THE EVERLASTING COVENANT OF
GRACE
Before the world was, when God
dwelt alone in the bliss of his own ineffable glory, the three Persons of the
blessed Trinity held a counsel of peace and established an everlasting covenant
of grace, by which the everlasting salvation of God's elect and the glory of
God in their salvation were guaranteed. God the Father voluntarily agreed to
save a people whom he had chosen in his own everlasting love. God the Son
willingly agreed to be Surety for those people whom he and his Father loved. He
volunteered to come in human flesh to obey the law as our Representative,
establishing righteousness in the earth and to suffer the penalty of the law as
our Substitute, satisfying the justice of God for our sins. The Son of God
asked the Father for the souls of his beloved people, to trust into his hands
their immortal souls, their eternal salvation, and the very glory of the
eternal God-head. And the Father, looking on his Son in absolute confidence,
gave his Son all the host of his elect and declared them to be in Christ
redeemed, justified, sanctified, and glorified. God the Holy Spirit joyfully
agreed to come in the fulness of time to each of those people who were chosen
of the Father and for whom the Son had become Surety. He volunteered to
regenerate them, call them, give them faith in Christ, and preserve them unto
the day of resurrection and everlasting glory. Thus, before the world began God
almighty sovereignly arranged and secured the salvation of every sinner who
would be saved by his grace. This is what God promised in that covenant -
"They shall be my people, and I will be their God: And I will give them
one heart, and one way, that they may fear me forever, for the good of them,
and of their children after them: And I will make an everlasting covenant with
them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my
fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me" (Jer. 31:38-20).