The Covenant of Grace
This article is the last part in the series of articles about the relationship between biblical counseling and the covenant. You can check the first three articles below:
The Westminster Standards
The Larger Catechism questions 30 to 32 provide us with a detailed explanation of the covenant of grace:
Question 30: Doth God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?
Answer: God doth not leave all men to perish in the estate of sin and misery, into which they fell by the breach of the first covenant, commonly called the Covenant of Works; but of his mere love and mercy delivers his elect out of it, and bringeth them into an estate of salvation by the second covenant, commonly called the Covenant of Grace.
Question 31: With whom was the covenant of grace made?
Answer: The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.
Question 32: How is the grace of God manifested in the second covenant?
Answer: The grace of God is manifested in the second covenant, in that he freely provides and offers to sinners a Mediator, and life and salvation by him; and, requiring faith as the condition to interest them in him, promises and gives his Holy Spirit to all his elect, to work in them that faith, with all other saving graces; and to enable them unto all holy obedience, as the evidence of the truth of their faith and thankfulness to God, and as the way which he hath appointed them to salvation.
How about the Westminster Confession of Faith? What does it say about the Covenant of Grace?
Here is how the Westminster Confession of Faith describes the covenant of grace:
The Lord was pleased to make a second [covenant], commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offers unto sinners, life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved (chapter 7, section 3).
Again, the overview of the Covenant of Grace provided by the Third Millennium materials is more detailed. The Covenant of Grace is explained considering its background in God’s eternal counsel, its origin from the perspective of providence, its elements, and its historical administration.
Historical Administration
Let us take first the historical administration of the covenant of grace. The idea here is that the covenant of grace was governed, or administered, by various covenant representatives. In considering the historical administration of the covenant of grace, it’s important to recognize that different theological traditions define these administrations in different ways. And often, these differences revolve around how they define God’s covenant people:
For instance, some believe that only believers are included in the covenant of grace. Others believe it includes believers and their children. Others approach this topic from a different perspective. They describe a cumulative sequence of covenant administrations that initially included all humanity and became more exclusive with each successive covenant. And there are other views as well.
Since we cannot discuss in detail the covenant of grace under different dispensations, it is enough for us to acknowledge that there are six stages in the historical administration of this covenant under Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and ultimately accomplished in the coming of the Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord.
I think the explanation of Dr. Stephen J. Wellum will help us understand the differences in the historical administration of the covenant of grace:
When we think of the kingdom of God across the canon of Scripture and across redemptive history … there are changes in the administration of it as you work through the biblical covenants and reach their culmination in Christ. So, for instance, particularly in the Old Testament, as God brings his salvific plan through the nation of Israel into the old covenant, he’s working primarily with a nation, he’s working primarily in terms of a theocracy, a visible representation in terms of that nation, where, through them, they will bring about the coming of the Messiah, the coming of the Lord Jesus, and you see a lot of the administration of that kingdom tied to them in a particular place, location, land, under particular rule and government and so on. And then, as you think of its fulfillment in Christ, as you bring the kingdom to pass in the new covenant, there are some changes. Christ obviously is the king. He is the one who fulfills the types and shadows of the Old Testament. He fulfills the role of David and Moses. And he’s the one who, in his life and death and resurrection, inaugurates the kingdom, brings God's saving reign to this world, and then brings about an international community — what we call the church, the “one new man,” Jews and Gentiles together — so that he now rules in and through the church. Even though he’s ascended back to heaven, he rules in and through the church but not in a kind of theocracy in the same way that it was with Israel… And so, some of those are the changes that have occurred as God's rule breaks in through the nation of Israel in the Old Testament, culminating now in Christ in the church as the church now takes the gospel of the kingdom to the uttermost parts of the world, announcing that, “The King has come! Enter his saving reign now before he comes again and will finalize salvation and also will execute judgment.”
Background in God’s Eternal Counsel
As for the background of the covenant of grace in God’s eternal counsel, we will consider the time, the different roles of the three persons in the Trinity, and the fulfillment of God’s eternal counsel in the covenant of grace.
Time
The covenant of grace was made before the creation of the universe. Moreover, the elect were also chosen unto salvation “from the beginning.” 2 Timothy 1:9, 10 speaks of grace that was given to us “before the beginning of time.” This is where theologians got the idea of predestination:
The Greek word proorizo, commonly translated as “predestination,” means that God’s eternal decree of salvation was foreordained, or decided before the world began. Even though there are different theological traditions about predestination, there is an agreement that God’s decision to save sinners was made as part of his eternal counsel, before the foundation of the world.
The Trinity
As to the role of each person in the Trinity, here's how the ThirdMill material explains it:
The Father originated the agreement because of his desire to redeem fallen human beings from the curse of sin. Correspondingly, the Son agreed to add a perfect human nature to his perfect divine nature, so that he could die on behalf of sinners. And just as God’s eternal counsel decreed roles for the Father and the Son, it also determined the Holy Spirit’s part. The Holy Spirit agreed to enable and empower the Son’s work, and to apply salvation to those whom the Son redeemed.
Fulfillment of God's Eternal Counsel
God’s eternal counsel is his plan of what will take place in history. The fulfillment of the covenant of grace is part of that plan.
The persons of the Trinity always knew that humanity would fall into sin. And they always intended to redeem human beings through Christ’s life, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. They decreed these things in their eternal counsel. And they implemented them in history through the covenant of grace.
Again, here's how the material elaborates the role of each person in the Godhead in the fulfillment of the covenant of grace:
The Father eternally decreed our redemption in Christ. And then he fulfilled this decree in the covenant of grace by sending the Son and the Spirit to do their work. He also appointed the Son to the office of Messiah or Christ, which was necessary to his redemptive work.
For his part, God the Son also fulfilled his eternal agreement to redeem humanity. He veiled his divine glory, added a full human nature to his full divine nature, lived a perfect life, and died an atoning death.
The role of the Third Person in the Trinity is more detailed:
The Holy Spirit fulfills his part in God’s eternal counsel, too. He enabled and empowered the Son’s incarnation and subsequent work by conceiving the Son’s human nature in his mother Mary. The Holy Spirit also empowered Christ’s death on the cross, and he was instrumental in Christ’s resurrection. Beyond this, the Holy Spirit also continually fulfills his agreement to apply salvation to us. He regenerates our spirits, empowers us to resist sin, gives us the spiritual gifts that are part of our salvation, and secures our salvation. We might summarize the Spirit’s work by saying that he is the person of the Trinity who enables, empowers, and applies the Son’s saving work in the world. Wherever God’s power is shown, and wherever salvation is realized, the Holy Spirit is fulfilling God’s eternal counsel regarding our redemption.
Providence
God’s eternal counsel was determined before the creation of the world. Providence, on the other hand, is God’s preservation and governance of His creation. From this perspective, the covenant of grace is part of God's providence.
It involves all of his interactions with the universe, with particular emphasis on his creatures and their actions. So, when we think about God’s offer of salvation as a response to humanity’s sin, we’re approaching the covenant of grace from the perspective of providence.
Redemption is part of God’s providence. We see here how sin made the covenant of grace necessary and the role of Christ as mediator of the covenant of grace.
Sin
Humanity failed to accomplish what theologians call the "cultural mandate" based on Genesis 1:26-28. As a result of such failure, the covenant of grace was necessary to restore humanity’s ability to fulfill this mandate. By violating the terms of the covenant, "Adam introduced a curse on humanity, which resulted in the corruption of our beings, alienation from God and other people, and physical and spiritual death."
As such, the introduction of the curse to God’s creation became an obstacle for humanity to reflect His image in the ethical sense. Under the state of sin, man is incapable of doing what God asks him to do. Our corruption prevents us from living a life that pleases Him. Instead, we are alienated from Him, and such alienation prevents us from accomplishing our cultural task.
Again, here's why the covenant of grace serves us as good news for mankind. God didn’t abandon us in our miserable and hopeless state. In the case of our first parents, God offered as stated in Genesis 3:15:
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
This verse tells us three levels of hostility:
Between the Serpent and Eve
Between the Serpent's seed and Eve's seed, and
Finally, between the Serpent and Eve's seed.
The above promise "was God’s way of foretelling that a human being would eventually conquer Satan’s sinful kingdom. This person would rescue humanity and save them from sin’s oppression and condemnation." That is why theologians call this announcement the protoevangelium in Latin, or proto-euangelion in Greek, which means the “first gospel.” This first gospel marked the beginning of the history of the covenant of grace.
In the first covenant, blessings and curses are dependent on our works. The covenant of grace is different from the covenant of works, for the latter no longer depends on human works, but on the works of Christ. And since Jesus fulfilled all the terms of the covenant, he could graciously share all the blessings with us. In this regard, in the covenant of grace, we find the solution to our problems that resulted from our failure to obey the first covenant. Nevertheless, the covenant of grace did not invalidate the first covenant. Instead, it should be seen "as an expansion and continuation of the covenant of works."
Jesus Our Mediator
As already mentioned, in the covenant of works, God took the form of a suzerain, and humanity was the vassal. Adam served as the head or representative of God’s vassal people. However, there is a difference in this arrangement in the covenant of grace. A new representative was added.
In the covenant of grace, God was still the suzerain, humanity was still the vassal, and Adam was still the head or representative of humanity, at least, at first. But in addition to these parties, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, joined the covenant as its mediator. As the mediator, the Son intercedes for God’s covenant people. He reconciles us to God by taking both the blame and the punishment for our sins. He preserves the integrity of the covenant and the lives of his people by suffering the covenant curses on our behalf. Similarly, through his obedience to the covenant’s requirements of human loyalty, the Son earns the covenant blessings for himself. And then shares them with the sinners he redeems.
The mediatorial work of the Son of God began when the covenant of grace was first made, back in the Garden of Eden, and he remained as the mediator since then, all throughout the Old Testament age.
Here's how this mediatorial work of Christ has been explained:
Throughout the Old Testament age, his mediation provided forgiveness and salvation for the Old Testament saints, all based on his promised future work. No one was ever saved based on his or her own merit or worthiness, since no works of obedience can erase our sin. And no one was ever saved based on sacrificed animals, since no animal’s death could really be a sufficient substitute for a human being.
The Old Testament ordinances were symbols that God’s people performed in faith. But the power of these ordinances was the mediatorial work of the Son. That’s why Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ day, as we read in John 8:56. And it’s why so many figures in the New Testament claimed that Moses and the prophets explained the work that Jesus would come to do.
Jesus's incarnation played the central role in His work as a mediator. The God-man lived a life of perfect faith and obedience, died on the cross, was resurrected from the dead, and ascended into heaven. "As mediator of the covenant of grace, he fulfilled the covenant of works on our behalf and guaranteed that we would receive its blessings."
Redemption is possible under the covenant of grace because Jesus isn’t just our representative; he’s also our mediator. And that enables him to take away our personal, individual guilt. Jesus’ role as our fully divine and fully human covenant mediator is what enabled him to atone for our sin by dying in our place. And because this solution to human sin will always be available in the covenant of grace, there will never be a need for divine providence to introduce another covenant, another covenant representative, or another mediator.
Elements of the Covenant
As for the elements of the covenant, I will just cite verbatim the materials from Third Millennium.
Benevolence
The first element of the covenant is the benevolence of the suzerain toward the vassal. In the covenant of works, God’s benevolence to mankind was displayed by the creation of our first parents, assigning them authority over creation, and giving them food and shelter.
In the covenant of grace, God’s benevolence motivated the Father to send the Son as our mediator, and motivated the Son to rejoice in that assignment. Benevolence moved God to create a covenant arrangement in which he himself would fulfill the conditions that we couldn’t fulfill, so that we could be given rewards that we could never earn. It’s what makes the announcement of the gospel such good news — that the priceless gifts of forgiveness and life are available to us for free. We serve a great and loving God, who has sworn a solemn covenant vow to be good to us.
Loyalty
The second element is loyalty.
The covenant of grace requires absolute obedience to God, just as the covenant of works did. In fact, the requirements of human loyalty actually increased in the covenant of grace. Under the covenant of works, the requirement of human loyalty had to be fulfilled twice. First, it had to be fulfilled by Adam, our covenant representative. If Adam had been fully loyal to God, his obedience would have been counted as humanity’s corporate obedience. And although Adam failed in this regard, the covenant of grace continues to hold us accountable to this standard. We can’t avoid its judgment simply because we’re unable to change our past.
Second, the covenant of works also required our personal loyalty. For instance, Eve wasn’t judged only as part of Adam’s race. She was also judged for her own actions. This indicates that God required her personal obedience. It might have been possible, for instance, for Adam to have obeyed God but for one of his descendants to have fallen into sin. In such a case, while this sin wouldn’t have condemned all humanity, it would have condemned the sinner.
But one of the beautiful benevolences in the covenant of grace is that Jesus acts as our covenant head and mediator. As our covenant head, he’s already fulfilled the requirement of corporate human loyalty through his perfect obedience to God. And as our mediator, he’s stood in the place of each of us, and thereby fulfilled the requirements of personal loyalty. Wherever we’ve sinned, he’s taken the blame. And wherever he’s been faithful, he’s credited his faithfulness to our account. So, even though the requirements of human loyalty have increased in the covenant of grace, they’ve become much easier to meet — because Jesus, our mediator, fulfills them on our behalf.
So, when we think about human loyalty in the covenant of grace, it’s critical to remember that Jesus has entirely taken away our curse. As long as we remain faithful to him, we can never suffer the everlasting negative consequences of God’s covenant. But we’re still obligated not to sin. Similarly, many of our blessings are purchased by Christ and aren’t dependent on our personal loyalty. Even so, the covenant still obligates us to obey him.
Consequences
The third element in the covenant of grace is about the consequences of the vassal’s loyalty or disloyalty to the covenant. The expansion of the curses in the covenant of grace is frightening. However, the expansion of the blessings helps us overcome that fear and gives us confidence in the abundance of God's grace.
From a legal perspective, the covenant of grace includes, and expands on all the consequences of the covenant of works. As Paul taught in Romans 5:12-14, death is still a corporate result of Adam’s sin, just as it was in the covenant of works. And we still have to suffer for our personal sins, too, just as Adam and Eve did in Genesis 3:16-18. Moreover, the covenant curses have been increased now that Christ has come.
As we read in Hebrews 10:28-29:
Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?
. . . our redemption under the covenant of grace increases our blessings beyond those offered in the covenant of works. For instance, in our final state of redemption, the possibility of sin and its consequences will be completely removed.
The expansion of blessings in the covenant of grace is not only confined to the removal of the possibility of sin and its consequences, but also to the reality that the people of God are now united in Christ.
Moreover, under the covenant of grace, our blessings now include union with Christ. Paul was so engaged with this idea that he referred to it constantly throughout his writings. Phrases like “in Christ,” “in Christ Jesus,” “in the Lord,” and “in him” appear well over a hundred times in his works.
Even though theologians interpret this union differently, the important thing is that such a union radically transforms all aspects of the Christian life. Personally, I prefer to interpret such a union that includes both a "spiritual union" and a matter of "covenant representation."
Finally, I find it very encouraging to embrace the truth that in the covenant of grace, there are no curses left, but only blessings. When we sin, instead of punishing us for violating God's covenant, "God assigns our punishment to Jesus." And since Jesus already dealt with our punishment on the cross, this is the reason why "for believers, the covenant of grace has no curses; it only has blessings!"
In fact, the above theological insight caused older theologians to describe Adam's fall as a "happy" event, which in modern times can be called a "blessing in disguise." We don't diminish the entrance of evil because of Adam's fall. However, "redemption in the covenant of grace is so much better than humanity’s original condition that we’re actually better off for Adam having sinned."
Biblical Counseling and Covenant Theology
Now, to conclude this lecture, I would like to raise the same question asked by our professor in The Dynamics of Biblical Change. Dr. Enoch Wood asked:
What in the world does the covenant have to do with biblical counseling and change?
Dr. Wood's response is long:
In biblical counseling, the immediate goal of personal transformation is the reason why you are taking this class, the very thing that you are being trained to do, and to train others to do, to help people change, put off sin, put on Christ, handle their problems biblically rather than chemically, medically, psychologically, paganly, is not rooted in some human wisdom, plan, or procedure, but is rooted in the eternal Triune God, His volitional act of creating people and relating to them, and His wise plan of salvation after we rebelled against Him, which the Bible calls covenant.
Restating his reply differently:
. . . biblical counseling is part of God’s ordained process for creating a holy people unto himself, called progressive sanctification. And it is 100% guaranteed to happen because He has ordained and promised it. It is as good as done. So, we can trust no other process, source of wisdom, or practice to accomplish these things in the life of the believer. God is doing this. As he has entered into a covenant with us, we are now associated with Him, united to Him, in Jesus Christ. Therefore, he will not just declare that we are holy (justification, something that happens outside of us), but we will actually be made holy (sanctification, something that happens in us).
That ends our series about the relationship between biblical counseling and covenant theology.