If you got your Bibles, please turn to Jeremiah 23. Good to see everyone this morning. Jeremiah 23, verse 7. Actually, verse 5, sorry. Jeremiah 23 5 Behold the days are coming declares the Lord When I will raise up for David a righteous branch And he shall reign as king and deal wisely and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land in his days Judah will be saved in Israel will dwell securely and this is the name by which he will be called the Lord is our righteousness and Therefore behold the days are coming declares the Lord when they shall no longer say as The Lord lives who brought me up out of the people Out of the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt but as the Lord lives who brought up and led the offspring of the house of Israel out of the north country and Out of all the countries where he had driven them then they shall dwell in their land Let's open in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, you have given us graciously by your grace through covenant promises revealed progressively through history that a branch of David has come and is reigning. And we sing of that heavenly country, that land that you have brought us into. Through faith by the Spirit, we are united to our Savior who has fulfilled the obligations of the covenant on our behalf and we receive all the benefits including adoption into the family of God so that we can be your sons, heirs of the promises. And we can be brothers and sisters in Christ and the Lord. Help us this morning during this Sunday school hour to learn of these truths and that your spirit would apply them to our hearts. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, we're continuing our study through the book Christ and the Covenants. You may have a newer version. I have the older version because it's literally been since. It's been about 25 years since I went through this book, and I've enjoyed going through this book again. But we are on Chapter 4. Chapter 1, Caleb taught defining a covenant. So what is a covenant according to Robertson? A bond in blood, sovereignly administered. A bond in blood, sovereignly administered. That was chapter 1. Chapter 2, Pastor Keller taught us the extent of the covenant. So as far as history, what is the extent of the divine covenants? The whole thing. There was a covenant with Adam. And in fact, Pastor Joe talked about the covenant of redemption. We're going to talk about that again today, which is in eternity. So before time, before creation even existed, therefore before time existed, there was a covenant of redemption. So the scope of the divine covenants, according to Robertson, covers all of history, all of the time from Adam onward. So last week, Eric taught chapter 3, and this was on unity of the divine covenants. And he emphasized, according to Robertson's book, both structural and thematic unity. Structural unity meaning this is not just separate covenants, but there is a progression. There is structural unity with how the covenants are proclaimed, the same language. is repeated over and over. It all points back to previous covenants, particularly the Abrahamic covenant and subsequent covenants from there. But even before that, there is structural unity that is shown. And then thematic unity, the Emmanuel principle, or God with us. I will be your God, you will be my people, is all throughout, and I will dwell amongst you eventually as well. So today we are going to hit diversity in the divine covenants. And I stress that word divine because, you know, we make covenants between each other, but we're talking about divine covenants. These are sovereignly administered. So the covenants that the Lord makes with man or with Christ and us in Christ throughout history. So Robertson breaks the chapter up into three ways that diversity is displayed in the Bible and in theology. There's others, but these are the three that he focused on, so I'm going to follow that pattern for this class. I'm going to supplement with some other material, but for the most part, I'm going to stick to what Robertson covers in the book. So he emphasizes a diversity between the pre-creation and the creation covenants. a diversity between covenant of works and covenant of grace, as well as old covenant, new covenant. So covenant of works, covenant of grace would be what precedes Genesis 3.15, where the proto-gospel is preached to Adam in Genesis 3.15, where Adam promises the warfare between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, and that the Although the seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of the woman, that eventually the seed of the woman, that is Christ, would crush the head of the seed of the serpent, which later on is explicitly revealed to be Satan. Satan is the dragon of old. So this Covenant of Works, Covenant of Grace would emphasize the difference between that. Of course, pre-creation, post-creation would be, you know, eternity within the Trinity versus history. And then Old Covenant, New Covenant is emphasizing the difference between what precedes the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ and what follows. Would be the difference between old covenant and new covenant so Robertson says quote there is a luxuriant diversity of covenantal administration emerges as history progresses So Eric was a little bit more in our wheelhouse last week because he I have Taxonomy of viewpoints that stress unity taxonomy of viewpoints and various Theological systems that stress diversity and we as Presbyterians We as reformed to fall and what I mean by reformed is reformed orthodoxy Basically a covenant theology that is consistent with the Westminster confession of faith. Okay so we Like to stress unity. I mean we acknowledge Diversity it's there in the Bible. It's even the diversity is is part of our confessions and But we are much more comfortable considering ourselves on this side and emphasizing unity. And I think the reason for that is just polemics. Because these people tend to stress diversity because of the implications of their systems. So today I've got to be a little bit more uncomfortable. I've been joking for a few weeks. I'm going to have to sound like a Baptist today. I'm not a Baptist, but I'm stressing that diversity. The covenants are not, this is not flat. There is diverse. There's building upon. So there's diversity, but that building upon implies that unity that Eric stressed last week. So the new covenant is a new and better covenant. The Bible says that. And if the Bible says it, we need to submit to it and believe it. What makes the new covenant a new and better covenant? So, Robertson, a luxuriant diversity of covenantal administration emerges as history progresses. So, the pre-creation, post-creation distinction would be between the covenant of redemption and then the historical covenants, which are the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. So as I said, Genesis 3.15, as far as a history timeline, is very critical as far as redemptive history. So you have Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And time progresses. A covenant is made with Adam. You have the covenant of works. And Adam falls. So the promises of the covenant of grace occur in Genesis 3.15. And as the covenant of grace progresses, as history progresses, it's progressively revealed and progressively built upon with the subsequent divine covenants until you have the inauguration of the new covenant. when Christ comes. So these are the two historical covenants. And then outside that, you have the covenant of redemption. That's outside of time. This is between the members of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So that's a big diversity in covenants. This covenant is made between God and Adam. The covenant of grace is made between God and Christ, but also with us in Christ. The Westminster Confession makes it explicit that it is made with the elect, but the elect in Christ. And like I said, this is between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, if you read the book, and I understand if you didn't, you would see that Robertson is not a fan of even calling this a covenant. Okay, and pastor Keller covered that in week one, so I'm not going to go too deep into that in But just the general definition of the covenant of redemption It's made an eternity between the members of the Trinity So the father gives a people and the means for them to be saved through the son the son submits to the father's will and accomplishes the redemption of his elect And then the spirit applies a salvation. So the father elects, the son effectively saves, and the spirit applies. And so this was all part of the one will of God. But in the economy of how that would unfold in history, the father has his role, the son has his role, and the Holy Spirit has his role. And that is, the scripture uses covenantal language. Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 8, verse 1, speaks to this. It doesn't use the word covenant. Now, the Savoy Declaration that came like the next decade, these are like Scottish independence, had another version of the Westminster Confession. And they put the word covenant in here in this part of the confession. But Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 8 verse 1 says, it had pleased God in his eternal purpose to choose and ordain the Lord Jesus, his only begotten son, to be mediator between God and man. And that is really what chapter 8 is about, is Christ is the mediator. And Christ is the mediator from eternity. From eternity, Christ is the mediator, so before time. Certainly, so although Robertson argues that this is not really a covenant by saying it's not in the confession, although I just argued that it kind of is, but Robertson admits the intention of God to redeem the people unto himself must be affirmed before the foundation of the world. He just says scripture appears not to be clear that this is covenantal, so he chooses to avoid that. Now, I think the scripture is clear. A lot of the reformers said this. John Owen, he's from England. He was a contemporary of, you know, during the 1600s, the 17th century when the Westminster Confession was written. John Owen certainly wrote a lot about the covenant of redemption. In England, on the continental side, the Dutch Reformed side, you have Witsius, certainly writes of the Covenant of Redemption. What's interesting, if you read Witsius' book on covenants, it's called The Economy of the Covenants, he covers the Covenant of Redemption under his chapter, The Covenant of Grace. And so those who write of the Covenant of Redemption, they see a link here. And that is why the confession, for example, in the Westminster Larger Catechism, question 31, says that the covenant of grace is actually made with Christ. And then later in the next question in the Larger Catechism, it says that it's made with the elect in Christ. Which covenant would you say was not made in Christ? The covenant of works. Now, I would say that. There was a union between, that's a sticky question. But confessionally, if we want to get more towards this way in unity, we would say there was union with Adam, Christ and Adam. But I'm not going to get into that. But the covenant works confessionally was made with Adam, between God and Adam. Lots of ink has been spilled on that. I'm not going to reference these, but I'm just going to throw them out to you so you can write them down as far as scriptural passages that support the covenant of redemption. So Contra Robertson, who I like. So Psalm 46 through 8. Psalm 110, 1 through 4. Isaiah 53, verses 10 through 11. Zechariah 6, 12 through 13. Luke 22, 29. The Gospel of John. John 4, 34. John 6, 37 through 40. John 10, 18. John 17, 1 through 6. Ephesians 1, 3 through 6. It's just several of many passages. Actually, I want to turn to one of those. It's my favorite one. John 17, 1 through 6. Okay, this is the high priestly prayer. Just so you can get a sense of some of the scriptures why the reformers insisted upon a covenant of redemption. So this is the introduction to the high priestly prayer. This is Jesus in the upper room the night of his betrayal. He's just from chapter 12 to this point. done high theology, chapters 12 through 17, with his disciples before going to the cross. That's what he chose to do his last night, was to comfort them, to speak of the Holy Spirit as a paraclete, to speak of what he was gonna do, and to end his teaching with this beautiful prayer, the high priestly prayer. John 17, verse one. Okay, I'm gonna read through verse six. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, And said, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. So notice verse 2. From the father he has given him an authority, and there are those the father has given to the son. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." So that there was a work that the Father gave to the Son. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's why we have this little dash outside of history, before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you have gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me. And they have kept your word." And so emphasizing there in verse 6, there was a work that Jesus was to do in a people that the father gave to the son. And so you could read these other passages that I quoted, study them, you put it all together, you have the elements of a covenant. All right, moving on to covenant of works, covenant of grace distinction. So the works, that language that's used of this, in every one of these covenants, we're going to have a whole class on. There's a whole chapter devoted. So next week, whoever's teaching, who is it, Caleb? Me. Caleb's going to teach us of the covenant of works. expensive when we're going to talk unity and diversity as We continue to teach this class. We're just I'm just giving you an overview now, but the next big category is the distinction between The covenant of works which was given before the fall. Okay, and the covenant of grace which was really made here with Christ, but in history was declared to Adam in Genesis 3 15 there is a vital union between the covenant of redemption and the covenant of grace, because you're saved by works. I just read that in John 17, 1 through 6. But what do I mean by you're saved by works? The work of Christ. Jesus, in his act of obedience, fulfilled the law. And those righteous acts that he did are credited to your account through faith. Your sins are forgiven because of the passive obedience of Christ. Christ submitted to his humiliation. He submitted to become a man, to be born in a stinky manger, to live among sinners, and then to go to the cross, and to suffer, and to die, and through his whole life to be persecuted. So that's Christ's passive obedience. All that are works. that the father gave the son to do that he accomplished, and we receive the benefits in him. But why is it called a covenant of works? It's because of the focal point. And so Caleb will stress this next week. There's a general aspects of this covenant, and there's focal aspects. General aspects would include things like the dominion mandate, marriage, the Sabbath. There are general aspects. Adam was in covenant with God even before God gave him the command not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Because God created Adam upright. the moral law of God. From the beginning, Adam had to continue to live in accordance with his uprightness, live in accordance with the moral law of God that he was created with. He was created in the image of God. He was created with true knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, according to our confession. And so he had to continue to reflect his creator as an image bearer and live out the Ten Commandments, to love the Lord his God, and to love his neighbor. So he was obligated to obey the Ten Commandments from the beginning. They were published to him in his creation. But there is a focal point of the covenant of works. And this is where a reward is promised and sanctions are declared. The focal point is, if you eat of this tree, you will die. Do not eat of it. And the tree of life symbolized a promise to reward. There was an advance. So there was a probationary period. I don't want to get too deep into that. I don't want to steal Caleb's thunder. But I just bring it out to say that there is reward and there's sanctions. There was a reward for Christ. He would have his brethren. There was a reward if Christ would do the work that he was done. Now, Christ could not fail. Christ is perfect. He's immutable. Adam was created mutable, meaning he had the capability to sin. In his pre-fall state in the province of God, God created him mutable in the sense that he was able to sin and able not to sin, and he sinned. When we get to a redeemed, the final redeemed state when Christ comes back, we're going to be immutable. And so a lot of theologians argue, and I'm one of them, that this was the reward, a confirmed state of righteousness. If Adam completed his probation, that he would have earned a confirmed state of righteousness in him and all his descendants. Him as the federal head would have you know, entered into a state to where they were immutable in the sense that they were not able to send, like we will be. Okay, so there is a progression. Eschatology proceeds, you know, we want to think of eschatology ahead of time. So, so blessing is promised, reward of his work. Curse is the death for disobedience. What about grace? Well, post fall man is incapable of the works to merit salvation. Okay, so here Adam and all his descendants deserve death. That's what we deserve. Anything above death is just grace upon grace. And so that is the emphasis here is that the blessedness that we received is in Christ and it's received through faith. So the conditions change. The condition that the Lord gave Adam here in the focal point of the covenant works was, do this and you'll live. Don't do this and you'll die. The condition here is rest in Christ, believe in Christ. He's accomplished it for you, grace upon grace. Now, Robertson, in true Robertson form, and he's not the only one, does not like the terms covenant of works and covenant of grace. He's fine with them because he's fine with that structure that this, the conditions is reward, you know, and cursing and here the conditions is faith in Christ and Christ is the one who is going to accomplish the work, okay. So, he just says it has limitations but he's very clear in saying he agrees with this structure He just thinks there's limitations in the language. So let me read a quote from him regarding that. He says, the division of God's covenant dealings with men in terms of covenant of works and a covenant of grace has much to commend it. It emphasizes properly The absolute necessity of recognizing a pre-fall relationship between God and man, which required perfect obedience as a meritorious ground of blessing. In this structure, Adam cannot be regarded purely as a mythical figure. In real history, God bound himself to the man he had made to be very good." OK, so he likes the structure of this. However, he says, this distinction also provides an overarching structure to unite the totality of God's relation to man in his fallen state. Because of its inherent emphasis on the unity of God's redemptive program, this structure delivers the church from the temptation to draw too strongly a dichotomy between old and new testimony. So question for you is, did the covenant of works cease at Genesis 3.15? No, it did not. So the covenant of works was made with Adam. We fell in him. He federally represented all of us, so we're born guilty. But we are still in Adam. So we are still under his penal sanctions. We experience death as a result of that. Now, the minute you become united to Christ through faith, and that can happen with Adam, who believed the promises, apparently, because he taught Abel and Cain to make sacrifices. He had taught, raised up, godly, catechized Abel, catechized Seth. So apparently Adam believed the promises. So this, the covenant of grace, once you believe and you're united to Christ through faith, You are no longer under the Covenant of Works. You're either in Adam or in Christ. It's very binary. There are those who are in Adam. They're under the Covenant of Works. There are those who are truly in Christ, who have true faith, united to Christ, the elect. They are under the Covenant of Grace. OK, so it's not as if the Covenant of Works no longer applies. Heidi. So the Covenant of Works applies to anyone that can actually keep all the laws. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, because that's what the Bible says. You have to be perfect. And so the only one that's done that is Christ. Now, Adam was perfect up until the fall. He was created upright, and he was perfect. And the confession says perfect, exact, perpetual obedience. Created upright, created with the moral law of God in the image of God. Some theologians, one of them being Fisher, who wrote Marrow of Modern Divinity, said when Adam ate of the tree of knowledge and good and evil, he broke all the Ten Commandments. And he gives the reasons why he broke the Ten Commandments. So yes, Adam, in passing the focal point of the test, would have been loving the Lord as God with all his heart, soul, and mind. I mean, it was unbelief. It was breaking the law. not related to the law of God. So law-keeping, although he was in relationship with God, that's where you get into this monocovilism, was the requirement. Although Adam wasn't trying to earn to become a son, he was a son. And he would reflect his father. So I caveat it. But yeah, Christ had to do the work. If he doesn't do the work, if he doesn't actively keep the law, then that's not credited to our account. And then we don't have justification. There's no righteousness to be declared unto us, the righteousness of God through faith. So anyone not trusting in Christ, they're going to stand before God with the law as their judge. And so it's going to be like, well, first of all, your father Adam sinned, and you sinned in him. So he got that against you. And second of all, you sinned yourself. So all right. OK, so Robertson says, the terminology has significant limitations, but no criticism may be offered to the general structure. He says, the term implies there was no grace before the fall, but there was. The covenant of works was gracious, but not, although he Robertson acknowledges it wasn't redemptive grace. And so that's where you get some discussion here. So there are some reformed theologians, and I'll put them as orthodox, like Robertson, Murray, Hoeksema. They don't like these labels because there was grace here. There are other theologians who like to say, no, there was no grace there, like Michael Horton, the guys from Escondido. It's like grace implies there was sin. So there's arguments in this camp that are still orthodox. So these, like Murray and those guys, are accused of being mono-covenantal, but they're not. It's really debates about whether you can even properly speak of merit, earning anything from God. And so there's theological categories. A pact of merit, which means God said it as part of the covenant, and so he will honor the reward if he said it. Versus strict merit would be like you impress God. But according to Romans 11, 33 through 36, everything comes from God. From him and through him and to him are all things. Who has first given to him that he should give back to him? And so there's no impressing God. So in a real sense, strict merit is like, there's a contract. Like, I did a certain amount of work, and I earned the wages. None of that's from God, because everything comes from him. He's the alpha. So that's why there's, in the Orthodox camp, whether it's proper to talk about merit, whether there's grace present, I think it's helpful to say that There is unmerited favor grace that comes before the covenant works, but there's no redemptive grace. There's no demerited favor. So it is a gracious covenant. God didn't have to do it, and what he does is beautiful, and it's a blessing to Adam to offer him this reward. That is grace, but it's not redemptive grace. It's not demerited favor. It's unmerited favor. Okay, so the other criticism Robertson has is that the language focuses too much on the one aspect. And you see this kind of in Westminster larger catechism question 20, and that's dealing with the providence of God and the estate wherein Adam was created. It talks about everything that Caleb's going to cover next week. Okay, all the creation ordinances is part of that. But it does say a covenant of life, which is a synonymous term with that focal aspect of the covenant of grace that's in the confession, okay, that is on that focal point. So, Robertson likes the term covenant of creation for the covenant of works and covenant redemption for covenant of grace. Okay, moving on. Okay, there are two areas we want to avoid. Okay, one is mono-covenantalism, and another would be dispensationalism. Okay, now I have these different, and Robertson doesn't cover this, this is just bonus stuff, but I have these different categories of different theological systems here. These ones tend to promote unity, these ones tend to promote disunity. So mono-covenantalism, De-emphasizes or flattens out the rewards and grace distinction. Okay? So this is where federal vision comes in. Okay? And the FV dark guys own it. And they say, well, this is just faithfulness and this is just faithfulness. Okay? The FV light guys, guys like Doug Wilson, they deny their monocovinental but in their language, They're still guilty of it. And I'm going to give you an example of that here from Doug Wilson. Okay. From his blog and my blog, 14 May 2004. Okay. This is back when he was fully part of Federal Vision. Okay. This is back a couple years after he did his book, Reformed is Not Enough, Recovering the Objectivity of the Covenant. Okay. Be very, very careful. Okay. But this is from his blog and my blog. This starts off well, and this is what Uncle Doug says. One of the charges leveled against me for my Auburn avenueing is that of mono-covenantalism. Okay, so he doesn't own it. But what is that exactly? If the critics mean that I hold that there has only been one covenant throughout the history of mankind, then the charge is false. I mean, it's a red herring. None of these guys, even the F.E. Dart guys, okay, Lasko, those guys, none of them would say there's no, you know, there's only just one covenant. Okay. So this is where Wilson said some good things. God made one covenant with mankind and Adam, and he made a distinct and separate restorative covenant with mankind in Christ. So that would be two covenants, not one. The covenants are also distinct that it was possible for Adam to fall, and it was not possible for Christ to fall. So he's emphasizing the Christ-centric nature of this covenant of redemption, covenant of grace. That's good. It was not possible for Christ to fall further. The first covenant did not have to deal with the forgiveness of sin. And the second covenant was remedial, dealing with sin after the fact. So he recognizes the fall distinction there. And this is where it goes off. So why am I accused of being a monocovenantalist? The reason appears to be that I assert that both covenants were to be kept by the grace of God through faith. God spoke his word and both Adam and Christ had a covenanted obligation to believe him and to act accordingly. Adam did not and Christ did, but the assigned way for both covenants to be kept was through simple trust in God. What is wrong with that? That last sentence, the assigned way for both covenants to be kept was through simple trust in God. Does that make you comfortable or uncomfortable? The assigned way of this is faith in Christ and a faith that is resting only. So he's flattened both out to faithfulness. So faithfulness to Christ as demonstrated in obeying the law. And this would be faithfulness as well. But the problem is he's not recognizing this required perfect faith. This does not require perfect faith. It's just the presence of faith. And so while our confession in the faith chapter in the confession says that obedience is, you know, a fruit of faith, it talks about the principal acts of faith are resting. Resting, and I would have to go look it up, but there's obedience that's not part of the principal acts of faith. And so we do not want to flatten it out to faithfulness. There was a reward. The condition was do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, okay? Drush the serpent who comes into the garden. Win the battle. Adam, win the battle. This will be your reward, a confirmed state of righteousness. Death if you don't do it. Here, Christ dies for us. We rest in that. And we receive that. So we don't flatten it out to faithfulness and faithfulness. So that would be mono-covenantalism. Now, what this has to come into it is this recognizes that There's grace and there's obligations here and there's grace and there's obligations here. So every one of these covenant has, you know, gracious elements and also things that you must do. Like you must be circumcised. Okay. Well, no. This is redemptive faith, which is resting, okay. This is faith, but it's more faithfulness. Here's a picture to help out. R.C. Sproul, The Orthodox View of Sola Fide. Faith produces justification and works. Works does not lead to justification. And that's true in this sense and this sense, okay? Rome would say faith plus works leads to justification. We would say faith leads to justification plus works. When you get to FV Dark, okay, they take this and when they define a living faith, because a living faith is orthodox, okay, that's James Chapter 2. It's the fruit. The fruit of a living faith is works. There's no final justification to where your faith is confirmed because it had works. You believe and you are justified apart from works, the resting. So this is what federal vision does. They work as far as faith is an instrument of the righteousness that flows through us. Works must be part of that. It's not a principle act of redemptive faith. Okay, so it flattens it out. That has implications downstream. Well, okay. Trust is an aspect of faith, okay, because, I mean, knowledge, assent, and trust, okay, those are the elements of saving faith, okay, but that trust produces works, okay. I don't want to, I've only got a little bit of time. I want to cover this last one, so. I've only got four minutes to cover this Old Covenant, New Covenant distinction. There are debates and there are degrees of this. There are those who own flattening it out and those who like to emphasize the distinction between what faithfulness is and the stark contrast between the reward curse versus trusting and resting in Christ. Okay. Okay. Now the last one is Old Covenant, New Covenant. Okay. And so this is emphasizing the discontinuity between here and here. And so this is where there's a divide right here. Okay. Those on this side tend to be Baptistic. Okay. Even though this is, I'm not going to get into that one. And those on this side, pedobaptists so baptizing the the children of believers versus infant baptism so continuities between Old Covenant everything that precedes the gospel events starting with the incarnation up through the the Pentecost okay in the New Covenant realities that follow okay there is a difference there is diversity What did Jesus say to the woman at the well? John 4, 24. You say you worship Mount Gerizim, the Jews worship in Jerusalem, but the hour has come, and now it's here, that the true believers will worship in spirit and in truth. So there is a change in administration. I read Jeremiah 23. There is a time where there's a focus in the Passover. on leaving Egypt. But there will come a day where it's the return to the promised land, which is symbolic of entering the heavenly Mount Zion. So according to Robertson, the incarnation is this basic dividing point between Old Covenant and New Covenant. The structure of the whole book of Hebrews builds on this Old Covenant, New Covenant distinction. So the writer of Hebrews argues that Hebrews 1.1, before it was prophets, now it's Christ. He's spoken to us through his son. Hebrews 3.3 emphasizes that Christ is superior to the angels. He's a superior high priest. He's superior to Moses, who was faithful. But Christ is superior. The Sabbath is superior. Joshua said, today, if you will believe his voice, there was still something to do after they entered the Sabbath land. There was a Sabbath to still enter, a greater Sabbath than the land promise Sabbath. Christ is a greater high priest after the order of Melchizedek. The previous sacrifices were a shadow, but Christ is the substance, the true forgiveness of occurs through the death and resurrection of Christ. So that is the third basic diversity is differences of administration. So here you have altar worship. You have the Mosaic economy centered around the tabernacle and the temple. But in the New Covenant, we have a very simplified worship. Bless you, Jill. I am out of time, but you see a great diversity in the administration. Worship in spirit and in truth, okay, with the shadows fulfilled and now we worship to Christ in the ordinances that he has given us under the new covenant. Let me close in prayer. Gracious Heavenly Father, you are a good God. We thank you so much for your word and for the promises. A lot of this stuff can be confusing, but your gospel comes forth clear that what you required of Adam, he failed to do. And then we on our own in Adam do the same thing. We fail to do it. But we see that you sent your son, and he did what he was supposed to do. And he died for what we did not do. And that if we believe in him, we can have the righteousness of God. We can be righteous in Christ. And so this is clear, Father. Help us to understand that deeper, that we may live for you more and more. Jesus' name. Amen.