By the late DAVID DICKSON, Irvine. Of the Covenant of Redemption.
(Continued from page 174.)
BECAUSE the healing of the sickness of the conscience comes by a right application of divine covenants about our salvation, therefore it is necessary, that some measure of the knowledge thereof be opened up. A divine covenant we call a covenant or paction, wherein God is at least the one party, contractor. Of this sort of covenants about the eternal salvation of man (which sort chiefly belong to our purpose) there are three. The first is, the covenant of redemption past between God, and Christ-God, appointed Mediator before the world was, in the council of the Trinity. The second is, the covenant of works, made between God and men, in Adam in his integrity indued with all natural perfections, enabling him to keep it, so long as it pleased him to stand to the condition. The third is, the covenant of grace and reconciliation through Christ, made between God and believers (with their children) in Christ.*
*Dickson here shares the view of a number of eminent theologians, including Owen, Charnock, Flavel, and in later times Dr. Charles Hodge. That the covenant made with Christ and with believers is one and the same covenant is the doctrine of the Confession of Faith, and is emphasised by such well-known divines as Thomas Boston, the Erskines, John Brown (of Haddington), and a host of others. As the younger Hodge puts it, “These differences do not in the least involve the doctrine taught in the Scriptures, but concern only the form in which that truth may be more or less clearly presented.”—J.C.
As to the covenant of redemption, for clearing the matter, we must distinguish the sundry acceptations of the word redemption: For (1). Sometimes it is taken for the contract and agreement of selling and buying back to eternal salvation, of lost man, looked upon as in the state of sin and misery. In which sense, we are said to be bought by Christ, both souls and bodies: “Ye are not your own; for ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”—1 Cor. vi., 19, 20. And this may be called redemption by paction and agreed bargain.
(2). Sometimes redemption is taken for the paying of the price agreed upon. In which sense, Christ is said to have redeemed us, by suffering of the punishment due to us, and ransoming of us: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us”—Gal. iii., 13.
(3). Sometimes redemption is taken for the begun application of the benefits purchased in the covenant by the price paid: “In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the remission of sins, according to the riches of His grace”—Ephes. i., 7.
(4). Sometimes redemption is taken for the perfect and full possession of all the benefits agreed upon between the Father, and Christ His Son the Mediator. In which sense, we are said to be “sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession”—Ephes. i., 14; and in Ephes. iv., 30, it is said, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption”; which is the day of judgment, when Christ shall put us in full possession of all the blessedness which He purchased by bargain and payment for us.
In this place, we take redemption in the first sense, for the covenant past between the Father and Christ His Son, designed Mediator, about our redemption. When we name the Father as the one party, and His Son Christ as the other party in this covenant, we do not exclude the Son and Holy Spirit from being the party offended; but do look upon the Father, Son, and Spirit, one God in three persons, as offended by man’s sin; and yet all three contented to take satisfaction to divine justice for man’s sin in the person of the Son, as designed mediator, to be incarnate. Whereby the Son is both the party offended as God, one essentially with the Father and Holy Spirit; and the party contractor also, as God, designed mediator personally for redeeming man, who with consent of the Father and Holy Spirit, from all eternity willed and purposed in the fulness of time, to assume the human nature in personal union with Himself, and for the elect’s sake to become man, and to take the cause of the elect in hand, to bring them back to the friendship of God, and full enjoyment of felicity for evermore. When therefore we make the Father one party, and the Son designed Mediator the other party, speaking with the Scripture, for the more easy up-taking of the covenant, let us look to one God in three persons, having absolute right and sovereign power according to His own pleasure to dispose of men, looked upon as lying before God (to whom all things are present) in sin and death, drawn on by man’s own deserving; and yet for the glory of His grace resolving to save the elect, so as His justice shall be satisfied for them, in and by the second person of the Trinity, the co-eternal and co-essential Son of the Father.
This covenant of redemption then may be thus described: It is a bargain, agreed upon between the Father and the Son designed Mediator, concerning the elect (lying with the rest of mankind in the state of sin and death, procured by their own demerit) wisely and powerfully to be converted, sanctified and saved, for the Son of God’s satisfaction and obedience (in our nature to be assumed by Him) to be given in due time to the Father, even unto the death of the Cross. In this bargain or agreement, the Scripture imports clearly, a selling and a buying of the elect: “Feed the church of God, which he hath purchased by his own blood”—Acts xx., 28. “Ye are bought with a price”—1 Cor. vi., 20, and 1 Peter i., 18. The seller of the elect, is God; the buyer, is God incarnate; the persons bought, are the church of the elect; the price, is the blood of God, to wit, the blood of Christ, who is God and man in one person. This covenant of redemption, is in effect one with the eternal decree of redemption, wherein the salvation of the elect, and the way how it shall be brought about is fixed, in the purpose of God, who works all things according to the counsel of His own will, as the Apostle sets it down in Ephes. i., unto the 15th verse. And the decree of redemption is in effect a covenant, one God in three persons agreeing to the decree, that the second person, God the Son, should be incarnate, and give obedience and satisfaction to divine justice for the elect: unto which piece of service the Son willingly submitting Himself, the decree becomes a real covenant indeed. But for further satisfaction, that there is such a covenant between the Father and the Son, as we have said, for redeeming of the elect, Scripture gives us evidence six ways. The first way is by expressions, which, import and presuppose a formal covenant between the parties buying and selling; the second way is, by styles and titles given to Christ the Redeemer; the third is, by expressions relating to an eternal decree for execution and performance of the covenant of redemption; the fourth is, by representation of this covenant in the Levitical types; the fifth is, by Christ the Redeemer, now incarnate, His ratification of the covenant; and the sixth way is, by holding forth to us the heads and articles agreed upon, wherein the covenant consists.
The First Proof.
As to the expressions, importing a formal covenant, first (Ephes. i., 7) it is called a redemption, or a buying of the elect out of sin and misery by blood: showing that no remission of sin could be granted by justice, without shedding of blood, and Christ undertook to pay the price, and has paid it. Again the inheritance which the elect have promised unto them, is called a purchase, importing that the disposer of the inheritance to the elect, must have a sufficient price for it; and that the Redeemer has accepted the condition, and laid down the price craved for it, Ephes. i., 14, and so bought back lost heaven and forfeited blessedness to so many sinners, who otherwise, for sin, might justly have been excluded and debarred therefrom for ever. A third expression is held forth in Acts xx., 28, wherein God the Disposer, and God the Redeemer are agreed, that the elect shall go free, for God the Redeemer’s obedience unto death, who has now bought them with His blood. A fourth expression is in plain terms set down by Paul, “Ye are bought with a price”—1 Cor. vi., 20; God the Disposer sells, and God the Redeemer buys the elect to be His conquest, both body and spirit. And Peter more particularly expresses the price of redemption agreed upon to be not gold or silver, but the blood of the Mediator Christ, the innocent Lamb of God, slain in typical prefigurations from the beginning of the world, and slain in real performance in the fulness of time—1 Peter i., 18—21. A fifth expression is that of our Lord Jesus in the institution of the sacrament of His Supper, “This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.”—Matt. xxvi., 28. Here an agreement between the Redeemer, and God the Disposer, that these many which are the elect, shall have remission of sins, for the Redeemer’s ransom of blood paid for them. The purchase of this ransom of blood He makes over in the covenant of grace and reconciliation to believers in Him, and seals the bargain with them by the sacrament of His Supper.
The Second Proof.
The second evidence of this covenant of redemption made between God, and God the Son Mediator designed, is from such titles and styles as are given to Christ, in relation to the procuring of a covenant of grace and reconciliation between God and us. First, He is called a Mediator of the covenant of reconciliation, interceding for procuring of it, and that not by a simple entreaty, but by giving Himself over to the Father (calling for satisfaction to justice, that reconciliation might go on), for paying a compensatory price, sufficient to satisfy justice for the elect: “There is one God, and one Mediator between God and man (to wit, God incarnate), the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all (to wit, elect children), to be testified in due time.”—1 Tim. ii., 5, 6. Another title is given to Him by Job (Chap. xix., 25), where He is called a Redeemer, a near Kinsman, who before His incarnation had obliged Himself to take on human nature, and to pay the price of redemption (represented by slain sacrifices), for the elect of His kinsmen. A third title is held out, in that He is called a Surety, who would answer for the debt of the party reconciled, and would undertake to make the reconciled stand to His covenant. And Christ undertook the Suretyship, and so has procured and established this covenant of grace, much better than the covenant of works, and better than the old covenant of grace with Israel, as they made use of it. This necessarily imports a covenant between Him and the Father’s justice, to whom He becomes Surety for us: for, what is suretyship, but a voluntary transferring of another’s debt upon the surety, obliging him to pay the debt for which he engages as surety? The fourth title given to Christ is, that He is a reconciliation by way of permutation; the atonement. “… we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.”—Rom. v., 11; that is, that which has pacified the Father’s justice, and reconciled Him to us, is made over in a gift unto us; for, by Christ’s procurement we have God made ours, and Christ pacifying God, put, as it were, in our bosom: for God having sold us to Christ, by taking Christ’s satisfaction for ours, He has come over to us as reconciled, and given us Christ the Reconciler and the Atonement, to be ours. Here is an agreement made between God and Christ, and the condition of the agreement between the parties for our behoof, clearly imported and presupposed. The fifth title given to Christ, is this—He is called the propitiation—1 John ii., 2, whereby God is pacified, not only for the believing Jews, but also for the whole elect world which should believe in Him. And if He be the pacifying propitiation, then God has satisfaction in all that His justice craved from Christ for the elect; and (Rom. iii., 25) He is called a propitiatory sacrifice, wherewith God is so well pleased, that He makes offer of Him to us, and sets Him forth to us for pacifying our conscience through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for remission of sins, without breach of justice: wherein, what price God required and was paid by Christ, is insinuated and presupposed; for satisfaction could not be, except the price agreed upon, had been promised and accepted before in covenanting.
(To be continued.)