Outside of the church the word and concept of covenant is rarely, if ever, encountered apart from the covenant of marriage. It is also a sad truth that even in the church the importance and significance of covenant is often understated, overstated, misunderstood or misapplied. Over the next few weeks, Lord willing, we will be looking at the historic covenants of the Bible. This is a very important and foundational task before us. It is important because it is not possible to rightly understand God's redemptive work without understanding God's covenant with us; it is foundational because, from the very beginning, God has interacted with His creation on the basis of covenants.
Last Lord's Day, we began a series of sermons on the covenants as we examined the covenant made with our natural covenant head and father, Adam. In this second sermon on the biblical covenants, we will actually go back in time to "before the foundation of the world". The apostle Paul reveals to us here the inter-Trinitarian covenant between the persons of the godhead called the Covenant of Redemption. Accordingly, this will be the first of three sermons: one regarding the Father and our election, one regarding the Son and our redemption, and one regarding the Spirit and our eternal inheritance. As we will see, the Covenant of Redemption is critical to understanding all of the historic covenants. |
