we are continuing our series on millennialism 101 and in this our third lecture we are talking about the Covenant or context in which we talk about eschatology and we're going to make the case tonight that reformed notions of covenant theology as I have portrayed here on the whiteboard and our omelet less Kitaj you go hand-in-hand and to do come that theology is to essentially argue for an amillennial eschatology and to argue for an armless khatallah ji pushes you back to something like the classical distinction in reformed theology to covenant works in covenant gray so we're going to argue that relationship tonight so we finished our discussions of presuppositions and methodology and in the broad sense now we work to a bit more specific we're going to look at the reformed non millennial methodology and basic presuppositions this is the context by which i think is a nonlinear christian need to do eschatology so we want to talk about our presuppositions and identify them and lay everything out before we start this is what I'm attempting to do in the next several lectures now when we talk about revelation Christians have always believed that God is an infinite spiritual being who remains hidden and unknowable unless he chooses to reveal himself so we tend to be very nervous about attempts to speculate about the divine essence apart from revelation this is where Luther's distinction between the theology of the cross and the theology of glory is very helpful Luther and Calvin agreed with this argued that the great error of the his age was when people tried to by reason or by a mystical speculation or by turning within trying to get a peek at the naked God by pure speculation and it was to see the data snute is to see the naked gothic to peek over the wall and see things that were forbidden from seeing and to get there by reason or mystical speculation contemplation turning in and Luther said no no God has revealed himself in a theology of the cross if you want to find God you look to the cradle you look to the cross you don't use human reason you don't use all kinds of speculation and this is where God has in a sense both hidden himself and revealed himself so if you argue then that God is unknowable unless revealed we've got to talk about the future then as God has revealed it to us and so we unashamedly approach the revelation that God has given to us in the scripture as our source for eschatology and when you talk about a God revealing himself in Scripture you're necessarily brought to the subject of eschatology you can't escape it and so in contrast to the general revelation of God in nature the Scriptures then are the self revelation of God in human history now the record of that unfolding through a series of successive historical events which as I think you can see from my chart are largely events tied to the establishing and enforcing and ratifying of the main covenants that we find revealed in Scripture God speaks and God acts to redeem sinful men and women and so the nature of Scripture isn't a book to answer all of our questions about everything the Bible is not the owner's guide to life there's a certain sense in which the Bible is not even about you and I say that the kind of push the envelope a bit but this is a book in which God has revealed to us our predicament and his plan to redeem us from our sin and so when you understand what scriptures purpose is you're going to understand Scripture in a much better sense you're not going to be trying to get the Bible to answer specula questions that it was never intended to answer and I think that's very very important to have before us at the beginning now the ramifications of this conception of redemptive history are profound and there are many for one thing this means that Christianity is in its very essence eschatological if you're talking about God revealing himself and history being the unfolding of God's redemptive history then the ironic thing is redemptive history didn't end in the final chapter the book of Acts or even in the final chapter the book of Revelation revelation ends with the apocalypse God is not giving us new Scripture but redemptive history continues on we're in redemptive history and therefore it it's very essence Christianity is eschatological because God is directing history toward that final goal and so you can't talk about God's revelation of himself you can't talk about the Covenant structure of Scripture which I believe is its internal architecture without talking about eschatology you can't escape it if the purpose of this grand work of God is to save us from the guilt and the power of sin and the goal is Redemption then that goal obviously hasn't yet been fulfilled the final consummation has not yet come but it will be and so the very nature of Christianity as a revealed religion is eschatological and so another thing that we draw from this is that this drama of redemption this great story of redemption it's sweeping and it's a panoramic vision that extends from creation the opening two chapters of Genesis all the way to our final redemption and removal of the curse as depicted in revelation 22 this is up this is a broad sweeping panorama of history and I'm not a big fan of your going on on many things but as Moulton has correctly said a Christianity is necessarily connected to the progress of redemptive history and these words from vult Mon in his book theology of Hope are often quoted when you talk about eschatology what one says quoting from first to last and not merely in the epilogue Christianity is eschatology is hope is forward-looking and forward moving and therefore also revolutionising and transforming the present I wouldn't quite take that in the political direction that some folks have but certainly he's right hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine rather the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian Proclamation and of every Christians existence and of the whole church and I think what one is absolutely right about that if the nature and structure of Revelation is God working everything toward a final consummation directing all of history toward the redemption of his people and the second advent of Christ then everything in some sense is tied or has to be connected to eschatology to understand certainly the nature of our world correctly now this is a very very important point because it reminds us that the entire Bible is thoroughly eschatological in its outlook I'm going to make the point a little later on I want to kind of just throw it out here for you to consider in the meantime but folks who are talking about eschatology all the time by relating it to current events really have a pretty small group of passages that they draw from and I hope you get what I'm saying I'm saying all of Scripture is tied to eschatology and that you have to look at the whole fiber of redemptive history the way in which it's unfolded the promises that are made and yet to be realized every aspect of the Christian life and every aspect of the present should we live in light of this grand panoramic vision and so a lot of what we ought to be doing we talk about eschatology is kind of laying out that grand vision and keeping that before our eyes so that we know where we're going and we know what God is doing and so this is especially the case as we work our way through the Old Testament because the Old Testament anticipates the coming of Christ who is the Redeemer of Israel and the mediator of God's covenant and so if you're here in the Old Testament part of redemptive history everything is pointing forward to the coming of Christ who is the mediator of this covenant of grace that God has established with these people that's certainly the author to the Hebrews interprets it looking back and so as Christians and we we know in a sense the final chapters of the story and the way in which we understand the Old Testaments to put ourself back in this timeline and and see where the passage we're dealing with is in this kind of general schema and figure this much history has gone before that explains where we are now and then looking ahead we can see that God is going to take us to that point where Christ steps out of the types and shadows and becomes the key figure then in the new covenant era in redemptive history so I think to put it simply as a Christian I can't look at the Old Testament anymore as a Jew would look at the Old Testament I put on my Christ Center glasses and look back at the Old Testament and therefore when I preach and teach the Old Testament I have to put the particular episodes in their historical context but those historical contexts are ultimately pointing me ahead to the coming of a redeemer many of you know I just finished preaching through the book of Joshua now in the book of Judges you get to Joshua the whole book of Joshua who is the greatest figure in the Old Testament Joshua comes out very well the whole book of Josh that's telling us that as Israel enters the promised land and the conquest Joshua is painting a picture to us of the eternal State big FIGS lots of kids peace from enemies our tip illogical pictures to us of our heavenly inheritance and of course it's not accidental that Jesus's name is yeah Joshua so you get the the center that Joshua is painting a picture of the coming of Christ of pointing us ahead when Israel enters the promised land and is commanded to drive it all the Ike's you know and kill all the Canaanites and drive them out of the land people say that's such a cruel Stern harsh thing for God to do what is that telling us well that's describing the second coming and what's going to happen to all the i'ts on on the day of the Lord Jesus and we see in Israel's casting out of the Canaanites and their slaughter we get a glimpse a faint glimpse of what the last day will be like for those who are not Christ's so as Christians then we look at the Old Testament through the lens of Christ and we must do so unashamedly now the prophets in the Old Testament are continually looking ahead to the day of the Lord and as a prophet stands say in the post of the say the exilic period the post-exilic period look ahead they see all kinds of prophecies off in the future some of them are imminent and are about to be fulfilled in their own lifetimes and other prophecies that are related to that are far off on their identity horizon to the prophet and he's looking this way and from here he sees one event but when he looks at it from a different perspective it's two events or three and so the prophets are continually looking ahead to this day of the Lord and they have predictions of a coming Redeemer and his promise to return yet a second time so Old Testament prophets are looking ahead they see a redeemer coming not really clear that he's going to come twice because of their Old Testament perspective but they're looking for a redeemer to come and when this redeemer comes and promises to come yet a second time this guarantees that even though the New Testament is grounded in the fulfillment of Old Testament promises all it's not yet accomplished there is a final chapter in the story that chapter yet to be played out in the theatres of redemption I think it's really useful to just consider the final two chapters of the book of Revelation in this regard because as you know one of the great covenant promises throughout all of Scripture is God's declaration I will be your God and you will be my people that phrase is reiterated over and over and over again in Scripture and so as you get to the final chapter of the book of Revelation you turn to chapter 21 look at verse 3 in the context of a new heaven and new earth coming down out of heaven John says I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man where have you heard that language before how about Eden how about the tabernacle how about the temple and at the end of the age God dwells with his people again and look at the promise it's tied to he will dwell with man he will dwell with them and they will be his people and God Himself will be with them as their God that covenant promised it is many many times to into scripture becomes the reality when Christ returns so much so that the great promise is assured again in Revelation chapter 22 verse 4 or look at the form it takes here they will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads so the beatific vision seeing God in all his glory is a reality and that is the fulfillment of this promise I will be your God and you will be my people that's it's consummate form it's consummated form so you've got to look at the whole box top here and understand this great panorama of redemption before you work your way through the specifics of it now even though systematic theologians must place eschatology at the end of their systems because of matters of logical organization biblical theologians remind us in many ways eschatology is the very warp and woof of Scripture what's the difference between a systematic theologian and a biblical theologian well biblical theology traces a doctrine through the Bible historically so for example if you're looking at the doctrine of sin you start with the fall and trace how sin is taught and portrayed in Scripture following it through historically and you'd look at first of all Adam and then you'd look at this during the time of lot probably and and the Lamech and the building of civilization Babel you know the flaw all of that you do trace this out biblical theology takes a doctrine in in a straight line form just kind of traces it as it unfolds in Scripture systemically in there it takes all the verses throughout scripture that deal with sin and formulates a doctrinal model so that we have a concise statement of what the Bible teaches about sin and so as one person said systematic theology basically is line Bellco theology is basically line system a theology is basically a circle and I think that's kind of a helpful way to look at this so yes systematic theology has to put us to Taj at the end just because of organization biblical theologians remind us you know the whole subject the whole the whole fabric of Revelation is eschatological and so as we observe redemptive history unfold in the pages of Scripture the biblical writers continually point us to events that lie ahead in the future and of course the ultimate event to come yet in the future is the reception of our inheritance not as pre consummate form but in its consummated form after Christ returns after the dead are raised after the world is judged on a new heaven and a new earth and so because then these future events can only be understood in light of what God has already done in the past then we speak of eschatology as covering a whole framework of biblical revelation I can't understand what the inheritance will be like unless I understand Joshua and Israel's possession of the promised land I can't understand what the inheritance is like or going to be like until you see Jesus come out of his tomb with nail wounds I can't understand what the eternal state is going to be like until Pentecost so I can only make sense of the future in light of what has happened in redemptive history so yes we can easily see why systematic theology has to deal with this as a summing summation a final doctrine and the difficulty of you says no we've got to trace this throughout all of our deputy of history now sadly many Christians are in the very mistaken impression that only limited sections of Scripture contain any reference to future things one critic of amillennialism recently said well I don't see you guys having any prophecy conferences well you know okay we don't have prophecy conferences and only dispensational have them because no one in our tradition is going to tie current events in Israel to Scripture we're just there may even be a relationship between them we're just not going to be the ones to try and make those connections but a lot of our conferences talk about biblical theology and virtually every reform guy know that does biblical theology talks throughout most of their discussions of liberal theology about eschatology we talk about it all the time we just don't talk about it in relationship to current events when we talk about covenant theology at some point we're going to talk about eschatology and for those who have heard me preach and teach at any length you know that virtually every discussion we have from the letters of Paul goes back in some way shape or form to eschatology you can understand Paul unless you understand his view of history this age age to come they already they're not yet unless you've got those categories Paul remains largely unintelligible and so we don't talk about eschatology and prophecy conference we talk about it almost everywhere else the very fabric of redemptive history is eschatological now sadly the irony is then if you're looking for future things and worried about tying in the current events you're going to limit eschatology to issues relating to the timing of the rapture to speculation about political events in the Middle East and Israel as well as the debate about the nature of Christ's millennial reign on the earth you're going to in a sense limit eschatology to just future things and their relationship to current events now I'm the first one to say that can be really exciting I don't know about you I would love to know what to do with my stock you know I would like to know what the future holds in terms of where I want to retire and by how Olsson you know all do I need to be away from the shores you know all of that stuff it would be really nice there's a certain sense in all of this what we would really like to know what the future holds but it's not necessarily a good thing not really Peter wanted to know what the future held for him you're going to be crucified upside down you're going to be led where you don't want to go there that's what the future holds for you you really want to know so the irony is the irony is those who say they speak about eschatology the most actually have the least to say in the reformed scheme of things all of our understanding of covenant theology and redemptive history is eschatological so it we talk about it constantly but not in a relationship to current events and that's what people are looking for their grid is well tell us what Israel its relationship to Hezbollah has to do with the book and then I'll then I'll understand that you're talking about prophecy and taking it seriously well no it's not necessarily the case that's we just look at these things entirely from a different grid and that's why I think people don't think we talk about eschatology we really do and so I think what this does is hear two negative factors one is the proper place of eschatology is eclipsed or truncated if you're talking to current events you make eschatology kind of a quirky speculative thing as opposed to the very fabric of redemptive history and the second Follette is you disconnect eschatology from covenant and I think one of the real problems is because our dispensational friends you know don't see this is tied to covenant that there's just kind of a there's you basically make the focus switch to signs of the end and the rest of redemptive history is kind of cut loose from that you also have no place for the Old Testament Fix get chopped out but it ends up creating it I'm not saying dispensational theologians to this I'm saying if that's your approach it creates a situation in which someone like Hal Lindsey will go from writing a book like late great planet Earth that kind of lays out the dispensational grid if you've seen him lately lately he's basically doing evening news analysis because he's trying to tie every current event to the dispensation you end up creating this prophecy genre where everything that comes on evening this has to be explained in light of the distancing and that becomes a real problem and you're doing this apart from scriptures internal architecture which is covenant so I see those as two serious problems for this now properly understood that eschatology is equally concerned with the past the present and the future and once we become aware of this point and we can I think see how this forward and progressive thrust of redemptive history serves as the basis for much of the Christian faith because our salvation is itself grounded in God's acts in redemptive history in other words I can't understand the second coming at all unless I understand Christ's death his resurrection and his ascension those things are going to tell me a whole lot about what the second coming will be like so it's difficult to separate you know current events out and treat them in isolation from the rest of redemptive history this covers this whole panoramic view and it I think forces us to see future events not as somehow cut loose and floating around out there but future events necessarily tied to the things that God has already done so this is the the external control the dispensations are so worried we don't have it's the whole course of redemptive history as our external control because what God has done in the past is going to tell us and point us to what it'll be like when he does it again now this notion that history is racing ahead towards its ultimate uncertain final goal gives us in this panoramic perspective past present future and that explains why for example in reformed Christianity we will talk about our Redemption terms of a Redemption that's decreed accomplished and apply we're going to talk about the historic work of Christ in history election tells us that everything's going to go toward its ultimate purpose and what is history's ultimate purpose it's for God to save his his people his elect Christ's death is designed to save sinners it also purchases breath for every non-christian living now it's a common grace kind of activity as well Christ dies or demons elect but by turning aside God's wrath and anger towards his own history continues to move forward again and by Christ is sending into heaven that tells us who is the lord of history it was Jesus up in heaven I want to come back but don't know win you know you don't get any sense you get everything that Christ is ordering and directing everything towards this ultimate goal which is the redemption of his people now this emphasis upon salvation based in the historical acts of God in the past as well as anticipating his promised acts in the future extends to things like sanctification the Christian light and the present let me give you just a concrete example of that Christ kingly office you know when Christ ascends into heaven takes his place at the right hand of the Father and his session or his rule how does that have any practical import for me well one of the things he does in his kingly office is he's sanctifying me he is his rule extends not only to the nation's his rule over the nation's he also rules over his church and so for example he just elected elders and deacons and one of the reasons why we believe Christ can new rules manifest in the presence is that Christ has a church on earth at the gates of hell won't prevail against and one of the ways that he protects is he raises up men to serve the rule in his name we see this in the church officers that God has ordained and called we see it when the word exposes our sin the laws preached and God lays bare our sin when the gospel is preached and God shows us what he's done in Christ to save us from our sin pouring out the Spirit in our hearts the word in sacrament to subdue that wicked sinful nature that remains so when his kingly office god is ruling and he's ruling over his church so all of this is related to a present not just future and I think that's what trips dispensational except they're so used to kind of end times they forget that there's a lot of present ramifications of Christ's person and work that in the sense is eschatological and so we looked in at the future we know it grows out of God's saving work in the past and this has a dramatic import upon us in the present and in all these senses Christian is thoroughly eschatological just look at the language in Ephesians chapter 2 for example where we all know verses 8 to 10 I think by memory but if you go back earlier in that passage say two verses five and six you have Christians even now being raised with Christ and seated with him in heavenly places that's eschatological is it not we're already raised and seated with Christ yet I see all of you here in pews tonight looking at me how could it be that you're already raised and seated with Christ in heavenly places because in Christ's death in his resurrection you died in Christ you were raised in Christ signed and suelen view in your baptism and even now God sees you as though you were already ruling and reigning so a lot of eschatology has to deal with present things Philippians chapter 3 where is our true citizenship it is in heaven I thought I filled up my voter registration card the United States of America I'm truly a citizen of this land proud of it but my citizenship is also and ultimately in heaven so a lot of our understanding of future things has a direct impact on the present and colors what we do in the present - the decisions we make to the the way we approach suffering the way we approach doubt all of that is impacted by review of eschatology now before we take up and we'll do this the next several lectures in much much more detail this is just big-picture stuff before we take up these biblical theological facets of these matters in some detail we need to step back from the details and just look at the big picture one of the things I think people fail to do when we talk about eschatology is to get out the box top to the puzzle if anybody's a fan of jigsaw puzzles I'm not but I'm told that people who are you get the five thousand feet the only time I ever do them is we're on vacation you end up in a condo someplace and they've got to think you're going to go on vacation put together a jigsaw puzzle which just amazes me to no end no I go to hike and ski and all that it's enough to sit on the make but anyway you get a 5,000 piece puzzle and it's you see the really nasty ones that are all white or all black or whatever those are really really alright you could take out every piece of the puzzle and analyze it there's a notch here there's a bump here a lot of preaching I got growing up was this Greek word means this and this Greek word means that and the preacher would be happy that took him 17 years to go through Romans and it was word studies and every little Vita and yet nobody in the congregation truly knew what the book of Romans was about because the preaching was atomistic the preaching focused on Bible baseball now all that stuff is important it's important to know what the particulars are but if you don't ever look at the box top all you have are particulars and so it's really important to step back and just look at the big picture and then the details all of a sudden kind of fit into place and the panoramic view redemption is simply this the story begins with creation God all things and pronounces them good then we have the fall the fall is the the backdrop for all of redemptive history if the great moment in the beginning of the story is to follow the entire human race into sin and death and corruption then that tells us the purpose of Revelation is God acting in history and telling us what those events meant to save us from our sins and because redemptive history is exactly that what its name implies then the whole biblical account is God delivering his people from the guilt and power of sin resulting from the fall so when you talk about Christ's second coming what is the purpose of the second coming it's to sum up all that God has promised and all that God has done so far it's when everything that God has promised to us becomes that glorious final reality and so we look ahead then we see the final goal but the goal isn't merely kind of Eden restored its Paradise glorified and so as William dumb Rael reminds us I think a very helpful statement in very broad terms the biblical sleep is from creation to the new creation by way of redemption which is in effect the renewing of creation everything that was stained and tainted and effaced and destroyed and corrupted in the fall is going to be renewed at the end God is not only going to save your soul he is going to say all creation and that gives you kind of a broader sense then that he's going to redeem everything he's going to redeem you he's going to redeem his people and he's going to redeem all of creation that's the box top that's the big picture and you've got to keep that in mind before you talk about the particulars and so then this sweeping vision begins in Genesis 1 and 2 with creation and paradise Genesis 3 speaks of the fall on Paradise Lost and from the moment paradise is lost in the curse is pronounced God is already promising final redemption to act as soon as the human race falls into sin and the protoevangelium genesis 3:15 i am going to crush the Serpent's head and he will bruise your heel right from the beginning of the story we know that God is ultimately going to redeem his people and we need not wait to the end then to learn that God's mercy and justice are going to triumph over human sin and the horrible consequences that has had for God's people and for all creation and so even before the specific details in the drama of redemptive history began to unfold the outcome is already certain God has decreed that he will redeem his people from their sin and that one day that were new his creation and so when all is said and done there will remain no hint or trace or the stain of sin there are no longer be any curse and so all of the things that God has promised to us that take very specific forms in terms of covenant blessings and Covenant curses are finally and ultimately realized that's the big picture of the story that's the final outcome and the final outcome is already guaranteed now when we turn to the covenant 'el foundation of the Old Testament and look at the eschatology the Old Testament we come to scriptures internal architecture now I think given all we said about presuppositions in methodology before this is the point where it which we as our millennial Christians where I as a reformed on millennial Christian have to say okay this is my presupposition this is the grid I use there it is and I have to lay it out ahead so that everybody knows my operating assumptions everybody knows the schema that I'm going to work by so it can constantly be tested as I said before the the the problem I have with so much of eschatological debate is people never discuss their presuppositions of their method so they're just trading verses and you don't get anywhere that way you can't it's kind of in the two trains on parallel tracks that never collide you you can just basically call you to their names and what about this versa you can't answer that you just don't ever get to the point of saying is this right is this correct and can I evaluate it so here it is this is the position that we we assumed our operating assumptions are driven by this by laying it out we have to constantly check it and recheck in the light of Scripture in light of things we find in Scripture and discovering Scripture and if we don't do that aren't careful about that then we basically fall into the trap of saying I'm right and that's in the discussion well we can't do that and we always have to be willing to entertain the fundamental challenges to our interpretive grid and if we're not willing to do that then there's no point in having this intramural debate will Sol just we did at white horse in taping today and the theme of the show basically Shane went to the of the recent pastures conventions and asked ministers whether it's more important to discuss apologetics or their testimony and the 15 or so we interviewed every one of them said Oh apologetics is people what's wrong important is my testimony because it's unassailable and it's important I tell people my story well that's where we are there's no way in those kinds of circumstances to do anything other than a search something it happens in American political discourse it happens in ethics people just assert their view and as though it's true because they asserted it we've got to get beyond that the way we have to get beyond that is to say these are my big-picture operating assumptions put them to the test and if they don't hold up then change them but I think this is the internal architecture scripture I would encourage all of you to get and read my Corden's book the god of promise Mike does a great job of laying out kind of a modern statement of reformed covenant theology that is our internal architecture this is what we believe about the nature of eschatology because it grows out of our covenant theology and is indeed inseparable from it so to understand the eschatology of the Old Testament we must first understand something about the various covenants that are found throughout the Old Testament now to begin with covenants between Kings susan's and their vassals or servants formed much of the basis of daily life in the ancient Near Eastern world especially matters legal and economic and this was certainly true for ancient Israel when we for example look at the book of Deuteronomy we realize that its literary structure is a Susan II treaty it's a treaty between the great King Yahweh and his people is real and it has the same structure as through the hittite treaties as do other ancient treaties from the same period and the advantage to understanding this is profound when these folks used to argue I'll never forget when Meredith Cline went through the documentary hypothesis in our Old Testament class at Westminster you know that the higher critical reconstruction Old Testament that it was holistic source the ellow hysts Deuteronomists and the priestly codes and they all were put together by some reactor redactor somebody used to hold us someone whose Elohim they knew people really loved the law then he had the priests and almost got combined together to form the Pentateuch by a much later redact or editor Klein's lecture on it he laid it out any went in this story why did he not even go any farther because if deuteronomy's as Susan T treaty it means it's written the second one yeah BC JDP just collapses on its head so they're important apologetics ramifications for this as well just file that away but from a biblical perspective covenants don't take on an even greater importance in Scripture because Israel's King or Susan is the Great King and the nation he's chosen as his vassal is this rule and he's done so because Israel is better than all the other nations they were bigger than all the other nations richer than all of the nations smarter God first saw that Israel would believe God looked ahead and he saw that Israel is going to be so wonderful and never complain and believe everything it he God chose Israel why because he chose Israel and so when considered in the context under the Old Testament covenant can be defined as a relationship under sanctions so what's that mean well in each of the Old Testament covenants there are two parties involved God and his people or their divinely chosen representatives such as Abraham or Moses and in these covenant relationships the two parties relate to each other in terms of blessing and curse the particular I'll come depending upon the faithfulness to the terms set forth by the covenants now if you if you get this this changes how you're going to read virtually all the Bible this is one of those this is one of those paradigm shifts that once you make it it changes how you understand virtually every passage in the Old Testament this is no small thing like a contract of sorts oh this is not like you know when you buy your car Antigua needs to know that the salesman and then he goes off and takes the paper the sales manager and they come back and are hey no no no no no no this is Yahweh this is not your equal this is not a business contract it's not a real estate deal this is the king of creation making a covenant with these people but there is a contractual relationship in the sense that each person binds themselves to the terms of the Covenant and so if you if you see it like that when the terms of the Covenant are fulfilled the servant receives the blessing promised by the great king back in this particular period you'd make two stone copies of the treaty your minds that be running this two stone copies of what what the Ten Commandments you know to tape to tablets right two tablets right one through four six through ten five through ten Harvey Chuck no but two copies with all Ten Commandments why the king has one the subject keeps one why because the subject then shows anyone who asked him he has a treaty with the Great King how is his working practice alright you are a vassal you're in a treaty with the Great King the King has sworn he will protect you so when the bad guys come across your land and Sue your cattle and drink all the water near wells and all your grass and leave you with nothing you would show them the treaty you possess in the king the King then binds himself to protect you and so the King then would have to to fulfill his side of the bargain he would have to come and drive these guys off your land in exchange for doing that he would get to use the grass and water his cattle in exchange for protecting you and you'd get to keep part of your bounty these are the kinds of relationships then that we find throughout the world at the time and this is reflected in the Old Testament very very specifically should the obligations of the Covenant not be met by either party the Covenant curse in the form of a previously agreed-upon sanction between God and His people is then imposed now you can kind of see this already how this is going to work if covenant curse is to be born it's going to be worn by the person who broke it or born by someone and else gospel should be getting to kind of jump out here now as a subset of this major covenants in the Old Testament take two very basic forms covenants of promise oftentimes in the form of a royal grant the King gives you something because he's the king or covenants of law that are basically suzerainty treaties covenants of blessing and promise our covenants were God Himself swear the Covenant oath to fulfill all the terms of conditions of the Covenant now how can I tell if the Covenant works or covenant grace who swears the oath of ratification if you always wears the oath it is a covenant of grace promise if the people of God swear the oath of ratification is a covenant of works I'll give you some specific illustrations here in covenant that works for all the peoples for the earth now the most prominent case of the former covenant promises God's covent with Abraham in Genesis 15 it is God who sovereignly approaches Abram and swears on his oath do not be afraid Abram I am your shield your very great reward and so as Abram falls into this deep sleep he's given a vision of the smoking fire pot passing through butchered halves and various animals a go to ram a dove and a pigeon why that I have visions like that when I eat pizza at night too late what on earth was that all about well the implication of the vision is very clear to someone like Abraham who's steeped in these ancient covenants and their rituals of ratification if Yahweh ever fails to be Abraham's great reward and shielded he's promised to do then the Covenant curse that's pictured by the graphic severing of these animals falls on Yahweh himself because he's the one who swears the elephant initiates the Covenant rituals now think about this Christ suffers on the cross under the curse under the covenant of grace God will accept Christ's suffering for us because it fulfills what is required of us under a covenant of works the gospel makes perfect sense in light of the Covenant structure of the Old Testament and so when the dream ends we're told on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram now notice that in this particular covenant that God makes with Abram it is God who swears the oath of ratification making this a covenant of promise and it unfolds then throughout the rest of the Old Testament with Abraham with the administration of the synthetic covenant although the Ten Commandments are a republication of the covenant of works but the way the covenant is administered in terms of a sacrificial system a priesthood types of the work of Christ and so on the way it's administered as part of the covenant of grace but the ten words the Ten Commandments are pure law purely a Republican of the covenant of works and reflect the works principle and then throughout the Old Testament prophets promised a new covenant and the book of Hebrews tells us then that the Mosaic economy passes away it's been superseded to by the new covenant so throughout all Scripture then this covenant of promise unfolds and so as is typical in these ancient covenants the Lord also happens to define the geographic boundaries within which the terms of the covenant apply that's why the account of the covenant in Genesis 15 Genesis 12 on the other includes the list of people who reside between the two great rivers the Nile and you phrase why is there a land promise attached to the covenant of grace because this is telling us the geographic boundaries were in that covenant applies that's why Paul after the coming of Christ says the land promised me the Abraham is universalized to the entire world but under the administration of sin the Attic covenant Israel's possession of Canaan depends on what God's grace no their obedience and so when they're disobedient what is the Covenant curse out to go what happened to Adam in Eden he disobeyed out Israel disobeys out works principle so all of these passages start to make perfect sense now as in a brief aside the land was promised was gloriously fulfilled when Joshua the people have got back into canter in the Canon as Joshua puts at the end of that chapter so the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their forefathers and they took possession of it and settled there so at least Joshua saw the land promise of Israel entering the Sinai as fulfilled when they entered the land the question is when they stay in the land and the answer that question is no they got bounced out once they came back and finally to be dispersed among the nations but the land promised as it's attached to Abraham then is universalized to extend to the entire world perhaps the clearest illustration then of the latter type of covenant a covenant of law is found in Exodus 24 this is a great passage because the people of God they're the ones that swear the oath of ratification you all know this passage in Exodus 24 Yahweh calls up Moses and Aaron and made a banner by hew along with the 70 elders they go up on Mount Sinai where the group is to worship God at a distance but Moses the Covenant mediator that the prefiguring Christ he approaches God alone and when Moses went and told all the people of all the Lord's words and laws they responded with one voice everything the Lord has said we will do how long did that last I just seemingly recall it with Moses and Aaron coming back down the mountain where they here off in the distance we hear revelry we hear a party going on and what those Moe's is coming down and Aaron's line was you know what do these people do beware and it made you do this and Aaron's wine well I threw in this golden how came this calf tell me the Scriptures do not have a sense of humor so unlike the Covenant of promise that God made with Abraham in covenants who works and law such as the Covenant ratified at Sinai God does not swear the oath of ratification rather to the people of Israel who do so and the Covenant God made with Israel is ratified by his people who by swearing their obedience on oath will he receive the promised blessings of the Mosaic Covenant they Bay or the Covenant curses that they disobey and one of the Covenant blessings in Canaan you're going to have big fig trees and really fruitful grape vines your wife's can have a lot of kids and the eye eats who are plugging you gon will be nowhere near the wells that they dug the fields that they marked off it's all yours provided you obey and if you don't the Covenant curses will come upon you so the particular blasting center spelled out very clearly in Deuteronomy 27 to 30 which is a Susan t3d document and with the distinction in between these two type of covenants and mine then we can turn to the two overarching covenants the Covenant works in creation or the covenants of grace and redemption which are some suit which these individual covenants are best subsumed under now that's a very very important point to keep in mind because it's often argued look you guys take this covenant works of covenant Grace and impose it on the biblical text it's a scholastic imposition it's not in the text you guys just impose it on the text that's the standard charge dispensationalists or those who don't agree take all the covenants individually and see no organic connection between them the problem is Paul connects them the offensive behavior is connects them and relates them to each other so this isn't a reformed grid that we're imposing on the text this is the implication of the new testing back on these covenants and seeing that they're basically our to mountains to cities to women Galatians chapter 4 it's Paul who does this it's Paul gives us the grid or at least the skeletal structure of the grid and so looking at this tells us and a great deal about the eschatology of the Old Testament because for one thing these two overarching covenants are going to enable us to see the continuity between the individual covenants we find throughout the Old Testament I can tell you flat out the Reed weii as a reform minister baptize infants is because of my understand the relationship of the old covenant to the new my relationship between what God promised Abraham and what God promises people are the new covenant it's related to continuity between the covenants if you're a Baptist I can guarantee you it's about your Baptist because you see discontinuity between the promise made to Abraham and the new covenant you see them as two separate covenants it's a hermeneutical matter if these two things are contiguous you're going to baptize a baby if there is discontinuity you're going to be adaptive I mean this and this has really important and profound ramifications for a whole bunch of things not just eschatology now the Covenant that God made with Abraham and subsequently his descendents Isaac and Jacob and then with Israel those covenants are not isolated covenants with no organic connection with what goes before or after rather the particular covenants which God makes with his people are individual and repeated ratifications of the covenant of grace that is first promised in Eden after the fall and then ratified with Abraham who is the father of all who believe now seeing the essential continuity between these covenants is important at a number of levels the most important of all is this prevents us from mistakenly seeing the Old Testament as essentially law and the New Testament as essentially gospel one of the worst mistakes you can make is to say Old Testament law New Testament gospel you end up basically with kind of a Martian eye understanding of the Old Testament as the mean God with all the rules and the new test is the loving God Jesus who's nice to everybody will help little ways across the Sea of Galilee as John we're Montgomery used to say no if you're covenant structure is set out properly you're going to have law in the Old Testament and in the New Testament are we as Christians under the law today are we under the law tall says we're not under the law it all depends by what you mean by that your answer is correct if by that you mean the moral law is reaffirmed as binding on Christians in the New Testament what I like BLTs my favorite thing at Christmas is a honey baked ham I like a good pork chop why the dietary laws are not binding in the New Covenant so it all depends on what you mean by the law the law is fulfilled in Christ is there a holy nation on earth anymore let's get to the Israel question how this impacts the Israel question if the cinetic law is fulfilled in Christ then is there any nation on earth right now that has the same status as Old Testament Israel did as a holy theocracy on earth the answer that is no not the United States not Israel who was the true Israel Christ so when our dispensational friends say oh god something with national israel yet we agree but not because the Abrahamic covenant remains yet to be fulfilled because it's God's purpose to take all of these Jews and graph them back into the New Covenant and make them Christians so this has just I hope you can see we just scratch the surface of how many doctrines this impacts and why it's so important to keep this grid before your eyes the big one is long gospel can you preach the Ten Commandments to a non-christian the answer is yes why do you preach the Ten Commandments to a non Christian to show them how sinful they are why did God give the law to Israel and the Old Testament ultimately to do what like a schoolmaster to drive them the Christ so if you get this right you get law gospel right if you get this wrong you get law gospel wrong I never learned the Ten Commandments as a Christian in the dispensational Church growing up why not because the Ten Commandments are for a different dispensation so instead of the Ten Commandments what did we get don't drink don't smoke don't gamble don't dance some churches I was raised and had a huge problem women wearing pants like that was the theological challenge of the ages other churches made a huge deal out of divorce and remarriage other churches made a big deal about during the of course I'm long enough to go back to the rise of the Jesus people and then with long hair that was a huge controversy what happens if a man lets his hair grow long Paul says don't do it all of that stuff comes out of a misunderstanding of the relation between the law and the gospel so this just has has huge import now it's this covenant 'el structure that enables us to safeguard the clear teaching of the New Testament that there's one gospel Galatians 3 it makes it perfectly clear there is one gospel there's one plan of salvation Ephesians chapter one God chose his elect in Christ so does God have two programs two purposes for Jew and you know he's going to save his people who were chosen in Christ from when before the foundation of the world he's going to save his elect and there's one common faith there's one hope one Lord one faith and one baptism Ephesians chapter four and so this enables us then to understand how the individual covenants in the Old Testament are often framed in terms of promise on the new they're framed in terms of fulfillment and these individual covenants that God makes with Abraham and Moses and David all make perfect sense in this schema and the schema largely comes to us from the book of Hebrews a chapter 10 or Paul's discussions in Galatians chapter 4 between the two mountains into cities and the continuity then of these covenants becomes huge for us at a number of important levels and so this means then the great redemptive events found throughout the Old Testament are unintelligible apart from this covenant structure and emphasis upon God's promise of the coming Redeemer who is the covenant mediator and therefore is redemptive history begins to unfold it is the first Adam the biological and federal representative of all humanity who fails to do as God commanded him to do under the terms of the Covenant of works it was the Lord and said to Adam do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for when you eat it you will surely die and so the works principle is that flipped around do this and you shall live don't do it and you shall die is that covenant still in effect it is that original covenant work still in effect some of you are saying yes you should all say yes why Forest Lawn is still in operation it's a busy place as a pastor I can tell you people die all the time that covenant is still enforce why do people die because they're born guilty for Adam's sin because of their actual sin and because of the sinful corrupt pollution they're born with if you do this you will die that covenant is still in a force so fearfully verified anytime somebody dies and as Cline reminds us this really is an important covenant lies at the heart of much of the reform discussion of covenant theology now under the terms of this covenant god demands your best he demands sincerity he demands that you try hard he demands that you fully yield what is God demand under the terms of that covenant perfect obedience what kind of perfect obedience inward and outward why does Jesus spend so much time in the opening chapters of mark after he begins to preach the kingdom saying blessed are the poor blessed are the meek blessed are he doesn't say if you're poor I'll bless you if you're meek I'll bless you if you become a peacemaker I'll bless you he's pronouncing covenant blessings and curses on people it was John the Baptist who had warned Israel uh-oh the one coming after me is going to baptize you the spirit or the fire John was the last prophet John is the last Old Testament prophet warning Israel that the next guy to come is not going to warn you he's going to dispense the final blessings and curses do you want to be fire baptized no fire is hot fire is very hot our God is a consuming fire fire baptism there is judgment you're either baptized in the Holy Spirit or punished eternally that's what's going to happen Jesus is why because we are to obey that covenant and the commandments of God perfectly internally and externally Jesus says of the Pharisees they walk around they show themselves to be pompous and holy they demonstrate all their acts of righteousness before men because to them obedience was only external okay I never cheat on my wife I'm an adulterer and Jesus comes along and says if you've ever looked at a woman with lust in your heart you're guilty of adultery and Jesus says to women if you've ever looked at a man with lust in your heart you're guilty of adultery I like this gender-inclusive stuff because now we can get the ladies as well as the fact we even get that all these years my doctoral adviser Richard Muller had had a off of that at fuller and so he began to refer to Satan as a she and so God demands of us perfect obedience who has perfect obedience nobody except Christ now why is it so important that when Jesus comes born under the law why is it so important that he be perfectly obedient not only does he need to be unblemished he also has to fulfill all righteousness under why he's born under the Covenant of works the works principle he has to obey perfectly so that he can be saved so we can so our dispensational friends god bless them they get justification downright except they can't explain why christ has to be obedient to the law why does christ echo be obedient to the law so that under the covenant of grace god can reckon to me christ perfect obedience which is why our catechism says god sees me as though i kept every commandment perfectly why because jesus did he kept every commandment of God perfectly externally yes internally yes remember the last line in the Sermon on the Mount the one everybody forgets the Sermon on the Mount of Christian ethics this is what we're doing Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount okay what's the last part the Sermon on the Mount be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect that's good news right what God expects with us is perfect obedience to the law then how can anybody be say that's why the rich young ruler zyv done all this for my youth and Jesus says no you have it and I'll prove it to you so if you get these right now all of a sudden is the gospel the long gospel thing now start to click and make sense as to why that's so important and why the gospel such good news because it not only means that Christ suffered and died for every infraction of mine of the law it also means that his perfect obedience is reckoned to me as though I had been perfectly obedient he fulfills all righteousness if you don't get this down right you're not only going to make a mess of the gospel you'll make a mess of eschatology because ultimately what is my inheritance you knew I was going to get runned eschatology a notice what is my inheritance I / currently possess the righteousness of Christ but there's coming a time a day of judgment now you want to reduce all the speculation to that what really counts what really counts is there's going to be a day when you're all gonna stand before the throne of God and I'm going to stand there as well on what basis is God going to grant me the inheritance he's promised me Christ his death his perfect righteousness so my hope for the future while I'm longing for isn't to have a grass eating lion in the Millenium for a pet I'm not longing for a pet Cobra in the Millenium I am longing for the inheritance that God has promised me in Christ that Christ has accomplished for me by fulfilling all the requirements of the Covenant works which he graciously gives me the promise of the gospel so this covenant structure just changes everything not only am i interesting of the gospel but also my understanding of eschatology the reason why I receive any of the things God has promised to me in eternity is because of what Christ has done for me in the past and the green which I just miss represent or misunderstand this is the degree to which I'm going to lack assurance and be confused about the nature what God has promised me you get this right and a lot of other stuff clears up well we'll pick it up here again at that same spot next time and we'll get into some of the more specifics as we we go farther along time for some questions I wanted to leave a few minutes tonight I was just wondering if you could show the division of the law in the New Testament into moral ceremonial and sacrificial and then second question if you could give like Sabri exegetical how you read Romans 10:4 for Christ as the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who breaks the reformed tradition at this point is largely divided as to whether or not we want to divide the law into moral ceremonial and civic the classic Reformation categories are under attack by a lot of our biblical theologians a lot of it's coming from new perspective so all of that is to say I think it can be a bit artificial to argue for the threefold distinction moral ceremonial and civil however it's very helpful and since it does solve more problems than it creates I'm going to stick with it even though I realize it's under a lot of recent criticism every one of the Ten Commandments is reaffirmed in the New Testament it's binding on a Christian Lord's Prayer hallowed be your name you just go right every every one of the Ten Commandments is reaffirming the news hasn't as binding on Christians the only commandment it's reinterpreted in New Testament is the Sabbath the lord of hebrews chapter 4 and we take that to mean that the sabbath is fulfilled by Christ and it becomes Tippa logical of our heavenly rest and so in the reformed fishing we keep the Lord's Day not the Sabbath the lord's day the first day of the week so the new creation is the birthday of the new creation we keep the Lord's Day as a day of rest in anticipation of our heavenly rest so we don't turn into a legalistic ritual of what we can and can't do Sabbath we just don't do things on the Sabbath to rest so that's as far as Romans 10:4 you've got two principles that work there you're no longer under law but under grace you're no longer as well as a Christian under the law as a standard that condemns you why you're in Christ Christ was condemned for you Christ fulfilled the whole mosaic economy so there's nothing left in the law then yet to be fulfilled because Christ fulfilled at all so you're under grace in that under the covenant of grace God credits you with Christ's perfect law keeping so the law no longer stands against you and condemns you when you hear the commandments read you shall have no other gods before you how good are you a fulfilling that who fulfilled that perfectly for you you're not under the law the guilt and the power of the law are no longer stand over you and condemn you so our fathers in the faith the Heidelberg catechism has said then the law becomes the teacher of sin the rule of gratitude it tells you what sin is the law does and the law now it shows you that as a Christian you're to honor God's name because Christ perfectly honored God's name every moment of his life and thought word deed and Christ died for all the times you didn't honor God's name so we see it as the law gospel I think we have time for one more if any law says one more question head to the mic and ask away I'm relating to how you were summing up your talk and you asked us to go back to the Beatitudes the very end of it it talked about Christ's perfection and be perfect as I am perfect yeah in Hebrews it talks about I'm using a new King James Bible here and I'm trying to see how Melchizedek may help or understand why he was quoted because we don't know that much about him or at least I don't understand is there any clue or is there anything to suggest that that understanding may help us oh yeah you know in Melchizedek that Abraham comes and pays Melchizedek ties we get the sense that this king of Salem is somehow tip illogical of Christ and the way the author of Hebrews reads it no kids that becomes a christophany almost in the in the Old Testament pointing us ahead to Christ perfect obedience in his death for sinners so the book of Hebrews takes all the old I've often jokingly said the book of Hebrews is in the Canadore a few Romanism I mean there's no doubt that that everything in the book of Hebrews just kills Rome's understanding of sacrificing priesthood an incomplete redemption and so on because the author he was goes back and shows how hold the whole of the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ and how the New Covenant the better covenant is a covenant with a superior mediator who didn't get tired and pooped out like Moses when Moses couldn't hold his arm up he just goes on so it's off with loving Christ it's a reason why yes every one of those themes in the Old Testament the priesthood the mysterious figure of Melchizedek animal sacrifices the mediatorial work of Moses and how it's foreshadowing quicks all of that which points us to Christ's perfect obedience in his death for our sins so that's a good note upon which to quit so let's close in prayer our gracious God and father's we consider this internal architecture of scriptures we see in covenants we are again reminded the Lord of how this gloriously displays your grace and mercy to us as sinners we're thankful Lord to see yet again that our Savior has died for all of our sins we're thankful Lord to see that he has to fill all righteousness that he has indeed obeyed the works principle down to every jot and tittle and thought word and deed perfectly over the course of his life that his perfect law keeping his perfect righteousness is reckoned to us through faith so the none of the covenant of grace we stand before you as heirs of all the promises not because of anything we have done but because what Christ has done in his faithfulness and his death for our sins and we're thankful or that as we consider covenants in their relationship to eschatology we are again reminded at that one who is coming on the last day to judge the world and raise the dead and make all things new is that same one who has died for us who was raised from the dead for our justification and who indeed fulfilled all righteousness he was given that name that is above every other name so that the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord the glory of God the Father amen