Who We Are: Covenantal
“The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinction between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity. I am persuaded that most of the mistakes which men make concerning the doctrines of Scripture are based upon fundamental errors with regard to the covenant of law and of grace.” - C. H. Spurgeon
The Covenant of Works
When God created Adam, he entered into a covenant of works with Adam. The promise was life. The condition was perfect obedience. Adam failed to keep that covenant and sinned when he ate the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The result was death and separation from the presence of God.
“The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam; and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience." - Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 7.2
“But like Adam, they transgressed the covenant; there they have dealt faithlessly with me.” - Hosea 6:7
“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned - for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.” - Romans 5:12-14
The Covenant of Grace
After the Fall of Mankind in Adam, God gave a new covenant - the covenant of grace. We first see mention of that covenant promise in Genesis 3:15 as the Seed of the Woman was to crush the head of the Serpent. That covenant promise was then made clearer in Genesis 9 as God promised a restoration of creation itself in the covenant promise to Noah after the Flood. In Genesis 15, we are told of God’s covenant promise to Abraham, that of his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Then in 2 Samuel 7, we are told that David, that descendant of Abraham, would have a son who would sit upon the throne of David and reign over an eternal kingdom. Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 then tell us that in this new covenant administration, that Son of David would grant His people new hearts, hearts of flesh, where the Law of God would be written upon their hearts and their iniquities would be pardoned and the Spirit of God would be poured out upon them. Those new covenant realities came to pass through the life and death of Jesus Christ, the Son of David and the Son of God. In His shed blood, we participate in the blessings of Abraham given to the nations. We receive those blessings by grace through faith, not by our own works.
“Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein He freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life His Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.” - Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 7.3
One Way of Salvation for All People Throughout History
“The Reformed faith insists that there is one, and only one, way of salvation - through that Redeemer, Jesus Christ. All who are brought into that estate of salvation, from Adam to the last person born upon this earth, enter it through that covenant of grace. The most basic division in the Bible is not between the Old and New Testament - but between Genesis 1:1-3:6 and the rest of the Bible. Upon the field of that broken covenant of works, God enters with a gracious covenant of salvation for Old and New Testament saints together.” - What Is the Reformed Faith, p. 18