Welcome to the final lesson in this series on the covenants. Today I'm going to cover a few of the questions that you all have left in the comments and I'm going to recommend some books. So to begin with the questions, I tried to take several questions that we got and try to summarize them into sort of categories. So we have here about four or five different categories of questions that we'll go through. Some of them I think will be answered if you take the time to listen to future lessons that maybe weren't out yet when you were asking your question, but I hope nonetheless that I can provide some clarity where you had questions. So one question that I got from a viewer who I actually got to meet when I was at a conference recently is she said that in the lesson on the Garden of Eden that I made a reference to Eden being on a mountain. And so she asked me, how do you know that Eden was on a mountain? I don't see that anywhere in the text. I don't understand. And I said, that's a very good question. And I actually didn't remember saying that exactly. So I went back to my notes and I looked at some good resources who said that the reason why commentators and theologians believe that Eden was on a mountain is for a few reasons. we have Genesis 2.10 which says, And so if you picture rivers, water always flows downhill. And so if you have this source of four different rivers, it seems pretty likely that water would start high on a hill or a mountain and then flow downwards from there. Additionally, if you start to draw some parallels, some sort of imagery, if you will, between Genesis and Revelation, so between the first book of the Bible and the last book of the Bible, there are parallels of visions that John sees and things that he describes of the new heavens and the new earth and God's throne. If you look in the last several chapters of Revelation that describe rivers of life flowing out from God's holy throne. So it seems clear that the mountain imagery or the understanding of Eden being on a mountain is symbolic, but it also is definitely possible that it was a sort of at least regional pinnacle of creation, of this special place for Adam and Eve to dwell on. The next set of questions sort of centered around Abraham. And so I really appreciate these questions because you guys made me think, and it shows that you were thinking too. There were questions about how did Abraham understand his role in the whole story of redemption? How did he understand Christ and the Messiah figure? You know, he was so early on in Genesis, in chapter 12 is where we first saw his story. We even spent two lessons on him, but how did he see himself in relation to even New Testament believers? And so let me read a few verses from Galatians 3. So this is the Apostle Paul writing to the church in Galatia, and he's speaking to them about the Old Testament. So these types of instances where scripture speaks about other scripture is very helpful for our understanding. So Galatians 3 says, Even so Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham the believer. And then, If you were to have a Bible open in front of you, that Galatians passage has, in my Bible, some all caps letters, which shows that the scholars believe that it's a sort of quoting of the Old Testament. And I think this quote comes from Genesis 12, three, which we covered in one of our lessons. Part of Genesis 12, three says, and in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. So you have this idea of, The gospel that was preached to Abraham, it says, was this explanation of, in you all the nations will be blessed. And so I don't think that we can say conclusively from scripture that the gospel preached to Abraham was this full gospel of Christ and his work and everything. If you remember in some of our lessons, we talked about two diverging lines as we work our way through scripture. So working outwards was this sort of hopelessness and man of, you know, men were born, they broke God's law, even ones under God's special relationships and covenants, they were unfaithful to God, they broke his law. But then you have these diverging lines of, in the midst of hopelessness, of the Messiah figure promised in Genesis 3, this one that would come and would keep God's law perfectly, who would have a perfect life, who would somehow redeem a people for himself. And in this case, with Genesis 3 and Galatians, or excuse me, Genesis 12 and Galatians 3, this one who would come through him somehow, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. So in this Galatians 3 account, it's this belief that Abraham had that was reckoned or it was counted to him as righteousness. So you ask yourself, okay, I understand Abraham saw that in some manner, in some way, he heard God say through him, the nations would be blessed. And he took that by faith. So he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. then in the lesson, I believe I also said that we, if we have faith, we are also sons of Abraham. So you say, how can that be? Well, the answer is by faith. The verse says it very clearly. And then these verses go on from verse 10 onwards in Galatians 3 and talk about how the law, while it was a good thing that God made, the law was not meant to redeem the people. The law had no power to bring those people out of sin and death, but it took the law keeper, it took the promised Messiah to break that bondage of law and of death and of sin and to redeem the people from the curse of the law so they have a new relationship with it. And we know now, being on this side of Christ's first coming, that it was Christ's work that accomplished that for us. We also have Romans chapter four, which speaks about Abraham had his faith in God and that that faith was counted as righteousness. So again, it's taking God at his word is what faith is. The third type of question that we received was about the Holy Spirit. And this is where you guys really got me thinking about, how does the Holy Spirit work in the Old Testament and the New Testament? What's the relationship between the two? You know the way the Holy Spirit maybe works in you and in your life. You know the way the Holy Spirit works in the New Testament. You've studied it. It's clear. But when you start to study the Old Testament, you realize questions of, OK, here's these verses about the Spirit here or there, but I don't understand how it all fits together. So I was thinking about where do we think of the Spirit being present in the Old Testament and the New Testament? So we have in the creation account in Genesis, we have the Spirit hovering over the waters before man was created. We have also in 1 Samuel 10, an example of the Spirit indwelling or helping or being placed upon a man. 1 Samuel 10, six says, then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you, speaking about Saul, mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man." So you have the clear working of the Spirit in some way in the Old Testament on one of God's kings. And then you have the spirit of the Lord and the servant songs. So we did a whole lesson on the covenant of redemption or what God did before the world's foundation to cause the events to be set in motion for Christ to come. And in that we looked at Isaiah with a number of servant songs where you had the Lord, the servant of the Lord, and the Spirit of the Lord. And those three we understand to be the three persons of the Trinity working together where the Father sends the Son with the help of the Spirit to accomplish the task that He has given Him. And then that carries us into the New Testament. We see Christ's baptism where the Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. We see the day of Pentecost that some Christian denominations celebrate where the Spirit was poured out on the people. And then you ask yourself, okay, what does the Spirit do? What purpose does it have now in me as Christ tells us that he's sending a comforter, he's sending a consoler for us. It's the Spirit of truth that leads us and guides us. It's a seal of our inheritance that we know that we are in Christ, in the new covenant, because we have the Holy Spirit. If we were to read the book of Acts, there's all kinds of signs and wonders and miracles done that show that the spirit works and moves and does things at a special time in a special way. So you can ask yourself, okay, from Christ's life before he was born and after he was born, what's the difference in the two? And I think we'll see that the day of Pentecost, of Christ sending the spirit that he promised before he ascended into heaven, that marks a different age, if you will. That marks a different time in this progress of redemption where, before Pentecost, there was no spirit in the way it is now. Because in the old covenant, God worked in people differently. So you think about passages of scripture where it talks about not all of Israel being Israel. So there's the nation of Israel, and there are some who try to live faithfully to God, and there are plenty who go after other gods. But that's one of the marks of what we would call Baptist covenant theology is that we understand that that separation of not all Israel being Israel, it's not like that in the New Testament church, that we believe in things like regenerate church membership. We believe in things like conversion and baptism upon a profession of faith so that when you look at the visible church, so local church is all around the world made up to create the universal body of Christ. We believe that as far as we can tell, as far as faithful pastors and church members affirm people's profession of faith, see that they really are in Christ, that what's now visible is God's true chosen people, and time will tell whether or not they are really his. So some people have summarized the spirits indwelling or work in this way, that in the Old Testament, the spirit dwelled outside. So you saw where it came upon King Saul or came upon King David or Samson or others, and it helped them. God gave them abilities and skills they didn't have without the spirit. But then you see in the New Testament that clearly it's the spirit dwelling within rather than just without. So question four, the fourth question was, okay, I understand that you say Christ came and he made this thing possible, that he accomplished salvation for us. I understand the Old Testament and the laws and the penalties and the things required there, but how exactly does Christ's death in our faith really save us? What was done on the cross that changes salvation, changes our future, changes our eternity? Well, we did two lessons to sort of cover this, and maybe they weren't clear enough, but there was a lesson Redemption accomplished, talking about Christ's work, where Christ as the prophet, and the priest, and the king, as the one who had been promised since Genesis 3, as the one who was God's perfect son came, what exactly he did on the cross? And then redemption applied, we talk about what it means that those are in Christ, what does it mean now that they are there in this new covenant, that there's certain facts or certain features about it, there's certain promises fulfilled of justification, of sanctification, et cetera, et cetera. So I would encourage you, if you have questions, to go watch those two lessons. But I'll also say that you can trace in your mind the pattern of Scripture and you can know that every man who's born since the fall of Adam has been born under sin. that in one place David says that in sin he was conceived, that there's this reality in which we are humans made in the image of God, but the reality is that we're all born under sin, we're born under a curse. Because we have this standard that God has given us, given to Adam, that he says, do this and live. He gives us a natural law that we're supposed to obey, that there's enough in creation for us to know that there is a God, and He is the one true God, and that we should worship Him. And every single one of us have sinned against God. Every single one of us are guilty. That 1 John talks about, don't sin and deceive yourselves. And it's not sinning and deceiving somebody else, but if you sin and you tell yourself that you don't have sin, then you're lying to yourself, you're deceiving yourself. That it's universally true. No matter how good of a person you are, no matter how righteous you think you are, no matter what you have going for you, You know, in one lesson we looked at Paul's accomplishments, his reason to boast in the flesh. And Paul said, I have none except Christ alone. And so because we have this problem where a good and holy God with a good and holy law can show us very easily that we have broken every single one of his laws, that all we can do is sin. We can't help but offend this God. And that God cannot just take that sin and sweep it under the rug. He can't say, well, you know what? forget about it, you know, you're weak human beings. I'm just going to, you know, ignore your sin or push it away or put it under a rug. Come into heaven. God can't do that because he is a good and he is a just God. And so there's this tension that builds in the Old Testament of, God, these people that you call yours are sinning. These people that you call yours are going after other gods. There's this mounting call from creation, from the angels, from whoever else, for justice to be done. They're almost putting God to the test and saying, well, aren't you good? Aren't you going to do something? Aren't you a righteous judge? And then in Romans chapter three, Paul explains beautifully how God is a righteous judge, that he says, apart from the law, that the truth has been manifested, that righteousness has come. And it's exactly in the person and the work of Christ and the way that he came that that righteousness is revealed. It's the mystery of faith that we have, and Christ came at the right time that God ordained, that not a year too soon, not a year too late, That he came, he was conceived of a virgin, of a miraculous conception. That he didn't have an earthly father, so he wasn't born under sin. That he was born in the right lineage of the Davidic king who would come. He was born in the line of David. that he fulfilled certain Old Testament prophecies while he was here on earth about who he is and what he would do. He was that suffering servant in Isaiah chapter 53, that one who, he lived a perfect earthly life, perfectly obeying God's moral law, perfectly keeping all of it, that he had no sin in him, so he had no need to make propitiation for his own sin. He had no need to follow some of the Old Testament laws about how to cleanse yourself. And then you remember the garden of Gethsemane where he wrestled with God. He sweated drops of blood and said, not my will, but yours. And then this Christ went to the cross willingly, knowing that he would bear the full weight of God's wrath, that he went to the cross being sinless, willingly taking on all of our sin as the perfect sacrifice, as the second Adam. He went to that cross and he bore God's wrath. that every bit of the punishment and the guilt due for us was placed upon Christ. But here's the thing, Christ didn't deserve any of that. He had no reason to have that brought upon him, but he said, Father, I will discharge it, I will do it. And in exchange for that, it wasn't just a one-way transaction. He didn't just receive our sin and our guilt. We receive. When we place our faith in Christ, we receive as if we had lived His perfect life, as if we were the ones who kept the covenant. So Christ died, and if Christ had stayed dead, it would prove that His sacrifice was not pleasing. But 1 Timothy tells us that He was vindicated by the Spirit, that He was raised again on that third day. that Easter is coming up in a celebration of Holy Week and of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and finally Him going to the cross and being resurrected. That's what it's all about, is Christ is the true, the only covenant keeper, and He did all of this for those who would bend their knee, who would bow their hearts, who would confess with their mouth that Christ is Lord. that we have no righteousness in ourselves to offer, no help that we have in supplying to Christ's sacrifice, but it is a perfect and complete work. And when we place our faith in Him, saying, I believe you that you are able to do what you say that you can do, that He pleases the Father, that we receive salvation, we receive eternal life, we receive all the benefits of the new covenant that Christ purchased for us. So lastly, question five, somebody asked in one of the beginning lessons, I said, what do you mean by this is not going to be typical covenant theology? So that's a very good question that I really didn't explain the answer to, but if you were to read books, and I'll recommend a few here in just a second, that Covenant theology in its proper form, even more technical resources, will talk about things like typology. They'll talk about things like metanarratives or really harp on a law and gospel distinction. They'll talk about questions of sort of, okay, in this theoretical scenario, could eternal life have been bought by Moses and the law? They'll talk about the natural and moral law that we talked about some, and they'll ask questions like, how does the law in the Old Testament apply to Christians today? And those are all really good questions and topics to consider, but my aim here was not to have a class on covenant theology or particular Baptist covenant theology. My aim was to provide a starting point for you that we went through 12 lessons, very short, very brief, so that you can spend your time as you read the scriptures and study the scriptures with a little bit more of a foundation of how do I understand these two parts of my Bible. So let me recommend a few books to you, but let me give you a word of caution in that You know, I've done this so often, if I hear somebody say, oh yeah, you should read this book, it's really good, then I'll turn to my Amazon app and I'll order the book and maybe I'll read it, maybe I won't. So let me caution you. If you are somebody like that, somebody like me, really consider what books you buy because I feel like it's important to be good stewards of the resources that God gives. So maybe buy a few of these books and see if you're gonna read it, and then do what my wife makes me do. Every time that I read a book that I have, I can buy a new one, but I can't buy a new one without reading one first. So let me start with this book. This is by Thomas Schreiner. Maybe you've heard of his commentaries. This is a book on the covenants and God's purpose for the world. So he says in the opening pages that he doesn't think there's a unifying nature to scripture, a single unifying nature. He says there's plenty of themes that God has woven in to unite the whole story. So this is not going to be covenant theology in any proper sense, but it is a biblical understanding, very simply, very plain, very clear teaching on each covenant. It's short, you can see it's not more than a hundred pages or so, so it would be a very good book if all this is new to you for you to pick up. The second one that I recommend is a very old book. It's just been printed in a new cover. So this is the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. And in this, there's several chapters in it on different topics, but this has been the confession of faith of many good Baptist churches and even missionary societies. And in this is chapter seven called Of God's Covenants. And you can go online and find this for free or you can go to Founders Ministries website and they have a modern translation. But this is a good summary of what's basic teaching on the covenants. Not overly technical, not overly demanding, not too specific, but pretty general in agreement of what the covenants are according to Baptists. We also have this book by Graham Goldsworthy called Gospel and Kingdom. And so this book really focuses on a lot of the concept of the kingdom of God, and it draws some connections in the Old Testament and New Testament. If you're a visual learner, there's a lot of charts and pictures that you can study and try to remember, okay, when I think about this topic, here's what I should look at. So this is a very good resource. Again, it's short, so a lot can be said in a few words. So this would be a good resource for you to have. And another one that's larger is called Christ and the Covenants, O Palmer Robertson. And this is a very good book. It's probably a little more detailed than Gospel and Kingdom, but it's not too technical so that if you haven't studied the Covenants, you could easily pick this up and read it and learn something. This is a copy that I borrowed from a friend and he's got all kinds of underlying and stars and words in the margins. So this book is Christ and the Covenants. This book is, if you want a very good overview and understanding, some people have said this is the best book in modern times on Baptist covenant theology. It's by Sam Rinehan, The Mystery of Christ. And I believe that you can get this on Amazon or on Founders website. This book is a little bit more technical, so if you're not used to reading sort of a little bit denser theological material, I would caution you away from ordering this. But if you're willing to take the time to sit down and to read it and take notes and go through it slowly, It covers everything, even more than these lessons that I've done have. It gives you a clear picture of not too much, but enough to understand the covenants, Baptist understanding. It goes into more of the technical elements of typology and different things. So if you buy one book, maybe buy Tom Schreiner's. If you buy two books, buy this one. This book is very helpful. This is actually a man's PhD, his dissertation, and I would tell you to not buy this book unless you've read something of covenant theology because it's very detailed in the distinctives between Presbyterian and Baptist covenant theology. That's kind of the title, gives it away. I had a friend who I was explaining about the covenants to, and he said, oh, I thought you were Baptist. And I said, well, I am. So this book would be helpful for him to learn kind of what are the differences, what are the similarities, what are the roots of the disagreements, and how we understand the covenants. And then lastly, two more books. So this book is a very big one. that is an older book, Kingdom Through Covenant. So this is not covenant theology in the way that I would understand it, but it is a very good, if you want to look in detail at every covenant in the scriptures, understand historically something like a suzerain vassal treaty or that type of thing, this would be a good book for you to even read sections of it. But in addition to this, there's a newer version that's come out that's much smaller and more concise. God's kingdom through God's covenant. So this one is very good. And again, it's not traditional Baptist covenant theology, but the things that you'll learn on here will definitely help you understand your Bible and understand the scriptures. So that's all the books that we have for today. And that's all of the questions that we have for today. So thank you for watching. I can say that I enjoyed teaching these lessons. I enjoyed these questions and answers. And we'll look forward to seeing you in the next series on the HeartCry curriculum channel. God bless.