1. What Kind of Covenant?
William Bridge
Thirdly, what kind of covenant is this? What are its properties? To name but three:
(1) It is a covenant of grace in opposition to works, or to all our own worth or worthiness. It is a covenant of grace, for it is made with sinners. The covenant that was made with Adam in the state of innocence was made with a saint, having the image of God upon him, and therefore a covenant of friendship. The covenant that God makes now, he makes with sinners, and it is a covenant of reconciliation, and therefore a covenant of grace. Then by the covenant of works, that God made with Adam, there was no room for repentance, or for remission for sin, now there is room for both.
For repentance, “I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh”, says God.
For remission, “Their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more”, says the covenant; indeed, the covenant of grace so deeply promises remission of sins that, whereas the covenant of works would own no such things, the covenant of grace so deeply undertakes to forgive sins that it is made the chief, and the reason of all the others. He promises to write His law in their hearts, and they will all know Him. Why? “For . . . their sins. . . will I remember no more” (Heb 8:12). By the first covenant, if we had sinned, we should have provoked God thereby to damn us and to destroy us. By this covenant, when a man that is in covenant sins, he provokes God by it to pity him and to have compassion on him. In the covenant of works the Lord gave a man strength to stand and left him to himself. But now the Lord has promised in this covenant to cause him to walk in His ways.
When the Israelites had to do with the Egyptians, the Egyptians required from them their tally of brick, but gave them no straw. Now we have to deal with so good a Lord, in this covenant, that we have straw and strength, and not only strength but God Himself is a co-worker with us. Indeed, what grace is there that you lack, or complain for the lack of it, but it is promised in this covenant?
1The first of four points taken (numbers 3-6), with editing, from a sermon entitled, “Christ and the Covenant” in The Works of William Bridge, vol 3. His text was, “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb 12:24). The first point explained what this covenant is, and the second why it is called a new covenant (these first two points are not being printed here). Bridge was a Puritan minister in Yarmouth.
Do you complain that you are not converted? “I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts”, says God now.
Do you complain that you are ignorant? “They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them,” says the covenant.
Do you complain that your heart is hard? God says, “I will take the stony heart out of their flesh, and will give them an heart of flesh”. Grace, grace. This covenant then is a covenant of grace; it is a gracious covenant.
(2) As it is a gracious covenant, so it is a free and unconditional covenant. It is free in opposition to all conditions to be performed by us. Do not mistake me, I do not say there is no condition in the new covenant, but the condition is performed by Christ, our second Adam. Nor do I say that faith, obedience and repentance are not required. But I say that faith, obedience and repentance are required in the new covenant as duties, but not as conditions.
This I say then: it is a free covenant, in opposition to all conditions to be performed by man; for when the covenant of grace is mentioned in Scripture, where do you find any condition annexed to anything that is there promised.
The Lord says, “Their sins. . . will I remember no more”. Upon what condition? None is mentioned.
He says, “I will put my law in their inward parts”. Upon what condition? None is mentioned.
He says, “They shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them”. Upon what condition? None is mentioned. Where do you ever find the covenant mentioned with a condition?
Plainly, if there was a condition, the condition must be distinct from the thing promised. If I promise to go on a journey with a man on condition that he shall bear my charges, his bearing my charges and my going on the journey are distinct things. Now what condition can there be? Faith, repentance or obedience? But these are all promised in the covenant; therefore they cannot be the condition, for the thing promised in the covenant and the condition that we are to perform must be distinct. I say, if there is a condition, it must be distinct from the thing promised; yet there is nothing that we can perform but is promised in the covenant. Therefore there can be no condition.
The prophet Isaiah tells us that this covenant is after the nature of the covenant that God made with Noah – that the world will be drowned no more. And that is absolute, it depends upon no condition. Junius2 thinks that, on this account, this covenant of grace is called a testament, for, he says, a testament has no condition. A man makes his last will and testament; and
2Franciscus Junius (the Latinised form of his French name, François du Jon) (1545-1602). Born in France, he became a minister in Antwerp and later taught theology in Heidelberg in Germany, and Leiden in the Netherlands.
though now and then a man may hang a condition on a rebellious child, yet ordinarily a man then gives, and gives freely, without any condition; and so this covenant is called a testament. Why? Because no condition is to be performed by us. This is the second thing, it is a free covenant in opposition to all conditions to be performed by ourselves.
(3) As it is a free covenant, in opposition to all conditions to be performed by us, so it is an everlasting covenant, a covenant of salt that cannot be broken. “Which my covenant they brake”, says God, speaking of the former covenant. He says, in Zechariah, “I took My staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break My covenant which I had made with all the people”. God broke it; that is, the former covenant. But now this covenant of grace is an everlasting covenant, “ordered in all things and sure”, an everlasting covenant that cannot be broken. Thus you see what kind of covenant it is; it is a covenant of grace, in opposition to all works and worth in us; a free covenant in opposition to all conditions to be performed by us; and an everlasting covenant. This is the covenant that is made with the children of men.