Alright, good morning everyone. Sorry to interrupt your, what's that? You're very busy fellowshipping? Well, I'm sorry to interrupt your fellowshipping with just, you know, covenant theology. Yeah. Well, as is fitting, going back to last week of the stunning and wonderful victory, Michigan managed to repeat as Big Ten champions yesterday. Now on to the National Championship, Lord willing. It just gives me a special joy that I have to share with everybody. Hey, it's festive. Strangely enough, this one always gets a comment for some reason. It must be unpopular. Whatever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your kindness, and for your grace, and for your mercy. We thank you for this day that you've granted to us, and this place that you've granted to us to be, and to safely gather as your people, and to set apart this time, this day, and to focus upon you, and upon the things of your kingdom, received from you as our good and heavenly Father, Lord. We do pray for much grace and much mercy and strength of the Holy Spirit, Lord, to attend to you and to the things of your kingdom and to grow thereby in our faith and our hope and our love for you and for one another. Please do these things in Christ's name. Amen. Alright, so we'll just jump right back in to where we left off last week. If you remember, we were going to continue our discussion of the definition of covenant as an oath or a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. We were talking last week about the life and death aspect of a covenant that is an oath in blood. And we left off talking about how the biblical terminology for covenant refers to cutting a covenant, which directly speaks to the life and death aspect of the biblical covenants. These covenants, they're all encompassing. They have to do with every aspect of our lives. Back to Palmer Robertson, he says, it is in the context of covenant inauguration that the biblical phrase to cut a covenant is to be understood. integral to the very terminology which describes the establishment of a covenantal relationship is the concept of a pledge to life and death. A covenant is indeed a bond in blood or a bond of life and death." Just remember we're still rolling along and talking about the issue of what is a covenant to help guide our understanding as we look at the various covenants of scripture and we should touch on the beginning aspects of the covenant of works and probably over the next couple weeks I'll I'll make the case for the fact that there is a covenant in existence in the garden between God and between man, even though the explicit term covenant isn't mentioned in that passage. These are the main three planks of the argument that I'm going to be setting forth for you, just to give you guys an idea. So continuing on, as a covenant is a bond in blood. This phrase, writes Paul Robinson, accords ideally with the biblical emphasis that apart from the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. That's Hebrews 9.22. Blood is of significance in scripture because it represents life, not because it is crude or bloody. The life is in the blood, Leviticus 17.11. And so the shedding of blood represents a judgment on life. The biblical imagery of a blood sacrifice emphasizes the interrelation of life and blood. The pouring out of lifeblood signifies the only way of relief from covenant obligations once incurred. That's an important point. Let me repeat that. The shedding of blood or the pouring out of lifeblood signifies the only way of relief from covenant obligations once they're incurred. A covenant is a bond in blood, committing the participants to loyalty on pain of death. Once the covenant relationship has been entered, nothing less than the shedding of blood may relieve the obligations incurred in the event of covenantal violations. We looked last week at Jeremiah 34. We talked about the judgment that was being pronounced upon Israel at that time through the prophet Jeremiah. Again, we talked about him and about the prophets as being sort of God's prosecutors. They're prosecuting God's case against his people for their violations of the covenant. and graciously grants them time to repent, and when they do, and then they go back on their repentance, he executes that judgment on them, and that judgment is swift and severe, and it requires their blood. We see this again, Leviticus 17, the importance of blood, which we 1710-12, if anyone of the house of Israel or of the strangers who sojourn among them eats any blood, I will set my face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people. For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that makes atonement by the life. Therefore I have said to the people of Israel, no person among you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger who sojourns among you eat blood. And then, again, the issue of blood and the importance of blood and the cutting of covenants comes again in Hebrews chapter 9. Really, I think the book of Hebrews is, in many ways, one of the definitive statements on covenant theology and of the relationship between Israel and the church. and a variety of things, and it exemplifies in so many ways, explains the changes between the administrations of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And one of the key words of the entire book of Hebrews is better. It's repeated over and over and over again. Better priests, better covenant, better sacrifices, better administration, better mediatorship in Christ. In Hebrews 9, the author writes, Again, there's a contrast being made between the superiority of Christ in the New Covenant and the inferiority, relatively speaking, of the Old Covenant. the more perfect tent not made with hands that is not of this creation he entered once for all into the holy places not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by the means of his own blood thus securing eternal redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling of a defiled person with the ashes of a heifer sanctify for the purification of the flesh How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Therefore, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Now, what promised eternal inheritance is he talking about? He's talking about the promise to Abraham. since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant. For where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established. For a will takes effect only at death, since it is not in force as long as the one who made it is alive. Therefore, not even the first covenant was inaugurated without blood." Again, driving home the point of the central aspect of a covenant being a bond in blood, a life and death agreement. For when every commandment of the law had been declared by Moses to all the people, he took the blood of calves and goats, with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you. and in the same way he sprinkled with the blood both the tent and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." The author of Hebrews is basing his case on the old covenant administration and on the whole notion of what a covenant is. And he's using these arguments as a way to say, look, this is a better covenant. You do not want to turn back to the old covenant. This is a better covenant. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these. Again, there's the word better. And so what we see when we see, and we'll see this again as we look further at the Mosaic administration of that covenant, that what was coming, what came before Christ, were copies of the reality, were shadows, were types. They were pointing to something greater than themselves. And again, that's the argument, it's one of the main arguments that the author of Hebrews is making. These things, those sacrifices, that priesthood, that covenant, was always intended to be pointing to something greater that was coming. And that thing that was coming was Christ and his better sacrifice and his blood. For Christ has entered not into holy places made with hands, again, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own. for when he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world, for then he would have to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. So again, integral to our understanding of what a covenant is, is the blood aspect of it and the life and death aspect of the relationship that God establishes with his people. Before the Mosaic Covenant, but not before circumcision. Right. I mean, the whole thing of blood and life and death. So there's no way that Israel could ever have been one of those blessed by God, like Isaac. Well, he certainly, as Scripture clearly indicates, he's not the son of the promise as Isaac was. That's what I mean. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right, the passage I just read brings up the issue which I think is worth us touching on, the relationship of covenant versus a last will and testament. I think this is important, a point for us to have clear in our minds that Palmer Robertson I may explain when he says, it is just at this point the effort to relate the covenant idea in Israel's life and experience to the concept of a last will and testament must be rejected. It is simply impossible to do justice to the biblical concept of covenant and at the same time to introduce an idea of last will and testament. The major point of confusion in these two concepts of covenant and testament arises from the fact that both the covenant and a testament relate to death. Death is essential both to activate a last will in Testament and to inaugurate a covenant. Because of this similarity, the two concepts have been confused. However, the two ideas of covenant and testament actually diverge radically in their significance. The similarity is only formal in nature. Both covenant and testament relate closely to death, but death stands in relationship to each of those concepts in two very different manners. In the case of a covenant, death stands at the beginning of a relationship between two parties, symbolizing the potential curse factor in the covenant. In the case of a testament, death stands at the end of a relationship between two parties, actualizing an inheritance. The death of the covenant maker appears in two distinct stages. First, it appears in the form of a symbolic representation of the curse, anticipating possible covenantal violation. Later, the party who violates the covenant actually experiences death as a consequence of his earlier commitment. The death of the testator does not come in two stages. No symbolic representation of death accompanies the making of a will. The testator does not die as a consequence of the violation of his last will and testament." So you see he's making clear the difference in our minds between a modern last will and testament and a covenant. The provisions of the Last Will and Testament inherently presume death to be inevitable, and all its stipulations build on that fact. But the provisions of a covenant offer the options of life or death. The representation of death is essential to the inauguration of a covenant. The consecrating animal must be slain to effect a covenant. But it is not at all necessary that a party to the covenant actually die. Only in the event of covenant violation does the actual death of the covenant maker occur. It is in the context of covenantal death, not testamentary death, that the death of Jesus Christ is to be understood. Christ's death was a substitutionary sacrifice. Christ died as a substitute for the covenant breaker, namely us. Substitution is essential for the understanding of the death of Christ. Yet death in substitution for another has no place whatsoever in the making of a last will and testament. The testator dies in his own place, not in the place of another. No other death may substitute for the death of the testator himself. But Christ died in the place of the sinner, because of covenantal violations. Men were condemned to die. Christ took on himself the curses of the covenant and died in the place of the sinner. His death was covenantal, not testamentary. Certainly it is true that the Christian is presented in Scripture as the heir of God, but he is heir by the process of adoption into the family of the never-dying God, not by the process of a testamentary disposition. So what we have here in the difference between a covenant and a testament is that the death of Christ signifies, well, it accomplishes for us the granting of us life and the payment for our violations of the covenant. That's what's inaugurated in the death of Christ because he's actually fulfilled the covenant in our place and he also took on himself our violation of the covenant. Our union with him gives us the blessings of the covenant that he himself earned. So at the beginning, in the establishment of the covenant, there's the life and death aspect of the covenant. Christ lives, he takes, and this is actually in a strange way, the covenant of grace for Christ is actually a covenant of works. He fulfills the terms of the covenant. He fulfills and he earns for us the righteousness which we need to stand before God, and then he offers himself up as the payment for the sins of our violations of the covenant. It's a totally different thing from us leaving our heirs. Something after death, yeah. It doesn't seem like he, Robertson, addressed it directly, but how do you fit that in with Heber's? Because he makes the argument based on the Testament. Well, the inauguration of it. I don't think he's saying anything other than the fact that Christ's death inaugurates the new covenant because he earned the blessings of the covenant and then he also faced the cursings of the covenant in our place and therefore inaugurates the new covenant for us. So I don't think it's... His point is that that life and death aspect of the covenant was established at the beginning of the covenant as opposed to in a testament, which is... It's what happens because the testator dies. On the popular level, it has been assumed that the Lord's Supper was the occasion of Christ making his last will and testament, but it must be remembered that it was a covenantal meal that was being celebrated on this occasion. In the context of the covenantal meal of the Passover, Jesus introduced the provisions of the new covenant meal. Clearly, his intention was to proclaim himself as the Passover lamb who was taking on himself the curses of the covenant. His death was substitutionary. His blood was poured out for his people. His words were not those of a testamentary disposition, but those of a covenant fulfillment and inauguration, which I guess, again, speaks to your question, Mark. All right, any comments or questions before we move on? I think the last point we've really kind of covered for the most part that is inherent in the idea of a covenant is that it's something that's sovereignly administered. Any comments or questions? No, I mean that's just from the Latin translation for covenant testamentum. The distinction that Palmer Robertson's making at this point is our ideas of the last will and testament versus the biblical idea of a covenant. So when we say Old and New Testament, we're really saying Old and New Covenant. Words having various shades of meaning as they're used throughout time. All right, so a bond and blood sovereignly administered. Real quickly, a long history has marked the analysis of the covenants in terms of mutual compacts or contracts, but recent scholarship has established rather certainly the sovereign character of the administration of the divine covenants. Both biblical and extra-biblical evidence point to the unilateral form of covenantal establishment. No such thing as bargaining or contracting characterizes the divine covenants of Scripture. The sovereign Lord of heaven and earth dictates the terms of the covenant. And again, this I think is a point which we've seen throughout our discussion of covenant as an oath or a bond in blood, that it's God coming to man and establishing the covenant. And he does so, there's really no choice on the part of the person he's imposing this upon. He says to Adam, he's dictating to Adam as Adam's creator, this is the nature of our relationship, this is what it's going to be like. He comes to Abraham. He's dictating to Abraham. This is what the nature of our relationship is going to be like, and subsequently to Moses and the people, and to Noah, to David, and throughout Scripture, and to us. He dictates to us. the nature of our relationship, and that's you are my people by grace through faith solely on the grounds of what Christ has accomplished on who he is and what he's accomplished for us. We don't, there's no negotiating with God, not even prior to the fall. He is the creator, he is the Lord, he is our God. It is by very nature of the fact of us as his creatures, these obligations are assumed. They're in place by very nature of the fact that we don't even take a breath apart from him. So I don't think that's too controversial a point. All right, let's begin looking at the covenant of works. Obviously, one of the things that people will bring up is that, you know, in Genesis 1, 2, and 3, there's no mention of the word covenant. So what do we do with that? How is it that we can say, or how is it that Reformed people have said, you know, since the time of Reformation, excuse me, that there was a covenant in place and that the nature of the relationship between God and Adam was covenantal when that explicit statement is not there. Any thoughts about how we might address that? I think the elements of the covenant. So just because it doesn't have a name, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Yeah, well read. But think about aspects of the Trinity. Think about other aspects of Scripture, of teachings of Scripture that aren't necessarily explicitly stated, but when we take the data of Scripture together, we're confident that this is actually something that the Scripture is teaching even though it's not explicitly stated. If you recall back several years ago when we went through the Westminster Confession of Faith, one of the things that it talks about is that even that which by good and necessary consequence is drawn from Scripture is to be considered Scripture, even if it's not something that's explicitly stated. So if the Scriptures give us information that we are able to, by good and necessary consequence, deduce other information that's not explicitly stated in the Scriptures, that's also Scripture. All right, does that make sense? The implications of scripture are to be taken as scripture. So again, the perfect example, the doctrine of the Trinity. There are three persons that are called Yahweh. And then there's the information that there's only one God. And so what do we do with that? Well, by good and necessary consequence, we derive the doctrine of the Trinity, which is essential to the Christian faith. All right? So the... And all that's really to say that the idea that something isn't explicitly stated in this passage isn't as strong an argument as people who would argue against it would like it to be. It just isn't. Again, I just go back to the class I took on it. If something walks like a duck and it talks like a duck, it's duck. And I think that's exactly what we see in this passage in the beginning of Genesis. And again, as John said, and as I put up here, the first thing that we see when we consider whether or not there was a covenantal relationship between God and man in the garden is that what scripture subsequently tells us about covenants, which we've just gone over for the last several weeks, that essentially a covenant is an oath or a bond in blood sovereignly administered, those elements, they're present in the interactions between God and man. All right, so we see that it kind of looks like a duck, and it's walking like a duck, and it quacks like a duck. All right. From Louis Berkoff's Systematic Theology, again, the elements of a covenant are present in the early narrative. It must be admitted that the term covenant is not found in the first three chapters of Genesis, but this is not tantamount to saying that they do not contain the necessary data for the construction of a doctrine of covenant. Again, what the Westminster Confession would call good and necessary consequence. One would hardly infer from the absence of the term Trinity that the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible. All the elements of a covenant are indicated in Scripture, and if the elements are present, we are not only warranted, but in a systematic study of the doctrine also in duty bound to relate them to one another and to give the doctrine so construed an appropriate name. In the case under consideration, two parties are named. A condition is laid down. So again, we're looking at Genesis 1 through 3. There's two parties, God and man. There's conditions laid down on the grounds of their relationship. A promise of reward for obedience is clearly implied, and a penalty for transgression is explicitly stated. It may still be objected that we do not read of the two parties as coming to an agreement, nor of Adam as accepting the terms laid down, but this is not an insuperable objection. We do not read of such an explicit agreement and acceptance on the part of man either in the cases of Noah or Abraham. God and man do not appear as equals in any of these covenants." And again, this is the aspect of a covenant where it is sovereignly administered. God, as the sovereign ruler and creator of the universe, dictates the terms of the relationship that he has with man prior to the fall. All God's covenants are of the nation of sovereign dispositions imposed on man. God is absolutely sovereign in his dealings with man and has the perfect right to lay down the conditions which the latter must meet in order to enjoy his favor. Moreover, Adam was, in virtue of his natural relationship, in duty bound to obey God. And when the covenant relation was established, disobedience also became a matter of self-interest. When entering into covenant relations with men, it is always God who lays down the terms, and they are very gracious terms, so that he has, also from the point of view, a perfect right to expect that man will assent to them. In the case under consideration, God had but to announce the covenant, and the perfect state in which Adam lived was a sufficient guarantee for his acceptance." Does that seem... I don't see that there's anything radically controversial about that aspect of there being a covenant relationship between God and man in the garden. And if we call back from some of our first classes, the reason, and it's been called by theologians a variety of names, the reason that the Westminster Divines and the the majority of the Reforms settle on covenant of works is in order to establish a distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace, the subsequent covenants of Scripture, because there's a different dynamic, there's a different way that they're administered. Whereas Adam, in this relationship with God from the beginning, had the ability to fulfill the obligations placed upon him by God. So grace, as we understand grace, as saving grace, as undeserved favor of God, which brings us to life and puts us in a right relationship to God, isn't present in that way in the garden. It's the ability of man to fulfill those covenantal obligations. and to subsequently not fulfill those obligations as well. So it's a condition on what man's doing right now. Yeah, exactly. And the whole verse, it covers that because it starts with, and the Lord commanded. So the sovereignty, the death, the blood. It's there, the elements are there. And again, as I said, I don't think this should be a very controversial point. We'll see as we go on in looking at the other aspects of the covenant of works in the next week or two. I do believe it actually is explicitly stated later in Scripture in the book of Hosea where, we'll see, Hosea mentions that like Adam you broke the covenant. And there's arguments that we'll address against that position. But plainly stated, when we look at, and again, going back to our first class, when we talk about covenant theology, we talk about it in a systematic sense, and we talk about it in a biblical theological sense. In a systematic sense, we're putting together all that Scripture has to say about certain things. And in this case, we're talking about covenants. What we see, what the rest of scripture talks to us about the way God relates to people by way of covenants, we do see present here in the beginning. So I think we're more than warranted for establishing and for holding to a fact that there was a covenantal arrangement going on in the garden. The second point, we see that there's promises of blessings and curse. People think, well, there's no promise of blessings. Well, what happened after Adam broke the agreement and he ate from the tree. What was one of the things that God did? What did he keep man from? Exactly. Exactly. There's two trees. Tree of life, tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After man ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he was blocked. He was barred from eating from the tree of life. Burkoff goes on, some deny that there is any scripture evidence for such a promise. Now it is perfectly true that no such promise is explicitly recorded, which I think we've dealt with that, the idea of things needing to be explicitly stated in order for there to be a doctrine there. But it is clearly implied in the alternative of death as the result of disobedience. The clear implication of the threatened punishment is that in the case of obedience, death would not enter. And this can only mean that life would continue. It has been objected that this would only mean a continuation of Adam's natural life, and not what scripture calls life eternal. But the scriptural idea of life is life in communion with God, and this is the life which Adam possessed, though in his case it was still immiscible, or still mutable. If Adam stood the test, this life would be retained not only, but would cease to be immiscible, and would therefore be lifted to a higher plane. Paul tells us explicitly in Romans 7.10 that the commandment, that is the law, was unto life. In commenting on this verse, Hodge says the law was designed and adapted to secure life, but became in fact the cause of death. This is also clearly indicated in such passages as Romans 10.5, Galatians 3.13. Now it is generally admitted that this glorious promise of unending life was in no way implied in the natural relations in which Adam stood to God, but had a different basis. But to admit that there is something positive here, a special condescension of God, is an acceptance of the covenant principle. There may still be some doubt as to the propriety of the name covenant of works, but there can be no valid objection to the covenant idea." Again, we see the elements of a covenant present. We see a sovereign administration, we see commands given by God, and we see that there is promises of blessing and there's an explicit promise of curse. that in the day that you eat of this, you will die. All right? All those elements are there. Any comments or questions? When still in God's judgment of putting them out of the garden, He was keeping them from eating from the tree of life with their sin. Because that would have been the aspect of living forever with their sin. Right. So by setting that aside and then dealing with that. Exactly. future covenant. Exactly. Or maybe that's just the beginning of the covenant of grace. Well, I mean, we see it immediately being mentioned in Genesis chapter 3, where God is actually executing the judgment of the violations of the first covenant. He's still in the execution of his judgment, holds forth the hope of mercy for man in the promise of the seed of the woman. So when he does that, he's basically, what he's saying is he's saying, I'm going to take on myself the curse that I'm actually pronouncing. And that becomes clearer and clearer to us. We can have that view of it as more and more information is given to us in scripture and we can look back with greater understanding and greater life as to what God's doing when he's executing that judgment. and promising the seat of the woman. It's in your violation, I'm going to take upon myself. Again, that's how we see that the covenant of grace is really an execution of the first covenant with Adam. And we'll talk about this in greater detail as we talk about the parallels between Adam and Christ, which Paul states explicitly. So if our understanding of that relationship as Adam is the federal head of the human race, by way of agreement, by way of commandment of God, by way of an oath or a bond in blood that was sovereignly administered, and Christ as the second Adam, which is clearly in reference to the establishment of the new covenant, we again have another strong pillar by which we can look back at what's going on in Genesis 1 through 3 as an establishment of a covenant of works. Because the covenant of grace to us is for Christ a covenant of works. He still had to come along and fulfill all the obligations of the covenant that man did not fulfill, that man did not meet. Which is exactly what And God in his mercy is beginning to let us know about when he says, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head. You'll bruise his heel, but he will crush your head. As he's pronouncing judgment upon Satan and upon mankind as well. So again, this last point, the covenant of grace is simply the execution of the original agreement by Christ as our surety. He undertook freely to carry out the will of God. He placed himself under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law and were no more in a position to obtain life by their fulfillment of the law. Which is one of the things that Paul talks about when he talks about in Romans 7, that the law was designed and adapted to secure life. But because of our fallen nature, the good commandment of God becomes an occasion for sin for us. But for Christ, Through that law, he obtained life. It's why he was raised from the dead. He obtained life. He obtained the righteousness that the covenant promised. He attained the promise himself through his righteous and sinless life. which is one of the marvelous things about salvation and about the gospel and what we celebrate at Christmas. The fact that Christ was raised from the dead, as Paul talks to Timothy about, he was vindicated in the Spirit. He was shown to be the righteous one. He was shown to be that despite the fact that the world had condemned him, that the world had put him to death, that he was in fact righteous, and that it wasn't possible for death to hold him, and that he in fact had fulfilled all the covenant obligations that we face the curse for. So you see that the death of Christ and the cross of Christ takes on a deeper and fuller aspect and dimensions for us when viewed through the lens of covenant, when viewed from the lens of something that was an oath in blood, sovereignly administered, that God imposed, that he then took upon himself to fulfill for us. That covenantal dimension of this relationship that we have with God as fallen human beings is much richer and much fuller and I think should be more dear to us when we understand that aspect of it. That in all our failings, that in all our sins, God took upon the very things that he imposed upon us upon himself. So when God says he so loved the world, how did he love the world? He gave His Son to fulfill the obligations that were placed upon, that He placed upon us, and to face the penalty of our failure to meet those obligations. So when we talk about God loving the world, we think, you know, He loved us so much. The emphasis is really, how did He love us? And when we answer that question as to how He loved us, and we see it through the biblical lens of covenant, it's much richer, it's much fuller. I believe it, and we'll talk about the implications to the assurance of our salvation. It solidifies the assurance that we should have. of love, which is a great thing. Yeah, which is great. But it gets to the action of love, which is, particularly with all the talk of love today, with just feelings of emotion and that, it takes on a greater aspect. And especially when you consider that Christ becoming sin for us, His love for God the Father and His love for us is so great that He's willing to become the thing that He hates most in order to fulfill the conditions for our... I believe that's what Christ was was sweating, to put it in crass terms, in the garden of Gethsemane. He understood in a very full way what was about to happen to him. That he was going to be treated as the thing that he despises, as the Holy One despises, and is separate from sin. Yeah. He who knew no sin became sin for us. Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Yeah, that we might know the righteousness of God, that we might know the very thing that we had utterly no hope of obtaining for ourselves. A couple more things. So basically the covenant of grace is simply the execution of the original agreement by Christ as our surety. He undertook freely to carry out the will of God. He placed himself under the law that he might redeem them that were under the law and were no more in a position to obtain life by their own fulfillment of the law. He came to do what Adam failed to do and he did it in virtue of a covenant agreement. And if this is so, and the covenant of grace is, as far as Christ is concerned, simply the carrying out of the original agreement, it follows that the latter must also have been of the nature of a covenant. And since Christ met the condition of the covenant of works, man can now reap the fruit of the original agreement by faith in Jesus Christ. There are now two ways of life, which are in themselves ways of life. The one is the way of the law. The man that does the righteousness which is of the law shall live thereby. But it is a way by which man can no more find life. And the other is the way of faith in Jesus Christ who met the standards of the law and is now able to dispense the blessing of eternal life. I think that's a fine point for us to close on. Any comments or questions? All right, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your grace, for your mercy. We thank you for your kindness. Thank you for your love for us in Christ. Lord, these are wonderful things for us to behold. That what You've done in order to glorify Yourself so that we might be Your people, Lord, it just escapes our ability to fully take in. We pray, Father, that You would help us to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ, that we may trust in Him all the more for every aspect of our lives. and trust and hope in the surety that you've given to us in his shed blood and in his resurrection and the surety that we have of the covenant that he has established with us, Lord. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.