Their obligation to obey His law as a rule of conduct proceeds likewise from His being their redeeming God. “In his love and in his pity he redeemed them” (Isa. 63:9). From eternity He, according to the good pleasure of His will, has chosen them to everlasting salvation and has devised the amazing scheme of their redemption. In the immensity of His redeeming love and in the exceeding riches of His glorious grace, God the Father has sent His only begotten Son to purchase redemption for them and His adorable Spirit to apply it to them. He has appointed His only Son to answer the demands of His law as a covenant for them that they might be justified, and His Holy Spirit to write His law as a rule on their hearts that they might be sanctified. As means of attaining the inestimable benefits of eternal redemption, He has moreover favored them with the doctrines, promises, and ordinances of His blessed gospel. Thus, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—one Jehovah—stands in the endearing relation of a redeeming God to all true believers; Christ the glorious Mediator stands in the relation of a near kinsman, an incarnate Redeemer; and the Holy Spirit in the relation of a sanctifier and comforter to them. And while God the Father and Christ and the blessed Spirit stand in these and other endearing relations to believers, believers stand in all the correspondent relations to them. Now, from those relations an additional obligation to love and to good works arises that, instead of impairing, greatly strengthens all the other ties under which believers lie to yield evangelical and universal obedience. Because God graciously redeems them from the hand of all their enemies, and that with an infinite price and by infinite power, they are surely under the firmest possible obligations to “serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of [their] life” (Luke 1:74–75). The notion of a divine redeemer implies that of a creator: “Thus saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb, I am the LORD that maketh all things” (Isa. 44:24).”

John Colquhoun | A Treatise on the Law and Gospel (Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books), 232–33.

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Post authored by:

• Tony Phelps

  

  Tony grew up in Rhode Island. He was educated at BA (University of Rhode Island) and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. He worked in the insurance industry for ten years. He planted a PCA church in Wakefield, RI where he served for eleven years. In 2015–18 he pastored Covenant Reformed Church (URCNA) in Colorado Springs. He is currently pastor of Living Hope (OPC). Tony is married to Donna and together they have three children.

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