the Davidic 
covenants. Again, we've got the promise 
of God made in the garden in Genesis 3.15 to save his people 
from their sins. And the means by which he'll 
save is a man born of a woman. A man will achieve total conquest. 
And a man will achieve that total conquest by his own suffering 
and death. And now that promise is moved 
further down the field in terms of Israel's history as the covenant 
people have got. You've got the covenant with 
Noah. to provide a common grace order for the preaching of special 
grace. You have the Abrahamic covenant that does or operates 
at two levels in terms of spirituals and temporals. You have the Mosaic 
or Old Covenant. And one of the other functions, 
why it functioned as a republication of a covenant of works, was to 
hedge the people in. It was a massive means by God 
to keep the people from going astray. I mean, even with the 
imposition, the direct imposition by God of his control over the 
people in terms of a theocratic commonwealth, they still almost 
fumbled the ball on many occasions. I mean, there were many a times 
where if God had not intervened, I mean, we alluded to one with 
Jehoshaphat hiding Joash in 2 Kings chapter 11. If Israel could have 
fumbled the ball, they most certainly would have. Judah and Tamar in 
Genesis 38, the children of Israel at the time of post-exile, post-Babylonian 
exile. Do you remember what Ezra and 
Nehemiah have to deal with? Ezra and Nehemiah have to deal 
with divorce. This is what blows my mind about 
John Piper and Vati Baka, how they say there's never a positive 
statement concerning divorce, except for two religious reformers 
in Israel commanding divorce for the children of Israel after 
they had married pagans. Does that mean God doesn't want 
you to marry a black dude if you're a white girl? No, it means 
that the Commonwealth of Israel needed to maintain purity in 
their line such that Messiah could come from the tribe of 
Judah and the family of David. They almost fumbled the ball 
every, well, they would have every step of the way had God 
not done something to hedge them in. And the Old Covenant was 
an act of hedging them in. When we read the book of Leviticus 
and we're dealing with, you know, I've thought, I almost introduced 
it that way, my favorite passage to read in public worship is 
Leviticus 13. Nothing like, you know, yellow 
sores with hair sticking out of them and pus and all that 
kind of thing to sort of encourage the people of God. There was 
a reason. There was purpose. There was 
typology. There was protection. There was 
a sanctifying. There was a moving them away 
from the pagan nations surrounding them. So all of these things 
flow forward to, or rather point forward to the coming of Christ. 
And so with the Davidic covenant, also called the covenant of kingdom 
or kingship, you have the promise of a son of David who will build 
a house for God. That's 2 Samuel chapter 7, Psalm 
89, Psalm 132. We've seen it in Luke 1 recently. 
You see it in Acts chapter 2. You see it throughout the scriptures. 
that David was given the promise that from his loins one would 
rise up, sit upon his throne, and his kingdom would have no 
end. So you see the promise made by God in Genesis 3.15 is moved 
further down the field by these farther steps, by these historical 
covenants. Samuel Petto makes this observation. All the ancient covenant expressers 
run jointly to Jesus Christ and also to believers which are his 
seed. The promises to Adam, Abraham, David, and et cetera were not 
so many distinct covenants of grace. They were but various 
gradual discoveries of the same covenant. Peto sounds just like 
what we see in our statement here. And afterward by farther 
steps, the promise of Genesis 3.15 doesn't stay in Genesis 
3.15. The rest of the Bible amplifies. 
The rest of the Bible expounds. The rest of the Bible explains. 
G.K. Beale says the whole Bible is about Genesis 1 to 3. You've 
got Genesis 1 to 3, and then the rest of the Bible explains 
it. Gerardus Vos says that eschatology precedes soteriology in the Bible. It's man with God that takes 
priority even over man saved and with God. So Genesis 1 to 
3 are foundational, but then there are these farther steps. 
So back to Peto. He says, they were but various 
gradual discoveries of the same covenant, according to the variety 
of occasions in the several ages, every new one being for some 
new end, and bringing with it a further degree of manifestation, 
and all run to Jesus Christ and us. So of course they have spiritual 
application. Of course they all run to Jesus 
Christ. And when he says, and to us, 
because we are the collective seed in the individual seed of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Peddo on Genesis 3.15 makes this 
statement. By the way, Peddo's book is great. 
It's called The Covenant of Grace. It's published by Tentmaker Publications, 
I think, 2006. It's a republication. He was 
a guy that lived a few hundred years ago. Mark Jones has a, 
as I remember it, a helpful introduction. But it's a most excellent book. 
And again, a paedo-baptist. It's not like, you know, he's 
preaching paedo-baptism. It's just to show that when you 
look at the covenants as they present themselves in Scripture, 
at times, in order to get them to say things you want them to 
say, you have to smuggle some things in. They don't necessarily 
say that. And so when it comes to these 
things, a guy like Peto, even though he was a Peto Baptist, 
he was right on. He says this on Genesis 3.15, 
thus he primarily was the seed of the woman that was promised 
to break the serpent's head. He is that seed of Abraham in 
whom all the nations are blessed. He is the royal seed of David 
to be enthroned of whose kingdom there shall be no end. So you 
see how this statement in the confession works. First of all, 
to Adam and the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and 
afterward by farther steps. Now notice, until the full discovery 
thereof was completed in the New Testament. Listen to what 
it's saying. It's not saying there was no 
covenant of grace by which sinners could be saved. That's not what 
it's saying. That's what we're accused of teaching when we hold 
the 7.3, but that's not what it's saying. It says the full 
discovery of this covenant of grace is completed in the New 
Testament. And we have biblical warrant 
obviously for that. You can turn to Jeremiah 31. 
Jeremiah chapter 31. specifically at verse 31. An announcement of the new covenant 
to an Old Testament prophet in an old covenant setting. Behold 
the days are coming, verse 31, says the Lord, when I will make 
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house 
of Judah. It's going to make a new covenant. There is what's 
called mono-covenantalism. And as you might expect, that 
means one covenant. And that has various applications 
among theologians. But in some sense, there are 
those who flatten the distinction. And typically, paedo-baptists 
do this. And I know they don't like to 
hear this. But they flatten the distinction between the old and 
the new covenant. You can't do that. If there was 
no Hebrews 7 and 8, you might be able to do that, but when 
Hebrews 7 and 8 tells you it's a better covenant built on better 
promises and affording a better hope, you can't maintain that 
it's one covenant with a few tweaks, okay? You just can't 
do that. I mean, you might, and some may 
follow along, but it's not right. And now notice, what is distinctive 
about the new covenant versus the old covenant? Well, that's 
what we're gonna hear. So he's going to make this covenant, 
new covenant, with the house of Israel and with the house 
of Judah. And contradispensationalism, this is fulfilled in the church. 
So in Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10, the apostle brings this passage 
to bear upon the church of Jesus Christ. not upon the Jews, not 
upon the Commonwealth of Israel, not upon the ethnic Jew. No, there is application and 
fulfillment in the Church of Jesus Christ. So back to the 
text. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and 
with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that 
I made with their fathers in the day, that I took them by 
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant 
which they broke There's one of the first distinguishing features 
between the covenants. You could break the old covenant, 
couldn't you? You sure could. We just saw in 
Exodus 24 at 7 and 9, all that the Lord has said, we will do 
it. Turn over to Exodus 32. What 
are they doing when they're dancing before the golden calf? Are they 
obeying the divine word of Yahweh? The old covenant was breakable. It was violable. The new covenant 
is not. Isn't that one of the blessings 
you find for your soul? that Jesus doesn't covenant with 
you on Monday only to cut you off by Friday? The fact is, is 
that the new covenant is inviolable. It is unbreakable, and that's 
somewhat problematic for the paedo-baptist who has both an 
external and an internal connection to the covenant of grace. Again, 
theologically it works to substantiate paedo-baptism, but that's not 
what our texts say. The text is saying that a feature 
of New Covenant Christianity, or New Covenant religion, is 
that when you're in this covenant with God, it's inviolable, it's 
unbreakable. Some paedo-baptist strands of 
theology teach that, you know, a baby is born, he's baptized, 
he's in the covenant, and then he breaks that covenant, and 
he's out. Well, boy, what kind of covenant 
is that? What kind of a situation is that? You'll hear them even 
announce this. Well, again, it's built on this 
faulty understanding of an external and internal connection to the 
covenant of grace. But as we read through Jeremiah 
31, 31 to 34, ask yourselves, if this is a description of what 
it means to be a new covenant person, then is there an external 
and internal? No. that's not what's in view 
here, and not that these features were absent from the Old Covenant, 
specifically as we move on, but that they weren't essential features 
of the Old Covenant, wherein in the New Covenant they are 
essential features. So notice, not according to the 
covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took 
them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, my 
covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says 
the Lord. Now notice, but this is the covenant 
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days says 
the Lord. Again, when we read these next 
few statements, it's not the case that David didn't have this. 
It's not the case that Jacob didn't have this. It's not the 
case that Abraham didn't have this. Of course they had it. 
But it was an essential feature, it was not an essential feature 
connected to old covenant religion. Because Esau didn't have it, 
Ishmael didn't have it, and nevertheless they could be upright citizens, 
upright covenantal citizens of the body politic. But notice 
what is an essential feature of new covenant religion. This 
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after 
those days says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds 
and write it on their hearts. Again, David knew this, but not 
by virtue of the old covenant, by virtue of the new covenant, 
or proleptically the new covenant, or what we call the covenant 
of grace, so the internalization of God's law. Notice, I will 
put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts, and 
then notice the next statement, and I will be their God and they 
shall be my people. Not an essential feature of old 
covenant religion, but an essential feature of new covenant religion. We are, or he is our God and 
we are his people. Then notice verse 34, no more 
shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying, 
know the Lord, for they all shall know me from the least of them 
to the greatest of them, says the Lord. Now, the Pato Baptist, 
Greg Bonson, argued ingeniously, but I think incorrectly, that 
this substantiated or corroborated post-millennialism. Whatever 
the value and the merits of post-millennialism are or is, I think there are 
many, I don't think this is your go-to text. I don't think the 
idea is the extensiveness of religion throughout the earth. 
I think it is in terms of the new covenant community, notice. No more shall every man teach 
his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, 
for they all shall know me." Who's the all? All those in the 
New Covenant. In other words, you don't have 
to evangelize those in the New Covenant. Sure, we preach the 
gospel for our mutual edification and encouragement, and who doesn't 
want to hear more of the gospel? But when you're dealing with 
a New Covenant member, somebody who has confessed faith in Christ, 
somebody whose heart has been changed, you don't have to hope 
they get saved. They're saved if they are a New 
Covenant person. And so the extensiveness here 
is not the knowledge of Yahweh covering the earth as the waters 
cover the sea, which is certainly a biblical concept, but it's 
within the Covenant community. There's no need. for evangelization 
of persons that are in the same covenant. No, they know the Lord. They have this saving knowledge. 
And then notice the last element, for I will forgive their iniquity 
and their sin I will remember no more. Brethren, if that's 
all you had, and then you had the Great Commission, and then 
you had the Book of Acts, you would never conclude that infant 
baptism was operable in the church today. I really don't think you 
would, because this describes or defines what the New Covenant 
community looks like, or who the subjects of baptism are. And then when you get to the 
New Testament, Jesus tells you you're supposed to baptize those 
who believe, you're supposed to baptize those who have been 
made disciples and lo and behold you turn to the book of Acts 
and that is precisely what's happening every step of the way. 
So with reference to the announcement of the new covenant turn to Matthew 
chapter 26 where Jesus inaugurates the new covenant in his blood. Now I know there's a variant 
if you're not using the King James tradition you don't have 
a new covenant in Matthew 26 but it's in Luke 22. So Matthew 
26 at 26, And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed and 
broke it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat, 
this is my body. Then he took the cup, and gave 
thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink from it, all of 
you, for this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed 
for many for the remission of sins. And so when we go back 
to the confession of faith, we see how in this brief statement, 
beginning in Genesis, and collecting every bit in between, brings 
us to that place where Jesus inaugurates the new covenant, 
and he does so in his blood. So going back to paragraph 3 
in chapter 7, this covenant is revealed in the gospel first 
of all to Adam in the promise of salvation by the seed of the 
woman, Genesis 3, and afterward by farther steps, Noah, Abraham, 
Moses, David, until the full discovery thereof was completed 
in the New Testament. So the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
that's why Peto says all the ancient covenant expressions 
run jointly to Jesus Christ. That is his point. It jives with 
what we find here in London Confession, Chapter 7, Paragraph 3, and what 
Scripture says. So the announcement concerning 
the Redeemer in Genesis 3, the advancement of that promise by 
the farther steps, which are the historical covenants, and 
its final or full discovery, rather, thereof completed in 
the New Testament by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So the 
covenant of grace according to our confession is identified 
with the New Covenant, not with Abraham and not with Moses. Again 
that's not to say there was no grace at the time of Abraham, 
that's not to say there was no grace at the time of Moses, but 
when we're identifying the covenant of grace the confession of faith 
that we subscribe identifies it with the New Covenant. And 
so that's where we'll stop now. God willing, we'll take up the 
covenant of redemption next time, but see how that goes. Covenant 
of grace revealed, foundation in the covenant of redemption. 
It is founded in that eternal transaction. And then the next 
section, and it is alone by the grace of this covenant that all 
of the posterity of fallen Adam that ever were saved did obtain 
life and a blessed immortality. man being now utterly incapable 
of acceptance with God upon those terms on which Adam stood in 
his state of innocence." That's the Covenant of Works. The Confession 
confesses the Covenant of Works. Even though they got rid of Westminster's 
paragraph 2, we see the Covenant of Works throughout the Second 
Lundet. I'll pray, and then if there's 
any questions or comments, we can take those. Our Father, we 
thank you again for the Word of God. We thank you for the 
organic unity of Holy Scripture, and that the promise made in 
Genesis 3 is the promise kept all the way through Revelation 
22. We thank you for your grace to 
us, and including us in this blessed plan of salvation. We 
pray today that as the Gospel goes forth, It would be proclaimed 
powerfully that the Holy Spirit would attend, that sinners would 
be convicted and see the need for the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
that the saints of Christ would be edified and encouraged and 
strengthened. And God, may we gather together 
today and rejoice in the presence of our great and almighty God. 
And we pray through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Well, any questions 
or comments about any of that material? I know we're going 
to intersperse some practical stuff along the way. Yeah, I 
was just going to point out, Panto's book is, you were trying 
to quote this, The Great Mystery of the Covenant of Grace. Yeah, 
that's it. So it's on Heritage Books for 
17 US. So there's that. And then the one point to make 
was that you had alluded to the promise of a redeemer coming 
on the heels of the transgression. Very good. Alright. I did not plan that. Comment 
on the heels. Very good. Yes. Where you said it was sort 
of a dichotomous. Yeah. Yeah. I think that language 
is better. Is that legit? Oh, yeah. Oh, 
yeah. That's a better language. That's a better language. When 
you go to Galatians 3, then Paul sort of makes that clear distinction. 
That's right. About the promise. That's right. 
And then you have 421 in Galatians, telling me you've got to be under 
the law. Do you not hear the law? For 
it is written that Abraham had two sons. There's two things 
going on with Abraham. To say it's the covenant of grace, 
Yeah, you're going to have problems. You have two signs, the one by 
a bondwoman, the other by a free woman. He who is of the bondwoman 
was born according to the flesh. And he of the free woman would 
promise, which means are symbolic. So yeah, Pascal's language is 
more technically precise. Promise is what I would suggest. Yeah. Go ahead. So how would you respond 
to this? I've heard a lot of people. with 
regard to the baptism and that sort of thing, saying that, like 
in the book of Acts, for instance, if the head of the household 
was saved and all the rest and all the children and all the 
slaves and everything else were baptized on the same day, there 
wasn't that period, you know, where they, I mean, it might 
be implied, but how would you, put that in terms of the believer's 
practice. Sure. Well, I would suggest two 
things. One of the best insights I ever 
got on that was from James Dunn. And I don't know where I was 
reading Dunn. And Dunn is a new perspective 
guy. Obviously, I would never try 
and control what anybody reads. But they're a much better book 
to read. But Dunn points out that if the father's faith was 
good for the entire family, so was the baptism. I don't know 
how, you know, if my faith covers my family, then couldn't my baptism 
do the same thing? I always thought that was a pretty 
ingenious sort of reflection on the situation. But more commonly, 
and more reformed baptistically, The household baptisms don't 
provide a position. And I think Baptists and Deo-Baptists 
both agree and both recognize that. Some Deo still tries to 
invoke the household baptisms in that regard. But I think there's 
enough ambiguity in the household baptism passages that if you're 
going to build your theology onto those, it's not going to 
be very solid or sound. I mean, there's many holes that 
a man can make against a household baptism sort of position. But 
yeah, if I'm willing to accept, you know, my faith is okay for 
the whole Butler clan, then why isn't my baptism? Why can't it 
be, oh, that son of Jim Butler, he's a believer in Jesus, because 
his father believed. Couldn't he just be baptized? 
It's a baptized house. Why do all of us need to go through 
it? Again, I think every individual Christian does need to be baptized. 
I always just thought that was an interesting sort of a take. 
If my faith is okay, then my baptism should be representative 
as well. But even more importantly, I 
don't think the household baptisms teach infant baptism. Well, I would suggest that the 
1st Corinthians 7 passage, you know, someday somebody's going to write 
a book, 10 really badly misused Bible verses, and I hope 1st 
Corinthians 7, 14 makes it, Because there's just so many 
problems with that. The first and insurmountable 
problem is that Paul is not dealing with baptism, not even a little 
tiny bit. I mean, you have to bring baptism 
to First Corinthians 7, or you'll never see it there. I think it 
has to do with the question, and it does specifically in that 
context of a married couple. One is a believer, and one is 
not. And so the Corinthians are asking the question, hey, I got 
converted, my wife isn't, do we get divorced? No, the children 
are holy. By that I don't think he means 
go ahead and get them baptized and set them apart in catechism 
class. They're holy, they're whole, they're complete. They're 
not illegitimate, they're not disenfranchised. If I'm married 
and I get saved and my wife's not, or she gets saved and I'm 
not, what's the issue with the children? Are they kind of in 
some, no, they're holy, they're fine, they're legitimate, is 
what I think Paul is arguing there specifically in 1 Corinthians 
7. And if my, if I'm the husband 
that's the saved one, If my belief and holiness avails for the baby 
such that he or she should be baptized, then why not my spouse? Why shouldn't she be baptized? 
Why doesn't she get that sort of covenantal solidarity with 
me? If it's okay for my baby, then 
why not my spouse? But as far as I know, and I'm 
sure obviously it would have to do with the spouse not wanting 
to go get sprinkled in a Beto Baptist church, but there's some 
big inconsistencies in terms of practice. But the biggest 
in 1 Corinthians 7 is that, that's not the point. Not even a little 
bit. Yes, sir. Yes, the Libyan jailers 
household baptism, that's a great proof, I think, for believers 
baptism, because it says, I'm having belief in God with all 
these households. So, that doesn't help the faith at all. Yeah, 
it says that they believed, right? So they had a heart change and 
that sort of thing. And that's in all examples, I think that's 
in all four household baptisms, if that's correct. I think so, 
yeah. But that it specifically says they believed. It's pretty 
clear. And I mean, if you'd asked me 
25 years ago, yeah, households include infants, because mine 
did, but it doesn't now. I'd like to think we're still 
a household, even though there's no infants living there. If Paul 
and Barnabas happened over and said, hey, you know, believe 
on the Lord Jesus, and we believe and we're baptized. Our household 
was baptized, right? I mean, we have to bring things 
to the text that then become standard in terms of understanding 
texts. One last thing, and then we need 
to go. I was just going to point out, too, that households didn't 
always include blood and commemoration. Sure, yeah. Servants were included 
in a whole host of things. All right, we'll pray.