The Covenant of Grace in the Old Testament

A sermon by Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Now, we continue this evening, you remember, with our consideration of the biblical doctrine of Redemption, (or the biblical doctrine of Salvation). We reminded one another last week that man, having failed to keep God's Law and Commandment, had fallen and had become the slave of Satan, and dead in trespasses and in sins. And that had he been left to himself, his condition would have been entirely hopeless.
But God, in his infinite grace and love and mercy, had looked upon man in pity, and had informed him of this great plan and purpose of salvation and of redemption. And last Friday evening, we considered the characters and characteristics of this great plan of redemption in general. I ended by saying that God had revealed this plan of redemption and of salvation to men, in the form of a covenant that he had made with men.

And this is commonly called the Covenant of Redemption, or the Covenant of Salvation. And that is to be our special theme this evening. The way in which God has made known to men, and has revealed to men, this gracious purpose of his to save men from his guilt, and from his pollution, which have resulted from men's listening to the suggestion of Satan, and thereby leading to the fall.
Now, the great word we've got to consider tonight is this word, "covenant". You notice that God used it in his speaking to Abram, as we found it there in the 17th chapter of the book of Genesis.
What is a covenant? Well, a covenant can be defined as an agreement or a pact, which is entered into by two parties.
The two parties being more or less on an equal footing. That is the normal, customary definition of a covenant. You can make a covenant today.
People do make covenants. They make covenants with respect to giving gifts towards good causes. There's such a thing as the covenant of the League of Nations, the covenant of the United Nations.
It means an agreement or a pact entered into by two parties, which normally and generally are more or less on an equal footing and of an equal standing... You either take an oath or there is a religious service or something to that effect.
It is confirmed in some shape or form in this most solemn way in the presence of God. And in the covenant, each party, of course, binds himself to the fulfilment of certain promises on the basis of certain conditions. That's a good, rough and ready definition of a covenant.
But obviously, when you come to speak of a covenant between God and man, you have to realise that there are certain modifications of that customary idea of the word "covenant". Now in the Bible, you will find covenants made between men. David and Jonathan, you remember, made a covenant. And they were doing it on this basis of equality.

Covenant - Testament

But when you come to God and men, clearly, there is of necessity a difference. And this difference appears, (especially in the authorised version of the Bible), in this way, that the word is sometimes translated as "testament" and not as covenant. So you find out talking about the Old Testament and the New Testament. And in other places, you will find the word "testament".
You'll find it here, for instance, in the second epistle to the Corinthians and in the third chapter. Now it is generally agreed that this word, which stands for this idea, should always be translated as covenant, except in one instance. And the one exception is Hebrews 9 verses 16 and 17, where clearly, it must be translated as "testament". For it refers to a person dying, and as it were, making a will. It is his last will and testament. But apart from that one instance, in Hebrews 9, 16 and 17, you will find that the other translations, this much advertised, revised standard version, does translate it always as covenant, rather than as testament, except in this one instance.
But in the authorised version, you will find "testament" sometimes, "covenant" at other times. Now I'm referring to that for this reason: The translators of the authorised version had a very definite object in view when they used this word testament. They did so, of course, to emphasise the priority of God. When God makes covenant with men, it isn't two equal partners meeting. It is God giving, as it were, his covenant to men. So they thought, well now that's more like a testament than a covenant. So they chose to use the word "testament".
Strictly speaking, they were wrong in doing so, but they certainly did emphasise this idea of the priority of God as over against men as an equal. They did it also, of course, because they could see very clearly that in that case in Hebrews 9, it is a "testament". And as it can be argued that ultimately all the blessings that do come to us under God's Covenant of Grace with men come as the result of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a sense in which we do inherit everything as the result of his last testament. So there was that much ad inerit to be said for them.
And then, no doubt, they were partly influenced by the fact that the latin word for all this is "testimonial". And they were dependent partly upon the latin translations of the scriptures. However, the thing then that we must keep in mind is that the priority of God is to be emphasised.
It is a gift from God, which has been ushered in by the death of Christ. And because it comes from God, it is something which is certain and inviolable and unbreakable. And yet, we must hold on to this idea of a covenant because God in his wonderful love and grace and condescension has chosen to reveal his purposes in this particular way. He calls men to him, and he chooses to make an agreement with men. God needn't have done that, but he has done so in spite of men's rebellion and his sin and his arrogance.
God, as it were, has called him in and has said, I want to make an agreement with you. There is nothing, therefore, in a way that so displays the wonderful love and grace and kindness and condescension of God so much as this teaching in the Bible with regard to his making covenants with men.
Now, we've already seen that God originally made a covenant with Adam. You remember that he put him in the garden and he told him that if he did certain things, he would have a certain reward. Now that is called the covenant of works. Because Adam's inheritance of this promise God made to him was entirely dependent upon his works, upon what he did.
But you remember we've seen that Adam broke the covenant. He failed and landed himself and his posterity in the terrible plight that we have been describing. Now, from there on, God has made a new covenant and it is this covenant of grace.
...
He tells us that we are only going to receive and enjoy these promises on certain conditions. And that is the condition of faith. And men has to accept these conditions voluntarily before he will enjoy the blessings.
But furthermore, God has also told us in the covenant of grace that he himself is going to do something which makes it possible for us to derive these benefits. And that is why it is called the covenant of grace. Now then, let me divide that up a little.
God, I say, has made certain promises. What is the great central promise that God has made to men in the covenant of grace? Well, you know, it really can be put in this way. He has promised to be a God unto men. That's the great promise. I will be a God unto thee.
Now you see the importance and the significance of this: God had been the God of Adam, but here Adam sins against him and falls, becomes the slave of Satan, breaks the connection with God. And the remarkable and astounding thing is that God turns to men and assures him in the covenant of grace that he is going to find a way, that he has a way, whereby he can still be a God to men. I will be to thee a God, and they shall be to me a people.
.. as you go through your scripture, you will find that that is the great promise that is repeated time and time and time again. You'll find it in Jeremiah 31. You'll find it again in Jeremiah 32. You'll find it in Ezekiel 34 and 36. You'll find it in 2 Corinthians 6. You'll find it in Hebrews 8 and in verse 10. And in a most marvellous way in Revelations 21 and the third verse, you read this.

The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. br Rev 21:3

That's in the final state. So you see that that is the very essence of God's promise to men in the covenant of grace.
That what had become broken by sin in the fall is going to be restored. And the supreme blessing therefore, the ultimate blessing, the blessing of blessings is that God is my God, and that I have a right to say, my God. Now the whole of salvation is included in that.
I mustn't turn aside to emphasise that tonight. But how often do we forget that? How often do we tend to define salvation in other terms rather than that? But the greatest thing a human being can ever say since the fall is, this God is my God, my God. And that you know for certain that God is saying to you, I am thy God. I will be to thee a God. There is nothing greater than that. It is the greatest blessing of all.
That is what God has promised. But it also includes certain other things. God has promised certain temporal blessings as well as spiritual blessings.
He promised those especially under the old dispensation. And let us never forget that the temporal blessings are meant to be pictures of and to symbolise the spiritual blessings.
He has also promised obviously a way of justification.
God cannot be my God and I cannot say "my God" unless I'm justified, unless my sin is forgiven, unless my sin is removed, unless I am adopted and made a child of God. It's all implicit in the promise that God is to be my God. Indeed it includes the promise of life eternal.
It obviously includes the giving of the spirit and the full application and working out of redemption in me in the matter of sanctification and my ultimate glorification. So that the promises you see in the covenant of grace rarely include everything. And man is called upon to respond to this by faith, by the desire for all this and by his faithfulness and obedience to God in these new conditions.
Shall I try to give you an obvious definition of what we mean then by the covenant of grace? We can put it like this:
The covenant of grace is that arrangement between the triune God and his people whereby God carries out his eternal purpose and decree of redemption by promising his friendship. Hence he promises full and free salvation to his people upon the basis of the vicarious atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ who is the mediator of the covenant and his people accept this salvation by faith.
That's it. It includes all that. It is the promise of God's friendship, his being our God, that we can enter into intimate relationships with him and know him and it is all made possible by Jesus Christ who is the mediator of this covenant and we enter into it by faith.
Now that's the covenant of grace, the covenant, if you like, of redemption as worked out for men.

Two dispensations

Now the thing I want to spend my time on tonight is this. This great covenant which God has made with men, this covenant of grace, can be divided up into two dispensations or if you prefer it, two administrations.
This one great covenant of grace is administered and has been administered in two main different ways. The way that is described in the Old Testament, the way that is described in the New Testament.
You notice what I'm saying? I am saying that there is only one covenant of grace.
... There is only one covenant of grace but it has been administered in two main ways, two main dispensations of the one covenant, the old and the new.
Now let us glance at these. What are the ways in which the covenant of grace has been dispensed under the old dispensation? Well, you go first of all to Genesis 3.15. If you are interested in the technical term, it is generally called the protovangel, p-r-o-t-o evangelium, one word, the protovangel. In other words, there is a kind of foreshadowing of the whole gospel in Genesis 3.15. Now this really is to me one of the most fascinating and thrilling things a man can ever encounter. Here's this great Book which we divide up and we call it the "Old Testament" and the "New Testament". Well, we all know what we mean by that.
But you know, if we were to be strictly accurate, we would not describe it in that way.

The real division of the Bible

The real division of the Bible is this:
Everything you get from Genesis 1.1 to Genesis 3.14, that's one division of the Bible.
From Genesis 3.15 to the very end is the remainder.
That's the true division. What you've got up until Genesis 3.14 is the account of the creation and of God's original covenant of works with men and of how that failed because men broke it.
Beginning with Genesis 3.15, you get the announcement of the gospel, the covenant of grace, the way of salvation, and it's the whole theme of the Bible until you come to the last verse of the Book of Revelations.
That in a sense is the real division of the Bible. But of course, we talk about "old testament" and "new testament" because we want to emphasise the two main different ways in which this one great covenant of grace has been administered.

i The proto Evangelium

But here it is, beginning in Genesis 3.15:

and I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Now the whole of the gospel is there. It's there in this almost cryptic form, in this very immature form, but the whole of the gospel is there.
Let me work it out with you. What does that tell us? Well, God tells us first of all that he's going to put enmity between the serpent and the woman and her seed.
You see, hitherto there had been no enmity between them, but the serpent had beguiled Eve and they were very friendly together. And the woman was now under the dominion of the devil. And had God done nothing, that would have been the remainder of the storm.
But God comes in and he says, no, I'm going to break that friendship. You were meant for friendship with me, not with the devil. So I'm going to put enmity between you and the devil and between the devil and you.
That's the first announcement of salvation because men can't be saved while he's a friend of the devil and an enemy of God. He must be a friend of God. Therefore, he must become an enemy of the devil.
God says he's going to do that.
The second thing, therefore, that is implied is this, that God is going to give men power and grace to fight the devil. He's already been defeated by him and he's his slave. He must have help and strength. God promises it. Indeed, God obviously promises to be on man's side in this fight and in this quarrel against the enemy. He applies the promise also to the seed, to thee and to thy seed. That is most important. It wasn't a temporary promise given there in Eden. It is to continue until it has achieved its ultimate purpose. You notice also that he says that the quarrel is to go on not only between the woman and her seed and the devil, but also between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. In other words, mankind is here divided into two sections. Those who do not belong to Christ belong to the devil. They are the children of the devil. They are the seed of the devil. Humanity can be divided into the seed of God and of Christ and the seed of the devil. There is a fight and a quarrel between them, all announced in Genesis 3.15. Then you notice that we are given the promise there of the certainty of the triumph of God and his way. The serpent is going to be bruised. His head is going to be bruised. He's going to be destroyed. Can't you see there a prefiguring of Calvary? It was there he was put to an open shame. It was there he was defeated. All promised in the protovangelium. Ultimately, there is this idea which we can see so clearly in the light of subsequent scripture that the real seed of the woman is none other finally than the Lord Jesus Christ himself.
Now there is the first announcement of this covenant. He doesn't call it a covenant at that point, but it is a foreshadowing of the covenant that later was made more explicit.

ii Noah

But let us come secondly to the covenant made with Noah.
You'll find that described in the ninth chapter of the book of Genesis after the flood. What do we find here? Well, God promises here that he will never destroy the earth again and all flesh by means of water. He promises there will never be a return of such a flood which will destroy the earth and its peoples.
He furthermore guarantees and promises that there shall always be a succession of seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. God promised that that should continue come what may. He also there promised that the forces of nature should be bridled and controlled.
In other words, the effects and results of sin and the fall are given a certain check. They're held in in the promise in the covenant made with Noah. In the same way, the powers of evil are put under a greater restraint.
Man is not allowed to be as violent as he had been and as he'd like to be against other men. Man is protected against the violence both of men himself and of beasts. You read it for yourselves in Genesis 9. And it was all confirmed and sealed by the sign of the rainbow in the cloud.
Now the thing I want to emphasise here is this. The covenant made with Noah is not a new covenant of grace. The covenant of grace is there adumbrated in Genesis 3.15. This doesn't interfere with it at all. It simply introduces certain subsidiary promises and legislations. It isn't a new covenant in the ultimate sense of grace and of redemption. It is simply a temporary legislation, what is sometimes called even common grace, as distinct from the special grace which ensures our spiritual salvation.

iii Abraham

But let me hurry on to the third, which is the covenant as made with Abraham. Now that's what you find in Genesis 17 and which we read at the beginning. Now it is here that God first explicitly and clearly states his purposes of redemption in the exact form of a covenant.
He made that covenant with Abraham. What do we find here? Well we find that here, for the first time in any definite manner, you get the beginning of a kind of church. There is a separation as between the church, the people who belong to God, and those who belong to the world.
There had been a kind of family worship before and in men's houses and so on, but there's something new introduced in the covenant with Abraham. He chooses a particular man, a particular family, and he makes a promise to Abraham and his descendants in particular and to nobody else. There is this separation, there is the formation of a unique body, a special people of God, most important.
You noticed also the emphasis that was placed upon Abraham's faith, upon his response. It is by his faith he enters into the covenant and begins to receive the benefits and the blessing. And you notice the spiritual character of the blessings that were promised him.
Over and above the promise concerning the land, etc., there is this great promise of a spiritual seed that all the nations of the world are finally going to be blessed in him. Now if you want to work that out, you just read Romans chapters 3, 4, and 5, the epistle to the Romans chapters 3, 4, and 5, and the third chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, which I'm going to quote in a moment. You see that there God was really giving Abraham justification.
We are told in the epistle to the Romans that Abraham was justified by his faith, justified in a spiritual sense, and became the father of all the faithful and the father of all believers. He was justified from sin, he was forgiven, he was adopted into God's family, and thus he becomes the father of all who believe. All was there promised to him by covenant.
And then I say that in addition there were those temporal blessings also. Now we can never place too much emphasis upon the covenant made with Abraham. You keep your eye on the references back to that in the subsequent parts of the Bible.
You'll find that it's absolutely crucial. It is the great explicit original promise which God made hinted at, adumbrated in Genesis 3 and 15, but here stated explicitly in covenant form.

The Law — a rule of life

Then I must hurry on of course to the covenant which was made at Sinai, the Sinaitic covenant, the covenant that was made through Moses, which you will find in Exodus chapters 19 and following.
Now this is most important. What do we find here? Well here the emphasis is placed especially upon the fact that this covenant is a national covenant. From here on the church and the nation become one. And to belong to the nation of Israel means to belong to the church. And you couldn't be put out of the church without be putting out of the nation. A man who transgressed the Law was put to death.
He wasn't merely punished in a spiritual sense, he was literally put to death, put out of existence, put out of the nation as well. Then of course great prominence is given here to the giving of the Law. But I do want to make this very plain and clear that the giving of the Law does not mean in any sense whatsoever that God is establishing a covenant of works with men again.
I've already pointed out to you that that becomes a sheer impossibility. What is the point, I ask again, of making a covenant of works, of telling a man that he can save himself if he does certain things when men have failed to do that in paradise? No, the giving of the Law does not mean a return to a covenant of works.* The children of Israel made the terrible mistake of thinking it did, but that was their error. It doesn't mean that.
(fulfilling the commandments)
It was simply given in order that the life of the nation should be regulated in certain respects and also for certain other reasons which I'm about to mention. We had introduced here also the ceremonial and all the typical sacrifices and service in connection with the Temple: the burnt offerings and the various other offerings. The appointment of a separated priesthood. Certain people set apart as priests.
And we have also the promulgation of the fact that the Gospel, the Great Covenant of Grace is to be preached now in symbols and in types.
These are meant to show us the demands of God upon us and also at the same time to remind us of God's great promise of forgiveness and of salvation.
The Law is a rule of life. You can divide in a threefold manner. The moral Law, the civil Law, and the ceremonial Law. The certain great fixed principles of morality, the special legislation for the life of the nation, and the Laws governing the ceremonies and the ritual. Now, here's the thing I want to emphasise:
The making of this subsidiary covenant with Moses on behalf of the children of Israel at Sinai in no way whatsoever interferes with the Covenant of Grace that had already been given to Abram and that had previously been hinted at in the Garden of Eden.
Now, let me prove that because there are some people who regard this as an entirely new covenant, but it isn't and I prove it in this way. Listen to Romans 4.13.

For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not made to Abram or to his seed through the Law but through the righteousness of faith.

Most important, Romans 4.13. It wasn't made through the Law but through faith.
Listen to Galatians 3.17:

And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law which was 430 years after cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect.

In other words, Paul's great argument in Romans and Galatians is this, that the covenant made, the subsidiary covenant made with Moses at Mount Sinai doesn't interfere in any way or to the slightest extent with the great covenant of promise and of grace that God had made with Abram.
That's the fundamental thing. This doesn't change it in any way at all. But I'll say... what about Galatians 4.21 where we read this:

tell me ye that desire to be under the Law, do we not hear the Law? For it is written that Abram had two sons, the one by a bond made, the other by a free woman.

And where he goes on to say that this is an allegory for these (women) are two covenants, et cetera. Doesn't that teach us someone that there is a subsidiary covenant? And to which the answer is this, it cannot mean that because if it did, it would mean that Paul in chapter four was contradicting his own great argument in chapter three. And what he'd said in the epistle to the Romans in chapter four.
But quite apart from that, the context surely makes it quite clear. His only purpose in Galatians four is to differentiate between the natural Israel and the spiritual Israel. It's his way of denouncing this wrong understanding of the Jew who argued that to belong to Israel in the flesh meant that of necessity you belong to the true seed of Abram.
No, it doesn't. There is a kind of earthly agreement, there is a heavenly agreement. And it is the heavenly part of the agreement that saves.
After all, the promise God made to Abram in a sense included Ishmael, didn't it? Esau was in a sense included. All these people were circumcised. Yes, but they're not the children of faith. They're not the true children of promise. They belong to the realm of the flesh. God explains that to Abram, you remember, even in Genesis 17.
Very well then, I say the covenant made through Moses when the Law was given does not in any way interfere with the covenant of grace. It simply was meant to do two things. Here they are.

The purpose of the Law — i

The first is it was meant to increase the consciousness of sin. It wasn't meant primarily to do that. Moreover, says Paul, the promise entered that the offence might abound. That's what he says in Romans 5 and 20. He's argued the same in Romans 4, 15. Listen to him in Galatians 3, 17, which reads like this.
And this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the Law which was 430 years after cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none effect.
...
Now that's the first great argument that the Law is given in order to show the exceeding sinfulness of sin. In order to convict the nation and all others of the utter hopelessness of a man dealing with his own sinfulness.

The purpose of the Law — ii

So the second purpose of the Law we can put as Galatians 3, 24 puts it, which is this.

Wherefore, the Law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith.

You see, the original covenant is the covenant which teaches justification by faith. That is the covenant God made with Abram and his seed.
That's the fundamental thing. What's the point of the Law? Well, the point of the Law is to bring us to that. To act as a kind of teacher, to act as a pedagogue, to act as a coach, a teacher. Something that shows us our absolute need of Christ, the utter necessity of Christ. (the Law) was never meant to save people. The Law was never given in order that people might be saved.
You'll notice that I'm emphasising this and speaking with considerable feeling about it and I do so for this reason: that you will find certain Bibles and certain books on the Bible which would teach you that God told the children of Israel that they could save themselves if they kept the Law. That he gave them the Law in order to give them another way of saving themselves, which is an utter contradiction of the teaching of scripture. The Law is not meant to interfere in any way with the fundamental covenant of grace, the promise given to Abram. The Law was added 430 years afterwards in reality in order to make the people realise their sinfulness, the utter impossibility of their saving themselves and the absolute need of God providing a way of salvation himself, which he did ultimately in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. Very well, now there we've been dealing with the ways in which the great covenant of grace was administered and revealed and shown to the people under the old dispensation.
That is an account of the old dispensation of the covenant of grace. And that leads on, of course, to the new dispensation, which is the way that God has revealed and perfected and re-ratified and fulfilled the promise and all that is contained in the covenant of grace in and through his son, our Lord and saviour, Jesus Christ.

In summary

My time has gone.
...
Let me try to summarise for you, therefore, what we've been looking at tonight. Look at it like this.
First of all, God made with men, men perfect, men made in the image and likeness of God. A covenant of works. He was to inherit that eternal life without possibility of end with God if he kept the commandment, the Law.
Men broke it. Sin and the fall and the pollution and the degradation follow. Now the thing I want to emphasise is that God, since then, has only made one fundamental covenant with men. It is the covenant of grace. And he has revealed that great covenant of grace in the ways that I've been describing in the Old Testament. You see, having stated the thing itself, he makes it explicit in his covenant with Abram.
And then he goes on to show it still more fully by the covenant that he makes with Moses. But the covenant with Moses in no way modifies the covenant of grace. It simply shows men (has) an absolute need of the covenant of grace.
The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. It wasn't meant to do more than that. It wasn't a way of salvation in and of itself. It never was that, it isn't that, it never can be that. There is only one way of salvation. And I hope to give you the proofs of that contention and of that statement next Friday night.
Now, I think we've all probably learned one thing and I just have seen it more clearly than we've ever seen it before. Christian people have often expressed surprise that the early church decided to incorporate the Old Testament with its new literature. And they say, I don't see really as a Christian why I need to be bothered about the Old Testament?
Well, if anybody goes out of this service still feeling that I have failed and failed lamentably, because I've tried to show you that the same great fundamental is in the old as in the new, that there it is in the old as in the new. That there is this great unity. And if we want to know about God's great purpose, we must delight in tracing it from the very beginning in the garden of Eden right away through until we come to our Lord.

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