New Resource Page: On The Unity Of The Covenant Of Grace (Link Updated)

Reformed theology teaches and the Reformed Churches confess that the Old and New Testaments are fundamentally unified in important ways. The triune God of the New Testament is the God of the Old Testament. The Apostle John says that God the Son, the Word, who became incarnate (John 1:14) is the person of the Holy Trinity through whom all things came into being and without whom nothing was created (John 1:1–3). Another way to express this unity is to say that there is one covenant of grace with multiple administrations. The covenant of grace that was revealed and began to be externally administered in redemptive history after the fall, in the promise by God of the Seed of the Woman who was to crush the head of the serpent and whose heel would be stricken by the serpent (Gen 3:15). The covenant of grace was progressively revealed more clearly through redemptive history in the promise of salvation to and through the Noahic covenant (Gen 6:18), and again through Abraham (Gen 12:1–3), that God would bless all the nations of the earth through him (Acts 2:39b), that God would give him a seed that would number more than the stars in the sky (Gen 15:5, 6), and finally in Genesis 17:7, “And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you,” which the prophets and apostles paraphrased and repeated repeatedly through Scripture (e.g., Jer 32:38–41; Joel 2:28–32; Acts 2:39). The Lord said that he gave the land to the Israelites not because of their obedience but because of his gracious covenant he made with Abraham (Deut 9:5). God was gracious to Israel because of his gracious covenant with Abraham (2 Kings 13:23). The Apostles invoked the covenant of grace in their explanation of redemptive history (Acts 3:25; 7:8). Against the Judaizers, the Apostle Paul explicitly contrasted the Abrahamic covenant of grace as prior to and more fundamental than the Mosaic covenant (Gal 3:15–29). To the Roman congregation he argued that we are Abraham’s children (Rom 4[all]).

In light of all this, it is no wonder that the Reformed Churches confess that there is essentially one covenant of grace throughout redemptive history that is variously administered, under types and shadows under the Old Testament and openly in the New Testament. According to the Reformed understanding of Scripture the covenant of grace was not merely revealed under the types and shadows but rather it was substantially present in, with, and under the types and shadows. The New Covenant is the covenant of grace without the types and shadows but it is the present administration of the covenant of grace that has been present in salvation history since Genesis 3:15.

Here is the resource page

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