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.