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Covenant Peanut Butter & Jelly (What is “Reformed” Anyway? Part 3) (King’s Cross)

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INTRODUCTION

One of the great recoveries of the Reformation was the notion of covenant. The doctrine of the covenant steers a biblical “middle way” between sacerdotal mysticism on the one hand and subjective mysticism on the other. God’s covenant is His objective personal relationship with human beings in history, with attendant blessings and curses. And because God deals with us in this way, we also deal with one another broadly through covenants in our families and nations. 

The Text: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law” (Dt. 29:29).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The Bible teaches that there are inscrutable thoughts and ways of God far past our finding out, but His covenant Word to us is not one of those things. That Word is the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and it has come down to us by particular promises to particular people in history, sealed with sovereign signs, culminating in Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh for us and for our salvation. This sure Word of the Covenant is for us and for our children forever that we might walk with God under His blessing. 

COVENANT OVERVIEW

In the beginning, God made a covenant with Adam commonly called the Covenant of Creation (also Covenant of Works/Life) in which Adam, as the federal head of the human race (Rom. 5:12-19), was promised life for obedience and death for disobedience (Gen. 2:15-17). When Adam disobeyed and broke that first covenant (cf. Hos. 6:7), God in His mercy made a second covenant, called the Covenant of Grace, in which He promised that the seed of the woman would one day crush the head of the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). God demonstrated that grace in the substitutionary blood and skins of beasts by which God clothed and covered the nakedness and shame of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:21). This Covenant of Grace was renewed with Noah after the flood and signified by the rainbow (Gen. 9:9-13), with Abraham and signified by circumcision (Gen. 12, 15, 17), with Moses and signified by the law and the sacrifices (Ex. 19-24, Lev. 1-7), and later with David and signified by the kingdom and the temple (2 Sam. 7). 

These older administrations can all be referred to as the “Old Covenant/Testament,” types and shadows pointing to the coming of Christ, and now fulfilled in Christ. We call this new administration of the Covenant of Grace the “New Covenant/Testament” in His death and resurrection, and His heavenly rule and ministry for us and for the whole world, and it is signified by baptism and the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10-11, Heb. 8-10). So we usually speak of one overarching Covenant of Grace with two administrations (Old and New Covenant). 

COVENANT PRINCIPLES

Woven into this broad storyline is a pattern of God’s dealings with people as corporate bodies, specifically as families and nations. The Bible calls marriage a “covenant” and children are the natural, organic fruit of that covenant, such that Joshua can speak on behalf of his household (Prov. 2:17, Mal. 2:14, Ps. 127-128, Josh. 24:15). Every husband is the covenant “head” of his wife just as Christ is the head of His bride, the Church (Eph. 5:23). We see this covenant structure still in force when the promises of the covenant are applied to Gentile kids in Ephesus (Eph. 6:1-2). This is also why Job can pray and offer sacrifices on behalf of his grown children (Job 1:5). Peter preaches the gospel promises for “you and your children” (Acts 2:39), and Paul tells the Philippian jailer that if he believes, he will be saved and his household (Acts 16:31). 

On the political side, Abraham made a “covenant” with Abimelech (Gen. 21:27), Isaac did the same (Gen. 26:28), and Jacob made a covenant with Laban (Gen. 31:44). Later, Jonathan and David made a covenant (1 Sam. 20:16, 23:18), as did Ben-Hadad and King Ahab (1 Kgs. 20:34). While Israel was a uniquely “holy nation” prefiguring the church (1 Pet. 2:5-9), there was also a civil aspect of the covenant renewed by faithful kings, re-committing to be faithful as a nation to God, as did Ezra and Nehemiah (2 Chron. 23:16, 34:31, Ez. 10:3, Neh. 9:38). All of this implies that while there is one, overarching Covenant of Grace administered through the Church, God has also established the covenant entities of family and nation, which are bound together by particular oaths and constitutions, according to their assignments under Christ.

APPLICATIONS

You Are Not Your Own: One of the central temptations of the Devil has always been toward self-centered individualism. Follow your own heart, find yourself, look out for number 1 are all slogans of this false gospel. If you try to find your own life like that, you will most certainly lose it. But if you lose your life in Christ, you will surely find it. And you will find it in your various covenant assignments to your family, church, and nation. You are who God says you are (Ps. 100:3). This world is what God says it is: marriage, justice, truth, goodness, and beauty.

Objectivity of the Covenant: Everyone born from Adam is born objectively under the death-curse of his covenantal disobedience. Just as God objectively marked Abraham’s descendants with a sign of His intention to save, so He does the same thing with baptism in the New Covenant. What is outwardly signified must be inwardly embraced and affirmed, but no amount of denial can erase that mark of God. This is how we may speak of faithful covenant members and unfaithful covenant members. And all of this means that we can trust His word. Let God be true and every man a liar (Rom. 3:4). You can hold God to His personal Word.

Real Blessings & Curses: Sometimes, friendly critics might accuse us of finding “covenants” everywhere and pretty soon we will be talking about covenant peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (and why not?). But the real point is that there is no neutrality anywhere. Everything is either pleasing to God or not. This is God’s world. While it is true that for all those in Christ, the curse of death has been taken away (Gal. 3:13), there are still blessings and curses in the New Covenant (1 Cor. 10-11). But this is a matter of great comfort for all who believe: “let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (Gal. 6:7-8).

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Psalm 146: Put Not Your Trust in Princes

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INTRODUCTION

On the one hand, people have every reason to not put their trust in princes. The princes let them down over and over, again and again. You would think that people would stop doing that. Every promised wave of reforms is promising to fix all the problems that were caused by the previous wave of reforms. We are like that woman in the gospels—the more the doctors treated her, the more the problems continued (Luke 8:43). But the reason we keep resorting to these “princes” is that we assume, in our faithlessness, that we have no other options. We must either trust in this prince or that one, musn’t we? And the answer presented by this psalm is a clarion no.  

THE TEXT

“Praise ye the Lord. Praise the Lord, O my soul. While I live will I praise the Lord: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: Which keepeth truth for ever: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: Which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: The Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: The Lord loveth the righteous: The Lord preserveth the strangers; He relieveth the fatherless and widow: But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. The Lord shall reign for ever, even thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise ye the Lord.” (Psalm 146). 

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

We have here another glorious psalm of praise. Praise the Lord, O my soul (v. 1). As long as I am above ground, I will continue to sing praises to God (v. 2). The next sentiment seems like a lurch, but it really is not. If you are God-centered as you ought to be, you will not look to men, or to the princes of men, for your help and aid (v. 3). When you trust in man, what is your object? You are trusting in someone who is going to stop breathing sometime, and then go into the ground. All his thoughts go with him (v. 4). By way of contrast, the one who has the help of the God of Jacob, who hopes in the Lord his God, he is the happy man (v. 5). You are trusting in the one who made heaven, earth, and everything the sea contains (v. 6), and not in someone who is going to decompose somewhere in the earth or sea. He is the truth forever. This Creator God is active in human affairs—he executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, and sets prisoners free (v. 7). He opens the eyes of the blind, He raised up those who are weighed down, and He loves the righteous (v. 8). He protects aliens, and He relieves orphans and widows (v. 9). But He comes up to the wicked and flips them upside down (v. 9). He is the one who will reign forever (v. 10)—your God, O you people of God, forever and ever. Praise Him (v. 10).  

WHILE I LIVE

The psalmist promises to praise the living God as long as he has any breath. And we know that when the breathing stops, the singing will improve, and go on forever. 

When we go to a concert, a moment comes when we are almost about to start, and the orchestra starts tuning up. Someone strikes an A, and the musicians begin noodling around with that A. It is not a song exactly, but it is very pleasant, and it is full of promise. The concert is about to start. All our praises in this earth are nothing more than the orchestra tuning up, adjusting their instruments. As long as God gives you the instrument you have, and you have any breath remaining, then continue with the preparation. “Tune my heart to sing thy grace.”

HALLWAY OF HALLELUJAHS

“Praise the Lord” here in v. 1 is hallelujah. We are now in a long hallway of hallelujahs, extending all the way out of the book of Psalms and into eternity. This is a stretch of true praise, indicating that the Psalms, like human history itself, is a comedy. It ends with a wedding. It ends with everything resolved. It ends on a high note, and the psalms of imprecation, and desperation, and penitence, are all behind us now. A time is coming when the judge of the whole earth will do right (Gen. 18:25), and He will set everything to rights. This means that absolutely everything is going to come into focus. Nothing will be disjointed, and we will finally be given the complete perspective. “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18). 

JESUS AS OUR GREAT JEHOVAH

What is said here about Jehovah God is all fulfilled in the life of Christ. Jesus is Jehovah (Joel 2:32; Rom. 10:13). He make “heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is” (John 1: 3; Col. 1: 16; Heb. 1:2). He “keepeth truth forever” (John 14:6). He executes “judgment for the oppressed” (Luke 20:47). He gives “food to the hungry” (Matt. 14:19). He sets prisoners free (Luke 4:18). The Lord opens the eyes of the blind (John 9:32). He raises up those who “are bowed down” (Luke 13:16). The Lord “loveth the righteous” (John 13:23). Jesus preserves the stranger (Mark 7:26). He relieves “the fatherless and widow” (Luke 7:12). The way of the wicked . . . well, He flips their tables upside down (Matt. 21:12). He, the Lord Jesus, will “reign forever” (Rev. 11:15). 

MESSIAH THE PRINCE

Charles de Gaulle once said that graveyards are filled with indispensable men. One time Alexander the Great saw Diogenes the Cynic looking carefully at a heap of bones. Asked what he was doing, Diogenes said that he was looking for the bones of Alexander’s father, but he could distinguish them from the bones of a slave. Princes are but men, and they go into the ground just like everybody else. There are times when they want to help, but their armies and navies still come to nothing. They are but the shadow of smoke. And you should also budget for the fact that they are fickle. Why do princes and rich men act like a weather vane on a gusty day? Because they are “powerful” and they can. But that also comes to nothing.

There is one Prince, however, who is not in this position at all. He died once for all, and rose, and so death no longer has dominion over Him (Rom. 6:9). Not only that, He is not fickle at all. He is the same—yesterday, today and forever (Heb. 13:8). He is Messiah the Prince (Dan. 9:25).

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