It's a great privilege to be with you again as we continue our study of the scriptures. We've been trying to put together the theme of the covenant that runs through the Bible. And as we look at Christ and his covenants, I want to just take this moment for a brief infomercial. You know, I represent Westminster Seminary and we believe very strongly in the truth of the covenant. And one of the things that we're working on is a special trip to Israel in the last two weeks of October. And there's still some slots available. We're going to go to the land where the covenant was established. So if you're interested, please talk to me. And I've got about half the trip full and there's still room. We're going in October. So that's my commercial for the night. I want to begin by thanking John Anderson for his extraordinary hospitality, for allowing me to come and share with Bay Presbyterian in this consistent manner. It's a great joy. As you've heard me say, this has become my church home away from home. So some of you have been wondering if my wife really exists. Well, there she is right there. Stand up, Debbie. You have to stand up at least once. See her right there? She's actually here with me. So, she's going to say it actually is nicer here for at least geographical and meteorological reasons, if nothing else. She loves the joy of meeting all of you. I've told her I've got so many new friends, so it's a great joy to be with you. Christ and His Covenant. So, as we begin to think about this, we're talking about the history of redemption. Redemption means paying the price to rescue someone out of slavery. And that process of people being rescued from the slavery of sin has happened in the Bible from the very beginning, from the fall all the way through until it's absolutely complete with the new heavens and the new earth. And so we want to think then in this particular study about the prophets and the new covenant of the heart. It actually is nice that we're in this Valentine weekend, sort of. We think about the heart and our love. Well, the heart is the place where the new covenant is written, not upon tablets of stone like Moses had, but it is a better covenant. with the greatest promises possible that God will be our God and we will be his people. And he writes the law in our hearts, forgiving us of our sins. Our study tonight is going to show us how this history of the covenant moves forward and the old covenant becomes the new covenant. So we've talked a little bit about what we've called the covenant of redemption. I saw this graphic and I thought, wow, this is really mysterious looking. It shows the triunity of God in the eternal past. And of course, when we talk about the beginning of covenant, we have this idea that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit planned the redemption of God's people from eternity past. Sometimes theologians call that decree within God, the covenant of redemption, they use the fancy words in Latin, the pactum salutis, the covenant of salvation. where the Father and Son agreed the world would be created, that the fall would occur and the Son would redeem the fallen people, and these would become His very own. This idea we saw at the beginning of John 17, the great high priestly prayer of Christ. Now, when we talk about covenant theology, we've seen there's a way in which each successive covenant is building on the next one, leading us to the cross. The idea of the covenant of grace is really the unifying theme. If the covenant of redemption is the plan of God in mind, after the fall occurs, there is this process where God brings grace into the world, the sacrifice for Adam, and then the promise to Abraham that he would give him a land, a seed, and a blessing for the nations. Even the Mosaic Covenant with its legal strictures is still filled with grace. There's a day of atonement, there's a scapegoat, there's sacrifices, there's the promise of redemption. And then the last time we were together, we talked about the covenant with King David, the beloved one who represents the greater son of David, who is, this is my beloved son, hear ye him. And remember those words that come from heaven. And now we want to see how this progressive unfolding development of the covenant brings us to the New Covenant age. You may remember we use the word organic development, just like a seed as it develops with first a shoot and then a stalk and then a branch and then with leaves and then with a blossom and then with fruit. It's all connected, even though each stage is distinct. And so we actually use the word. There's continuity and discontinuity in the covenant. The heart of the covenant is always the same. It's the work of redemption. It's unfolding. It's a different stage, step by step. So we'll think more about that as we go along. But we can see the idea that the law was always pointing us to Christ. You may say, how is that true? Do you remember what the preamble to the law is? We heard it read this morning by Pastor Worm. He said, I am the Lord, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. That's the gospel. These are redeemed people. And because they're redeemed, they are rescued from bondage. Now they're to live for God. We see that the new life flows from what God has accomplished. Redemption is right there at the beginning of the Ten Commandments. In fact, let me reiterate that. If you don't quote the preface when you say the Ten Commandments, you've taken the gospel out of it and you've become a legalist. You're saying, I'm going to have no other gods before God. I'm going to always do the right worship. I'm not going to misuse His name. I'm going to... Well, it's important to do those things, but you can never do them unless you have a Redeemer. The preface is what gives us the gospel. And so even the Mosaic Covenant then is pointing us ultimately to the great Redeemer. Now, as we think about the covenant history of redemption, a quick symbolism, we think of the ark, of the rainbow, the promise that God would not again destroy the earth. As history moves forward, we can think of Abram looking out at all the stars, at the heavens. He believed God and was credited to him as righteousness. Genesis 15, 6, the beginning of justification by faith theology, the Abrahamic Covenant. And then we see the Mosaic Covenant. The very centerpiece in the Holy of Holies, where the high priest could enter but once a year, was called the mercy seat, the place of propitiation. The place where the wrath of God against the sin of his people was satisfied by sacrifice. And what was this called? The Ark of the Covenant. The covenant law was written on stone. It was kept inside. And originally, it also had Aaron's rod that budded and it also had a pot of manna. And it's interesting, by the time the prophets will come on the stage, it's not only empty, But it disappears. Fascinating. We don't know the raiders of the ark. They're still looking for it. Right. If you watch the movie, they're trying to find this thing. Whoever finds the ark, they're going to have the greatest discovery in history. Well, the Ark of the Covenant was the Mosaic Covenant. The heart of it was redemption, the sacrifice to bring God and man together. What did we say the formula of the covenant was? I will be your God. And you will be my people. God is adopting a people, taking the initiative, and people respond to grace. We love Him because He first loved us. And then we see, we've looked at coming from the Mosaic Covenant, the crown, King David. He is the greater leader than Moses because he's now bringing the monarchy. Saul's kingdom failed. David's kingdom comes along. And you remember how the covenant with David was put? David, do you want to build me a house? No, you're not going to build me a house. I'm going to build a house for you, a dynasty, a dynasty that will ultimately issue in the great Messiah, Jesus Christ, the Son of David. And the last words of the Bible about kingship are the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is that great King, David's son. And we're going to be speaking then tonight about a better covenant. How this old covenant that God established with Moses becomes the better covenant, or if you will, the new covenant. How the cross and how Christ fulfills the law in all the types and ceremonies and symbols that were given to Moses. And obviously it is to be written upon the heart. And we'll come back to that. OK, so as we think about the Old Testament law, as we're talking about Moses and moving forward, notice what it said in Leviticus, Leviticus 26, 44. I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking my covenant with them. We are covenant breakers. That is the history of mankind right from Adam, even the people of Israel, even Christian people. But the covenant exists through history because God will not break his word. He does not break covenant. He is the one that keeps it intact. And so we think of the words of Judges 2. Do you remember the story of the judges? All of their sin and failure. The Lord says at the beginning of that book, I will never break My covenant with you. It is of the Lord that we are kept. He keeps us as Himself. On this Valentine's weekend, it's fascinating that one of the Old Testament images is the Lord Himself in the book of Hosea 2. It says, I will betroth you to Me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness and you will acknowledge the Lord." The covenant of marriage is the covenant that God Himself has made with His people. He will not break that bond. And so we can see the imagery that leads us ultimately into the new covenant. We know that in the Lord's Supper, he says, this is the new covenant in my blood, which is shed for many for their remission of sin. The stained glass window at the bottom, you can see the lamb standing, though slain, as we read in Revelation chapter five, the great sacrifice who's been raised. And we see the image of Christ bringing the new covenant. OK. Let's review quickly. What happens at the beginning with Adam creates, if you will, the paradigm, the structure or idea of the covenant that will actually be discernible in each of the biblical covenants. There is a pattern that we can see. We're beginning with Adam before the fall, with Adam after the fall, and we could go through each of the covenants and we could find these elements. We're reviewing for those of you who have heard us before, but here's some of the things we learned. The name of the covenant with Adam, what do we call it? Well, we sometimes call it the covenant of works. A perfect man could live by works in the presence of God, by believing and obeying. Sometimes called the covenant of life, if Adam had obeyed, he would have realized life. And we see that creation is another name for it because this is how the Bible begins. Adam and God are standing together in creation. Adam, if you will, is the head of all mankind. He is our head and we need to be redeemed. from having Adam as our head. We need the second Adam, which is the covenant of grace. Now another name it's been called is the covenant made in Eden, obviously. So various names for this beginning process. Who are the parties? God and all mankind in Adam. And so as we stop for a moment, the idea of the covenant is something that touches every human being on the planet. Every human being stands in a broken covenant before God. There is no exception. In fact, a very simple way to evangelize, and if you ever consider this, is to ask a person in whose covenant do you stand? In Adam or in Christ? Everyone is in Adam's covenant by creation and by the fall. The second Adam, the great Redeemer, is the one who says, I'm rescuing you from the curse, which you deserve. I'm rescuing you from the death that is certainly yours. I am the atoning sacrifice, Jesus says. I am the resurrection and the life. He's calling us to come to him. So the parties of the covenant, all mankind and Adam calling us to the new covenant of grace. Where are the conditions for Adam? He had to believe God. and obey God. Why did sin happen? Because in Genesis 3, the serpent said, did God really say? It was an issue of faith. Would he believe God? And as a result of unbelief, disobedience occurred. OK, so the stipulation of the covenant, all of these elements we see here are duplicated in different ways in every one of these covenants that we've looked at. That's why I'm reviewing them again so you can begin to say what makes a covenant a covenant? The stipulation was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was the command. Very simple. One basic command. Human beings didn't even keep the one command. We're not doing so well with the ten. or the 613 of the whole Mosaic law, or even the new covenant of Christ to love one another as I've loved you. The blessing, however, was he would have lived forever. There was a curse, the miseries of sin and death. There was a sign, the tree of life. And there was a sacrament, the Sabbath. We heard a good reminder this morning about the privilege of living a Sabbath before God in our sermon from Pastor Anderson. OK, now, Adam, after the fall, when the covenant was broken, when Adam disobeyed God, we discover that God doesn't do what many of us do when something's damaged. We pick it up, crumple it up and throw it away. Did you ever break anything? Said, I've had enough. In the trash. God did not do that with the human race. It's an extraordinary expression of His love and kindness. Instead, He says, I am going to continue with you even in your rebellion and your brokenness, and I am going to restore you into the relationship that has been severed by your sin. And so the covenant of grace becomes the great unifying theme that ties together all the rest of the biblical covenants. And again, You can find they'll have a name such as the covenant of grace with Adam, the covenant of grace with Noah, the covenant of grace with Abraham. They're all expressions of the same covenant. Again, the difference now, and this is where we see that God begins the process of redeeming out of the fallen world a people for himself. And so the covenant of grace is not universal. as the first covenant with Adam. It is a covenant that's made in Christ with those who believe, those that are redeemed. The Apostle Paul will describe them as those chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world in Ephesians 1.4. Jesus will say, these that you've given to me were yours before the foundation of the world. There were people that God has planned to bring into covenant relationship by the redemption of the Messiah. The conditions are still faith, but now it is obedience that is not on the level that Adam was required, which is perfect obedience. Nobody can do that. But flowing out of a new faith, there is to be a new obedience. And so one of the things we're going to learn in the new covenant is how This faith and how do good works relate? This is one of the most pesky problems for people in theology. I'm going to solve it for you tonight. OK, you had to stay awake to hear how. Wake up. I've got really I'm going to solve the problem for you because you've understood the covenant. This is a beautiful answer here. OK, so be watching. It's coming. I promise you. OK. All right, now the stipulation in the covenant of grace, what was Adam to do? He needed to persevere in faith. It's through faith in Christ and as faith works out in a new obedience that he now lives in this relationship with God. And so the covenant of grace with Adam has the blessing of eternal life. And the symbolism was Adam's nakedness. The shame and guilt of sin is covered by sacrifice. He can stand before God. He has the promise, even though he's been banished from Eden, the promise that God is saying, I have a plan for you. The seed of the woman will one day crush the head of the serpent. There is the promise of life and rescue. There is the curse, yes? There is the labor, the sweat of the brow, the suffering of childbirth and ultimately death. This is what will be overcome ultimately by the fulfillment of the covenant of grace in God's history. Do you know when we put on clothing, I would like to suggest that it actually is a sign of the covenant of grace. OK, we're going to come back to clothing. But, you know, when you put on clothes, whatever form they take, what you're saying is that I really would like to cover my nakedness. Clothing is universal sooner or later because of the sense of shame and guilt and vulnerability, especially if you're up in the northern temperatures, you put on extra clothing. OK, the clothing that we wear is a sign that we need a covering. And that covering at the end of the day is the covering of Christ's righteousness. We're going to see that in one of the new covenant passages we'll look at. And the sacrifice that Adam had and the birth of sons, I believe, was the sacrament of the beginnings of the covenant of grace. Every time an animal was slain was a symbol that a sacrifice would one day take away the guilt of man. And as a child was born, a son was given. One of these days, the sun would be the one who would bring the sacrifice. These are the beginning elements of the covenant, and we could go through each of them, but we don't have time to do it. We can see each of these elements in different ways in each of the covenants. Now when we talk about the covenant of grace, what I want to reiterate is that the new covenant, which begins as we'll see in Jeremiah 31 by promise, coming to Christ, is a part of and goal of this covenant of grace. So one of the things I've asked you to try to learn in this study is that the covenant of grace ties together all the biblical covenants after the fall. They're all related as a part of God's grace. So we see that's from Adam to Revelation. They're all united under that theme. I've emphasized it again. In every covenant, we are looking for the Son who is to come, the Messiah who is to come. And so we can think of in Abraham, he's the seed. We can think in Moses that he is the great sacrifice on the Day of Atonement. In David, he is the great and final King. In the New Covenant, it's the one who fulfills all of these types and sets the past behind us. OK, so we continue on then as we begin to look now, a better covenant, a covenant that's written on the heart. It's because God's covenant will be confirmed ultimately through the cross and the coming of the Spirit. We call it the new covenant. So another way we can see this is that this new covenant idea is running through the Bible in different ways. I want us to look specifically at just a few passages underneath at the last point. The prophets. If you have your Bible, turn with me quickly to these passages. I'll read them so that you might notice where the Bible actually now, as the prophets are looking to the future, are predicting that this new covenant age will come. Isaiah 59 and verse 21. Here's what it says, As for me, this is the Lord speaking, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, my Spirit who is on you. And my words that I put in your mouth will not depart from your mouth, or from the mouths of your children, or from the mouths of their descendants, from this time on and forever, says the Lord." Do you hear this? The Lord is saying, I am making a covenant now that's based upon the work of the Holy Spirit. It is going to be a unique pouring out of the Spirit in the future. Let's look at another passage. We'll come back to Jeremiah in a moment. Look at Ezekiel 36. Another great Old Testament passage of the covenant. Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 26. Now, this is a passage where, again, the Lord is speaking about His people who are in exile. This is an Old Testament passage. Ezekiel is an exilic prophet. They've been driven from the land. Jerusalem is now filled by the Gentiles. The temple has been torn down. But the Lord gives this prophecy beginning at verse 24. For I will take you out of the nations I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit in you. Isaiah said, I'm going to give you the spirit. Ezekiel says, your heart of stone is going to be turned into a heart of flesh. And I'm going to put my spirit in you. I'm going to cleanse you. OK, let's take a look now at Jeremiah chapter 31, which is a passage I asked you to read some weeks ago. And we're returning to it now again. And here is where we see what I think is really the heart of the new covenant. First of all, as we look at Jeremiah 31 and verse 31, we begin to notice a few important elements that we want to emphasize. First of all, it says the time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt. Because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. He's saying it is the same God. It is his same people. It is this covenant, but it is going to be a greater covenant than the one he made before. This is a covenant that will not be broken. Remember, Moses came down with the Ten Commandments in his hands. As he came down from the mountain, he broke them on the ground with the golden calf. This covenant is going to be written upon the heart. Notice what he says in verse 33. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people. What else do we see? Greater grace. A movement from lesser to greater. It is absolutely sure that God is going to do this covenant. Notice as you drop to 35 in this 31st chapter of Jeremiah. It says, this is what the Lord says, He who appoints the sun to shine by day. Today as you looked around at the sunshine state, got out on Bonita Beach or Naples Beach or in your backyard, you should have been thinking about God's covenant promise. Is the sun still shining? then this covenant is still in place. He says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, he who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar, their Lord Almighty is his name. Only if these decrees vanish from my sight, declares the Lord, will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me. This is what the Lord says. Only if the heavens above can be measured, And the foundations of the earth below be searched out. Will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done? The Lord says as long as there's a sun, as long as there's a moon, as long as there are waves on the sea, this covenant of redemption with his people is absolutely sure. Even though they have failed, God will not fail. He will keep it. And it's because God is now going to make it on the inside. rather than the outside. We saw that. I'm going to write my law in their minds, verse 33 says, and write it on their hearts. It's not like the broken covenant we saw in verse 32 where Israel broke it. It's the same law, but it's now put within on new hearts, hearts of flesh by the Holy Spirit. It's made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. Did you see that? It says that in verse 31. with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And what we're going to find is that this is applied completely to the church as well. We're going to look in a little bit at Hebrews 8 and 10. We'll see this promise to Israel now becomes the reality of the church's own experience. So what is the new covenant? A new heart. A regenerate heart, a redeemed heart through the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, we've seen some of these issues. Now, the two main benefits, we notice at the bottom, it says, I'll write my law on the heart and I will forgive their sins and remember them no more. Look carefully at these words as we find them in verse 34. No longer will a man teach his neighbor or a man his brother saying, know the Lord. Because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. So those words forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. We call this theologically justification. It is God's declaration of a people as right and forgiven by the work of Christ. Now, above when it says in verse 33, I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. This is the process of our becoming holy. We call it sanctification. OK, so let's just get these two big words in our minds for a moment. We're going to kind of develop them in a little bit. Justification has to do with being forgiven and being right with God. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy or living and thinking in God's way. I would like to argue those are the two great benefits of this covenant of grace. The heart of flesh, the inward work of the Holy Spirit. It's the movement of the Old Testament now to the personal renewal that's coming through the Messiah. Now let's try to make this very specific in some ways, okay? Where do we see the new covenant becoming a reality? Well, we've already heard and said this. Jesus is the Passover lamb as he celebrates the Eucharist. He says this is the new covenant in my blood. He sees himself when Jesus is on the cross and he cries out, it is finished. He is saying that all of the work of redemption, of the covenants that are leading to the salvation of man, it is paid in full. It's entirely completed by God's great work. The giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Remember these promises? Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, the work of the Spirit. Pentecost is when all of this happens. This is the work of Christ. There would have been no pouring out of the Holy Spirit if the risen Christ had not ascended and sent this gift of the Spirit, creating the new covenant. Paul will actually describe his ministry. In 2 Corinthians 3, he said, we are ministers of the new covenant. This is what we do. You are living epistles, read and known of all men. You are this new covenant that the world can see. And further, this is where it's interesting now. The writer of the Hebrews, we will not look at this specifically now, but I'm going to ask you to look carefully as part of your homework assignment for next week. to read Hebrews eight and ten. OK, write that down. You're a good student. You're going to read Hebrews eight and ten for next week. Now, why is this important? Now, many would say, well, wait, all of these promises were made to Israel. They were all made to the house of Israel, the ten northern tribes, the house of Judah, the two southern tribes. That has nothing to do with the church. This is all Israel. Well, guess what? The book of Hebrews, is in the New Testament. It's written to the church. And this new covenant that's made with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, the writer of Hebrews says, this is what we experience in Jesus. We are spiritually Israel. We have been grafted in to these great promises of the Old Testament because Jesus, Messiah of Israel, is our Messiah. So when we look at this passage, we want to see that as Hebrews 8 will say, Jesus is the mediator of this better covenant, not like the covenant that Moses was the mediator of, where the law was broken and could not do its work. It could only point to something that was yet to come. Now it is realized. in its fullness because of Christ ascending to heaven, sending forth the Spirit, giving us regenerating grace, giving us the new covenant life. OK, now I want you to try to master these two words, justification and sanctification. So we're going to slow down in our last 20 to 25 minutes. We're going to learn these words. OK, you're going to learn them. You're going to understand them. And you're going to be able to handle them. There's a pun there. I'll tell you why in a minute. OK, now we noted that Jeremiah 31, that is the movement of the covenant of the Old Testament to this new covenant, says there are two great things. I'm going to forgive your sins, remember them no more. I'm going to write my law upon your heart. Justification and sanctification. So what is justification again? Well, a popular definition that gets you started. It's not complete. But it's a good way to begin. Some have said, well, justification as if I had never sinned. God looks at me and sees me just as if I never sinned. Now, that's not what the word means, but it's a good start. It's saying my sin is gone and God sees me as righteous. OK, so let's get more technical. Precisely, the word justification in the Bible means to be declared righteous before a judge. When someone is on trial before a judge and he says, not guilty, innocent, that is a declaration of righteousness. It is the essence of the biblical notion of justification. OK, now what is the biblical basis of this? Well, remember Genesis 15, 6, Abram looking up at the stars. God credited his faith as righteousness. He wasn't righteous because he believed he had all kinds of sins. But God said, I'm going to give you righteousness through faith. He's declared righteous through faith. We can see another passage. Now, in your Old Testament, I mentioned clothing. Remember the clothing? If you can find this minor prophet of Zechariah, let's look at Zechariah chapter 3. Can you find any of these? Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. What comes next? OK, let's find Zechariah chapter three, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. Find Matthew. Go back two books. OK, chapter three. Here's an interesting story. Then in verse one, then he showed me Joshua. OK, Joshua, we could say Jesus if we wanted to. Same name. So this is the Jesus name of the Old Testament. Joshua, same name, Yeshua, Jesus. Then he showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him. The Lord said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you, Satan. The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you. Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire? Now, as we think about this image, here is this man named Jesus in the Old Testament. He is the high priest. He is in a scene where Satan himself is accusing him. OK, another name for Satan is the accuser. He's accusing this high priest of being a sinner. And as he's being accused of his sin, the Lord himself is there speaking with someone who is called the angel of the Lord. Now, in our biblical theology, there's a high likelihood the angel of the Lord is the pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. This is, if you will, the Lord Jesus is standing here before He became man. That's a theologically possible position. Here's the high priest of Israel named Jesus. He's being accused by Satan, the accuser. The Lord is speaking and the angel of the Lord is standing by, which is the ultimate Redeemer, Jesus, before He's become a man. This is an extraordinary scene. And it says this man is a brand snatched from the fire. In other words, he has nothing that merits his rescue except grace. He has been redeemed. Even the high priest is not able to stand on his own. OK, and then it goes on a little bit further, says now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. The angel said to those who are standing before him, take off his filthy clothes. And what is the scene? This high priest who is supposed to have all the beautiful garments of Aaron. They're filthy, they're unclean, he must have them taken off. And then he said to Joshua, see, I've taken away your sin and I'll put rich garments on you. Then I said, put a clean turban on his head. So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him while the angel of the Lord stood by. Excuse me, I should have had Joshua here. I confused chapter 4 with chapter 3. I apologize. So put in Zachariah Jesus, the high priest. We'll correct that. But the scene is that the high priest needs righteous clothing. Righteous clothing. And that's the scene for us in the New Covenant. We are, with our best efforts, All of our good works. What does Isaiah say? All our righteousness are as filthy rags. Here's Jesus, Joshua, the high priest, filthy rags. He needs to be clothed by God with a righteousness that's not his own. That scene is what justification is for each and every one of us. We are sinners. We need to be clothed with Christ's righteousness. This is received by faith. OK? OK, so what is it? This story of having a righteousness that is not our own is the heart of Paul's gospel in Romans chapter three and four. Here you'll find it built very clearly by saying God justifies the ungodly through faith. The ungodly. through faith. A beggar receiving a righteous gift that's not his own. So, what does justification mean? A righteousness that's not our own, received by faith. This righteousness, we believe, is the perfect obedience of Christ. His sufferings on the cross, His perfect life, it's imputed to our account. He bore our sin and He took away our guilt because our guilt was placed upon Him. Our sin was imputed to Him, even as Christ's righteousness was imputed to us. Take a look at just one simple verse in Romans. Look at Romans chapter 5 and verse 1. Paul has been dealing with the great doctrine of sin and this righteousness through faith, and he says in verse 1, Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Let's translate it very fully now. It says, Since we have been declared righteous by God as the sovereign judge of the world, who is credited to our account the perfect righteousness of Christ, we have peace with God. This is the heart of the gospel. This is the one-time accomplished act that God gives for us to be right. Now, how does that compare to sanctification? Now, you know the word sanctification because the word saint is a shortened form of this word. A saint is someone who is holy. To be sanctified is to become someone who is separated from the world, to be close to God. Justification is to stand before a judge and to be declared righteous. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy or godlike. It has to do with our actions, our behavior, our words, our gestures, our life, our conduct. And so this now is the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian. This is what the Holy Spirit is beginning to do as he changes our lives. It is sometimes called our union with Christ in which the sinner, those of us who believe, become joined with Christ in his death and in his resurrection. Let's flesh this out another step. Sometimes we'll hear the word putting to death the deeds of the flesh. Paul will use that language, mortification. That's the idea that we are learning to die more and more to the sin in our lives. We're trying to learn to say, no, I will not do that because I know it's not pleasing to God. This is the daily struggle of the Christian life to please God. OK, then there's this word vivification. It's the resurrection word. We live more and more to obedience. We're saying, Lord, I want to do what you want me to do. The law is hard, but we begin to say, Lord, I want to do it because I love you. Things we thought we would never do. We begin to say, I really want to do this. I want to. I want to please God. This is the new life, the being made alive. So, we see that sanctification is the process where we die to sin and we live to Christ. Now, why are we talking about these two? Because these are the two benefits of the covenant of grace in Jeremiah 31. Keep coming with me now. Sometimes we describe it as walking in the Spirit. When you walk, you don't fall. That's learning not to sin. When you walk, you're making progress. That's being alive. The Spirit is helping us to live a new life. This is an ongoing, never-ending process in this life. We never complete it. We continue to struggle. And it's the Holy Spirit who's enabling us to have this new obedience. Christ's grace on the cross continues to forgive the sin that's even in our best works, because we're never perfect. And this is the privilege, then, of crying out, Abba, Father. We have a Father in heaven who loves us in our imperfection. Now, here's the question, then. All through Christian history, there's been a struggle. How do I put together the fact that I'm forgiven by Christ through faith, and yet I have to live a new life of obedience? That was part of the sermon this morning, too. The idea that how do we put these two together? Well, I believe if we listen carefully to what the covenant is telling us, we have an answer. And I'm going to try to give you a handy illustration to learn this. OK, so let's let's begin by saying these two benefits, justification and sanctification flowing out of the new covenant of Jeremiah 31 are distinguishable. You must know that they're different. Do not identify them. Justification is not sanctification. Sanctification is not justification. They are two different benefits of the covenant of grace. We must distinguish them. Secondly, we must see that they are given to us at the same time by God's grace. When we become believers, we not only receive the righteousness of Christ, But the Holy Spirit is beginning to work in our lives. He's beginning the process, as slow and difficult as it may be, to change us, to begin to draw us to Christ. They are inseparable. You can't say, I don't want the sanctification. I just want justification because it's so easy. No, you can't separate them. They come together. And I'm going to argue they are logically ordered. One is more foundational than the other. Now, how can I put those four ideas in a way that maybe you can walk out of here and say, OK, I learned something that I'm going to keep in mind. See if we can do it. Now, get ready. Everybody wake back up. This is what I told you I was going to tell you. Now, let's try to learn this together. This grows right out of Jeremiah 31. These two benefits of the covenant of grace. First of all, compare these to your right and left hands. OK, everybody got two hands, right and left hands. Raise your hands up. We're not Pentecostals, I'm sorry. OK, the right hand is different than the left hand, right? Anybody disagree with that? If you're driving along and your wife says, go right. And she meant left. Or if a husband does the same to his wife, go left. And he meant right. What happens? Chaos, right? OK, you have to keep them distinct. Your right hand is different than your left hand. Anybody disagree with that? Raise your right hand if you disagree with that. OK, that's our right hands going up. OK, so that's the idea of distinguishable. They are different. Let's look at another example here. OK, we must compare them and distinguish them. And secondly, we need to realize that these two hands were given together at birth. OK, you don't have one hand born and then six years later, all of a sudden the other hand grows out. You're born with two hands. You're born again with two hands. Now what I'm going to ask you to think about is one hand is a justification hand and the other one is a sanctification hand. They're different. A right hand and a left hand. They're distinct. And yet they come together, I'm going to argue, that they always go together and were given together. They are inseparable and were given at the same time as different as they are. And they must be logically distinguished because one is more dominant than the other. OK, most people are right handed statistically. For the sake of this discussion, no left handed prejudice here at all. But let's just assume we're all right handed for the sake of argument, OK? So you say, our right hand is our dominant hand. I want your right hand to be, in your mind, your justification hand. It's your hand whereby you are declared righteous through faith in Christ. His righteousness is imputed to you. That's very different than your left hand, which is the work of the new life of obedience through the Holy Spirit. That is an ongoing process and it's incomplete. This is perfect. This is incomplete. And the idea is that this right hand supports the other hand. Justification supports sanctification. And that's the way it is in my life. When I sign my life away, when I make those contracts in blood buying a house with a mortgage, it's my right hand that does it. But my left hand is in trouble. Because my right hand did it and it goes along for this hand, too. Now, when I eat, my right hand is feeding my left hand, too. So, in other words, this hand is foundational for me. I'm a right handed guy. So my justification hand is my right hand is my foundation. Sanctification depends upon it. Do not reverse the order. And this has happened so many times in history where it says, I know I'm really justified. because I'm doing all these good works, because I'm such a good person. That's what really makes me, oh man, you've just lost the gospel. It's the other way around. Justification is always foundational. The moment you turn it the other way around, you have made justification secondary and it cannot be. Now we're going to try to, let me go through it again so you can keep thinking about these ideas. How does justification relate to sanctification? Let's think it through again. They're distinguishable. Your right hand, if you're a dominant hand, is justification. Your dependent hand is sanctification. Distinguish them. Next, think of them as inseparable. Those two hands come together. When the Holy Spirit worked the new covenant in your life, he was forgiving you. giving you the righteousness of Christ through this gift of faith. And he is beginning the process of changing your heart and your mind and your life is slow and difficult, imperfect as it is. A change has begun and they come together. OK, another thing we want to see is that they're simultaneous. I like this little picture of a child. He's a little child learning to pray. Those two hands came out of the womb at the same time. They both are there and they're logically ordered. One hand is depending on the other. Sanctification is depending on justification. Now, can I stop here? If you get this, you are more educated than 99% of the pastors and theologians in the world. I want you to know that. There are clergymen across the country who cannot explain this to you. And I've given you a simple, handy illustration that you can get it right. So that's why you got to learn it. I'm sorry I made you wait seven weeks into the end of my lecture to learn it, but you wouldn't appreciate it unless I did it now. Okay. This is Jeremiah 31 in its application. Distinguishable. Okay. So let me, one more time, let's, let's work through it. We have two hands. The dominant hand is justification. The dependent hand is sanctification. They must be distinguished. They are, in fact, inseparable. So if my left hand gets cut off because I'm out trying to cut down a tree with a power saw or something, what do I do? Get me to the emergency room. I want it back on. It's inseparable. When we're born, these two hands came together simultaneously. And I'm always trusting in Christ's forgiveness of his perfect righteousness. for my salvation, and that's what makes my sanctification possible. Because if it depended the other way around, I would never know if I did enough. I would never be sure. I'd be terrified. But to only have one hand? No. There's a new life that needs to build upon what God has given to us. So this addresses a classic problem in Christian theology in life. If we do not distinguish the two, We actually, I would humbly say, make the mistake of our Roman Catholic friends. They say you'll be justified because you've been very good at doing good works or doing penance. No, no one will ever be justified that way. You must be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect. Secondly, justification then is equal to sanctification, which confuses all of Paul's teaching that says this is a gift to the ungodly. It is what God does to us through faith. But if they're separable, if I can take justification and separate it from sanctification, we will have a Savior who is not a Lord. He will not be our master. We want to have a Jesus credit card that we can just say, I can send all I want and he forgives me of my debts so I don't have to worry about. Now, that's not it. Sometimes that's called easy believism. If you really want to be theologically sophisticated, you can call it antinomianism. This is a big mouthful that says against the law. The Greek word namas is law. Libertinism is that I'm free from every demand that God has because Christ has forgiven me now. We want to say they come together. This is what God wants us to write. We don't confuse them. We don't want to separate them. And we want to affirm that they are already coming together while justification is a completed act and sanctification is an ongoing process. They both have begun together. It's not that sanctification is the second work of grace, as the Wesleyan or Pentecostal system argues. Now, there may be a dramatic growth spurt. Praise God for that. But the spirit has been working in our lives in his own way over this time. And then we also want to say if it is not founded in justification, sanctification does not rest on our justification, then we will end up in legalism where you got to be doing stuff all the time or moralism where there's this principle or that principle you got to do to be right with God. No, we're right with God because of Christ. And out of gratitude, we want to live for him. And so at this point, we fall into sometimes what's called neo-Nomianism, a new kind of law keeping. We're Protestants, but we're acting like we're a Roman Catholic. Instead, sometimes we see this in the Mennonite tradition and the Anabaptist tradition and others. OK, so let me try to give you another illustration. I tried to figure out the eye, I mean the hand illustration. How about the eye in the body? This one I got from a great theologian by the name of Francis Turretin. He was a successor of Calvin and Geneva 100 years after him. Now, would any of us disagree that the eye alone sees? In the body, the only part of the body that sees is the eye. Any disagreement? We all agree on that, right? The eye, apart from the body, sees nothing. I'd like to illustrate it this way. Let's suppose this always happens when I work on a car with my clumsy fingers. My right hand is as clumsy as my left hand when it comes to mechanics. I will drop a screw or a bolt or a nut or a tool. And I'm working and I'm saying, oh, I'm in a hurry. And it's been out here. And guess what? It's been raining and I've got kind of good clothes on. I was trying to fix this thing. So what I got to do is I don't want to get down on my belly to find what I dropped. I'm going to ruin my $10,000 new suit. You know, I've got to really take good care of this thing. So I know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to pop my eye right out. Squat down. Pop it right back in there. Have you ever done that before? No one's ever done that? It's such a clever idea. Why would you not do that? Because the eye, apart from the body, sees nothing. It doesn't work. So, faith is like the eye. Faith receives the righteousness of Christ. And, sanctification is like the body. It is what we are to be doing with what we see. Our faith begins to live. And so, a living faith is connected to this new life. A real faith is seeking process. A faith apart from sanctification is like an eye apart from the body. A dead eye and a dead faith are alike. The eye does not see. The faith does not justify. This phrase that is at the bottom is a summation statement that comes from the Westminster Confession of Faith. It says, faith alone justifies, but the faith that justifies is never alone, but is ever accompanied by all of God's saving graces. God is giving us this new nature when he gives us faith, as slow and difficult as that process is. He is working in our lives and it will begin to develop. So then, as we conclude, the union of two benefits of the covenant. We cannot divide Christ's threefold offices in pieces. We cannot have him for just a priest. He's also a prophet and a king. We cannot divide the Lord's prayer. We pray, forgive us our debts. But we also pray, lead us not into temptation. Justification and sanctification. We cannot tear the covenant in half, seeking one benefit without the other. I like the forgiveness of sins, but I don't want the law written on my heart. No, the covenant comes in as a whole. Christ's redemptive work is reunited. We could talk more about that, but time. So, we want to think about the heart. The new heart. The writing of the law upon our heart. That God is giving to us in Christ. So, as we finish up then, I hope that we will think about the union of these two benefits that we have in Christ. Father, we are grateful for this opportunity to study. We thank you for the history of redemption that begins right at the beginning with Adam and runs through the story of the Bible. until this new covenant brings it to us in sharp, clear focus. We pray that these two great benefits of the covenant that Jeremiah speaks about, that you would help us to see them in our own lives as imperfect and as fallen and broken as we are, to know that we have a Redeemer. that you justify the ungodly by faith, and that you have begun a good work in us that you'll perform until the day of Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you might work these things in our own lives for your glory, and that you would closeth with the righteousness of Christ, even as Joshua the high priest was clothed and then was able to serve in your presence. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen.