The Covenant of Grace¹

3. What Is Involved in the Covenant? (1)

Rev Roderick Macleod

We have considered briefly the fact that there is a gospel feast. This great feast was devised by divine wisdom to provide salvation for sinners perishing in sin.

What we are keen to investigate now is the preparation for this feast. Some

¹Last month’s section of this Conference paper described the covenant as providing a feast.

agreement must have been made to bring the Son of God to the agonies He endured in our nature on the cursed tree on Calvary. The gospel is a prepared feast. In the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments we find that the Persons of the glorious Trinity are, from eternity, bound to one another by voluntary, inviolable pledges to provide the gospel feast.

One finds that the third Person is principally (though not exclusively) involved in the application to elect sinners of the provisions of the Covenant – such as effectual calling and sanctification. John 3:8 is one of a class of texts which teach this: “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit”. The Scriptures speak of the first Person and the second Person of the Trinity as principally (though not exclusively) involved in making the covenant. In the view of many judicious commentators, one of a class of texts which teach this point is Zechariah 6:13: “The counsel of peace shall be between them both”.

At this point, it is necessary to say that while this is a holy arrangement between divine Persons, the language we use to describe it is human. We can only speak of God by way of analogy. The divine nature is infinite, eternal and unchangeable and so it transcends our capacity to think of it as it actually is. However, because God made man in His own image, it is possible for us to think about God. For example, to think of the infinite power of God, we must consider the power of man and then think of it without any limits or defects whatever. We must not think that analogy is an inaccurate way of thinking about divine things. The Holy Spirit teaches us to think of this covenant in this way – as made in eternity, between divine Persons. Furthermore, we can form no proper idea as to this arrangement unless God reveals it to us. It is spoken of in the Bible in terms of a covenant: covenant parties contracting, a covenant proposal, covenant conditions to be met, and covenant promises to be performed.

It is clear that Ethan speaks about the making of this Covenant, or preparing the gospel feast, when he says: “Mercy shall be built up for ever” (Ps 89:2). Do we ask how this is to be done? God answers, “I have made a covenant with My chosen”. What kind of covenant? One where Jehovah has laid the whole burden of redemption on One that is equal to the undertaking, “I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people” (v 19). He, who alone can claim, “Thou art my Father” by nature, would cry in the nature that was doomed to die: “Thou art My God alone” (v 26). And as One acting by faith on the faithfulness of His Father to the promises of the covenant that had been made with Himself as Surety, He would say, “Thou art the Rock of My salvation” (v 25). We will proceed by

comparing this greatest of all contracts ever made with some general features of covenant agreements.

1. Parties. There are parties in a covenant. The preparation of the gospel feast is presented in the Scriptures as a proposal made by the Father, to which the Son consented, about a great spiritual feast for perishing sinners. We call this the making of the covenant of grace. So the covenanting, or contracting, parties entering into a voluntary agreement to prepare the gospel feast are: (1) the Father, representing the Persons, claims and prerogatives of the holy Trinity and (2) the Son of God, representing His people. Let us carefully observe that it is essential to our understanding of the covenant of grace to distinguish between making this covenant in eternity, and administering it in time. The glory of the gospel feast is lost if we forget that it was made in eternity. The covenant of grace was agreed by the parties from eternity.

There are other ways of speaking about the making of the covenant of grace – “the preparation of the feast” – but they all take the form of a covenant agreement. Throughout the history of teaching and preaching this doctrine, some able theologians have chosen to refer to two covenants for the salvation of God’s elect. They have called the making of the covenant by the Father and the Son the covenant of redemption, and they have used the expression the covenant of grace to refer to its administration in the Church. Not only the eminently-godly John Brown of Haddington (whose theology we present here) but the judicious Thomas Boston, Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine and other eminent theologians on both sides of the Atlantic believed that there was no need to speak of two covenants about salvation.

As there was one legal covenant of works, made with the first Adam, and with all his seed in him, so there is one evangelical covenant of grace made with the last Adam, and with all His seed in Him. A federal union brought all Adam’s seed into the bond of the covenant of works with him. So a federal union to Christ brings us into the bond of the covenant of grace with the last Adam. That union is effected by (1) an act of union on the side of Christ, by which He binds Himself in a vital and saving union to the sinner by His Holy Spirit and (2) a consequent act of faith on the sinner’s part – receiving Christ and all His salvation according to the terms of free and sovereign grace, without money and without price.

The arguments to support the one-covenant view are as follows. (1.) The Scriptures only speak of two covenants for life and happiness: the covenant of works made with the first man in the Garden of Eden and the covenant of grace made with the Son of God in eternity. (2.) Salvation of sinners is by “the blood of the covenant” (singular) not covenants (plural). (3.) There

are as many covenants about life and salvation as there are Adams. Paul speaks of two Adams: the first Adam and the last Adam.

1. Proposal. In a covenant, matters are proposed and consented to. From eternity, the triune God purposed to make man. He decreed to permit the fall of mankind in Adam. The electing love of God the Father fell on a number of the fallen race of mankind. He proposed their salvation to His eternal Son, in the form of a covenant. This proposal was that the Son of God would become the last Adam, to represent God’s elect as His seed and that He would act as Surety for them. A surety engages to pay a debt or perform a duty instead of another, according to a pre-arrangement. To this proposal the second person of the Trinity consented.

Isaiah 53 foretells the sufferings of the Son of God in our nature and describes them as the sufferings of a surety. He is suffering in the place of others. He consents – binds Himself in His love – to be held entirely responsible for the sins of His people. It is suffering at the hands of the Father, who is upholding the claims of the Godhead. “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief” (v 10). The infinite justice of God cannot be satisfied and the feast is not “ready” if the stroke due to His people does not fall on the Surety. The claims of that justice against the sins of all the election of grace must be exhausted. The vengeance of offended holiness must fall without mercy on the divine Surety. The infinite grace of God desires it. The infinite holiness of God demands it. The infinite wisdom of God designs it. The infinite justice of God delivers it. The Son of God receives it.

In His unsearchable grace, the Surety is to be “brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb” (v 7), so He shall be silent in His love and joy over His people with singing (Zep 3:17), when He restores that which He took not away (Ps 69:4). Psalm 40 expresses the strong love of the Son of God in response to the covenant proposal of suretyship when He says, “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire; mine ears hast Thou opened” (or, as Paul says in Hebrews 10:5, “a body hast Thou prepared Me”): “burnt offering and sin offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart” (vv 6-8).

All this suffering was required of the divine Surety as the condition of the covenant of grace. All spiritual blessings mentioned in the promises of the Word, as bestowed freely on sinners, depend on the Lord Jesus Christ consenting to exhaust the claims of holy justice for those the Father gave to Him. The Old Testament sacrifices could not take away sin. They were not

designed to do that. They are not the gospel feast designed to slake the thirst of the guilty sinner, perishing for want of pardon. They were to point to the sacrifice of Christ. In Psalm 40, Christ declares that this is the end for which He came: He makes known the abrogation of the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament and introduces the astonishing doctrine that He, Jehovah the Son, would become the servant of Jehovah the Father, in order to offer Himself as a sacrifice to satisfy the claims of justice against the sins of those He died for, according to the proposal made in eternity.

Prayer¹

5. Its Effects

Charles Hodge

Prayer as a Means of Grace. Means of grace are what God has ordained to communicate the life-giving and sanctifying influences of the Spirit to the souls of men. Such are the Word and sacraments, and such is prayer. Every cause has an end for which it was appointed; prayer is thus the condition on which the blessings of God, providential or spiritual, are bestowed. But it also brings us near to God, who is the source of all good. Fellowship with Him, converse with Him, calls into exercise all gracious affections, reverence, love, gratitude, submission, faith, joy and devotion. When the soul thus draws near to God, God draws near to it, manifests His glory, sheds abroad His love and imparts that peace which passes all understanding. Christ says, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (Jn 14:28). In such fellowship, the soul must be holy and must be blessed.

The Power of Prayer. The course of human events is not controlled by physical force alone. There are other powers at work in governing the world. There is the power of ideas, true or false; the power of truth; the power of love and human sympathy; the power of conscience; and, above all, the Supreme Power, which is an intelligent, voluntary, personal power, co-operating with and controlling the operations of all creatures, without violating their nature. This Supreme Power is roused into action by prayer, in a way analogous to that in which the energies of a man are called into action by the entreaties of his fellow men.

This is the doctrine of the Bible; it is perfectly consistent with reason and is confirmed by the whole history of the world and especially of the Church.

¹Taken, with editing, from Hodge’s Systematic Theology, vol 3. Last month’s article considered “different kinds of prayer”: secret, social and public. This is the final piece.

Moses by his prayer saved the Israelites from destruction; at the prayer of Samuel, the army of the Philistines was dispersed. “Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.” These facts are referred to by the Apostle James, to prove that the prayer of a righteous man avails much. Paul constantly begged his Christian brethren to pray for him, and directed that prayer should “be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty”.

This of course supposes that prayer is a power. Queen Mary of Scotland was not beside herself when she said that she feared the prayers of John Knox more than an army. Once admit the existence of a personal God and His constant control over all things outside of Himself, and all ground for doubt as to the efficacy of prayer is removed. It then remains to us, as it has been to the people of God in all ages, the great source of spiritual joy and strength, of security for the present and confidence for the future. Psalm 46 still stands: “The Lord of Hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge”.