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Pastor Lars Larson, PhD                                                                                        FBC Sermon #641
First Baptist Church, Leominster, MA                                                                    December 18, 2011
Words for children: covenant, law, grace, Israel                                                      Text: Matthew 26:26-30

The Gospel of Matthew (105)
Preparing for Jesus’ Death (cont.)

Our current progress through Matthew:

  I.  Prologue (chs. 1, 2)
 II.  The Kingdom Comes (chs. 3-7)
III.  The Works of the Kingdom (chs. 8-10)
IV.  The Nature of the Kingdom (chs. 11-13)
 V.  The Authority of the Kingdom (chs. 14-18)
VI.  Kingdom Blessings and Kingdom Judgments (chs. 19-25)
VII.  Passion and Resurrection (Chs. 26-28)
        A.  Betrayal and Arrest (26:1-56)
                1.  Preparing for Jesus’ Death (26:1-16)
                2.  Last Supper and Gethsemane (26:17-56)

*****************

        I would like us again to look at the passage that we had before us last Lord’s Day.  We read in Matthew 26:26-30:

        26Now as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”
        27And He took a cup, and when He had given thanks He gave it to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, 28for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.  29I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.”
        30And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

        When someone first becomes a Christian, especially if he or she had not much exposure to the Christian faith, the Bible becomes a thing of beauty and wonder.  God places a love for His truth in the hearts of His people, who He saves through Jesus Christ, for without this love for the truth, one cannot be saved.  The apostle Paul wrote of some not characterized with a love of the truth, for when it had been set before them, they had rejected it.  Paul wrote of those who will have embraced the man of sin:

9The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, 10 and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. (2 Thess. 2:1)

        And so, when someone becomes a Christian, he loves the truth of the Bible, for it is truth about God.  But when a person first comes to Christ, his perspective is limited and his capacity for understanding the truth of the Scriptures is also quite limited.  He begins to read the Bible and he is impressed with the reality of the truth in this verse or that verse.  He begins to see the wisdom of God displayed before him in the pages of Holy Scripture, but he still understands little.  As time passes, if he continues in the diligent reading and study of the Word of God, he begins to see a larger picture than when he first believed.  God has a purpose and a plan for achieving His purpose in history.  The Christian over time begins to comprehend the message of larger portions of the Bible, first chapters and then whole books.  In time he begins to see the fuller picture of what God is doing in history.  In time, Lord willing, he begins to comprehend the whole purpose of God in Christ that God is accomplishing in history, as the message of the entire Bible becomes comprehended.  All the while he increasingly desires and therefore prays and works for God’s purpose in Christ to be accomplished.  This is when the believer becomes a true friend of God, for God has taken him into His confidence and revealed Himself to the believer.  This believer becomes a friend of the Lord Jesus, as Jesus Himself said to His disciples the night that He was arrested and would face His cross the next day.  Jesus said to them,

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  14You are my friends if you do what I command you.  15No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. (John 15:13-15)

        It is sometimes difficult to see the larger purposes of God when reading the Bible.  It is like the old adage that one cannot see the forest because of the trees.  We focus so much on the individual verses or context, that we fail to see the larger context, the story in its fulness.  But once in a while, as say, one is walking on a path through the thick forest, that a place is arrived at in which a panorama of the forest may be seen.  So it is, as one reads the Bible, there are some verses that you come across that speak to the larger themes of Scripture.  To look at some verses, the grand purpose of God is suggested or displayed.  We have one of those verses before us in our passage.  And so, even though we gave consideration to the details of the episode before us last Lord’s Day, I would like us to use the verses of Matthew 26:27b and 28 to see the larger picture of God’s purpose in Jesus Christ in history.  Again, we read the words of Jesus to His disciples, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  The central idea of this verse is “the covenant.”  This theme is what unites for us the many threads within the story of the Bible, which is the history of the world according to God.

        Let us stand back and see what God is doing in history by first considering that…

        I.  God created the human race in covenant relationship with Him and one another.

        The reason that God ordained that He would relate to us by means of a covenant relationship is due to the vast difference and distance between and infinite God, who is our Creator, and human beings, His creatures.  If we were to know God and have fellowship with God, it would have to be by means of a covenant relationship, defined and delivered to us by God Himself. 
        Our Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689 states this fact clearly in article 7, paragraph 1, which reads:

The distance between God and the creature is so great, that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience to him as their Creator, yet they could never have attained the reward of life but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he hath been pleased to express by way of covenant.

Now this statement says nothing of the distance between God as holy and human beings as sinful, although that necessitates a certain kind of covenant, if we are to have eternal life and dwell with our God forever.  We will speak to that matter in a few minutes.  The point of this confessional statement is that because of the very holy and infinite nature of God and because we are finite mortals, even the matter of sin not yet considered, we are in need of God bringing us into relationship with Himself by means of a covenant.
        What is a covenant?  There are various definitions that have been offered.  It has been said that a covenant is “a union based on an oath” or “a relationship under sanctions.”[1]  When we say that God relates to us based on a covenant, we are saying that because God is so vastly different in essence and glory from His finite creatures, He must come to us of His own will and He must reveal Himself to us and set the terms or grounds by which we may approach Him, know Him, and relate to Him. 

                1.  God created us as covenantal creatures.

        What does this mean?  Americans tend to be quite individualistic in our perception of ourselves.  We do not see ourselves, as many people view themselves in some other cultures, in a collective sense, as a people who have life in common with one another.  Because we are human, and much more so because we are sinful humans, we view ourselves in isolation as individuals.  But God, although He loves and saves us individually, has regard for us collectively.  He has regard for us as a human race, as collectively His people or church, those who are redeemed by Christ, or as nations, or families.  God created us as covenantal creatures.  We are bound together as a collective people, and God views us and relates to us as members of a single entity.

                2.  God has described a number of covenants in Scripture by which He has related to people. 

        We read of a covenant that God made with Noah and the entire human race (Gen. 9:8ff), with Abraham (Gen. 15:18ff; 17:2ff), with Israel through Moses (Exod. 19:5ff), and King David (2 Sam. 7), and in the prophets God promised a new covenant (Ezek. 36; Jer. 31).  And then we read of the realization  of that promised new covenant to which our Lord referred when He said, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt. 26:27f).

        Now there have been different attempts to describe the nature of these covenants that God has set forth in Scripture.  In Reformed theology, that is, historic Protestant theology, there are generally two kinds of covenants, or perhaps three, under which all of the biblical covenants may be classified.  If we are to regard three kinds of covenants, they are referred to as the covenant of redemption, the covenant of works, and the covenant of grace.  Sometimes different terms are used than these three.  Consider how Michael Horton identified these covenants:

        With important antecedents in Irenaeus and Augustine among other formative theologians, Reformed theology discerned three overarching covenants in Scripture under which all sorts of other covenants were arranged.  The first is the covenant of redemption (also called the pactum salutis or covenant of peace).  Entered into by the persons of the Trinity in the councils of eternity, with the Son as its mediator, the covenant of redemption is the basis for all of God’s purposes in nature and history.  The second is the covenant of creation between the triune Lord and humanity in Adam as its head or covenantal representative.  The third is the covenant of grace, which God made with His church after the fall, with Christ as its head, beginning with His promise of salvation to Adam and Eve and continuing through the family of faith leading from Seth to Noah and on to Abraham and Sarah all the way to the new covenant as inaugurated by Christ’s death.  In this covenant, God promises to be our God and to make believers and their children His own redeemed family, with Christ--the Last Adam--as its federal representative, head, and mediator.  Therefore, the object of theology is not God in his hidden essence but, in the words of the seventeenth century theologian, Francis Turretin, “God as he has covenanted with us in Jesus Christ.”[2]

        Now I might make a few qualifying comments about Horton’s comments.  First, what he refers to as the covenant of creation is commonly referred to as the covenant of works.  He would agree that his covenant of creation is a covenant of works, which we will explain in a few moments, but he calls it “the covenant of creation” in order to identify it precisely as the covenant that God made with the human race through Adam in the Garden of Eden.[3] 
        Secondly, I would take issue with Horton’s statement, “In this covenant (of grace), God promises to be our God and to make believers and their children His own redeemed family…”  This reflects Horton’s Presbyterian view of God’s covenant of grace that includes all professing Christians and children whose parents are professing Christians.  I do not believe that there is any place in the Bible where the blessings of the new covenant are said to be enjoyed by anyone except true believers only, those who “were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands” (Col. 2:11).  In other words, God is in new covenant relationship only by those regenerated or born again by the Holy Spirit.  Reformed theologians and most Protestants, who practice infant baptism, argue that they are warranted to include the children of believing parents based upon the promise of Acts 2:38f,  in which Peter declared to those who were convicted of their sins and who desired salvation,

“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is to you and to your children…” (Acts 2:38f)

See, they argue, the promise is to believers and the children of believers.  I suppose if the verse stopped at that point, we would be hard-pressed to take issue with them.  But Peter included a further qualification of children to whom the Lord has promised the forgiveness of sins.  Peter said,

38“Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  39For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Only those, whom God has called effectually to salvation by the gospel through the power of the Holy Spirit, may rightly claim that the promise of God belongs to them.

                3.  God has made two kinds of covenants with members of the human race-- a covenant of works and a covenant of grace.  These two kinds of covenants upon which God relates to human beings are very different in nature from one another. 

                        (1)  A Covenant of works

        God established his covenant with the entire human race after He had first created Adam and Eve and placed them in paradise, the Garden of Eden.  Most Reformed theologians have believed this covenant to have been a covenant of works. 
        This covenant was made to the entire human race through its federal head or representative, Adam, the common father of mankind.  When God made this covenant with Adam, God bound the entire human race through all of history to this covenant.  Every child born into this world comes into the world relating to God based on a covenant of works that God made with the human race.

        What is the nature of this covenant and what are the terms of the covenant?  God established His covenant relationship with Adam and his descendants conditioned on Adam keeping God’s law.  When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden He had said to them,

15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  (Gen. 2:15-17)

        God created Adam to be His friend with whom they would have fellowship and to be His servant to work in His garden paradise on behalf of God.  God had made Adam his mediator between himself and his creation.  God had made Adam a prophet, priest, and king within his creation.  Adam was to govern God’s creation, for God had given him dominion over all that He had made; this is the function of a king.  Adam would speak with God concerning His creation when they spoke with one another in the cool of the day; this is the function of a priest.  He was to care for His garden according to the Word that God communicated with Him; Adam was God’s spokesman to His creation; this is the function of a prophet.

        The requirement God placed on Adam in his covenant was obedience.  The failure to keep this covenant, that is, to break God’s law, would result in death.  Adam’s obedience to God’s law, gained access to life from God and before God.  God required complete obedience.  The least infraction of God’s law would result in death.  It is commonly believed, I am in agreement with this position, that by his obedience, Adam earned or merited God’s favor toward him and because he represented all people it would have been extended to them also.  This is what distinguishes the idea of a covenant of works.
        By Adam’s obedience, he would have earned everlasting life by keeping works before God. 

Since paradise (which was the description of the Garden of Eden) is one of the names of heaven, we may conclude that the earthly one in which Adam was placed was a pledge of celestial blessedness.  Had he survived his probation and preserved his integrity, he would have enjoyed “heaven” on earth.”[4]

        This covenant of works that God made with the human race was a reflection of His goodness.  God’s law is good (cf. Rom. 7:16; 1 Tim. 1:18).  God’s law is a manifestation of His holy nature.  For people to dwell in the presence of God, they must be holy for He is holy. 
        Moreover, it was good and right that God bound His creatures in this covenant of works.  God had given to mankind free access to all that he needed to be happy and content.  God had said to him,

9And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food…  16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden.” (Gen 2:9, 16)

        It was right for God to place a prohibition before Adam and Eve.  By Adam’s obedience, he would continually show the fact that God was God and that he had a responsibility to obey His Creator.  By his obedience, Adam would show his love and his satisfaction with God’s provision.  Adam would be confessing God’s right to rule over him.  Arthur Pink described it this way: 

        In forbidding Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil his Maker asserted His dominion and enforced His authority.  That it was proper for Him to do so cannot be lawfully questioned, and as the sole Proprietor of the garden it was fitting that He should emphasize His rights by this restriction.  Moreover, since Adam was created a rational creature and endowed with freedom of the will, he was a fit subject for command, and accordingly was placed under the law.  Thereby Adam’s loyalty and subjection to his Creator and Lord were put to the test.  Trial of his obedience was made to discover whether the will of God was sacred to him.  It was both fit and just that man should remain in the state of holiness in which God had made him, if he would continue to enjoy his favor.  Thus he was placed on probation, made the subject of divine government.  Adam was not an independent creature, for he did not create himself.  Being made by God, he owed a debt to Him; he was a moral being, and therefore responsible to serve and please God.  The commandment given to him was no arbitrary infliction, but a necessary injunction for evidencing and enforcing man’s relationship to God.
        …Since He had been pleased to give Adam dominion over all the creatures here below, it was surely fitting that he should require some peculiar instance of homage and fidelity to Him as a token of Adam’s dependence and an acknowledgment of his subjection to His Maker--to whom he owed absolute submission and obedience.  And what mark of subjection could be more proper than being prohibited from eating one of the fruits of paradise?  Full liberty was granted him to eat all the rest.  The single abstention was well suited to teach our first parents the salutary lesson of self-denial and of implicit resignation to the good pleasure of the Most High.[5]

        Of course we read that Adam failed his test when he sinned.  And when Adam sinned, because he was our federal head, we all sinned in his sin.  “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Rom 5:12).  His sin brought the sentence of death upon the entire human race.  “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23a).
        But Adam’s sin also resulted in Adam and Eve losing their righteousness.  They became sinners by nature.  And all the human race that was born to them thereafter was born into this world sinners by nature, at heart alienated and in rebellion to their God.  All the world, therefore, is guilty before God on a multiple of fronts.  (1) Every human being is guilty before God for Adam’s sin, which is counted as everyman’s sin.  (2) Every human being is guilty before God because he is born with a sinful nature, a propensity and preference for sin against God.  (3) Every human being is guilty for every act of sin that he commits throughout his life, for transgressing God’s prohibitions in His law.  (4) Every human being is guilty for failing to do all that God positively commanded.

        But when Adam sinned and he incurred the curse of God upon himself for breaking God’s law, it did not disannul or abrogate that covenant of works.  God had established that covenant of works with Adam and all the human race in Adam.  And even though Adam broke that covenant and therefore no one can be saved by the covenant of works; nevertheless, when we are born into this world as human beings we are still under that covenant of works.  We are bound to perpetual and perfect obedience.  And when we pass from this life and we stand before God, we will be judged by that law that God has given.

        In order for mankind to be saved from his sin, the guilt of Adam’s transgression and all the transgressions against God’s laws that have ever been committed by those who will be saved, will need to be paid for.  The debt to God’s justice must be paid; God’s holy justice must be satisfied.  But it is clear no fallen human being would ever be able to achieve this requirement.  After Adam transgressed God’s law, and incurred the law’s penalty, no works of the law performed by a sinner could satisfy God’s holy justice.

                (2)  A covenant of grace

        Beside a covenant of works, the other form or kind of covenant that God makes with human beings has been called a covenant of grace.  Whereas the covenant of works was grounded in God’s goodness, as reflected by His law, this covenant is grounded in God’s grace.  In the covenant of grace God does for man that what man could not do for himself; God Himself brings His salvation to His people.  This covenant of grace was formulated, if we can use that term, in “the covenant of redemption” that Horton had identified as having been devised and committed to by the three persons of the Holy Trinity, even before creation.
        In that covenant of redemption, God made provision to save guilty sinners.  Each of the persons of the Trinity was committed to work out this covenant of grace.  We have spoken of this before.  Let us consider the details of the terms the everlasting covenant of grace, or the covenant of redemption.  They may be understood from the standpoint of each of the persons of the Blessed Holy Trinity.  Here is a fictional conversation of the Trinity with respect to the planning of the covenant of grace.

                        (a)  The terms of God the Father

        Although it is not explicitly stated in Scripture, Charles Spurgeon very aptly depicted the teaching of Scripture in the following way.  With regard to God the Father, it was as if He declared:

“I, the Most High Jehovah, do promise to give to You, my dear Son, a people, countless in number, drawn from every nation on earth.  I will, on account of You, cease my warfare with them, and become to them a God of Peace, for I will pardon and wash them from their sin, deliver them from the power of sin and thereby the wrath which is upon them due to their sin.  I will give them unto you, and will deliver each and every one of them into your kingdom which I will cause you to establish.  I covenant by oath, and swear by Myself, that I will do this thing.  This people Whom I have chosen will be given to you, every one of them; not one will be lost.  Them I will forgive through the merit of your life and the payment of your blood on their behalf.  But I too, do swear, that upon your death on their behalf, due to your righteousness, that I will raise you from death to reign forevermore, giving you a name above every name.  And all of these whom I have given You, will be with You and Me, for I will give eternal life so that they will ever be with You and Myself, dwelling and reigning with us through eternity.”

                        (b)  The terms of God the Holy Spirit

“I, the Holy Spirit, will in time ensure that these given to You of the Father will come to You.  I will make them alive, give them a heart to seek you, put faith in their minds and hearts to believe You.  I will work in them every grace, sanctifying them, preserving them, unto Your kingdom.”

        This was one side of the covenant, the contractual agreement.  The Son concurred, and committed Himself to certain terms:

                        (c)  The terms of God the Son

“My Father I will become one of them.  I will take upon myself the form and nature of the fallen race.  I will live in their wretched world, and for my people will I keep Your Law perfectly.  I will be obedient to You, even to death, as I work out a spotless righteousness, which shall be acceptable to the demands of thy just and holy law.  And when that time comes I will suffer and die on behalf of these you have given me.  On behalf of My sheep, I will be the Good Shepherd and lay down My Life.” 

        Based on this eternal covenant of grace, God decreed creation and has ordered all the events of history.  The Father has been true to His Word, the Holy Spirit has been true to His Word, and the Lord Jesus has been true to His Word.  And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, trusting in the merits of His life and death, if you are numbered among His sheep, hearing His voice and following Him, then this God, is a God of peace to you, through the blood of the eternal covenant. 

        II.  The history of the Bible is a record of God’s dealings with mankind; God relating to man based on these two covenants--the covenant of works and the covenant of grace.

        We already stated that when Adam was serving God in the garden of God, he was on probation, relating with God according to a covenant of works (which Horton called the covenant of creation).  Had Adam been successful in obeying God, his work of obedience would have earned for him and his posterity eternal life with his God.  He was laboring to enter into what might be described as “rest”, which was portrayed by God Himself having rested after His 6 days of work in creation.  The Sabbath rest becomes a symbol or the goal of mankind; rest is an emblem of eternal life, an eternal Sabbath rest with God.  This is reflected in Hebrews 4:

        Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.  2For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.  3For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said:

        “So I swore in My wrath,
        ‘They shall not enter My rest,’”

although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.  4For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 5and again in this place: “They shall not enter My rest.”
        6Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience, 7again He designates a certain day, saying in David, “Today,” after such a long time, as it has been said:

        “Today, if you will hear His voice,
        Do not harden your hearts.”

8For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.  9There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.  10For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.  11Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.  (Heb 4:1-11

        After Adam had sinned, and the curse of God came upon him and his posterity, God graciously announced His promise of His intention to deliver a people for Himself from their sin.  God Himself gave the first mention of the gospel in Genesis 3:15.  God said to the woman:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Gen. 3:15)

God declared that He would destroy what the devil had succeeded in doing, deceiving Eve and enticing Adam to sin.  God would see to it that He would have a people that He would save for and to Himself, who would be separate from all others who continue in their lost and damned condition.  But then the day would arrive, however, when God Himself would strip the devil of his power and deliver His people from their damned condition. 

        Now the history of the world has been described as a dramatic stage on which the drama of God bringing redemption to His people is played throughout history.[6]  It has been said, that if the world is a theater or stage, then the story being played out is a courtroom drama.  There is a divine witness in this courtroom setting, who testifies of God’s goodness and faithfulness, and the rightness of all His dealings with man.  This faithful witness is the Holy Spirit.  But there is also a false witness, who is the devil.  He advocates lies against God and promotes idolatry as a substitute for the true God.  The story itself is that of God making a covenant with man his servant in His garden, the covenant that he broke, but then it tells of the redemption that God brings to save His people from the fate they deservedly brought upon themselves. 
        The plot is repeated in the story of the Bible on both a small scale and a larger scale also.  “In every subplot of the Bible we discover echoes of this trial of the covenant servant in the cosmic courtroom.”[7] In fact the entire history of Israel can be regarded as a duplication of what unfolded in the garden. 

        The clearest example of this is with the entire history of the nation of Israel.  It began with God’s gracious call of Abraham who would become the father of the nation of Israel.  God called Abraham and gave him many great promises, all promises of grace, things that God committed that He would do for him and his descendants.  When God brought Israel from Egypt, God established His covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai.  This was a manifestation of God’s covenant of grace in that God had graciously saved Israel out of bondage in Egypt.  God gave His law to His people as the standard by which they were to order their life after entering the promised land that God gave them by way of His promise to their Fathers. 
        But there was also an aspect of the covenant of works in the giving of God’s law at Sinai.  This is a difficult matter to sort through, but it is important.  This aspect of God giving His law to Israel at Sinai has been sometimes called a republication of the covenant of works. 

        The Westminster divines (those who wrote the Westminster confession and catechism) also believed that the Mosaic covenant looked back to Adam’s state in the garden.  The divines explain, “God gave to Adam a law, as a covenant of works, by which he bound him and all his posterity to personal, entire, exact, and perpetual obedience” (West. Confession, 19.1).  They go on to say in the next paragraph, “This law” referring to the law that was  given to Adam, “after his fall, continued to be a perfect rule of righteousness, and, as such, was delivered by God upon Mount Sinai, in ten commandments, and written in two tables” (West. Conf., 19.2).  In this regard, the divines saw that the law given to Adam was of a piece with what that given to Israel at Sinai.  In other words, in some sense, the covenant of works was republished at Sinai.  It was not republished, however, as the covenant of works per se, but as a part of the covenant of grace, which pointed to the person and work of Christ.[8]

        In other words, even though God had given His law, His ten commandments, at Mount Sinai to His people as a manifestation of His grace toward them, they were to order their national life in faith and love by keeping God’s commandments, at the same time that law served to show them their need for a Savior.  It did so in several ways.

1.  That God by all means might stir up men to perform obedience.
2.  That every mouth might be stopped, and all the world might be made subject to the condemnation of God for not performing perfect obedience (Rom. 3:19).
3.  That he (God) might manifest man’s sin, and naughtiness (Rom. 3:19-20; 7:7-11).
4.  That he (God) might thrust us forward to seek to be restored in the covenant of grace (Gal. 3:22; 5:23).[9]

        Now again, as we read the biblical record, we see the same event of what happened in the garden played out repeatedly in redemptive history.  What occurred in the garden is replayed over and over again as history moves toward its destination determined by God.  Israel repeats the experience of the trial that Adam had underwent, and Israel failed just as Adam had failed.  God held forth to Israel the hope of dwelling in a place of security and blessing in the promised land, which is likened to paradise, the garden of God, just as God had held forth everlasting life in his garden paradise had he remained obedient to God.  Just as God had made a covenant with Adam, so God made a covenant Israel.  And as Adam, Israel would go through a trial or probationary period, which took place in the wilderness from Mount Sinai as they traveled to the promised land.  And just as Adam was to be God’s steward as prophet, priest, and king to the world in which God placed him, Israel, too, was to be God’s prophet, priest, and king to the entire world, modeling before the world what life lived out in righteousness before God to the glory of God should look like.  But just as Adam “the son of God” (Luke 3:38) failed, so, Israel, the son of God failed also (Numb. 24:18). 
        And then of course, we see later in the biblical record in the New Testament, a reduplication of both Adam and Israel’s trials in the person of the Lord Jesus.  In the presence of Israel’s failure to keep God’s covenant, just as Adam had failed to keep God’s covenant, God had promised a new covenant through His prophets.  But the new covenant that God promised would come through His Messiah, His Son, would be a replacement of the former covenant that had failed to deliver Israel from its sin.  It would be a fulfillment of God’s initial promise to Adam and Eve.  It would be realized through her promised seed, who was the Lord Jesus Christ.

        31Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah-- 32not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD.  33But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.  34No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jer. 31:31-34)

        The coming Messiah Himself would be the ground of this new covenant.  Isaiah 42:6ff declares,

“Behold!  My Servant whom I uphold,
My Elect One in whom My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.
2He will not cry out, nor raise His voice,
Nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.
3A bruised reed He will not break,
And smoking flax He will not quench;
He will bring forth justice for truth.
4He will not fail nor be discouraged,
Till He has established justice in the earth;
And the coastlands shall wait for His law.”

5Thus says God the LORD,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread forth the earth and that which comes from it,
Who gives breath to the people on it,
And spirit to those who walk on it:
6“I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness,
And will hold Your hand;
I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people,
As a light to the Gentiles,
7To open blind eyes,
To bring out prisoners from the prison,
Those who sit in darkness from the prison house. (Isa. 42:1-6)

        The coming Messiah Himself would be the one who secures this new covenant on behalf of God’s people.  He would be God’s Prophet, Priest, and King to the God’s creation, even His new creation that would one day come.  As God’s Mediator, Christ communicates God’s will to the world, represents God to the world and the world to God, rules over God’s world on behalf of God.
        The New Testament sets forth Jesus Christ as the faithful Son, over against Israel, the unfaithful son.  We have shown this throughout our study of Matthew’s Gospel.  As God had called forth His “son” Israel out of Egypt, God had called His Son, Jesus, to come forth from Egypt.  As God had sent Israel through a probationary trial in the wilderness, in which it failed miserably, so the Spirit of God drove Jesus into the wilderness to undergo His trial of the devil, but Christ, in contrast to Israel (and Adam), came forth tried and tested and victorious.  Just as God had given His law to Israel at Mount Sinai, so our Lord gave forth the new Torah to His disciples in His Sermon on the Mount.  But Israel suffered under the weight of its own sin incurring the wrath of God for having broken its covenant, in contrast the Lord Jesus also suffered God’s wrath, but He did so vicariously, not for His sin, but for the sins of His people that He might redeem them from sin, remove God’s curse from them, and restore them to God.
        But of course, Jesus Christ too is set forth as the second Adam, or better, the last Adam, who successfully accomplished what Adam failed to fulfill in the garden.  But where Adam was God’s federal head representing the human race in this present world, our Lord Jesus is the last Adam who is God’s federal representative over all of God’s people with view to the promised new creation.

        12Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned-- 13(For until the law sin was in the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law.  14Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned according to the likeness of the transgression of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come.  15But the free gift is not like the offense.  For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.  16And the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.  For the judgment which came from one offense resulted in condemnation, but the free gift which came from many offenses resulted in justification.  17For if by the one man's offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.)
        18Therefore, as through one man’ offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life.  19For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous.  20Moreover the law entered that the offense might abound.  But where sin abounded, grace abounded much more, 21so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. 5:12-21)

        When the Lord Jesus sat with His disciples the night He was betrayed, He passed that cup to them, saying, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins”, He was urging His disciples to see that in His life, which was seen in His blood, was about to pour out upon the cross whereby He would bring to pass all of the promises and of God and all of the purposes of God in His creation.  All of redemptive history centers here on the cross of Christ, in which He gave an atonement for sin. 

        One final word is in order.  The entire Bible reveals to us that there is only One who could keep Gods law as God had imposed upon His creation.  Jesus Christ alone kept God’s law fully without any infraction or failure.  He as God’s Mediator, enables His people also to keep God’s law, not perfectly, but for the most part faithfully, as He teaches them--Christ as our Prophet, intercedes for them--Christ as our Priest), and rules over them--Christ as our King.  When the Lord Jesus established a new covenant with God on behalf of His people, He has promised to confirm them in faith and obedience to God.  He did not give a new law whereby we are now able to keep God’s law.  Rather, He gives His people the Holy Spirit, whereby His life can flow into them and He can live His life through them.  We read in the Old Testament that this was God’s provision.

24“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.  25Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.  26I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  27I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.”  (Ezek. 36:24-27)

        Again, Jesus Christ alone can keep God’s law.  You can only keep God’s law to the degree that Christ dwells in your hearts through faith and He manifests His life through you by means of the Holy Spirit.  Paul stated it this way:

        2For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.  3For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.  5For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  6For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.  7For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.  8Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  9You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.  12So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  13For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  14For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  15For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”  16The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. (Rom 8:2-17)

        So what are we to do?  See in Christ alone not only our justification but also our sanctification.  He is not only alone the one who can bring us forgiveness; He alone can enable us to live righteously.  Trust Him to manifest His life to you and through you by means of the Holy Spirit.  Pray and trust Christ to do in you that which you cannot do apart from Him.  Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20,

“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”