1. The Grace of the Covenant
The Shorter Catechism states, “The decrees of God are His eternal purpose, according to the counsel of His will, whereby, for His own glory, He hath foreordained whatsoever comes to pass” (Ans 7). One important aspect of the eternal decree is the divine purpose to save some of the fallen race of Adam from ruin. The fact that God saves any sinner is a matter of pure grace, or unmerited kindness. The fact that He decrees to save one and not another is divine sovereignty. The arrangement by which elect sinners are saved is called the covenant of grace. It is like a jewel with many facets. No earthly prince could ever have admired his priceless jewels with such delight as the believer may admire that priceless arrangement we call the covenant of grace.
A covenant is a formal legal agreement or contract involving two or more parties about a matter that they each have an interest in. In it, one or more of the parties bind themselves to obligations. In this paper, the covenant discussed is that eternal arrangement between the Father, representing the glorious Trinity, and the Lord Jesus Christ as the “last Adam”, representing His people. This covenant is concerned with the salvation of God’s elect. The Shorter Catechism says, “God having, out of His mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace, to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer” (Ans 20).
Grace. The word has various uses in common English. Even in the Bible it has more than one meaning. We are at present concentrating on grace as a divine attribute. It is the attribute of divine goodness, viewed in a particular light; it is God’s boundless, timeless and changeless goodness viewed in a unique way. When infinite goodness freely bestows salvation, or any aspect of it, on one who in himself is viewed as unworthy, God’s goodness is called “grace”. It will help us form a clearer idea of what grace is if we view it by way of contrast. It is not merit which we have accrued by works of righteousness. When the Word of God speaks of grace in the context of the salvation of sinners, it is opposed to merit and works.
In Romans 4:4 Paul states, “Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”. In 2 Timothy he says that God “hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began”.
Paul makes plain that the salvation of the elect, based on free, sovereign grace, is irreconcilably opposed to the idea of salvation or election, based on merit accrued by works. He states, “And if it is by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work” (Rom 11:6). Paul insists that election is based on God’s sovereign and gracious will, decreeing that some shall be saved; it is not based on God looking to see who will be worthy to be elected. He will not allow us to think that these two, grace and human merit, can be mixed. This verse teaches that if we add one drop of works to grace, then grace ceases to be grace.
Paul compares what God decreed about the two brothers, Jacob and Esau. His argument shows that election is God in His grace sovereignly choosing a people from eternity: “For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth” (Rom 9:11).
Paul sees that the idea that merit is accrued by “works of righteousness” has great credit among men, and he labours to move them off it. He never says anything against good works, but he abhors the idea of self-righteousness, or merit accrued by sinners through their good works. He condemns the attitude of mind which imagines that we put God in debt to us by what we do for Him, or that God owes us salvation for our (poor) obedience to His law. Paul would put this counterfeit religion out of the Church because by it God is dishonoured and Christ’s righteousness is despised; it will keep those who trust in it out of heaven.
Human merit cannot justify a sinner. What use is it to trust in something that cannot justify? “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law” (Gal 2:16). “That no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith” (Gal 3:11). What use is it to trust in something that cannot remove the curse of the broken law? “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them (Gal 3:10).
Let us take heed to the warnings against trusting in human merit. It manifests a mind blind to our own sinfulness. Our words and thoughts are stained with sin. Behind every sinful thought or word, and every sinful feeling, there is a sinful nature defiling our moral character, making certain that everything proceeding out of our hearts will be sinful. To trust in human merit betrays ignorance about the Fall and its sad effects on us personally.
It manifests blindness to the spiritual depth and breadth of the law. It also manifests blindness of mind to the demands of the strict justice of God. It betrays a soul-ruining ignorance of the sweet reign of grace. This mercenary kind of religion is the ruin of thousands in the anti-Christian religion – a counterfeit Christianity and another gospel.
Grace can accomplish what the merit accrued by our righteousness (so-called) cannot. By this blessed attribute of divine grace, God gives help and mercy: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16).
By grace alone sinners are accepted: “To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He hath made us accepted in the Beloved” (Eph 1:6).
Grace purchased redemption and gives forgiveness: “In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph 1:7).
By grace the spiritually dead are made alive: God, “even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved)” (Eph 2:5).
The Almighty God justifies the ungodly. Because grace reigns in His Kingdom, God justifies sinners without reference to their moral character: “Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Rom 3:24).
By grace sinners are effectually called. Paul affirmed that this calling was by free, sovereign grace: “God, who . . . called me by His grace” (Gal 1:15).
By grace they are adopted: “Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will” (Eph 1:5).
By grace they are sanctified: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh” (Ezek 36:26).
By grace they persevere unto the end: “I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from Me” (Jer 32:40).
By grace they are brought to eternal glory: “For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly” (Ps 84:11).
Let us drive counterfeit works out of our hearts and lives, finish with the covenant of works and our own righteousness, and fall down at the feet of the sovereign God of all grace, saying,
“Remember me, Lord, with that love which Thou to Thine dost bear;
with Thy salvation, O my God, to visit me draw near:
That I Thy chosen’s good may see, and in their joy rejoice;
And may with Thine inheritance triumph with cheerful voice”.
(Ps 106:4, metrical).
It is a Covenant of Grace because God is Gracious. As was affirmed already, grace is a divine attribute. It resides in the heart of the Father: He is the “God of all grace”. It resides in the heart of the Son: it is “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”. It is the leading governing principle in all that Christ did and continues to do for the redemption of His people. The Lord Jesus Christ is “full of grace and truth” – that is, He is exceedingly gracious and is therefore infinitely bounteous to all who ask to be made rich by Him according to the terms of the covenant of grace. Grace resides in the heart of the Holy Spirit: He is “the Spirit of grace”.
God has erected a throne, to which sinners may come, and it is characterised by grace. There grace dispenses the benefits of redemption “without money and without price”, to condemned sinners who make use of this blessed provision. Grace is compared to a sovereign invested with royal power and authority. “That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness to eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom 5:21). Grace, viewed as a divine attribute revealed in Christ, is adorned with both the beauty of holiness and the tenderest compassion and applied with irresistible power.
Grace is infinite kindness and is accompanied with infinite authority to dispense all good things from His banqueting house to the greatest sinner under the gospel, if he will have them. Grace delivers guilty sinners from the jaws of destruction. Grace bestows gifts liberally on men who in themselves are unworthy through sin, but it absolutely refuses to meet with sinners on any terms but its own, which are absolutely gracious. Neither will grace conduct the affairs of the covenant with the self-righteous, but only with self-condemned sinners. When grace wounds the self-righteous, proud sinner, it is like a surgeon wounding in order to heal.
An old writer summed up the freeness of salvation by the covenant of grace in these words: “Entirely detached from every supposition of human worth and operating independently of all conditions performed by man, it rises superior to human guilt and superabounds over human unworthiness”. This is the grace that characterises the covenant.
If the Son of God experienced a storm, His people cannot plead exemption. But they have ground to pray for a prosperous voyage and reason to expect that providence will give it, if divine wisdom has no purpose to serve by a tempest. The very opposition made to the kingdom of Christ is a part of the plan of divine wisdom.