THOMAS: Well, the language of the covenant of redemption emerges in the mid-1640s.
It is still somewhat, I think, new when the Westminster Confession meets in 1643.
And typically the notion of the covenant of redemption would be pretemporal.
So, it would be an inter-trinitarian covenant, a covenant between the Father and the Son
to redeem sinners through the substitutionary death of the incarnate Son, that
pactum salutis, that agreement of salvation that is done before creation.
The covenant of grace would be viewed as the enactment of that pretemporal covenant of
redemption in space and time, and that covenant of grace being seen in various historical epochs
with Adam, with Abraham, with Moses, with David, and the prophetic anticipation
of the new covenant or the everlasting covenant in Isaiah, in Ezekiel, Jeremiah.
NICHOLS: I just want to pause here for a moment. If you're new to
the Reformed faith, if you're coming out of a broader sort of evangelicalism,
you're likely coming into the Reformed faith through the doctrines of grace.
So, you're starting with the sovereignty of God and then you're moving through the beloved TULIP,
but I would really encourage you to invest energy in reading about and studying the covenant of
grace and moving from just the doctrines of grace as definitive of the Reformed faith
and coming to understand the covenant. And as you understand that covenant of grace, it will unlock
Scripture for you. It will be such a tool for you to be able to make sense. It's the puzzle
box lid for all the pieces of Scripture that you encounter, and it will just be so helpful to you.
And a great place, Jonathan Edwards' sermons, History of the Work of Redemption. They're just
wonderful sermons that lay out this beautiful covenant and this relationship not that two
peoples, not Israel and the church with distinct futures and there's a great deal of discussion
about that in many quarters, but the one people of God in the covenant of grace. So, I would
very much encourage you to embark on that study. It would be very rewarding for you.
THOMAS: You know, we forget that there are lots and lots of people for whom
when they become Christians they're reading the Bible for the first time
and you send them to Mark's Gospel or John's Gospel. So, in a way where do you start? Because
if you start in Genesis, you know, you're going to ... with Gandhi you're going to stop in Leviticus,
and there's still a long way to go, but the more you get to know the Bible, you need an answer to
the question, not just "What does John teach me? What does Paul teach me? What does Daniel
teach me?" but "How do I put the whole Bible together as one narrative, one gospel?"
And the way that theologians have answered that question is through an understanding that God
works through covenants, successive, unfolding, enlarging covenants, but there
are really only two covenants in space and time. One is the covenant of works with Adam,
which he failed, and the rest from the Garden of Eden onwards is a covenant of grace.
But that covenant of grace comes in an on-growing trajectory through the history
of the patriarchs, the history of Israel, the history of the Babylonian captivity,
the coming of John the Baptist, the coming of Jesus, the Pentecost, and the growth of the
church. And through each successive stage there is an enlarging of that one covenant of grace.