Gordan Runyan:
Mark Twain famously said that, or he famously complained that everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. And it occurs to me that within our churches, we're kind of the same way with certain words and concepts, and covenant is one of those. You'll hear it talked about a lot, but my guess is that there's not a great deal of depth to the average believer's understanding of what it means to be in a covenant or what that is. And so we're going to completely rectify all that today in our discussion. Not to set the bar too high for us, but we're loosely following the program set out by R. C. Sproul's book on the divine, or on Reformed theology, What Is Reformed Theology? And so today we're going to talk about covenants, three covenants in particular. My cohorts here on my left is Deacon John Train.
John Train:
Hello.
Gordan Runyan:
How are you doing?
John Train:
Doing fine.
Gordan Runyan:
And then on my right, Pastor Tom, a first Christian. How are you?
David Morris:
Pretty good, pretty good.
Gordan Runyan:
Pretty good. All right. You sound chipper today. That's good. And then on my far right, I can barely see him, is music minister David Morris. How are you, sir?
David Morris:
I am fine, man. It was a good day. Good day.
Gordan Runyan:
All right. So we're talking about covenants. Pastor Tom, there are three covenants that we want to have in view, or do we want to define what a covenant is first? I don't want to jump ahead. Anybody got a definition?
John Train:
I
Gordan Runyan:
got one ready. All right.
John Train:
All right. A covenant is the entering into of a mutual agreement, a benefit being assured on the fulfillment of certain conditions. That's A. W. Pink's definition there from his book, The Divine Covenants.
Gordan Runyan:
Entering into an agreement,
John Train:
mutual agreement.
Gordan Runyan:
And it's an agreement in the Bible. Those covenants have the job of kind of spelling out explicitly what the boundaries of this agreement are going to be,
John Train:
right?
Gordan Runyan:
How you can break them and what will make you prosper within them and what will hurt you within them.
David Morris:
And we may want to point out that these covenants are God-instigated.
Gordan Runyan:
Yep. Right.
David Morris:
God brought them up.
John Train:
Men didn't come up with the—
Tom Miller:
They didn't come up with it. Right. Yeah. God is also the determiner of the blessings and curses of these covenants. Man knows his responsibilities, but God is the determiner.
John Train:
Yeah, for sure. He sets the sanctions, right? Right.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
David Morris:
I was just going to say, yeah, he sets the rules, he sets the guidelines, and we follow them or not. That's how simple it is. You either follow what he says or you don't follow what he says, and you've got a reward for both of those.
John Train:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
And it's because of the, if I could put it this way, the boundaries of the covenant relationship. It's because of that. That's one of the reasons why just the average sinner on the street who decides to look to the sky and think about God, he's really not in a position to begin a relationship with the Lord in that. Situation, he has to be invited in. You know, the sinner who doesn't, isn't now a believer in Jesus, he can't just start praying and hope that God will pay any attention to what he has.
John Train:
We're all naturally covenant breakers.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, that's right.
John Train:
We've already violated the covenant.
Tom Miller:
Yes.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
And that's why, and this is one of the confusing things about covenants amongst most of the folks in the pews. The keeping or non-keeping of a covenant is left in our hands, and the consequences are left in God's.
Gordan Runyan:
Oh,
David Morris:
yes.
Tom Miller:
So we have two forms of church government. We have the presbytery, and we have congregational. And everybody at this table is in the congregational side. Right. The presbyteries, ahead of time, looked amongst the covenant fathers and said, We need to have boundaries like the Book of Order and things of that nature so that the people will have more lines to color in, so to speak.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Where we congregationalists say, No, there is no specific which crayon to use as long as you use it in accordance with God's parameters.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah. I am a convinced Baptist, but there are times when I long for those Book of Order sort of rules.
Tom Miller:
Those halcyon days when we were Presbyterian.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
John Train:
Seems to make it easier in some cases.
Gordan Runyan:
Well, right.
John Train:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
The advantage I see—we're off topic already—but the advantage I see is that... I read the section in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church's Book of Order that had to do with preaching, and they spell out exactly how preaching should be done. And I just thought, you know, and it wasn't so much that—I don't believe you would feel constrained by anything that they said. I don't feel like you would think you were having your style cramped or anything like that. And I could happily preach within those boundaries, but I can see how it would be a help to when you're dealing with a bad preacher. You know, you could call him back to the Book of Order and say, Here it is in writing. If you're going to preach in this sort of church, you're supposed to be following these. It
Tom Miller:
also helps a lot in church discipline when you have a member that needs to be sanctioned for an obvious breach, right, you know, of covenant or just good order.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah. All right, so the three covenants, somebody name them off. Which one are we starting with?
John Train:
There's the covenant of redemption, also known as the pactum salutis, or the eternal covenant of redemption.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, it seems like the logical place to start.
John Train:
This is pre-creation covenant stuff here.
Tom Miller:
Yes. Or it can be sometimes— young fellow I like very much, Dr. D. Young, Kevin DeYoung, says that the redemption covenant is the Trinitarian covenant.
Gordan Runyan:
That's a good word, because in that covenant we believe that the members of the Trinity were the— They're the members of the covenant, you know.
Tom Miller:
Yes. And if you're not a Trinitarian, you won't endorse the whole idea.
John Train:
No. Right, especially if you deny the pre-existence of the Son. Right.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. Kind of hard to do business with somebody.
John Train:
Yeah, there can't be a mutual agreement to redeem God's people between two people if one doesn't exist.
Tom Miller:
Yes, or that one is suddenly a created being rather than part of the divine.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. So in that pactum salutis, we believe that before creation, the Godhead decided, and each member was fully on board, fully in agreement about how it would be that God would save a people for Himself out of the world that He was going to create. I think we're all— I lost the term I was looking for. You say it all the time. We believe God planned to redeem before He
David Morris:
planned for sin to happen.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, and the determinant counsel of the Godhead.
David Morris:
There's a fancy word for that one. Supralapsarian. Supralapsarian,
Gordan Runyan:
yes,
Tom Miller:
which is no one who hasn't spent any time in theological cemetery would—
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
John Train:
So the decree to redeem precedes the decree to create.
Tom Miller:
Right. Yeah.
John Train:
Logically in God's mind.
Tom Miller:
But the thing for many of us is that that position... Presupposes or gets rid of the idea of foreknowledge.
John Train:
Oh,
Tom Miller:
that all of the acts of creation were created out of sovereign will.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, right. Yeah, right. There is no sense in which it's right to talk about God looking down through the corridors of time and seeing what was going to happen. That's not the kind of foreknowledge that we're talking about. Because that would actually have God learning as he looks forward. He's gathering information that he would not otherwise have.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, and that's a terrible misunderstanding of the Noahic Covenant. When it says that God repented that he had made man, that doesn't mean that he was sorry he made them. He was sorry the way they had gone. His heart was broken, not his ego.
David Morris:
Right.
John Train:
Yeah, so the covenant of redemption that we're talking about, this is where it all starts, you know. Even before he created anything, the Father had appointed the Son as the mediator, and he gave a people to the Son, and the Son willingly undertook that mission, right, to be incarnated and redeem his people as the God-man.
David Morris:
Right. And then God chose that it didn't happen immediately.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
Sure, there was a whole plan. There was a whole plan that fell into place. By the laws of earth, I guess you would say, God put the laws out there, and he said, This is the way it's going to be, and that's the way it happened. Through the years, it happened the same, just like the Word written, just like God's plan was. It happened that way, and there was no deviation from it.
Tom Miller:
No. And taking off of that is, since Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the job of securing God's plan is accomplished.
David Morris:
Yep.
Tom Miller:
But the plan is still in motion.
Gordan Runyan:
In motion, right. Would you agree with the statement that the plan of God is not what really makes anything happen? You know, just the fact that he made the plan, that doesn't make it happen. He does other things. He decrees this, and he orders this, and ordains these things, and it isn't the fact that he has a plan that accounts for—
John Train:
Right. That plan has to be carried out.
Tom Miller:
No. The plan aids to the harmony of the Godhead.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
See that each one are separate personalities, but they do not act independently. There is the plan.
John Train:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
And so in that pre-creation covenant, Jesus the Son knew exactly what was waiting for him if he agreed to it and went to earth and fulfilled his role. The cross didn't catch him by surprise. Not at all. Nothing about that did. And I think the reason that's on my mind is because I just read a book where the guy—Repeatedly was accusing us Bible believers of believing in divine child abuse. Have you heard that? Yep. Cosmic
John Train:
child abuse.
Gordan Runyan:
Cosmic child abuse, where, you know, God can't be happy and merciful to sinners unless he beats up somebody. And so he decided to pour out his wrath on his Son,
John Train:
as if Jesus was unwilling to undergo.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. I think that's huge, important, that Jesus was as on board with the plan as the Father or the Spirit was.
Tom Miller:
And that has a peculiarly ridiculous connotation to it, because that would mean that there never was a pre-incarnate Christ, because in heaven he was still a child.
David Morris:
Well, you know,
Tom Miller:
some people have to really miss a lot of sleep to come up with some of this.
David Morris:
Well, I kind of see this as just as God put the earth on its axis, it turns at the right speed. There's the right amount of oxygen, there's the right amount of gravity. His predestination for his people were exactly right.
Gordan Runyan:
Absolutely. Absolutely.
David Morris:
And through the years, every person that was predestined, every person that was called for a job carries it out to the full extent.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
David Morris:
And it's in God's plan, the timing and everything.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. And even when there seems to be great failure, that's part of the plan as well.
David Morris:
That's part of the plan.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. You can't say that there was harmony. In this covenant, because there's harmony in the Godhead, and as Dr. Sproul says here, he wasn't reluctant to be the Redeemer.
Gordan Runyan:
There you go. That's the word. He wasn't reluctant.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
I'd say he was enthusiastic.
Tom Miller:
Yes, I believe he did it enthusiastically. And the scene in the Garden of Gethsemane just absolutely affirms that. Not my will be done, thine be done, because there's a nuance to that statement where he's saying some of these would prevent my finishing my work.
David Morris:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
Tom Miller:
He's also asking for a clear pathway.
John Train:
Yeah, I think this doctrine of the covenant of redemption also necessitates limited atonement. Absolutely. The Father gave a people to the Son, a particular known people.
Gordan Runyan:
Yes. Named people.
John Train:
Yeah.
Tom Miller:
And one of the things that people miss in Matthew is when God speaks to Joseph and tells him that the child was the Son of God, that you're to call him Emmanuel because he will save what? His
John Train:
people. Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, that's right.
John Train:
And Jesus makes reference to this covenant in John chapter 6, right? I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
John Train:
Where was that will determined?
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
John Train:
All that the Father has given me will come to me. The one who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, it sure sounds like they're not just trying. Right. You know.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, the verse that popped into my head was when Jesus was praying and he said,
David Morris:
The people you gave me I have not lost one.
Tom Miller:
Right.
David Morris:
And now, oh, did that stop at the cross? I don't think so. I think he's still got all the ones that's promised to him all the way till the end of time. Those ones that were promised to him will be his.
Tom Miller:
And the Scripture also helps us, because we're going to get the person, well, what about Judas? No. The Scripture speaks of Judas as the son of perdition.
David Morris:
Yes, that's right.
John Train:
Yep. All right, so outwardly, you could say Judas was part of the visible church. Was he part of the new covenant?
David Morris:
I don't think so.
John Train:
The Baptist answer is no, he was not.
Tom Miller:
No, no, no. It's also the congregational answer to that.
John Train:
Presbyterian answer would be, yeah, he was in the new covenant.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, I know. But they
John Train:
also
Tom Miller:
baptize people who can't make a profession of faith. They
John Train:
do.
Tom Miller:
They don't know how to talk yet.
John Train:
And that comes down to our disagreement on covenant theology, right? And who constitutes the church. That's right.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. Judas is a classic example of the religious but not redeemed.
John Train:
Yep.
Gordan Runyan:
Amen. Amen. That's a good way to say it.
Tom Miller:
He thought he was following a Hebraic leader, not the Messiah of men.
Gordan Runyan:
And then, so the Father chooses a people to give to the Son, and I would grant that the Father sets down the outlines of the plan. The Son agrees to go and be their Redeemer. And thereby agrees to all the humiliation and self-lowering, self-emptying that goes along with that. What did the Holy Spirit agree to then?
John Train:
There's an old book title, Redemption Accomplished and Applied. As we believe the Holy Spirit is the agent of regeneration. Anyone who's ever been saved has been saved by the action of the Holy Spirit on them, bringing them to life from spiritual death.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. Is there almost— I've never heard anybody talk this way, but it just floats through my head. Jesus, the Son, agreed to great humiliation, to lower Himself to come be one of us. The Spirit kind of agrees to that same thing, right? Because He's agreed to come and indwell these jars of clay and have to deal with me on a constant basis, the Holy Spirit. That can't be a fun job.
Tom Miller:
So
Gordan Runyan:
it's a self-giving, self-sacrificing covenant.
David Morris:
See, to me, all three of them became in complete, absolute agreement.
Gordan Runyan:
That's right.
David Morris:
And there was no deviation from it from the time it said, Okay, this is the way it is. And then the Spirit and Jesus took on their role exactly as it was stated in their plan.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, yeah, and that's important for us to understand. because Jesus, truly God, truly man. Right. When he became truly man, he did not abrogate his divine prerogatives. He set them aside the way that I would take off my gardening shoes and put on my slippers. But the Holy Spirit also, when he was truly man here, he needed the fellowship and the unctions of the Holy Spirit.
John Train:
Right,
Tom Miller:
right.
John Train:
If I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you, right?
Tom Miller:
Right. Yeah.
John Train:
Jesus did his miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit as the incarnate God-man.
Gordan Runyan:
It has to be that way, right? Because you could believe that Jesus walked about and did everything he did, all the signs and wonders, just by virtue of being God in the flesh. But because he emptied himself, he's actually doing all these things by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Tom Miller:
Right, right. Now, when it comes to regeneration, I always point out that, yes, it was the Spirit who told Peter, Get out of the boat, but it was also Peter who noticed when Jesus spoke, there was a divine echo. Not just anybody said, Come, I will make you a fisher of men.
John Train:
Right. Peter was one of the sheep, and he heard the shepherd's voice.
Tom Miller:
Right.
John Train:
And so he followed.
Tom Miller:
So he follow it. But it was the Holy Spirit that said, Yeah, this is the one. Same for John the Baptist. It was the Spirit who revealed to John, Hey, stupid, that's the one.
John Train:
Right. That's right.
Gordan Runyan:
All right. Anything else on the covenant of redemption? All right, what's the next one?
John Train:
Covenant of works.
Gordan Runyan:
Covenant of works.
David Morris:
Boy, don't that sound horrible.
Gordan Runyan:
Sure didn't work out well. Only to a
David Morris:
retired person.
John Train:
Sure did not work out well.
David Morris:
Did not work out well.
John Train:
Covenant of works did not work. Right. And it failed pretty quickly.
David Morris:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
So we're talking about the loosely defined covenant between God and Adam and Eve in the garden.
Tom Miller:
Yes.
Gordan Runyan:
What were the terms of that covenant then?
John Train:
Perpetual, total, perfect obedience on Adam's part, and personal obedience. So he's obeying, and the reward would have been eternal life.
David Morris:
Yeah. And this that I got off the internet, it said God demands these things. Right. And I kind of thought that was neat, you know, because, you know, people have a—we have a lax idea of what we're supposed to do. But God's—His will is perfect, and so what He requires of us is very serious, and He demands that strict obedience.
John Train:
Right. We have a beggar view of God in the modern church.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
We don't like a God who makes demands upon us.
David Morris:
Yeah,
Tom Miller:
no,
John Train:
we're the ones who make demands on Him.
Tom Miller:
Yes, I believe that the spirit of entitlement in the world today is a devilish spirit.
John Train:
Yep. Straight from the pit,
David Morris:
yeah.
John Train:
And so another part of the covenant of works, Adam is functioning here as the representative of the entire human race. God has appointed him as that federal head, right? And federal means covenantal.
Gordan Runyan:
So when we give birth to little sinners, that's directly coming from the covenant of works.
John Train:
Yep. In Adam all die.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, right.
Tom Miller:
The Westminster Confession says,‘ Life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience.’ In other words, as Paul says,‘ We are without excuse.’
Gordan Runyan:
That does sound pretty harsh, but then it says in Ephesians that he was created in true righteousness and
Tom Miller:
holiness. Yep. Very good.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah. He was not created like we are. He didn't hit the ground running like we do. And so that demand is automatically out of our reach. But my view is it wasn't out of Adam's reach. There was nothing unfair about that demand being placed on him.
John Train:
Oh, no. He was capable of fulfilling it.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
Tom Miller:
Right. He was created perfect.
Gordan Runyan:
Sure.
John Train:
And able to fall, though. Able to transgress. Right.
Tom Miller:
And the other thing we should point out, because he wasn't
David Morris:
made as a baby. He was made as a full-grown man. Yeah. And
Tom Miller:
he
David Morris:
had all the faculties of a good—the faculties of a—
Tom Miller:
We have to go back to the fall of Lucifer. He was created perfect, but with the ability to fall.
David Morris:
That's right.
Tom Miller:
And that would be one of the questions I ask God in heaven: if you knew what he was going to do, why did you let him?
John Train:
So the whole story of redemption.
David Morris:
Yeah, right.
John Train:
Another part of the covenant of works is, so God requires obedience of all of his creatures. How are we saved? Through the sacrifice of Christ and his perfect righteousness, right? He obeyed and fulfilled the covenant of works that no man could. Right. He supplies that perfect, perpetual, total, perfect obedience that God requires of us.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, if I'm being cheeky or provocative, I might say that we really are saved by works.
David Morris:
Yep.
John Train:
It's
Gordan Runyan:
not ours.
David Morris:
It's not ours. No, Christ's work.
John Train:
Amen.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. That's what substitutionary atonement is.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. His record imputed to your account, and the other way around.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Yes, and when ours was laid on him, he cried, Eloi, Eloi,
David Morris:
lama sabachthani. Right.
John Train:
So it's really an amazing thing that happened there in the garden. We don't know how long Adam maintained his obedience.
David Morris:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
Dr. North would argue that he fell on the day he was created.
John Train:
Yep, first day. I wouldn't really argue with that.
Tom Miller:
That's in the area, though, of things we don't know.
Gordan Runyan:
No, that's true.
John Train:
You
Tom Miller:
know, and I don't like to make, well, I bet yous when it comes to eternity past.
John Train:
Right,
Gordan Runyan:
right.
Tom Miller:
You know.
Gordan Runyan:
Yep.
David Morris:
Well, we know that he was able to be completely obedient. Yep. And we also know that he was able to fall, because what did he do? He
Gordan Runyan:
fell. He fell.
John Train:
Right. So the condition of the covenant was, don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
David Morris:
That's right.
Gordan Runyan:
It's not like he had a huge long list.
Tom Miller:
No.
John Train:
With the implied reward of life if they obeyed, which they failed to do.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. The Westminster says death was to be imposed on the very day the transgression occurred. So that kind of leaves out the other guy that, you know, he sinned the very first day.
David Morris:
That's what my deal I got off of the internet, that's what it says, that the curse, the disobedience was for immediate, immediate penalty of spiritual and physical death.
Tom Miller:
Right. On the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.
David Morris:
Very moment, yes. Immediately. So to me that was instant. As soon as he touched that fruit, that was it.
Tom Miller:
Now things that went on in his head on the way to the fruit, we'll never know.
David Morris:
Yes, right.
Tom Miller:
And we really don't need to know. We can only make it up as we go along.
David Morris:
Sure.
Tom Miller:
But when I think of David on the top of the palace when he was supposed to be out camping with his army, his first... Transgression to the Lord. He looks down and sees a pretty woman, and wham, all restraints are removed. So there may have been, you know, a rebellious thought in his mind that day, but we can't prove that.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. The scary thing that some have proposed is that maybe what we'll have in heaven is the restored status of Adam, that is perfect and righteous, but still liable to fall. I think that's terrifying. The Reformed position has always been that that ability to fall is part of
David Morris:
complete redemption.
John Train:
Yep.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, no,
John Train:
that position is not comforting at all to me.
Tom Miller:
No. Nor is it, to me, it doesn't balance with Scripture.
John Train:
No, not at all. Right,
Gordan Runyan:
and everything we know tells me if that's what it is in heaven, then heaven's not going to last very long. Right. People will be departing right and left.
Tom Miller:
Yeah. It doesn't fit also Paul's description of to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. He's going to cast you back out because—Right. No.
John Train:
Yeah.
David Morris:
The plan, you know, we can say the plan that God laid out was that Adam and Eve stayed in the garden for a specific time, that God laid out this plan. It's this time they fell, causing all of mankind to—be born fallen creatures.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
David Morris:
But that was all God's plan. So everything was done perfectly in its moment.
John Train:
Right. So Adam transgressed the covenant, and the negative sanctions there was not only being expelled from the garden, but spiritual, physical death started that day. You were talking today in your sermon, Gordan, about the design of the tabernacle and how a lot of the design elements are about God bringing us back into the garden, right? Paradise restored, so to speak.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
And so what's the covenant in which God is carrying that out? It's the covenant of grace. The new covenant in Christ's blood that is redeeming all of creation and bringing us back.
Gordan Runyan:
So that covenant of works, like we mentioned, that because of Adam's failure, the whole race is cursed.
John Train:
Yep.
David Morris:
Yes.
Gordan Runyan:
I like to stress, and I know there are those who would argue with me, and that's fine, but I don't—when it says that each individual son or daughter of Adam is under the curse, I don't think that means that God counts it as if we are the ones who ate the fruit. You know, I don't think the baby hitting the ground is already counted guilty of rebellion. But what happens is that the guilt of Adam and the sanctions on his disobedience are visited upon everybody, whether they've sinned or not, those babies, for instance. So we are guilty in Adam, but it's not as if God counts us as if we had already sinned. No,
Tom Miller:
we have to be adopted, so therefore we were cut out of the will, so to speak, through Adam.
John Train:
Disinherited, right. I would agree with you, brother. Would you maintain that an infant still has a sin nature?
Gordan Runyan:
Oh, sure.
John Train:
Okay. Right. So it's not—the extent of Adam's influence on us is not just that he was the first bad example.
Tom Miller:
No one who has ever raised a two-year-old can say there's no such thing as—Right. Yeah.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
And I would even go as far as to say, after six months old, you can tell the difference.
Tom Miller:
And then comes along fifteen. And they pick up some of the pieces that you thought they'd put away in their toy box.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, anybody who doubts the sin nature just needed to be in our church service this morning.
Tom Miller:
I agree.
John Train:
Yes.
Tom Miller:
And it was one thing why, well, I hate to say this, but some people are just not equipped to be parents.
Gordan Runyan:
I wouldn't go that far with them, but
John Train:
we're all learning, you know. If we could all do it over again, we'd do things better, you know.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, that's for sure.
John Train:
There's still gaining skills.
David Morris:
One of the things that I like about this article that I got was when Adam, which was part of God's plan, when Adam fell, then he created all of his descendants were born in a fallen state.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
And why was that for? So they needed Christ.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
That was why that was all laid out, is the need for Christ was born, I mean, which is all part of the plan. So it was perfectly laid out, perfectly carried out, and then at the appointed time, Jesus came to earth as a baby.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
John Train:
Right. I just,
Gordan Runyan:
the concept of imputation and God counting you or not counting you guilty of particular sins, I think it's important to stay away from the idea that babies are born with the actual sin of Adam imputed to them as if they were the ones who did it, because that makes them liable to hell as soon as they hit the ground.
Tom Miller:
Sure. Yeah, and we don't believe in that. We believe in, at least in my church, we believe in the age of accountability, which is a different age with each child. But the first time they realize they have sinned, they've reached that accountability. And, you know, when they come back and say, Dad, I'm sorry.
Gordan Runyan:
Sure. Right. Right. Yeah, Paul talks in Romans about, I was alive once until sin came, and then, or until the law came and sin revived and I died.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, at the same token that a baby obviously cannot confess Christ, a baby cannot understand they need Christ.
Gordan Runyan:
That's right. Right. And they can't consciously sin without understanding the concepts.
Tom Miller:
And then, you know, I have worked with some people who have Downs and other more serious mental defects, and I still count them as innocent.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, I can see that.
David Morris:
I may be walking out on the end of the branch here, but—
Tom Miller:
Go ahead. You have brothers.
John Train:
Okay.
David Morris:
Even— even when kids are in Sunday school, they start them out young, and that does not mean that they understand what's being taught.
Tom Miller:
No.
David Morris:
And so again, that goes back to what Tom was saying about age-related.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah.
David Morris:
Even in Sunday school, you can teach them everything they need to know, but they may not fully understand it or grasp it until they're 15.
Gordan Runyan:
Yes.
David Morris:
Or on the other hand, they may get it right away. Who knows?
Tom Miller:
I am the pastor of my fifth church. I raised my children in church. I baptized my own children on their public profession of faith in Christ. And my youngest one, when he was 19 to about 22, caused me to walk the floor at night and weep. For his soul.
John Train:
Right. Right.
Tom Miller:
But the Lord brought him back.
David Morris:
Yeah. See, in my upbringing, I was taught that at 12 years old, then you become responsible for your own actions. But in my reading and everything I've read through the Bible, it don't say that. It teaches that—
Gordan Runyan:
No, there's no age.
David Morris:
I mean, how in the world would a guy eight years old become a king, you see what I mean? Right. It's got to be all in your training and what you fully grasp at what time.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
John Train:
All right.
Gordan Runyan:
Are we ready for a third covenant, or is there more to say about the covenant of works?
John Train:
Yeah, covenant of works. So that's why we're in need of a redeemer, right? Someone who can keep that covenant that we cannot.
Tom Miller:
And I'm glad you said that, because we really need to keep in the picture that the covenant of works is still in effect in the unsaved.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, right. It is not, as some like to say that, you know, like the Mosaic covenant, the covenant of works is no longer in effect. No, it's still in effect.
John Train:
Right. Those sanctions of death are still hanging over every unsaved individual, right?
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
John Train:
Yeah, for sure. Romans 5, read that. The two humanities, right? Christ has come as the head of a new humanity in him, right? All those united to him, receiving his benefits of life.
Tom Miller:
In fact, Dr. Sproul agrees with me. Though the covenant of grace is different from the covenant of works, it cannot be totally separated from it. Sure, because it is the fulfillment of the works covenant.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
Christ fulfilled what we could not fulfill.
John Train:
He's the last Adam.
Tom Miller:
Right.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
Yeah, it's—I love that. Forget what's Romans, or it is, or is it Corinthians, where it said that Adam was the first Adam and Jesus was the last Adam. Right. I love that connection. Right.
Tom Miller:
You know,
Gordan Runyan:
and it's very—there's a sense in which it's as literal as it is spiritual. You know, that Jesus really does create a new humanity. Yep. Yes. Under a new covenant.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
All right. So we're talking now about the covenant of grace. I'm interested to hear your thoughts on that, because I think one valid opinion would be to say that we're talking specifically about the new covenant in Christ. But in my mind, I kind of have the covenant of grace pictured as a thing just as transcendent as the covenant of redemption, you know, that, and it flows from that. And so, for instance, I would say that there are elements of the Abrahamic covenant that are very much the covenant of grace.
Tom Miller:
Absolutely, they have to be, because who is the securer of the covenant of grace? We really should define grace. Grace is the unmerited favor of God.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. Yeah. My big disagreement with my Presbyterian brothers on this account is that they're very fond of proposing that the old covenant and the new covenant are really one covenant, just under different outward manifestations and different outward visible requirements. And I strongly disagree with that. And we're looking at Hebrews in church, and Hebrews 8 says we have a better covenant that's founded on better promises. Right.
Tom Miller:
Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
It's not just the externals; it's the foundation of our covenant that's better and different. Yeah. I
Tom Miller:
have explained to my students that—The covenant of grace is like an umbrella that God has raised over for us, and those who come into it through Christ are now under this overshadowing cover of the covenant of grace. It is our covering.
Gordan Runyan:
And before Jesus came, all the saved were under that same umbrella. Yep. Right,
Tom Miller:
right,
John Train:
right. Everyone— Abraham was a member of the new covenant. Noah, you name him, David, Daniel,
Gordan Runyan:
all the regenerate ones.
John Train:
They were looking forward to the coming Redeemer, and we look back to what he accomplished.
David Morris:
But you're two weeks away from explaining that one, chapter 11. Hebrews 11.
John Train:
Oh, right, right.
David Morris:
Yeah. When you're talking about Abraham, first thing you also got to remember is how he became righteous. Yeah, right. See, he didn't have anybody whispering in his ear. I mean, the only one that was whispering in his ear was evil. But because he had the faith to believe there was something better—
Gordan Runyan:
Well, he heard the word and believed it.
Tom Miller:
And he believed it. That's right. I believe you will find Job in heaven as the redeemed.
Gordan Runyan:
Absolutely.
John Train:
That's my point.[
Tom Miller:
Overlapping speech unclear.] Yeah.[
Gordan Runyan:
Overlapping speech unclear.]
John Train:
God has one saving purpose, one people.
Tom Miller:
Yeah, there is one line of redemption from Genesis to Revelation, and it's a red line.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
John Train:
Yeah. Adam and Eve in that group too. Yeah. I think—
Tom Miller:
Yes, because blood was actually shed.
John Train:
That's right,
Tom Miller:
for their redemption. And God put those new garments on them.
John Train:
Yep, that's right.
Gordan Runyan:
They didn't make the garments.
Tom Miller:
No. No, they tried making their own, and of course, like any of our good works, it doesn't—
John Train:
It flopped. The animal blood that was shed in the garden pointed forward to the blood of the new covenant.
David Morris:
That's right.
Tom Miller:
In the Mosaic covenant, all the blood of all those lambs and bullocks and turtle doves had the same symbolism.
John Train:
That's right.
David Morris:
And see, the faith that Abraham had is what is pointing us to the right. You know, we have to have faith to believe what we hear when we hear it, and we only get that through God.
Tom Miller:
That's right.
David Morris:
God gives us that faith.
Tom Miller:
Faith is a gift.
David Morris:
It's a gift. That's right.
Tom Miller:
And in that process, He gives us the understanding, because I do wholly support the ordo salutis. That's right. That without a regenerated mind and heart, redemption is not yet attainable.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
Right.
David Morris:
That's right.
John Train:
Thankfully, God supplies all the conditions He requires.
Tom Miller:
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
John Train:
That's right.
Gordan Runyan:
John touched on this before, but another place where we are separated from our Presbyterian brothers and Paedobaptists is that we don't believe that you can be an unregenerate member of the new covenant.
John Train:
Yep.
Gordan Runyan:
They do believe that, which is why they have no issue with baptizing people who there's no reason to believe they're saved. They're fine with that because they think the new covenant doesn't demand regeneration.
John Train:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
And the Baptist distinctive and congregational as well is that we really do believe that it's the Holy Spirit's work of regeneration and the whole process of justification. The Spirit baptizes you into the body, not just into a relationship with God. He puts you in the covenant.
John Train:
You're united with Christ, which cannot be reversed.
Tom Miller:
Right. But infants cannot do that.
John Train:
Right.
Gordan Runyan:
And we're not denying that God can do things differently than he normally does. He can fill John the Baptist in the womb with the Spirit, and he can cause David to trust while he's on his mother's breasts. That can happen, but we don't get to claim that as just a matter of course.
Tom Miller:
No, but we also know that will not God do what is right?
Gordan Runyan:
That's right.
David Morris:
The judge of the world will do what's right.
Tom Miller:
And that's why I know that my late wife is in heaven with three of our children we never got to meet.
David Morris:
Right. Yeah.
John Train:
It really does come down to who is in the new covenant, and that's what has created this division in the church between the Presbyterians and the Baptists. It's our view of who is in the church. Right. Who receives the covenant signs.
Tom Miller:
You know, I've always felt that, and even in seminary, that some of this comes from a human necessity to make God more nice than he really is.
John Train:
Right.
Tom Miller:
So we baptize the baby so if it has scarlet fever, you know, or the little child, it won't go to hell, that's—or to the man-made place called purgatory. And that's where paedobaptism came from, a thing in man trying to be even nicer than God.
Gordan Runyan:
Or if we just read the book, there's no reason to think that that baby that dies is in danger of hell at all.
Tom Miller:
No,
Gordan Runyan:
no.
Tom Miller:
The three babies that my wife and I never had, because they spontaneously miscarried, never had a chance to do anything, let alone rebel against God.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. That goes back to what I was saying. There are practical effects then of wrongly claiming that the sin of Adam is imputed to you as if you had done it, because that then makes every baby just as guilty as Adam was.
Tom Miller:
No.
John Train:
All right.
Gordan Runyan:
Let's talk about recommended reading.
John Train:
Yeah, certainly. I've got two here. One is The Divine Covenants by A. W. Pink. Tremendous book, thick book, but it's got a lot of great content. And then I read this one a few years ago. It's called The Distinctiveness of Baptist Covenant Theology: A Comparison Between Seventeenth-Century Particular Baptists and Paedobaptist Federalism. It's by a French gentleman named Pascal Denault.
David Morris:
Denault, I think that's right.
John Train:
Really good. And this is a shorter read, just incredibly illuminating, I found.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, we didn't collude before about this, but those were the same two books I was going to bring up. Well,
Tom Miller:
I'm bringing up one by Kevin DeYoung again, which you can get at monergism. com and print it off from there. It's called The Covenant Primer. And I like it because it's written in, let's just say high school English.
Gordan Runyan:
Well, the only other book that I had in my mind to recommend is Ray Sutton's book, That You May Prosper. The subtitle is Dominion by Covenant, and he goes through analyzing biblical covenants and showing the order and the structure—that's the word I'm looking for—structure of a covenant, and where does that come from, and how do we recognize it in the major covenants. It's really very helpful, I believe. So
John Train:
get That You May Prosper. Yeah, you know, and then Gary North riffed on that structure with his theos mnemonic.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, let's talk about that a little bit.
John Train:
So transcendence, hierarchy, ethics, oaths, sanctions. Right. Easy way to remember the structure of any covenant, but he memorably and pithily summarized that with, Who's in charge here? To whom do I report? What are the rules? What do I get if I obey, disobey? And of course, does this outfit have a future?
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, the new private reporting to the command. Yes, right. He's asking all these questions.
John Train:
Very memorable. You know, you show up in an organization, you're finding out the structure of what's required of you and expected of you. What do you get if you do well and if you do not? Right. And then what's the future of this outfit?
Gordan Runyan:
If I'm not wrong, I think it was the Presbyterian Meredith Kline who first spotted that biblical covenants seem to have a correlation with Near Eastern suzerain treaties. And that they tend to follow the same kind of structure, which does make sense. God is the king who makes a people for himself by defeating another king, and now he's telling them how they will be ruled as a nation.
John Train:
Right. I am the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt. Ten Commandments.
Gordan Runyan:
Right.
John Train:
You know. Right. Laying the stipulations. Yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
All really good stuff. It'll really clear covenant stuff up for you.
John Train:
And really the relevance of covenant theology to all of life, you know. Yeah, right. Right. And what's expected of us in various areas, you know, civil government, family, church, you know.
Gordan Runyan:
Is that, is it covenant specifically that Paul's warning us not to be unequally yoked with unbelievers? Is that just don't get in a covenant with these folks, or is it something else?
Tom Miller:
Yeah, I think in the strictest interpretation of that, yeah.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. Making business deals. So certainly in marriage, you don't want to be in a marriage covenant with somebody that's on the other side of that divide. But I'm just kind of wondering, would it apply to business deals?
John Train:
I think so.
Gordan Runyan:
Every business deal.
Tom Miller:
I think it should.
John Train:
Is there any area of life that's secular?
Gordan Runyan:
Of what?
John Train:
It's all sacred.
Gordan Runyan:
That's right.
John Train:
Christ has a claim on everything.
Gordan Runyan:
Right. And we say that all the time. We really do believe that this Bible is the Word of God that's supposed to be applied to the whole life. Our slogan is often, All the Word to all of life. It's a challenge, but I think that's what we're called to do. It's part of discipling the nations and teaching them to observe whatsoever things have been commanded.
David Morris:
Yeah.
John Train:
And this is the covenant document, you know.
Gordan Runyan:
No doubt.
John Train:
This is it.
Gordan Runyan:
Yeah, no doubt. That's it. All right, y'all, we're hitting our time just about on the button. Let me pray for everybody out there listening to us, and then I'll let John close us with reminding them how they can grab more of our content. So, Father, we are thankful for this time again, and thankful for the presence of Your Holy Spirit, and thank You for leading and guiding. I pray for all these listeners, these tens and tens who are hanging on our every word, and I just pray that You would use Your truth to prick their hearts and bring light where there is only darkness, and enlighten their mind so that they may follow Christ. Make the path ahead of them extremely clear. This is my prayer for them in Jesus' name, amen.
Tom Miller:
Amen.
John Train:
All right, join us at ragtownreformed. com. There's a new newsletter, the Ragtown Gazette. You can sign up for it, get a free e-book from Pastor Gordan here. And you can find the podcast in all the podcast catchers. I recommend Pocket Casts if you're looking for one. Just search Ragtown Reformed Forum; it'll pop right up.
Gordan Runyan:
Cool. Cool. And ibctucumcari. org for our church's website, by the way. All right, y'all, I think that's it for us today. God bless y'all. We'll talk at you later. Bye.