The Covenant Of Grace
2 Samuel 23:5
Happy is the man who can lift his eyes to
heaven and say with David, "The Lord hath made with me an everlasting
covenant." The covenant of grace was made in eternity by the Persons of
the Divine Trinity and secured forever the salvation of God's elect.
THE WORDS TRANSLATED "COVENANT"
IN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENTS CLEARLY DEFINE THE MEANING OF THE COVENANT. Both
the Hebrew and Greek words translated "covenant" mean "to
create, to choose, and to dispose of". In the covenant of grace God, the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit created a scheme of grace, chose a people
to save, and disposed of all things in sovereign predestination to accomplish
the salvation of those chosen. In the New Testament the same word is at
different places translated both "covenant" and
"testament". It is the word we would use when speaking of a person's
will, the appointment and disposition of all things in an estate. In the
covenant of grace the Triune God appointed his heirs and appointed their
inheritance of glory.
THIS COVENANT IS CALLED BY VARIOUS NAMES
IN THE WORD OF GOD. We sometimes call it "the covenant of grace"
because all grace flows to chosen sinners from this covenant (Eph. 1:3-14).
Sometimes we call it "the covenant of redemption" because it is the
covenant by which our redemption was secured. But in the Word of God it is
called by four specific names:
1. A
COVENANT OF PEACE (Isa. 54:10; Mal. 2:5) - In the covenant the Lord God laid
down the terms of peace and reconciliation, Christ agreed to meet those terms,
and peace was promised to the chosen.
2. A
COVENANT OF LIFE (Mal. 2:5) - It contains in it the promise of eternal life
which God, who cannot lie, made to Christ as the Representative of his people
before the world began.
3. A NEW
COVENANT (Jer. 31:31) - It is new in the sense that it is newly revealed in the
gospel of Christ, and in the sense that it is ever new and never grows old.
4. AN
EVERLASTING COVENANT (Heb.
Don Fortner