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and worship you. We're thankful
for this hour of study. We can continue studying our
confession and we thank you, Lord, for the men who have gone
before us, who diligently studied these things carefully and articulated
what we believe the Bible teaches and that we can stand upon their
shoulders and learn and grow for the glory of Christ. We pray
in Christ's name, amen. All right, so let me read 7.3
just to kind of familiarize ourselves again where we are. We are in
the confession part of chapter seven that speaks of the covenant
of grace. So in chapter six, we talked
about the fall of man. We saw a covenant of works. Chapter
seven, paragraph one speaks of covenant works as well as the
creature creator distinction. Paragraph 2 brings that idea
out of the Covenant of Grace. And then we talked about in 7.3,
this is where we see a pretty big difference between the Westminster
Savoy and the 1689 Confession. And we brought out last time
that what the reason for this is because they wanted to do
two things. Remember, this is not a polemic
document. In other words, they're not trying
to be divisive. They're not trying to argue a
case for something else. They're trying to articulate
what they believe, but also show camaraderie. So they're very
carefully saying it in a way in which Presbyterians and the
Congregationalists of Savoy can articulate and say, we agree
with this, but they're trying to say it in a different way.
Now, just to familiarize again, what we talked about last time
is we talked about kind of the idea of that substance administration. And the substance administration,
we see it predominantly in Westminster. Chapter seven, paragraph five
and six really talk about substance administration. So what we talked
about is they saw the covenant of grace as one substance, right? The substance being faith in
Christ. The administration, they said it's one substance that
differs in administration. Okay, so administration would
be old covenant. You can see the other covenants
like Abraham, Moses, Davidic. You can see it that way. You
can see there was administrations that were in that covenant that
were particular to that time, but then they change in a new
covenant. For instance, circumcision, the
baptism would be their argument for that. And the reason is because
they have it all under the covenant of grace. Now the Baptists, they're
reading this language. And as we talked about last time,
they didn't want to, They weren't in agreement with the idea that
the Covenant of Grace is one in substance that merely just
differs in administration. Their argument ended up being
that we think it differs also in substance. And the reason
is because we're looking at Old Covenant, New Covenant, and we're
articulating different promises. Now that is to say they didn't
disagree with the idea of substance administration, right? We hold
the substance administration, right? We hold that the new covenant
being the covenant of grace, the substance being faith in
Christ, right? Christ and his blessings. Those
are administered, right? Through the certain things such
as baptism in the Lord's Supper, preaching of the word, different
things like that, right? So remember we defined administration and
the reason the Baptists decided to go in a different direction
as far as using those words is because administration back then
meant two different things. It can mean two things. One,
it can mean participation of being of in the rituals and and
ceremonies of that covenant, but it can also mean just merely
being dispersed too, right? So the blessings are dispersed. Okay, so you can see there's
obviously overlap, right? You can participate in the ceremonies
and through the ceremonies be dispersed, if you look to it
by faith, the substance of the covenant. So we believe that
with the new covenant. We believe that with covenant
grace, the new covenant, that as we partake in the Lord's supper,
it is dispensing grace to us. We are participating in that
by faith. And so the Baptists aren't rejecting
substance administration altogether. What they're rejecting is that
the covenant of grace is merely one in substance and that only
differs in administration. They're rejecting that model.
So they wanted to articulate it in a way that carefully describes
what they believe. And so what I drew last time, as the stair steps. And I'm going
to keep drawing this. And I noticed on the recording,
if you're watching with that, you can't really see this. So
I'll print a document eventually that has what I'm drawing here.
Now, the substance administration model is covenant of grace. Can you all see that over there?
Covenant of grace, Moses, Abraham, David new covenant that merely
differs in administration, so Okay, the the Baptist version
of this is going to be Abraham Moses David new covenant which
would be argued that it's inaugurated at the cross and And then above
here is the covenant of grace that is always there in light
of covenant redemption and all that. But it doesn't take place
until the cross is ratified. So the blessings, as they look
by faith, are being distributed retrospectively or backwards.
And that's if they look to faith through the promise, they're
participating in those. But what we've articulated last time is
that this is the old covenant. This is the new covenant, okay? They're not differing merely
in administration, but as we're gonna start going through and
seeing, the promises are different as well. And the reason the Baptist
argued this is because, let's look at first level typology.
So typology being, right, types or pictures that point us to
something, they represent something, they symbolize something, okay? So for instance, baptism symbolizes
what? Aidan? Death and resurrection. Yeah, Paul brings that out in
Romans, right? We've died with Christ, we rose
to new life, right? And that's what was symbolizes
when we do baptism, right? And so it symbolizes those things,
okay? Now, In the old covenant, there
was a first level that some of these things symbolized, and
it was for the purpose of the kingdom of Israel. There is a
second level, right? So if we look at sacrifices,
we just shouldn't just merely jump straight to Christ. That's
second level. First level, it was meant to
show, as Hebrew said, for the purification of the flesh, okay? That's what it represented. So
as they were doing that, it showed symbolically that there's purification
of the flesh. This was for all the Jews, okay? So this is what we were bringing
out. And then, so what we did last time was we went through
Abrahamic covenant and we saw, how did they originally see Abraham? What were the promises that they
saw with that? Before we jump straight to, you
know, Galatians and see, oh, well, you know, it was all pointing
us to faith in Christ. It's true, but let's look at
the first level, right? Second, a revelation that comes
later isn't gonna contradict what was originally given. And
so what we see here, we're going to continue. So we looked at
Genesis 12, we looked at Genesis 15, and we looked at Genesis
17, right? So what I'm going to argue here
and what Sam, my friend, does is show very good In this book,
Mystery of Christ, he shows that Abraham, Moses, and David all
really have the same parties, the same precepts, the same promises,
and the same penalties. So that refers that it's the
old covenant. We'll see, based on time and
space, why doesn't God start giving stipulations in Abraham,
if it's all the same thing, about how to maintain the land? Well,
for one, they don't possess the land yet. So when Moses comes
and they're in the land and they're doing those things, then it comes,
here's how you are to live within the land. And so there's different
things progressive revelation builds on and continues to reveal
what is meant within that old covenant. So Baptists are looking
at that, they're seeing that. And they're saying, let's not
be so quick to just jump over the first level and let's see
what that first level meant to the people of that time and how,
yes, by faith, then second level, they were looking to the covenant
blessings. And they would say they're actually
looking forward to the promise of the new covenant, which is
the covenant of grace. So we're just gonna continue
looking at that. So in Genesis, just to recap, in Genesis 12
and 15, we saw God saying, I will be your God. You will be my people,
my person, he tells Abraham. I'm gonna bless you. I'm gonna
make you into many nations. Through your seed, all the nations
will be blessed. We saw as we went to Genesis
15, that promise was then formulized in a covenant ceremony. God repeats
his same promises that he gave in Genesis 12. He makes a covenant
because Abraham was weak in faith. He was doubting the promises
of God. And so God graciously comes and gives that covenant.
Now we saw in Genesis 15 and 12, it's all, I will, I will,
I will, I will. Then we get to Genesis, another
thing too is of the promises, verse 18 of Genesis 15. He promises
the summary statement of the covenant, right? And Genesis
15, 18, he summarizes and says, to your offspring, I will give
this land, right? So this covenant also dictates
maintenance in the land. He promises this land. Now, yes,
before we need to see, yes, the land ultimately points to new
heavens, new earth. We see that, right? But that's
not the first level. The first level was pointing
to there's a real land that they're going to inherit, that God is
giving them. He promises this. He confirms
the promise in Genesis 15. When Abraham's doubting, how
will I know? Look at all these people who
are in the land. God says, let's make a covenant. And not only
that, he tells them what's going to happen when they will possess
the land. It's going to be another 400 something years. And we get
to Genesis 17, and I will argue this is not a different covenant.
In Genesis 17, notice the promises are the same, the parties are
the same, and you kind of have the same scope here overall.
the kingdom of Israel, the offspring of Abraham, are gonna be a blessing
to the nations. But God expands his covenant.
Look at verse nine in chapter 17. Addition to the blessings
he gave in 12 and 15, he also says he's gonna govern kingdoms,
right? There's gonna be a king. In other words, your descendants
are going to rule themselves. They're going to be kings that
come from you. This is an addition to this,
and this is looking forward in seed form to the Davidic covenant,
right? Ultimately that we know second
level, the true King who will come, who is Jesus Christ. Throughout
the generations, we see later on that in verse nine, he says,
up to this point, it's been, I will, I will, I will, I will.
Now, when God says he will do something, he's gonna do it,
right? We would say that's unilateral.
God's gonna do this. He's gonna promise and that's
gonna happen. All right, it's not based on the condition of
man. But then we also see there's conditions within this covenant,
right? Look at verse nine, it says,
but as for you, God says, you have to keep my covenant. You
have to walk in my precepts. You have to do these things.
If not, you've broken the covenant. And what is that? He says, well,
there's a sign for which the people are to have. to show that
you're separate from the world, that you're separate from the
nations, that you're in this plot of land that I will give
you. You're a kingdom that's supposed to represent basically
a kingdom of heaven. Here's what it looks like on
earth. It's set apart from sin. And God gave a positive law of
circumcision. God added this by command. This
wasn't something they can look at nature and say, oh yeah, this
is wise to do, or this is what we should do. God makes a covenant
and says, you should do this on the eighth day, circumcise
your sons. And notice that there's a difference between promise
and being part of that covenant, right? You can be circumcised
and be part of this covenant, but not partake in the promise,
right? You think of Ishmael who received
the sign, but he wasn't, He wasn't the promised line. So there was
also a line, a remnant who was within that community as well. And so what's happening here
is God's outwardly marking the people of Abraham, his descendants,
those who are members, at least for men. Now, women obviously
were still members. They didn't receive the sign
of that, but they were still members of that. The means of
this was a reminder, a twofold reminder. Right? Think of circumcision. It's a reminder of two things. One, if you keep this, it shows
purification. It's a sign of purification,
of set apart to the Lord. It's a sign that you are, that
you have been made new, that you are united to this one, that
there's purity, right? But it's also a sign of, a twofold
sign, in that just like the skin of your body was cut off, if
you break this, so will you. It's a visible threat. It's to
guard and maintain holiness, or you too will be cut off. We
see this, and at the end it's 17, this is do this and live,
right? Here's the law, do this, if you
don't, you're out. Yet God at the same time promises
to give them these things, to endure, to do all these things.
So what we see here is what I like to call a dichotomous nature
of this covenant. You see blessings and grace,
but you also see law and conditions to maintain. and stay in this. This is do this and live. This
is law. But then God corporately is going to keep this, but individually
you can break it. Okay? So what we see here is
the breakability of this covenant. violation of breaking this. And
so many people have taken onto this and saw this is what we
would call in a sense, you know, I don't think this language is
super helpful. You might hear this in some of the debates,
but some of the debates will say, well, is this a covenant
of grace or is it a covenant of works? And the answer would
be yes. It's not, you know, when we think
covenant works, I'm not saying, hey, it's in the garden all over
again, and you can actually earn your eternal salvation. That's
not it. Everyone's a sinner, they fall short. the standard
though remains, but there's a stool, like a type of covenant of works,
but in a do this and live kind of mentality that is, I would
say, as many people have also said, republished in Abraham.
And the reason it's there is because Christ comes born under
the law and he has to fulfill the covenant works for us. And
in that sense, that's what he's fulfilling. It's not merely only
in Abraham, but it's in Moses and David. as well. So you have
that do this and live principle. The do this and live, the law
that's pointed them, here's what you do or else, points them back
to the covenant of works. So over here, covenant of works,
and then we can just say that's also seen in law, do this and
live. But then the gracious elements, the I will do these things, and
then by the way, here's the things, the signs, for Abraham, it was
a sign of the ram that was caught in the thicket, the sacrifice
will come. Those things are pointing them,
promising them there's gonna be a sacrifice that's gonna come
that's really going to take away sin. That's pointing them to
the covenant of grace. So they're directing their gaze
forward, but also backwards. The covenant of works was broken,
Israel is under a type of covenant of works. It's definitely not
the same thing as far as do this and live. But they also have
the promise of grace. So because of that dichotomous
nature, it led the Baptists to say this is a different covenant
with different promises. And so when we get to Jeremiah
33, we read, I will make a covenant a better covenant, not like the
covenant I made with your father. So it's not merely, hey, it's
kind of similar, but it just differs in administration. It's
entirely new. It's completely different. It's
not like this, and it's better. So last time we looked further
at Abraham looking through these tracing verses. We left off in
looking at like Joshua. We looked at kind of how as they
were progressing into the Mosaic economy, what did they recall? Well, they were recalling the
Abrahamic covenant. They were calling that to mind.
Remember the precepts, remember our father Abraham, remember
the blessings of him, right? That he promised to us. And so
what we see here is that promise. And what's going on is it's gonna
be further developed within Moses. Now, there is a land that
was promised, right? The first level. We see that
there. As we were talking with the men
in Joshua, turn to Joshua 21, Joshua 21. Look at verse 43 through 45. Joshua 21, 43 through 45. Thus the Lord gave to Israel
all the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and they
took possession of it, and they settled there. And the Lord gave
them rest on every side, just as he has sworn to their fathers.
Not one of their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord
had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of
all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of
Israel had failed. All came to pass." So we're not
waiting for Israel to retake the land. We're not waiting for
a new temple or anything like that. God has fulfilled his promises
that he gave to the physical nation, the kingdom of Israel.
And they took possession, the fullness, whatever God intended
in his word, say in promise form, came to pass. So the land was
given, right? So we see that as well. Notice
also we see in, let's turn to 1 Kings. 1 Kings 4, verse 20, not only were
the land given, but the promise of a multitude of descendants. Someone also turned to Hebrews
11, 1 Kings 4 verse 20. Someone want to read that? Hmm, sounds very familiar to
what God promised would happen with Abraham. Okay, so not only
that, Hebrews 11, 12, someone have that? Therefore one man,
him, as good as dead, rewards the saints,
as many as the stars in heaven, as many as the beautiful grains
of sand, Good, okay. So what we see here
is the numerous people kind of fulfillment as well. Right now,
so we can't say, oh, well, God failed to give his promises.
No, he gave them already in the Old Testament as well. Now the
seed to bless the nations. Ultimately, we see, you know,
through the descendants, ultimately, there's gonna be blessings to
the nations. You see this in some kind of
form with Solomon, right? Where the nations were blessed.
You had the Queen, Queen Sheba even came, and she looked and
received wisdom and blessing through him. But ultimately,
this was pointing to a greater seed. And turn to Luke 154. Someone want to read 54 to 55? 54 to 55. Luke 1. And he gave help to Israel, his
servant, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and his descendants forever. And what's the context
of that? Well, the angel visiting Mary,
this is Mary's song, the Magnificent, right? And she's praising the
Lord because this is the promised one. And what she calls, what
she remembers is you are fulfilling the promises you gave to Abraham
here. And then we see this also in
verse, look at 68. Zechariah prophesies, he said,
blessed be the Lord the God of Israel for he has visited and
redeemed his people. Right, and so what else, look
a little bit forward to 72. He's sworn mercy to promise to
our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore
to our father Abraham to grant us that we being delivered and
from the hand of the enemies might serve him without fear
and holiness." And so what we see here is all the blessings
that God promised Abraham, they become fulfilled. Now, another
thing that we see is the old covenant was serving a purpose.
It's been likened to, some of y'all heard the analogy of kind
of like, the rocket ship that takes it out into space, right?
When a rocket ship blasts into space, right, there's that one
engine that really fuels and pushes it up into space. And
once it's served its purpose, right, what does it do? It breaks
off and falls back to earth. Now, it propels and does its
purpose. Now, no analogy is perfect, but
in this case, What would happen is, it's like the spaceship goes
off, Israel served its purpose, which was to bring the promised
Messiah, right? That's the whole purpose for
Israel, to bring about the promised Messiah who would bless the nations.
When the Messiah is here, then that old covenant, once Christ
pays for it on the cross, that old covenant, the promises here
have served their purpose, they've been fulfilled. But it's like
that, The jet is cut off, and then the people within the ship
are saying, join us, join us. And some of the people in the
jet part do. That's the remnant. But many
would be provoked to jealousy, as we know, and not continue. So the promises, the parties,
Abraham and the people of Israel. His offspring. The precepts keep
the covenant, circumcise, obey your ritual holiness, you could
say. The promises, an offspring, blessed life in Canaan, and the
blessing for the nations. The penalties, if you don't do
your part, if you don't circumcise on the eighth day, you're cut
off. Okay, now Abraham is foundational to the rest of the covenants.
It's foundational. The promise is transmitted right,
to generation to generation. Tell these things of your children,
right? Write them on your doorposts, put them as signs on your heads. And so we looked at Exodus, right?
When the mosaic economy is starting to happen and you're in Exodus
6, you see the promises that God remembers his promise when
he hears the people, right? His promise to who? To Abraham,
when he hears the people crying out for deliverance in Egypt.
He remembers his promise to Abraham. Deuteronomy 1.8, we hear the
same thing. Before Moses and all that, and
the people are entering the land, and it says in Deuteronomy 1.8
that God remembers the promises. It's an appeal to the promises.
Joshua 1.6, we see again, an appeal to the promises of Abraham,
Isaac, Joseph, right? And so we see this as well. Jeremiah
11, verse two. the promises to give them the
land. And he's basically describing
the Abrahamic covenant. And so what Jeremiah brings out,
go ahead and turn to Jeremiah 11, actually. Jeremiah 11, two to five. I'll go ahead and read it. It says, hear the words of the
covenant and speak to the men of Judah, the inhabitants of
Jerusalem. You shall say to them, thrust
the Lord your God of Israel. Cursed be the man who does not
hear the words of the covenant. What covenant is he speaking
of? Here, ultimately, it's keeping
the covenant of Moses, keep reading. Thou hast the Lord God gave.
Cursed is a man who doesn't hear the words of the covenant that
I command him. Your fathers, when I brought them out of the
land of Egypt from the iron furnace, listen to my voice, do all that
you command you, so shall you be my people, and I will be your
God. You must do the commandments, right, for this to happen. And
then he says, listen to my voice, do all I command you, so shall
you be my people. That I, notice how mosaic is
tied to Abraham. That I, may confirm the oath
I swore to your fathers." Who's the father? It's not Moses. To
give them the lamb flowing with milk and honey as this day. So
obedience to the Mosaic means you get to participate in the
promises of Abraham. Okay, when we see this a lot
more, Romans 11 brings this out as well. But Abraham is a covenant
that deals with an earthly promise to a national earthly people
that has transnational redemptive purposes. And so what this is
doing is it's meant to echo Eden. There's meant to be these idea
of land, blessing, promises flowing with milk and honey, right, for
maintenance. You're meant to do like what
Adam did. He was supposed to maintain that
garden. He was to guard and cultivate
it, and he was to expand it. right, for the nations. And this
is, in a sense, echoing that, the promises of that. They're to have a new paradise.
They're to keep guard, or else they all too will be cut off.
Circumcision is that obligation. It's the purifying ritual to
say, we're gonna live according to God's laws. We're gonna obey
his commandments. Obedience means blessing. Disobedience means
cursing. And this gets expanded in Moses. Why does it get expanded here?
Because now they're in the land. Now here's what it means to maintain
and live in the land, right? So we see a lot of laws that
have to do with kind of, what's the word for it? judicial kind
of laws. You know, if one of your neighbor
gores an ox, an ox gores someone, you know, here's how you're to
live. Here's how you're to act, right? And so there's kind of these
laws to govern Israel in light of how they live in the land
and how they live judicially, but also it was linked, right?
There's moral principles that were linked to these things as
well. And so that's why we can learn from them, benefit them.
Even though those things don't apply, the moral principle of
those things behind those judicial laws matter, right? Because the
moral law is ingrained in us for all time. It's not so with
merely judicial and ceremonial kind of laws. But what we see
is Abraham is anticipating Moses through these obligations. He
doesn't give them all this because they're not in the land, but
in Egypt and in the wilderness. Abraham then also anticipates
Moses. I mean, not Moses, but David,
right? Genesis 17 promises the kings. And so what it's doing
is now, as we learn more about Abraham and revelation progresses,
we're learning more and more about what it means to be part
of that old covenant. But in so doing, the levels, the types,
the levels of typology here, the first level are meant to
do something physically to the people of Israel. When you sin,
Go and do this act of purification. Why? Because it's purification
of the flesh. By the way, it doesn't do anything because you
have to go back and do it every year. It's a reminder of your
sin. But if you do it by faith, if you trust in the promise,
ultimately you're looking for the true sacrifice who will come.
But that's not the first level purpose of that sacrifice. It's
a second level. It's meant to be for the purification.
So let's look at Exodus 2. We looked at Abraham, now let's
look at Moses. Exodus 2, as we see, we kind
of already talked a little bit about this. I've been jumping
around. So in Exodus 2, they're in Egypt. They hear the cry of the people
and we have Moses here. And what do we see here later
on? God hears the groaning, right? Look down at verse 24. God heard
their groaning and remembered the covenant with Abraham, with
Isaac and Jacob. God saw the people of Israel
and God knew, right? So he had said this to Abraham,
you know, 400 something years, you're gonna be in Egypt. You're
not gonna possess the land, but God being faithful to his covenant,
Now it's come time to raise another representative, another redeemer,
Moses, and he will lead his people through the slavery of Egypt. Now, notice that for this part
of Moses being introduced, it's an appeal back to Abraham, right? So we talked about last time
how as a, you know, the covenant head of the old covenant is Abraham. because it's constant referring
back to Abraham and your descendants. Abraham represents the rest. So what else we see here? God
heard them 430 years, they come out of Egypt. God chooses Moses
to be a spokesperson. And how does God reveal himself
to Moses, right? The people of Israel, they've
been there for 430 years. They're probably confused about
who is the God that saved us? Who is the God that is of our
father, Abraham? You know, what is his name, right? Look at Exodus 3. Exodus 3. Moses is at the burning
bush, and in Exodus 3, God reveals himself to Moses, and Moses asks,
you know, what do I tell the people? What do I tell them who
you are? What if they say, what's his
name? Verse 13, what does he say? Then God said to Moses,
if I come to the people of Israel, say to them, the God of your
fathers has sent me to you. And they asked him, what is your
name? He shall say to them, God said to Moses, I am who I am.
And I said, say to the people of Israel, I am has sent me to
you. God also said to Moses, say to
the people, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac and Jacob has sent me to you. Look down at
16. Go gather the elders of Israel
and say to them, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has appeared to me, right? And
it continues, I promise these things. And notice, look down
at verse 17. It brings up all the people who
are in the land, and it says he's gonna give them the land,
a land flowing with milk and honey. Again, it's the promises
of the Abrahamic that God is rooting Moses in, because Abraham's
a foundation. After God delivers them in Exodus
6, Exodus 6, turn there. What do they remember? What do
they praise? What do they identify with? Exodus
6 verse 1, but God said to Moses, now you shall see what I'll do
to Pharaoh with a strong hand. I'll send them out with a strong
hand. He will drive them out of the land. God spoke to Moses
and said, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham. to Isaac
and to Jacob as God Almighty, but my name, the Lord, I did
not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant
with them to give them the land of Canaan and the land in which
they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I've heard the groaning
of the people of Israel, whom the Egyptians hold as slaves.
I have remembered my covenant." In other words, the Abrahamic.
So, therefore, my people of Israel, I am your Lord. I will bring
you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will deliver
you from slavery. I will redeem you with an outstretched
arm and with great acts of judgment. Okay, and so what we see is the
purpose of Moses and bringing them out of Egypt for redemption
ultimately is to fulfill his covenant promises with Abraham. God delivers them. And so the
context of the mosaic as it's building up is in fulfillment
of the Abrahamic. You can't take one without the
other. So if you read Galatians 3, we don't assume the old covenants
merely Moses and the other covenants Abraham. You can't separate the
two. They go together. So what kind
of covenant is this with Moses? Moses then turned to Exodus 19. Exodus 19 verse 3. This is Moses
on Mount Sinai, giving of the law. While Moses went up to God,
the Lord called him up to the mountain, saying, Thus you shall
say to the people of Jacob, the house of Jacob, and the people
of Israel, You tell yourselves, You yourselves have seen what
I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings,
and brought you out myself. Now, therefore, you will indeed
obey my voice, keep my covenant. You shall be my treasured possession
among the peoples of all the earth, and you shall be my kingdom
of priests and holy nations. These are the words that you
shall speak to the people." Right? Obey, keep. Do this and live. Obey. What do they get for obedience? Blessing, land. maintenance. And what do the people do? The
people later on swear, we will do these things. We will keep
this. We will, you're right, the blood of the covenant is
thrown on that. All these things we will, what? Do. The people
swear the promise. And what we see here is is the
arrangement of this is pretty much identical to what we see
in Genesis 17. If you do these things, you'll
enjoy these blessings, these benefits, but the blessings and
benefits of obedience to the Mosaic is enjoyment and participation
in the Abrahamic. Exodus 37 talks a little bit
more about the laws. Exodus 37. Verse 28. So this is the making
of the ark, the covenant and everything, incense here. Now
the covenant, the ark of the covenant is supposed to represent
the very, you know, presence of God. And so what we see here
is you have the ark of Acacia Wood. He made the holy anointing
oil. He has all these things. but then blood's supposed to
be sprinkled on here. Priests are consecrated. The
priests serve a purpose. They're supposed to offer sacrifices
and all these things on behalf of the people so that they can
maintain. The problem is the people break the law. The people
have done these things And they've broken the law that they confessed
to do. And so now God has to accommodate
for the sinful people. And what does he do? He makes
a way, a ceremonial way to show cleansing. to show here's how
you can come and be, and have fellowship, and how I can still
dwell in your midst in the temple. And so throughout the rest of
Exodus, what we see is the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, the
presence of God, and the covenant becomes renewed, even though
the people sin, right? In light of that, we see the
covenant had to be renewed because they had a golden calf episode.
Right? And even in the golden calf episode,
what happens? Moses implored to the Lord. He
says, remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants, whom
you swore by yourself and said to them, I'll multiply your offspring
in the stars and the heavens. and I have promised to give to
your offspring." He's basically saying, remember Abraham, remember
your promises, right? I know these people just said,
we will do all these things. We will obey. We took the blood
upon ourselves. And if you just wipe us out,
what about Abraham? Now God was never going to wipe
them out. God had his purposes and he's allowing Moses to intercede
on behalf of his people, right? For the sake of being an intercessor,
a pitcher of something greater. But Moses himself was doing these
things. And what does he appeal to? He appeals to Abraham. Remember
your promises to them. But the promises of the Mosaic. The promises, if you keep the
commandments, you remain my people. You remain in the Abrahamic promises,
as we saw of Jeremiah 11. And so there's threats. Right,
there's threats. If you don't do this, then the
laws, the sanctions will be activated. Deuteronomy 11, 26 through 28,
speak of the laws that must be kept and the sanctions for disobedience. Deuteronomy 6, verse 20, and
then 24 to 26. Can't see that because of the
time, but go ahead and write that down. Deuteronomy 29, the
threat of the Mosaic, breaking the Mosaic, in verse 22 to 28
is then loss of life and loss of the land, which basically
is loss of the Abrahamic promises, because they're all tied to that.
So the Mosaic life is facilitating, here's what covenant life in
the land looks like. Here's what it means to maintain
in the land. Here's what it looks like to
continue to enjoy the Abrahamic blessings. Moses, And Abraham
isn't ideally, I'm not saying they're the same covenant, but
you can't have one without the other, right? Abraham is the
promises to Abraham, his descendants. Moses builds upon that and it
governs how they are in the land, because they're not in the land
here. And then we have a need for once they possess all the
land, once they have all the land that they need, they're
in control of the land, Then you get the Davidic, because
it dictates how they are to live in the midst of ruling themselves,
right? And at the end of Judges, there's
no king in Israel. They've rejected God as their
king, but God has said it's okay for them to have a king. And
it's meant to point to something greater, ultimately. But as we're
gonna look at next time, what happens with the king and the
Davidic? Well, he's supposed to write
the law. He's supposed to keep a copy of the law because he's
supposed to keep the law. And based on how his obedience
is to the law, the people either blessed or cursed, right? So
now we're looking at federal kind of headship. The king earns
blessing for his people. If he is disobedient to the law,
then cursing. And so what we also see in David
is God promising and saying, hey, I'm going to establish a
son on your throne forever. That's gracious, yes. But he
must walk in my ways, he must keep my precepts, or I will cut
him off. So individually, the king can be cut off, but Also,
corporately, God's gonna keep his covenant with his people,
and that's very gracious. How does God do that? Well, he
accommodates to their sinfulness by having sacrifices that symbolize
ritual purity. So when you do something that
shows you're unclean, you have to be clean to come before God.
So do these things that God has given for this time. And what
do those do, as Hebrew says? They're for the purification
of the flesh. So the Baptist is saying, let's
not jump forward and miss that purification of the flesh. That's
what he was doing for this old covenant. You can see how these
are all connected. We'll look more at David next time. But
the old covenant does not provide really an inward work that comes
by the new covenant. The Old Covenant, that's not
to say people weren't saved in the Old Covenant, they were as
they look to the promise and the blessings of the New Covenant
were retrospective because it's a different covenant. So kind
of like I gave the analogy of the bowling analogy taking the
youth kids bowling. There's kids that go in front
of me and they all point to me. Oh, he's paying for us. They get
their shoes. I pay for everyone then the kids behind me benefit
as well. They get their shoes paid for and so that's kind of
In time and space, what's happening is God is passing over former
sins, right, because the blood of bulls and goats can never
take away sin, but it's representing purification. Here's how you
can dwell with God in a national land kind of place, and God can
dwell in your midst and accommodate in light of your sin, but all
through that, he's pointing to something greater. He's building
a greater covenant. where the conditions are not
met by us, but by Christ. He fulfills it. We will never
be cut off because Christ has fulfilled and earned the righteousness
for us. It's through His blood, because
we failed to keep His law, it's through His blood that we earn.
true purification, as Hebrews talks about. He's our great high
priest, right? He didn't have to come once a
year and be slaughtered every year for a reminder of our sins. He
did it. He sat down. And so that's the covenant that
we look forward to that actually dispenses grace. And yes, grace
was sent to these Old Testament saints in light of the Old Covenant,
but it wasn't merely by the administrations of those things that made these
two things different. You can see these are promising,
really, two different things from a Baptistic standpoint here.
And it's because you're focusing on what did that Old Covenant
originally intend and do, and what were the first levels of
that typology that it pointed to before we jump to the second.
And so they want to say let's not jump to New Testament revelation
so fast. Let's see what it was intended
and what it meant. So to keep, in summary, to keep
the Mosaic will mean you continue to participate in the Abrahamic.
To experience the blessings of the covenant is determined ultimately
by the obedience of the Mosaic. But then there's also kindness.
So Sam talks about that rather than calling it, you know, a
covenant of grace, because there is grace that is seen, call it,
we can call it God's People, and God gives blessing to the
people, even though they didn't obey. God gives blessing to the
people and gives them chance to renew over and over and over
again. And that's God's kindness here.
The blessings are guaranteed corporately to Israel, even though
individually it can be broken. Even though individually they
can be cut off. And so God will keep his promises
to Abraham even despite the golden calf episode. So let's stop there. I know that
probably raised more questions. We're out of time. But hopefully
that helps clarify. We'll finish this next time.
And I hope to, I want to talk about types and shadows a bit
more in first level. And then we'll look at David
and then kind of see that as a whole. looking then at 7.3
on why this says, the covenant is revealed, right? Revealed
by promise form, first to Adam in the garden, Genesis 3.15,
and by farther steps. In other words, these are the
steps that point us ultimately to here. So, well, let's go ahead
and pray and we'll stop right here. Heavenly Father, we thank
you for this time. And Lord, this is just a way
that really humbles us. As Paul was given this ministry
of the mystery of Christ to the nations, we look at this and
he asked for prayer, he needed prayer. How much more should
we then approach this as well with humility and being willing
to even disagree at certain things? We're trying to make sense of
the Bible as a whole and how all these things fit together.
But Lord, we thank you for the unity of Christ in the gospel
in which we share, how we don't have to, you know, believe all,
say we affirm all these things, you know, we can comment through
different perspectives and still be united by the blood of Christ. So maintain our unity and we
thank you for his blood and his perfect life for us in Christ's
name, amen.
1689 London Baptist Confession 7.3 pt. 3 Of God's Covenant
Series 1689 Confession of Faith
| Sermon ID | 101322146512066 |
| Duration | 50:50 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
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