Now this morning, I wanna talk
to you about the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace. Look at 2 Timothy chapter one,
look at verse eight. Let's read a few verses of scripture. And I want you to, as we read
just through three or four verses here, understand that this is
covenant language. You know what a covenant is?
A covenant is an agreement. to which we think about covenants
among men and women. Covenant is an agreement between
two parties that come together on some common ground. It's like
a contract. In the Bible, when we talk about
God's covenant with the human race or God's covenant with his
people, That's a one-sided covenant, like the covenant between men,
the agreement between men, we call that a bilateral covenant,
because two people come together. But with God, it's a unilateral
covenant. It's on God's part, and we'll
see that. But anytime we talk about the
gospel, good news of salvation, anytime we talk about salvation,
we're using, whether we realize it or not, covenant language,
if we're telling the truth. And this is covenant language
here. Now Paul's writing to Timothy and Paul's in prison. He's in
prison for preaching the gospel. It's called one of the prison
epistles. And so he says in verse eight of second Timothy one,
he says, be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our
Lord, nor of me, his prisoner. Paul recognized that even though
it was wicked men that put him in prison, because of his testimony
of Christ, that ultimately this was the purpose of God. So he
calls himself the prisoner of God. You say, well, why would
God treat Paul like that? Well, God had a purpose in that,
in glorifying himself and for the good of his church. And understand
that some of the greatest epistles of the Bible were written from
prison. Philippians is one of them, for
example. What a beautiful letter that is to the church. And this
one here. So God had a purpose for it.
And God sent people to Paul so that Paul could preach the gospel
to his people. Paul said, I endure all things
for the elect's sake. That's the elect of God, his
covenant people. So he says, don't be ashamed
of the gospel. Paul's in prison for preaching
it, but Timothy, don't be ashamed of it. Don't be ashamed of the
gospel. Don't be ashamed of me because I'm in prison. But be thou partaker. That word's
a sharer or a fellowshipper, so to speak. Share in the afflictions
of the gospel according to the power of God. Now listen to this
verse nine, God who hath saved us and called us with an holy
calling, not according to our works, but according to his own
purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before
the world began, but is now made manifest by the appearing of
our savior, Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death. and hath
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,
whereunto I am appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher
of the Gentiles. Now there's some very, very instructive
telling language there concerning the covenant of grace. And I
want to show that to you. Now our understanding of the
Bible as a whole, certainly our understanding of the gospel,
really depends upon a right understanding of God's covenants. Now that
doesn't mean that we have to be biblical scholars to know
and understand the gospel. It doesn't even mean that we
have to be able to delineate and list and describe and define
all the covenants. In fact, biblical scholars disagree
on over that. How many covenants are there?
Which can you really call a covenant, which not? I don't get into that,
but I'm not going to. But here's what I'm saying. The
God of this Bible, the true and living God, the God of salvation,
the God who saves sinners by grace is a covenant God. He reveals himself as such. And
he deals with his human creation through various covenants. Now
in the Bible, we can divide it up this way. There are two kinds
of covenants. There are unconditional covenants,
and there are conditional covenants. Now, some of these covenants,
when we talk about, and I'm not gonna, like I said, I'm not gonna
go through them all. I mentioned several of them here, Some of
these covenants God made with man are conditioned on man. In fact, there's basically two
covenants in the Bible that are conditioned on man. God, that
covenant God, brought himself into covenant
agreement with man with conditions. There are conditions for the
covenant and they were placed upon man. And you know the first
one, that was Adam in the Garden of Eden, the covenant of Eden,
or the covenant of Adam. It was a covenant of works. And
God basically, when he created the world and he placed, created
Adam and created Eve, and he put them in the garden, he gave
them dominion over the world, over that whole thing, and he
put this condition on them. He said, now you can eat of every
tree of the garden except one. And that's the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil. And that was the covenant condition,
right there, that was placed upon Adam. Adam, the sinless
man, all right, before the fall. And he said, Adam, in the day
that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Genesis chapter two. What is that? Verse 16, I think,
or verse 16 and 17. In the day that you eat thereof,
you shall surely die. And there was the condition.
So Adam's continuation in that state of human righteousness,
that's what that was, that was man's righteousness, man was
created upright in the image of God. And he had what we would
call human righteousness, the righteousness of man, Adam had
that. And the condition for him continuing
in that was obeying God in not eating of that one tree which
represented, as you know, God's sovereign authority. God is sovereign
over all things. Man is the creation, the creature. God is the creator. And God is
the standard of right and wrong. Man is not. So he said, now here's
the condition. You eat of every tree except
this one. And that was the covenant condition.
Well, you know what happened. Man failed. Man disobeyed God. Adam disobeyed God, and he broke
the covenant. And he lost all human righteousness. Every bit of it. That's why Romans
chapter 3 and verse 10 says, there's none righteous, no not
one. All who are, all who fail in
Adam, Romans chapter 5 and verse 12, We've all sinned and Adam
fell. When Adam fell, we all fell in
him. Ruined in Adam, death passed
upon all men for that all sin. He was our representative. Man,
the human race fell into sin and death. And therefore the
broken covenant, that's what we're born under a broken covenant
in that sense, in Adam. And that was a condition, that
was a covenant conditioned on man. Now, what does that tell
us? Here's man in his perfect human righteousness. And what
happened? He still disobeyed God. What
does that tell you? It tells you that human righteousness
is not enough to save us. Human righteousness at its best
is not enough to save us, is not enough to keep us. All right,
there's another conditional covenant conditioned on man. And that's
the covenant of Sinai. That's the Law of Moses. They
call it the Mosaic Covenant or the Sinaitic Covenant. That covenant
was brought into force because of a promise that God made to
Abraham, which was unconditional. We can talk about the covenant
that God made with Abraham. That covenant was unconditional.
He didn't choose Abraham or save Abraham based on anything in
Abraham. In fact, the first time we learned
about Abraham, he was an idolater living in a place called Ur of
the Chaldees, which is modern day Iraq. He was an idolater. And Romans chapter four says
that the justification, the forgiveness and the righteousness that Abraham
had before God was a great example of salvation by grace, how God
justifies the ungodly. But the covenant that God made
with Israel on Mount Sinai through Moses was a result of that covenant
he made with Abraham, but that covenant that he made with Israel
was conditioned on Israel. Now his choosing Israel was not
conditioned on them. He told them that in Deuteronomy
chapter seven, he said, I didn't choose you because you were greatest
or best, or I didn't look down through a telescope of time and
foresee that you all would be the best of all nations. He said,
in fact, you were the least, you were the worst of all. He didn't bring them down into
Egypt and deliver them out of Egypt conditioned on them. They
rebelled and complained the whole way. But the conditions that
he placed upon them in that covenant, that law of Moses, had to do
with the land. Now let me show you that. Over
in the book of Deuteronomy. This will be a good thing for
you to study. Deuteronomy chapter 29. And that covenant now, this covenant,
this law of Moses, this old covenant the scripture called, the old
covenant, it lasted for about 1,500 years. 1,500 years. Now you know what
happened. From Sinai, Mount Sinai, you know the story of Moses,
the Red Sea and all of that. And then he brought them together
at Mount Sinai and he made a covenant with the people. The center of
that covenant was the 10 commandments, but it also had the ceremonial
law and the civil laws, all those laws that were given to govern
the nation Israel while they were in that land. From Sinai,
1500 years later, what happened? Jesus Christ died on the cross.
And that's when that covenant was abolished. That's when it
ended. But look here at Deuteronomy 29 in verse 1. It says, now this
is, now you know, Deuteronomy is the second writing of the
law, the second writing and the second reading of the law to
the nation Israel. Moses is about to die and Israel
is about to go on over into the promised land. They'd wandered
in the wilderness for 40 years and they're about to go into
the promised land and Moses reads the law to them again. That's
Deuteronomy. And here's a, listen to the language
of this. It says in verse 20, verse one
of Deuteronomy 29, it says, these are the words of the covenant,
which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of
Israel in the land of Moab. That's where they were right
before they entered the promised land. And he says, beside the
covenant, which he made with them in Horeb, that's Sinai.
That's another name for Sinai. So in other words, here's a covenant
That's kind of like a sub covenant to Mount Sinai. And what is it? Well, it has to do with their
obedience as a nation in occupying and flourishing in the land of
Palestine. Some of the scholars call this
the Palestinian covenant. And here's what it was. Here's
the conditions that was placed upon the nation Israel. That
is long as you obey the covenant, as long as you obey the law of
God, you will stay in this land and you will flourish in this
land. And that was the condition obey
the law, the mosaic covenant. And that doesn't mean now work
for your salvation. That's not what that's talking
about. That's just talking about they're occupying that land and they're
flourishing in that land. Their crops would grow, the rains
would come. You know, it was a land flown
with milk and honey, wasn't it? Remember when they first come
up on it 40 years early, they sent spies over and one of the
reports that came back was that the crops there were just huge.
They couldn't believe the vegetation the food and all of that, how
plentiful that land was. And God said, 40 years later,
before they go in, he said, here's the covenant now. And basically
what he tells, you read it, read the whole chapter sometime when
you get a chance. As long as you obey the Lord
in all the law, and that doesn't mean keep the 10 commandments
perfectly, they couldn't do that, they're sinners. But he's talking
about the ceremonial law, the sacrifices, all of that, the
Sabbath keeping, One part of the conditions of that covenant
was the Sabbath years. You remember, every seven years,
they were to let the land rest and not till it and not do anything
to it, let it rest. And they say, I don't know, I'm
not a farmer, but they say that's a good thing for farmers to do. That helps the land with minerals
and things like that. And then every 50th year, They
were to have the year of Jubilee. You remember that? For the land,
all of that. So those were conditions that
God put upon them for their perpetual, continual existence and possession
of that land and their prosperity. Now, let me ask you a question.
Have you read the history of Israel? Some of you have. Did they meet
the conditions of the covenant? And the answer is no. Is that
land, was that land, let me put it to you this way. When the
Lord Jesus Christ came into that land, was it a land of milk and
honey then? No. It was a dry, dead desert. What is it today? It's a dry,
dead desert full of turmoil, isn't it? It's not the land of
milk and honey. It's not the land that produces
grapes so big that two men had to carry them on a stick in between
them. They failed. Now those are the
two covenants that God made with men, conditioned on men, and
they both failed. One, with man in a righteous
state. Adam, better than any of us could
ever be. and he failed and brought the
whole human race. And then one with the nation Israel, whom
God blessed so much unconditionally, but he put that condition on
them, and they failed, and they failed. Israel's ownership of
the land depended on God's promise to Abraham, their possession
and enjoyment of the land depended upon their national obedience.
It was a conditional covenant towards them. Now, let me ask
you this question. Why did God, established such
a unique and peculiar covenant with the nation Israel? Well,
the number one reason is this. He chose that nation for no reason
in and of themselves. He chose that nation to be the
instrument through whom he would bring the Messiah into the world,
the Lord Jesus Christ. to bring Christ according to
the flesh into the world. God in human flesh. How was Christ
going to become man? How was God going to unite with
humanity in the flesh? How was he going to? Through
this nation. And you'll even notice in Israel's history that
about somewhere around 700 years before Christ, After the kingdom had divided
into Israel and Judah, Israel was destroyed, the Northern kingdom.
Judah, a couple of hundred years after that, about 400 years or
500 years before Christ, they were taken into captivity, but
God kept Judah together. Why? Because he had said in Genesis
49 and verse 10, that the scepter would not depart from Judah until
Shiloh come, that's the Messiah. God, in spite of their disobedience,
in spite of their losing the land, in spite of the glory of
the Lord departing from the land, and you know when the glory of
the Lord departed from the land? It's when the Babylonians came
down and destroyed the temple and destroyed or took away the
Ark of the Covenant. He told them through Jeremiah
that the glory is going to return though. When's it going to return? Well, when the people get better.
That's what the Jews think today. I had a Jewish rabbi tell me
one time, I said, well, why aren't they sacrificing now? Why is
all that happening? He said, well, the people are
not in obedience and God's waiting till we get back into obedience. And I told him, I said, that's
never gonna happen. Because the future hope of Israel
is not in a physical nation or a physical people. It's in a
spiritual nation under the headship of Christ, the Messiah. When will the glory return? When
Christ came, that's when the glory returned to the land. John
said in John chapter one, the word was made flesh and dwelt
among us and we beheld his glory, even the glory of the only begotten
of the father. Where are you going to find the
glory of God now? In the face of Jesus Christ.
in the person of Jesus Christ, in the finished work of Christ.
That's what Paul's talking about here in 2 Timothy 1. He did all
of that. God did all of that through Israel,
that disobedient, sinful nation to bring the Messiah. And then
there's a second reason he did it. Because through Israel, God
would testify to the world that because of the sinfulness and
depravity of all men, and women by nature, not just Israel, but
all men and women by nature, that it is impossible for any
of us to be saved, to be made righteous, to be forgiven, to
have eternal life under any covenant that's conditioned on us. Every covenant that God made
with man that was conditioned on man was and is a failure Even
man at his best before the fall he failed Adam in his righteous
day Certainly man in fall in a fallen state of sinful depravity
Even the best of us if God listen, what am I saying? If salvation
is conditioned on me or on you, then what do we know from God's
word? It'll fail. And yet 99 and 44, 100% of what's known as Christianity
today, and I'm not, people say, well, you're just exaggerating
here. I don't know, but I know it's most of it. That's exactly
what they preach, salvation. in some way, at some stage, to
some degree, conditioned on the sinner. And that's why we call
it a false gospel. You remember how years ago we
used to always talk and still talk about how the gospel is
not salvation conditioned on the sinner, it's salvation conditioned
on Christ, the sinner's substitute. The summary of the gospel message
is what? Three things, number one, the
utter impossibility of sinners being declared righteous, justified,
forgiven, based on deeds of the law. Salvation condition on the
sinner. Secondly, the absolute certainty
of salvation for all who seek it based on the righteousness
of Christ revealed in the gospel. That righteousness which is imputed
to God's people, charged, accounted to his people, received by God-given
faith without the deeds of the law. That's it. And then thirdly, the complete
necessity of obedience and true worship from the heart motivated
by grace, not seeking to earn salvation, but because salvation
is freely unconditionally given to a sinner like me based upon
Christ. Now, are there conditions? Well,
let's talk about the covenant of grace. First of all, it's
an eternal covenant. Look back at second Timothy one.
The covenant of grace is an eternal covenant, and we really don't
have language to describe what that means. We'll talk about
this. Before time began, God the Father and God the Son and
God the Holy Spirit agreed, came into covenant agreement where
God the Father chose a people and gave them to his Son. conditioned
all of their salvation upon his son. Now we speak of that in
time language, but it's really, it's a timeless thing and we
can't explain that. But listen to how he says it
here in verse eight or verse nine of 2 Timothy 1. He's talking
about God who hath saved us. Now he's talking about salvation.
And then he called us with a holy calling. Now I'll get back to
that in just a moment. He says, not according to our
works. It's not conditioned on us. Now,
some people say, well, it's not conditioned on our works, but
it's conditioned on our faith. You've just made faith a work.
Whether you realize it or not. I'm going to talk more about
that in the next message, but, but listen to what he's saying.
He said it's according to his own purpose. Now, what is the
purpose of God in the covenant of grace? What's the purpose
of God in the salvation of centers? It's to glorify himself. It's
to honor himself. You see, God's purpose in my
salvation is not to honor and glorify me. It's not to make
a name for me. It's not so that I can stand
and brag about me and boast about me. It's all about Christ and
him crucified and risen. It's all about his shed blood
and his righteousness imputed. And it's according to his grace,
according to his own purpose and grace. The only way God is
glorified in the salvation of sinners is by grace. How many
times have we said it? It means you don't earn it and
you don't deserve it. It's not based upon conditions
you meet. Listen, if you can be saved based
on conditions you meet, then you're simply saying that you're
better than those people under the old covenant in Israel. You're
better than them. They wouldn't believe, Jeremiah
said that. Read in Jeremiah 12 and 13, they would not believe.
But you'd have to say, but I would. Now think about it. Oh, that's
not me. I think the last time I was here,
I dealt with this, you know, in Romans chapter three, the
accept me syndrome that everybody has today. Romans 3, 10, there's
none righteous, no, not one, except me. There's none that
doeth good, none that seeketh after God. No, not one, except
me. No, take the except me out of it. That's us by nature now.
And then he says, which was given us in Christ Jesus, when? Before
the world began. Before the world began. Now,
some people say, well, now that means that God looked down through
the telescope of time and he foresaw who would be better than
Israel. Who would believe and who would?
Well, then you just destroyed grace. You don't need grace. That's a conditional covenant
towards you. This is not a conditional covenant
towards the center. It was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Now, what does it mean to be
in Christ Jesus? Look over to Ephesians chapter
one. To be in Christ Jesus. That's a big phrase, not in that
it has so many letters, but it has so much meaning. Well, listen
to what it means to be in Christ Jesus, verse three of Ephesians
one. Blessed be the God and the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. That's the covenant
of grace. All the blessings of salvation
are mine, not because I've met any conditions to earn them or
deserve them, but because Christ has done all that God requires. And he goes on to say that verse
four, according as he had chosen us in him, before the foundation
of the world, that we should behold him without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made
us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have redemption through
his blood." There's the condition. of the covenant of grace, his
blood. We'll talk about that more in just a moment. The forgiveness
of sins. How do I get forgiven? And I've probably told you this
before. Years ago, I heard a preacher up in Atlanta on TV. And here's
what he said. He made this claim. He said,
the cost of forgiveness is repentance. And it immediately clicked in
my mind, oh no, that's not the cost of forgiveness. You know
what the cost of forgiveness is? the blood of Jesus Christ. There's the cost of forgiveness.
And once the Holy Spirit shows that to us, then we'll repent. We'll come to as a result. Repentance
is not the condition for forgiveness. Repentance is the result of forgiveness. The blood is the condition. Whose
blood? Christ's blood. And that's what
he's saying here. He said, in whom we have redemption
through his blood, even the forgiveness of sin, according to the riches
of his grace. That's the covenant of grace.
It's an eternal covenant. Christ said, all that the father
giveth me shall come to me and him that cometh me, I will in
no wise cast out. The second thing about this covenant,
go back to second Timothy one is it's an unconditional covenant
towards God's elect. What are the requirements of
salvation? What are the conditions of salvation? Well, basically there's only
one. One condition that must be met in order for sinners to
be saved. What is that one condition? Righteousness. That's it. Now, the righteousness
of man will not do. We've already seen that in Adam.
Adam was a righteous man, he fell. The righteousness of sinful
men certainly won't do. We've all sinned and come short
of the glory of God. Our best is not equal to righteousness. That's why it's called iniquity.
You remember Matthew 7. I preached on that the last time
I was there. Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in your name? Haven't
we done many wonderful works? He said, depart from me ye that
work iniquity. You see, nothing we do with or
without the help of God equals righteousness. So where are we
gonna find righteousness? Well, it's not according to our
works. He says here in 2 Timothy 1.9,
the covenant of grace is not a provision of salvation based
on man's righteousness, because man has none. And that's what
he's talking about. What kind of people does God
save? According to the covenant, he
saves sinners. Paul said, this is a faithful
saying, worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ hath come into
the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Now what's a
sinner? It's a sinner is somebody who
deserves condemnation. Lord, if thou, Lord, shouldest
mark iniquities, who would stand? If God at any time gave us what
we've earned and what we've deserved, it would be eternal damnation. You say, well, I don't believe
that. Well, you haven't learned yourself yet. The Holy spirit
hasn't shown you yourself yet. I'm telling you now that's the
best of us. Remember Christ. He took the
best men of his day and he preached it to the people. He said, accept
your righteousness, exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and the Pharisees. You shall have no wise enter
the kingdom of heaven. Pick the best people. Man at
his best state is all together. What vanity. Good for nothing. So nothing that we do. I tell people up in Ashland,
I say, you know, I've preached the gospel for 30 years now. And I thank God. That's a work
of God's grace. But all the preaching that I've
done cannot make me righteous before God. So where am I going
to find it? Well, here's the third thing
about the covenant of grace. It's salvation conditioned on
the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is my righteousness. Now look back at 2 Timothy 1.
In verse 9, he says, who has saved us and called us with an
holy calling, not according to our works, not conditioned on
us, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was
given us in Christ Jesus. Christ as our representative,
Christ as our substitute, Christ as our surety, before the world
began but now look at verse 10, but is now made manifest, made
known by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ who hath
abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through
the gospel. What's he talking about? He's
talking about In the fullness of the time, God sent forth his
son made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. He's talking about Christ, God
the son becoming man, uniting with humanity. flesh and blood
without sin, the word made flesh dwelling among us. His name shall
be called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins.
His name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us. That's it. He was made of the seed of David
according to the flesh, but declared to be the son of God by power. And in all of that, what did
he do? He fulfilled in his obedience unto death as the representative,
the substitute and surety of his people, God's elect, his
sheep, his covenant people, he fulfilled all the requirements,
all the conditions, all the stipulations of our entire salvation. And
there's one phrase in the Bible that summarizes it all, and it's
called the righteousness of God. Look at Romans chapter one. The
righteousness of God. Now, you remember Adam in the
garden, he had what? He had the righteousness of man.
That's not good enough to save a sinner. We don't need the righteousness
of men, the best of men. We don't need it. It won't help
us. It'll always fall short. What do we need? What is the
condition? The righteousness of God. Now
look at Romans 1 16. For I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ, for it is the power of God and the salvation to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first and also to the Greek, for therein
is the righteousness of God revealed. Here's the covenant, you say,
the covenant, righteousness of God? Yes, it's revealed from
faith to faith, from the gospel message to faith given by the
Holy Spirit to believe it, as it is written, the just, the
justified shall live by faith. Now, what is that righteousness
of God? We'll look over Romans 10. And look at verse four. Here
it is. For Christ, Christ is the end
of the law. Now that word end, as you know,
many of you know, that's a word that means complete, perfected,
fulfilled, finished. In fact, it's translated finished
in John 19 and verse 30. You know what's happening there?
That's Christ on the cross in John 19, 30. And he says, it
is finished. What is? Sin is finished. He
made an end of sin. Righteousness is established.
Where? By his obedience unto death.
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. Do you believe? What's the condition
for salvation? Believing? No. Righteousness.
Righteousness. That's the covenant of grace.
And back over in 2 Timothy 1.9, here's the way he puts it. He
said he abolished death. Well, how did he abolish death?
Through his death. Huh? He satisfied the justice
of God based on the sins of his sheep, his church, God's elect,
imputed, charged, accounted to him. And the righteousness that
he established there on that cross by his redemptive work,
he paid the price, he paid the debt, that righteousness has
been imputed to every one of God's people. So that they are
in right standing with God based upon Christ, who is our righteousness. He's the fulfillment of the conditions
of the covenant. and that righteousness is imputed
to us. Now, where that righteousness is imputed, go back to 2 Timothy
1 now, where that righteousness is imputed, faith is given to
receive it. Sometime in your life, God will
bring you under the preaching of the gospel and the Holy Spirit
will work to give you life in the new birth and you'll believe
the gospel. Look here, this is the fourth
thing. It's revealed in the gospel, this covenant of grace. Listen,
he said in verse 10, he said, it's now made manifest by the
appearing of our savior, Jesus Christ, who has abolished death,
he's talking about eternal death, spiritual death there, and have
brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. How does God's covenant, how
do God's covenant people enter into that covenant? by their
own experience. It's not because they're better
than old Israel under the old covenant. It's not because you're
better than the person beside you who won't believe. It's because of the revelation
of God by the power of the spirit wherein he calls you. Look back
up at verse nine. Who has saved us and called us
with an holy calling. That's a special calling. What
kind of calling is that? That's an invincible call. That's
a conviction call by the power of the Holy Spirit who convinces
God's people of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And that's how
that covenant is applied. He gives life. Those, listen,
as many as received him, to them gave he the power, the right
to become the sons of God, which were born not of blood, nor the
will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. That's the
calling. That's how it's applied. He saved
us and called us with an holy calling. Now the covenant of
grace is what the people of God have always been under. And that
establishes our relationship with God. And incidentally, when
you read in the New Testament, for example, What people use
these if clauses, if sentences, if you continue, if you believe.
How do you know? Are they conditions we must meet
in order to attain salvation or are they evidences of salvation? How do you determine that? By
the covenant. What covenant are we under? We're
under the covenant of grace. We don't earn our salvation.
We don't earn our blessings from God. We don't earn forgiveness.
We don't earn heaven's glory or rewards. No, sir. That's all spiritual blessings
given us in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Christ met all
the conditions. Christ is the Lord, our righteousness. That's the covenant of grace.