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Well, friends, this is our fourth
study on the seventh chapter of the 1689 on the topic of God's
covenant. And in this lesson, we're going
to be dealing with two topics in particular. The first is the
covenant of redemption, and the second is the covenant of So
let's read through this third paragraph of the 1689. It says,
this covenant is revealed in the gospel first of all to Adam
in the promise of salvation by the seed of the woman and afterwards
by further steps until full discovery thereof was completed in the
New Testament and is founded in that eternal covenant transaction
that was between the father and the son about the redemption
of the elect. And it is alone by the grace
of this covenant that all the posterity of all fallen Adam
that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality,
man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those
terms on which Adam stood in his state of immortality. Innocency. Very important topic here. We're
dealing with the topic of redemption and we're about halfway in this
paragraph at this line here where it says, and it was founded in
that eternal covenant transaction that was between the father and
the son about the redemption of the elect. And what they're
doing here in this section of the confession is that they're
making a distinction between the covenant of redemption and
the covenant of grace. This paragraph began talking
of the covenant of grace and that covenant that was shown
through the work of Christ in saving his people. I'll review
on that a bit in a minute. But they're arguing here that
there is a covenant of redemption between the Father and the Son
that occurred in eternity past. We must have some patience here.
We must have some understanding that we're using human language
to communicate these things. Even the scriptures and talking
about them is using human language. So we understand that God exists
outside of time. And so even our understanding
of this is that God did this in eternity past, but not in
a way that you would do things in a sequential order of events. We're seeing this, rather, in
a logical standpoint. Since God is eternal, God just
is. God doesn't go through a series
of actions in eternity. But we see this concept of the
covenant of redemption in many different places in Scripture.
Let's review a few of those. 2 Timothy 1, verse 9, it says,
And it is founded in that eternal covenant transaction, I'm sorry,
I'm reading the wrong part. So 2 Timothy 1 and verse 9, who
saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works,
but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in
Christ Jesus before the ages. So this is pointing to that covenant
between the father and the son, that the father would save a
people for the son through the work of the son. Titus 1 and
verse 2, it says, in the hope of eternal life, which God, who
never lies, promised before the ages began. So God is acting
in eternity past to bring this about in time. James Renahan
says this, it says, There's many places where we see this. We're
going to review just a few of them. I don't want to go through
all of them. Psalm chapter 2 is a famous place to look and to To see this, Psalm 2, it says, The Lord said to me, you are
my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask
of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of
the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod
of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore,
O kings, be wise, be warned. O rulers of the earth, serve
the Lord with fear, rejoice with trembling, kiss the sun lest
he be angry. And you perish in the way, for
his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are those who take refuge
in him. And you have within this a glimpse
into eternity of that transaction that occurred between the father
and the son. Again, Isaiah 53, 10 through
12. Yet it was the will of the Lord
to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes
an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong
his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper
in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul,
he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous
one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous. He shall
bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him
a portion with the many. He shall divide the spoil with
the strong because he poured out his soul in death. and was
numbered with the transgressors, yet he bore the sin of many and
makes intercession for the transgressors." Again, pointing back to what
the Lord has determined to do. Another important passage where
we see this is in Ephesians chapter 1. A very common passage to look
at and see this, beginning in verse 3 of Ephesians 1. Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined
us for adoption to himself as the sons of Jesus Christ, according
to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace.
with which he has blessed us in the beloved. In him we have
redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses
according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon
us, and all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery
of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth Christ
as the plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in
him, things in heaven, and things on earth. In him we have obtained
an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him
who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so
that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the
praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed
in him, were sealed with the promise of the Holy Spirit, who
is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of
it to the praise of his glory. We see here within this passage
the ways in which this goes into eternity past. What the Lord
was doing, he had determined to do, he had decreed to do from
eternity past when Adam sinned in the garden, God wasn't coming
up with a new plan. He wasn't trying to figure out
what to do. He had a plan. He had determined
his plan from eternity past to save a people through Christ. Other places you can find this
is thoroughly in the book of John. Here's just a listing of
the places where you can find this concept of the covenant
of redemption in the book of John. If you remember when we
preached through that we ran through this concept many times
over. John is trying to emphasize this
point that Christ is bringing forth that which the Lord had
determined that he would do from eternity past. And so we also
have earlier in this chapter, the concept of the covenant of
grace, I read through it earlier in this, we see it here in paragraph
three of chapter seven and also in paragraph two. Right here it says, and it is
alone by the grace of this covenant that all the posterity of fallen
Adam that ever were saved did obtain life and blessed immortality,
man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those
terms in which he stood in his state of innocency." And to understand
the covenant of grace and the covenant of redemption, we understand
that the Lord had determined that he would save a people through
the Son. That's how we understand the
covenant of redemption. But the covenant of grace, we
make a slight distinction here as Reformed Baptists, and that
is that we understand the covenant of grace to be the transaction
between Christ and his people. And it is a covenant of grace.
for you. It doesn't mean there weren't
works involved. Remember a couple years ago,
Jim Renahan got up to speak for one of his sermons and he, the
first thing that he said was, I am here to teach you that you
are saved by works. And you could see people like,
okay, wait a minute. Where is he going with this?
I've been around long enough to know I am not saved by works.
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 tells me that I am not saved by works
so that no one can boast. Well, Ephesians does say you're
not saved by works. But you are saved by works. They're
just not your works, they're the works of Christ. And so in
the covenant of grace, you have Christ who is obedient to God
in his covenant through his actions, all right? And through, so we
understand it through his passive and active obedience. Christ
took upon himself the fullness of the consequences of sin. He
was an atonement for sin as the perfect sacrifice, the perfect
righteous Lamb of God who would be sacrificed once and for all. No more, nothing else is to be
added to his sacrifice. He is to be crucified once and
that is it. Not to be re-crucified every
time Roman Catholics gather for a mass. There's nothing else
to add. His righteousness is not to be
added to through efforts that you do. No, through his passive
obedience, he took all that was necessary to forgive the people
of their sins. So nothing more do you need to
add. You don't need to suffer to make an atonement. If your
suffering could atone for your sins, pray tell, why did Christ
come in the flesh? Why did Christ suffer? If you
could have done it, why would Christ come? Christ came because
that was the only means through which you could be saved. So
Christ took upon himself the fullness of the consequences
of sin, but he also obeyed the law in every respect. Christ saved you by his works. Your sin was imputed to him.
He took that upon himself, and his righteousness is imputed
to you. And some people don't like this.
They say, well, if you have that kind of a belief, you have that
kind of religion, you think it doesn't matter how you live,
you can just sin all you want now, because Jesus is going to
cover down the cross. I want you to think of how prideful
that is. If you're going to say that the Son of God came and clothed
himself and lived a perfect life and died as a propitiation for
my sins, so I'll just sin all I want, Will I sin so that grace
may abound as Paul writes in Romans? May it never be. Remember what he says, of course
not. How could you live in such a way? You have been saved by
the grace of God through the work of Christ Jesus. But it's also prideful from the
perspective that you think you can in some way improve the righteousness
of Christ. You think in some way you can
improve his perfect work, his finished work? How is his work
finished and then you add to it in some way? You can't, there's
nothing you can do to add to it. So the covenant of grace,
that transaction that happens between God's people and God's
son, the forgiveness of their sins, all right, and the gaining
of his perfect righteousness to the law of God is something
that is given to them by grace and through faith. But it is
through his works that it is gained. It's because of Christ
and what he has done. Christ is the faithful Adam. The first Adam was unfaithful.
The first Adam did not act properly as a prophet, a priest, and a
king. The first Adam did not speak
when he should have spoke. The first Adam did not act when
he should have acted. The first Adam sinned when he should not
have sinned. But Christ was faithful. He is that perfect prophet, priest,
and king. He has gained this for his people. He has kept the covenant of works
on behalf of his people. Remember the covenant of works
being that covenant between Adam and the Lord that he should be
a federal representative for all people. Romans 5 walks through
this in great detail. Romans 5 walks through this idea
of federal headship. Federal headship being that in
Christ all died. I said that wrong, I'm so sorry. In Adam, all died. And in Christ,
all live. Meaning, not that everyone lives
in Christ, but everyone that is in Christ lives. Not that
everyone died in Adam, for Christ did not die in Adam, but everyone
who is in Adam died. And so that's the idea of federal
headship. Some people don't like that. They say, this isn't fair.
How can you say to me that some man who lived all these years
ago acted and now I'm responsible for what he did? But you must
understand, this is a concept that is seen even in our culture. Think of this, if there was a
war that broke out between the United States and let's say Russia,
Everyone who is a US citizen would be at war with Russia,
even though it was a handful of people or maybe one person
that even started that war. They made the final decision
that we will go to war. Obviously, that has to be passed by Congress.
But in the way we do things now, many times it's a handful of
people or it's one person that makes a decision that we would
go to war with someone. And so everyone is now an enemy
of the state of Russia, and vice versa. Everyone in the state
of Russia would be an enemy of the United States. And that's
the idea that there is someone who is representing you. There
is someone who is acting on your behalf in this capacity. And the same is happening here,
that in Adam, we died because he was representing everyone
that came after him. And if you don't like federal
headship in Adam, where do you get your federal headship in
Christ? For in Christ, all live. Christ was the faithful son. Christ was the true Israel. Christ
was the light of the world. Christ represented all of us.
and was faithful, and because of his faithfulness, your sins
have been imputed to him, and his righteousness has been imputed
to you. His righteousness has been put
into your account, if you want to use this like in a financial
or legal term, and your sin has been put into his account. That's
how that worked itself out. He acted on your behalf. That's the concept of federal
headship. That's what we have in Christ.
That is what the entire fifth chapter of the book of Romans
is about, the gospel is tied to this concept of federal headship. And the fact is, it is something
that was necessary. It was necessary that one would
act on behalf of you, for you had no opportunity to do that
in and of yourself. The opportunity to be saved,
all right, to gain the blessing, let's word it that way, the opportunity
to gain the blessing of righteous obedience Because a faithfulness
to God by following his law is no longer an option for those
who are born in their sin. You just can't do it. Understand,
man existed in four different states. There was a state of
innocence, and we saw that when Adam and Eve were created. They
could sin or they could not sin, but man after the sin of Adam
was born in a state of sin. You're only able to sin at that
point apart from the work of God, apart from the regenerating
work of the Holy Spirit. Only then can you exist in the
state of grace where you have the opportunity to sin or to
not sin, which is the situation that you're in now. You still
exist in flesh, you still exist in this side of glory, and so
sin is a struggle for us. But you have the power not to
sin through the grace of God. But you will exist at one point
in the future in the state of glory and you will not be able
to sin. You will no longer be able to,
you may not even be able to imagine what a state is like, but you
certainly must be looking forward to such an opportunity. But we
are not able in the state of sin to keep God's law. You can't
keep it through word thought. Indeed, you will fall short.
That's why the covenant of grace was necessary. That's why it
is necessary that Christ would come and lay his life down for
you. Jim Ranahan makes this point. He says, man cannot now find
acceptance with God as Adam did in innocency. This is a clear
reference to the covenant of works. The Baptist certainly
accepted this doctrine after the fall. Our circumstance is
not as Adam's was. We suffer all the consequences
of the fall of man and thus could not merit the reward of life
in the way that he might have. We see that supported in Romans
chapter three. It says, none is righteous, no,
not one. That's talking about man and
his sin. That's talking about man after the fall. Adam was
righteous. Eve was righteous as they were
created. They were created perfectly.
Remember the Lord said, this is good. He made man. He said,
this is very good. Let's review some of this in
the garden. It says, the covenant revealed in the gospel first
of all to Adam in the promise of salvation in the seed of the
woman. That's where we first see this
concept of the covenant of grace. Genesis 3 and verse 15, a very
important passage in the Bible, one in which people would have
been trusting in in the Old Testament whereby they would be saved. We must all understand this,
that salvation in the Old Testament was not by works. It wasn't by
your works. It wasn't by you keeping the
law perfectly so that you could be righteous before God. It was salvation by grace. That's
why we have Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11 doesn't make
any sense. If people are all saved by their
works, if they're righteous, if they are gaining their salvation
through their works. Now, the gospel in its proto-evangelium
is the word that we use for this. But this is the gospel shining
forth here in the Old Testament. This is right after the fall
in Genesis 3, 15. We see the Lord putting forward,
declaring what he will bring about through this covenant of
redemption that was made in eternity past, declaring it now in time
in this covenant of grace. This covenant of grace whereby
a people will be saved. This is how it's going to happen. Genesis three and verse 15, I
will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring
and her offspring. And this is speaking of the Messiah,
the one who will come forward. He shall bruise your head and
you shall bruise his heel. What Adam should have done in
the garden there was to fight the serpent, was to stand up
against him, was to crush his head. Christ will do that. Christ will be the faithful Adam. that will destroy the works of
the devil, that will crush the head of the serpent. And you
will gain that through his work." This is speaking of the Messiah
that is to come. We saw this just in the paragraph
earlier in chapter 7. of the law by his fault, it pleased
the Lord to make a covenant of grace wherein he freely offers
unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of
them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give
unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit,
and make them willing to believe. This is what was necessary. It
is salvation by grace and through faith at this point. This is applied by salvation,
by grace, and through faith. Now, the truth is, and we do
need to lay some of these cards on the table, this concept of
the covenant of redemption that I began with, all right, this
idea that in eternity past, God made the father, made a covenant
with the Son to save a people through the Son is controversial
with some people in the Reformed world. You don't see this laid
out in the Westminster Confession in the same way. John Owen is
one who wrote heavily upon this, and that's one of the reasons
why it's in the Second London Baptist Confession of Faith.
Some people have issue with this for multiple reasons. One is
they don't see why we need to make a distinction between the
covenant of grace and the covenant of redemption. Just one covenant
there is sufficient, that's all that we would need just to see
one covenant from beginning to end. That's a view that many
Presbyterians have. Some of them do not like this
idea of making a distinction of the covenant of redemption
and eternity past and the application of that covenant through the
covenant of grace. One of the reasons why we do
this, I want to emphasize this to you, is because of the exegetical
evidence that we have. Just to make a distinction, it's
wise to recognize the exegetical evidence that we have here and
see that the scriptures talk about the Father and the Son
making a covenant together or the Father and the Son being
determined by God in eternity past. to bring this forward in
time and to make a distinction between what God has determined
to do from eternity past and the application of that. in the
life of the believer through the work of Christ, through his
active and passive righteousness. To understand that Christ, through
his faithful obedience to the law, through his active and passive
righteousness, through his dying on the cross and forgiving sin,
through his keeping the law perfectly, is saving a people himself to
make a distinction there to understand that the one is an interaction
within the Godhead and the other is the interaction and application
of the work of Christ in time, I think that's wise because of
what we see some of the issues that people have is they don't
like this idea of Speaking of God doing something in eternity
past for you can run yourself down a wormhole They're trying
to figure out how does God act in eternity past when he just
is and always has been you we're using language that the Lord
gives to us. And so we just, we work with
the language that we don't have to perfectly philosophically
comprehend how God is acting in eternity. We could say that
about anything God has done. How do we understand how one
who has always existed is acting? How do we understand the mind
of one who knows all things and doesn't think and doesn't reason?
We're not saying here in this idea of the covenant redemption
that The father and son got together and they started talking and
said, hey, how about, I got an idea. What do you think about
this? Oh, maybe we can negotiate one
with another. That's not the idea that we're communicating
here. We don't have to. run down there and begin to ask
ourselves if we're violating some, you know, aspect of God's
attributes, whether in some way His simplicity is being disrupted
or His immutability is being disrupted. We can just kind of
take the passages and understand them how they are. I think it
helps us to see this as well in how this is being applied
to us. to make a distinction here. Another criticism that
people have regarding the covenant of redemption is because many
times over, and even the way it's stated here in our confession,
is that the father made a covenant with the son. And so there is
a concept that is understood that God, when he acts, All persons
of the Trinity are involved in any action that God does. They're
not acting separately. It's the concept of inseparable
operation. They say, but you're leaving the Holy Spirit out.
They say the Father and the Son as they do because that's how
it's communicated exegetically in the scriptures. But we understand
that The persons of the Trinity aren't acting in opposition to
each other. They're not acting contrary to
each other. And the fact is, the Scriptures
are the Scriptures. They're not a systematic theology
book. They're not trying to cram into every single verse, all
right, these different concepts that we have laid out in response
to heresies that have come up. which you do run into if you
begin to have the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit acting differently,
having different minds. Those are problems that we have.
Jesus has two wills, but God doesn't have two wills. Jesus
has two wills because he has what? How does Jesus have two
wills? Or maybe you don't think he has two wills. That would
make you heretical. So you do think he has two wills,
I hope. What are his two wills? Divine will and his human will,
but not anymore, right? Yes, still, still. He still has
two wills. He still has the divine will
and a human will because he is still human. He ascended into
heaven in his human body and still exists in his human body. Those are some heavier concepts
there, but I'm saying this just to say, to give you a little
historical background here, that not everyone is in favor of this. Benjamin Keech is one who believed
in this and then later on walked away from it. One of the reasons
why some such as Benjamin Keech walked away from this idea is
because there are, I won't go into great detail on this, but
there are certain theologians such as Richard Baxter, Some
of you might be big fans of Richard Baxter. I'm not a fan of Richard
Baxter. I've got a lot of issues with Richard Baxter and his understanding
of justification specifically in that he tries to use this
concept of the covenant of grace and the covenant of redemption
to create something separate here where we insert our own
works into the work of Christ to justify ourselves before God. I'm not dealing in the specifics
of his theology, but it is problematic, and it's not reformed. And so
it seems to me that someone such as Benjamin Keech had great issues
with this Baxterian doctrine of justification, and in opposition
to that, turned away from this concept of the covenant of redemption. I don't think that we need to
do that. I think it's laid out well, and I think the exegetical
evidence is the real reason Why we need to hold on to this concept
of the covenant of redemption because it's expressed many times
over and so we can make a distinction between that which is occurring
within the Godhead and that which is working out in time through
the work of the sun and being applied to the people. So we
have the covenant of redemption in eternity past and we have
this idea of the covenant of grace being worked out through
the work of A few more pieces of evidence to lay out here as
to why it is Christ had to come and what it is he had to. Hebrews
11 verse 6, Seek him and this faith is it's
salvation by faith and through grace. It's trusting in the finished
work of Christ some will say things they will be very sloppy
in their theology and they will begin to mix grace and Works,
they'll begin to say things that well if Adam would have kept
the law perfectly in the garden He would have been saved by faith
That's messy, guys. That's really, really sloppy.
He would have been saved by his works. He would have been trusting
in God's word. He would have been trusting in
what God said. So I understand if you want to say faith there,
he's trusting in what God said. But if we're going to talk about
the means through which he's being rewarded and those who
come after him are being rewarded, it's going to happen because
of his works. That's why we call it the covenant of works. It's
very, very important that we make proper distinctions between
law and gospel. We must not compress these two
together and make no distinction between them because when you
do that, Tom Hicks pointed this out at the conference, when you
do that, you have neither one. You end up with a combination
of both which doesn't look like either one. The law is what God
requires. Grace is what God has given to
you. Let's look at Hebrews 11, 13
through 16. Speaking of those in Hebrews
11, these all died in faith, not having received the things
promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and
having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on
the earth for people who speak thus make it clear that they
are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of
the land from which they had gone out, they would have had
an opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better
country that is a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed
to be called their God for he has prepared a city for them. This is that blessing of what's
being given to those that we're trusting in the Messiah to come. And I mentioned this a minute
ago, but as a reminder that we need to have an understanding
that those who were saved in the Old Testament were saved
by trusting in the Messiah to come. They were believing upon
the one who would come. They didn't have the information
you have now. They didn't have the depth of
richness that we have in the scriptures even now. They didn't
have the church as it is gathered now. But they did have that promise
that was given. That's why. Job could say, I
know that my Redeemer lives. They were saved by grace and
through faith. What was the purpose of the Mosaic
covenant then? It was to point to the Messiah
who was to come. These are, as it says in Hebrews,
types and shadows. Your sins weren't forgiven on
that altar because when you put the sacrifice on the altar, it
continued to burn. They were forgiven within the
covenant for which that existed. So within the Mosaic covenant,
yes, and the blessings that you get for obedience in the Mosaic
covenant, were they promises of glory and going to heaven?
They were temporal. They had to do with a land that
was there. It is a type of what is to come. It is a type of the New Jerusalem. It is a type of that greater
tabernacle that we have in Christ. It's pointing forward and it's
showing the insufficiency of man in his obedience after the
fall, which when you look at the artistry within the tabernacle,
do you find it interesting when you look around you see fruit
trees and pomegranates and these, it's like a garden decorated
in there. Well, why do they have that?
It's pointing back to Eden. It's pointing back to that time
where God was residing with man in Eden, that time when man was
sinless, and they had perfect fellowship, one with another,
and there was a bounty all around them. But you have a different
picture there within the tabernacle at this point. You have that
picture of God dwelling with man, but now you have an ark
behind a veil. and then you have an area of
the bread of presence, all right, and the candles at that point,
and then another veil that is put there, these different sections
that are there, and then you have, going outward through the
eastern door, a giant altar, burning, flames burning continually,
24 hours a day, flames burning, communicating something to you,
communicating something to you about your relationship with
God, communicating something now about how things are, remembering
that in the garden, they were removed from the eastern gate.
And at that eastern gate, there was a flaming sword that was
put there to keep Adam and Eve from coming back in. And you
walk through that eastern door of the tabernacle or the temple,
and the first thing you see is that giant altar there burning. A reminder. The separation between man and
God. Separation on account of sin.
And they were allowed to continue to exist in this land so long
as they were obedient to this covenant. And this covenant was
one that was a temporal covenant, but pointing. to spiritual realities,
pointing to Christ and what Christ would accomplish. They were trusting
in the Messiah to come, even in their obedience here to the
Mosaic Covenant, which would be faithful obedience to God. But salvation comes by grace
and through faith, not by keeping the law. That didn't change when
Jesus came. Jesus didn't come so that Your
religion would be easier. He didn't come so your religion
would be less messy. He came so that you could be
saved. He came that all those who were
trusting in him would be saved. Closing with a couple more verses
they have here as verses to support this section of the confession. It says, Romans 4, 1 and 2, what
then shall we say was gained by Abraham, our forefather, according
to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified
by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
Arguing this that Abraham was not saved by his works. He was saved by trusting in the
Messiah to come, the one that would come from his line. Arguing further in Acts 4 and
verse 12, it says, there is no salvation, and there is salvation
in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved. This is it. This is all it has ever been.
It is Christ alone whereby people are saved by grace and through
faith. From the time of Adam to the
time when Jesus returns, the means that God has given whereby
people can be saved is by faith in Christ. To make one other
side note, there are some that try to make so-called different
dispensations. A dispensation means rules of
the house or the rules you're following during a time. And
in a very loose way, you could say, well, there was a dispensation
in the Old Testament where they had certain rules and requirements
they were to follow during, in the Mosaic Covenant. I would
be okay with that, understanding that concept of the rules of
the house. The problem is, that the concept has been hijacked
by an idea of dispensationalism that came about in the 19th century
in classical dispensationalism which not all people that hold
the dispensationalism believe in that now necessarily would
break the world up into different dispensations as a time in the
garden, a time in the time of Noah, a time in the Old Testament,
a time now in the church, and they would even have some going
forward into the future such as When there's a so-called rapture,
have you heard of that concept? That's this idea that God is
going to remove all the Christians at one point in time. It doesn't
matter what they're doing. If they're flying a plane, they're
going to be removed. The plane's going to crash. You're
driving a train, the train's going to crash, the cars are
going to crash, and you'll have this new dispensation where there's
no Christians. And classically, the way that
was taught, what's going to happen during that time is that you're
not going to be saved by grace and through faith in Jesus at
that time, you're going to be saved by who knows? No? By what? by not getting the mark of the
beast. So if you don't get the mark of the beast, then that's
how you'll be saved. You get the mark of the beast, well, you
didn't pass the test and you will not be saved. There's a
book that came out. in the 80s, I think. I wish I
still had it. I lost it in the hurricane. But
it said on the front cover of it, if suddenly out of the middle
of nowhere, millions of people suddenly disappear all at once,
you know, and there's great catastrophe or something or another, hold
on to this book. It'll be your only means of survival. And someone had published this
book with the hope that they had imagined, like, well, what's
going to happen? All the Christians are gone. How are the people
going to know? What not to do? How are they going to know you
don't take the mark of the beast? And so this person wrote this book to
evangelize the people during this time of the tribulation
when the people were all raptured so that someone to be able to
grab this book and say, oh, here's what it is. This is what we have
to do. We're not going to be able to buy or sell. You know, we're
not going to be able to get food or have jobs. And so we're going
to have to remember that we're going to have to struggle through
this and follow us and not take the mark of the beast. It's pastor Fry just said was
that L. Ron Hubbard no it what it's not that bad. It's not that
bad Is this a distorted soteriology,
but you can You can still be saved with a distorted theology. You cannot be saved as a Scientologist
though But that said is this this is I This is inconsistent
with what the confession is teaching here. The confession is saying
here that the means God has given whereby you can be saved is faith
in the Messiah to come through this covenant of grace whereby
Christ kept the law perfectly and took upon himself the fullness
of the consequences of sin whereby you can be saved. And that's
the only means that anyone has ever been saved throughout all
time or ever will be saved who is to be saved is strictly through
the work of Christ. Sola Christus.
Sun Sch: Of God's Covenant (LBC 1689, ch VII, part 4)
Series LBC 1689 Sunday School
| Sermon ID | 119242159503133 |
| Duration | 41:12 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
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