Converging Covenants at the Cross
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INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
On this night, a couple thousand years ago, something that happened that changed the course of history for the world.
And if you are a Christian, something happened that changed your own personal life.
Of course, the event I am speaking of is the event we have all come here to remember tonight—the death of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.
Christians all over the world are doing just as we are tonight.
They are remembering and proclaiming the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They are stopping to consider the blood that cleanses from sin.
They are pausing to reflect on that great and terrible moment, when the wrath of God fell on the Son of God for the people of God.
Tonight, as we participate in this and we remember the death of Christ, I want us to consider the promises of God in Scripture and how they converge at the Cross.
THREE COVENANTS
THREE COVENANTS
A covenant is a pact and agreement between parties.
The Bible is filled with covenants.
God made covenant with everyone from Adam to Noah to Moses to David.
God made covenant with His people.
But when we think about our salvation and the Bible, theologians have used three covenants to track how God is dealing with us as those He has made promises to.
And it stretches back before time into eternity past.
COVENANT OF REDEMPTION
COVENANT OF REDEMPTION
First of all, there is the covenant of redemption.
This is the eternal agreement between the Father and Son to save a people chosen in Christ before the ages began.
As opposed to a covenant between God and man, this is a covenant between God and God.
This is the covenant within the Godhead, whereby the Father and the Son make a pact of salvation.
The Father promises to give a people to the Son.
All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
The Son promises to give His life for those people and see them raised to eternal life.
For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.
This is why Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but Your will” in the Garden.
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”
The Son came to do the will of the Father and save the people the Father gave Him.
As He stared down the gun barrel of God’s wrath, He was submissive to the Father’s will and faithful to the covenant He had made.
Another example of this covenant can be seen in Hebrews 10.
In Hebrews 10:5-7, the author of Hebrews says:
Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said,
“Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired,
but a body have you prepared for me;
in burnt offerings and sin offerings
you have taken no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God,
as it is written of me in the scroll of the book.’ ”
You can see more details of the covenant of redemption here.
The Father gives the Son a human body that is perfectly fit for Him to identify with us as humans and be our Savior.
The Son says, “Behold, I have come to do your will, O God…”
And then if you keep reading, verse 10 says this:
And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
Christ was obedient to the will of the Father by sacrificing His body, providing a once for all-time salvation for those who believe and trust in Him.
So this is the covenant of redemption.
We can use the old Baptist Nehemiah Coxe’s words to sum it all up:
He said that God’s redemption of His people was:
…transacted in a way of Covenant between the Father and the Son, even in a covenant of redemption.
Nehemiah Coxe
COVENANT OF WORKS
COVENANT OF WORKS
Secondly, the Bible shows us a Covenant of Works.
We see this covenant in play at the beginning of the Bible, when God tells Adam, “If you obey you live, if you sin, you die.”
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
If Adam eats from the tree and disobeys, he will die and be cursed.
If he obeys, he will not die—and what is implied is that he will live and be blessed.
Speaking about this, Kevin DeYoung says:
The covenant of works refers to the arrangement between God and Adam in the Garden of Eden, whereby Adam, as federal head of the human race, was promised life upon obedience to the divine command and threatened death upon disobedience.
Kevin DeYoung
We know that Adam failed in this covenant of works.
He sinned against God and because of that, he ultimately died.
And because Adam was our representative before God…
And because the whole human race was in his loins, so to speak…
We all fell WITH Adam and in Adam.
We have all failed in the Covenant of Works.
We all deserve to be cursed and to die for how we have opposed God in our depraved nature that we inherited from Adam.
But what the Bible tells us about is a 2nd Adam.
A Final Adam.
One who would come and undo the curse of Adam’s sin.
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—
This is referring to Adam in the Garden—failing in the Covenant of Works.
But then listen to what Paul says after that:
For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
See—here is what we must understand about Jesus.
He is a son of Adam, much like us.
Here are the final words of His genealogy in Luke:
the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Since Jesus is “the son of Adam,” then Jesus enters into the same covenant of works that Adam did.
Adam and all of us failed in that Covenant, but Jesus did not.
Unlike us, Jesus was conceived of the Spirit and born of a virgin and that means He did not have a sin nature like you and I that He inherited from Adam.
He was perfect. And He showed that in all of His life.
You see it in the very next chapter of Luke.
After we find out that Jesus is the Son of Adam, we also see that like Adam, Jesus is tempted.
But unlike Adam, Jesus does not sin.
He uses the Word to repel the devil and he remains true.
And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.
Jesus did not “eat from the tree”, so to speak.
He overcame temptation in the wilderness.
He overcame temptation in Gethsemane.
He overcame temptation all the way to the Cross where He offered up His perfect life.
See—Jesus should not have died.
It makes sense that we would die. And it makes sense that we should die forever for our spiritual crimes.
But Jesus didn’t sin like Adam and all of the human race that would come after him.
Jesus was perfect.
He deserved nothing but the abundant blessing of intimacy with the Father as the Spirit rested upon Him.
And yet, He did die.
He took His perfect life to the Cross, and though He had done no wrong, He obeyed the will of the Father and died to redeem the people of Yahweh.
He took our sin.
He gives us His righteousness.
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
And so, going back to Romans 5, If all died in Adam, those who receive grace and righteousness by faith will have life in Jesus Christ—the Better Adam.
Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
Adam’s one bite equaled death for all who were in him.
Jesus’ one death equals life for all who are in Him.
THE COVENANT OF GRACE
THE COVENANT OF GRACE
And in dying this way, Jesus had provided for us this third covenant that we can enter into by faith—the covenant of grace or the New Covenant.
This is what all of the Old Testament covenants were leading to:
The covenant with Abraham and Moses and David—they were all leading to the New Covenant promised in Jeremiah 31:31-34
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
There are two parties in this covenant—God and His people.
God has lovingly initiated a relationship with us by sending Christ who saved us and reconciles us to the Father with His atoning blood.
This is why as He institutes the Lord’s Supper, He says:
And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.
The covenant of grace is not like the covenant of works.
That is a covenant of strict justice.
Adam has been given commands and if he does not obey them, he will suffer the wrath of God in the curse of death.
In the Covenant of Grace, we are not being given commands on the threat of death.
That is because Jesus has already died as the One who kept the Covenant of Works and now He can pour out free grace on us.
Jesus is really the only One worthy of enjoying the blessings of God’s covenant of grace.
But He died so that we could be forgiven and made worthy to enjoy those blessings as well.
We are not made worthy by anything we have done, but who He has declared us to be—righteous in the eyes of God by faith in the death of King Jesus.
In the Covenant of Grace, Christ has done all that needs to be done for you to be redeemed and receive abundant life.
You simply must repent of your sin and believe.
Old Testament saints repented of their sin and through the ceremonial sacrifices looked forward to a Messiah to come.
Once Jesus died, the Covenant of Grace reaches backward and justifies all of those Old Testament saints and believers.
But for you and I, we look backward tonight.
Christ had died.
The curtain that separated God’s people from God’s presence in the Temple, was torn in two.
By faith, we enter into the covenant of grace and we know God through His Son.
Our sins our atoned for.
Life is ours because Christ has shared it with us as His sheep and as His little brothers and sisters.
So just to summarize…
The Covenant of Redemption took place before time as the Father and Son made a salvation pact.
The Father would give the Son a people.
The Father would give the Son a human body to dwell fully in, so that He could live a righteous life and die an atoning death for us.
The Son promised to lay down His life and ultimately raise up all that the Father has given Him on the Final Day.
The Covenant of Works took place in time, as God made a covenant with Adam.
If Adam does the work of NOT disobeying God, he will live.
If Adam works evil and disobeys God, He will die.
We have all fallen and failed in that covenant with Adam.
We are sinful like Adam and we have shown that by sinning like Adam.
Like Adam, we deserve death.
But Christ came in human flesh and entered into that same Covenant of Works and He did NOT disobey God.
He lived a totally righteous life.
This made Him the perfect sacrifice to die as our Substitute.
He bore God’s wrath so that we could receive His righteousness.
And that brings us to the Covenant of Grace.
This is the New Covenant.
Now that our sins have been paid for, we live a life of grace.
God is gracious to us. We are no longer in danger of eternal death. Jesus paid the fine.
And in light of our fine being paid at Golgotha, we are now free to come to God through Christ in this New Covenant.
The law has been written on our hearts by the Spirit of God and we can actually obey Him and fulfill the Law of Love.
CONVERGING AT THE CROSS
CONVERGING AT THE CROSS
Now, as we come to our conclusion tonight, I just want to show you how all three of these covenants converge at Calvary.
In this six hour stretch, where the Son of God is suffering Hell so that His people have Heaven, the realities of the Covenants of Redemption and Works and Grace are all meeting at the pinnacle of Mt. Calvary.
On one hand, we see the Father and Son upholding the Covenant of Redemption.
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Like Abraham carrying Isaac to Moriah, the Father’s will has led the Son to the place of sacrifice.
And as the knife of judgment comes down on Him on our behalf, the Son cries out.
He feels the forsakenness of sin’s judgment.
It is an intense scene, but we know what is taking place here.
The Father gave the Son a people to die for and the forsakenness Jesus feels should have been felt by us for eternity.
Christ is suffering under the Father’s wrath toward sin, but He knows it is the Father’s will, therefore He pressed on to endure the Cross.
Despite the temptations to do otherwise, Christ is submissive to the will of the Father for the sake of redeeming the people the Father gave Him.
This brutal moment in Matthew 27 is the cost of love in the Covenant of Redemption.
On the other hand, we see the Covenant of Works at play on the Cross.
In order to provide a Covenant of Grace, Christ had to do two things.
He had to live a perfect life according to the Law of God.
He could not disobey like Adam.
He had to die an atoning death as if He broke the Law of God.
In other words, Jesus had to die as if He failed in the Covenant of works, so that we could be seen by God as those who do not fail.
Jesus’ death atoned for our sin.
God can forgive us and remain totally just.
And Jesus’ death gave us righteousness according to the Law.
The Father looks upon us as justified souls.
It is as if we never sinned because we have trusted in the death of Christ and received His gift of righteousness.
Understanding these things, we can see how the Covenant of Works says, “Obey to receive life.”
Christ obeyed for us and then He received death, so we could receive life.
He has done what we could not do, to give us what we could not earn on our own.
And then finally, We see the Covenant of Grace being inaugurated by the blood of Christ.
In the Covenant of Works, Adam’s sin brought death to us and then we lived lives from that place of death, sinning and grieving God at every turn.
But in the Covenant of Grace, Jesus’ righteousness brought LIFE to us and now we live our lives from that place of life, free to not sin and to worship God in Spirit and truth at every turn.
The blood shed at Calvary is the reason I can go to bed at night and think, “God is not angry with me.”
Instead, I can go to bed thinking, “God has earned abundant life for me and He has given me the spiritual ability to live for Him.”
And so truly all of these covenants have met at the Cross.
It is the Covenant of Redemption that saw the Father send Jesus.
It is the Covenant of Redemption that drove Jesus to the Cross.
It was our failure in the Covenant of Works that required Him to die in order for us to be saved.
The Savior on the Cross has kept the Covenant of Works as the Perfect 2nd Adam so that He can die for those who are dead in the First Adam.
Christ dies and receives our judgment in the Covenant of Works so that He could inaugurate the Covenant of Grace.
He was bound and slaughtered so we could be free and overcome.
And now, we proclaim this message of His death until He comes.
We proclaim the New Covenant in His blood.
We tell the world that God has a solution for their sin and that He has had a solution since before time.
We tell the world that Jesus is perfect and that He laid down His life as a sacrifice—just as the Father wanted and our sin demanded.
And we tell the world that Jesus’ work has opened the way for people of different tongues and nationalities, to come to Cross.
To find life and then live life from life.
Praise God for His keeping covenant with us in the Cross of Christ.
