Glory Be to Our Great God | Day 27 - God is Covenantal
Give Thanks to the Promise-Making and Promise-Keeping God
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. - Ephesians 1:3-6
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” - Genesis 1:27-28
And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. . . . Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” - Genesis 9:1, 8-11
When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.” - Genesis 15:17-21
Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, “Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.” - Exodus 24:7-8
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’ ” - 2 Samuel 7:12-16
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” - Jeremiah 31:31-34
“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. - Isaiah 42:6-8
But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. . . . In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. - Hebrews 8:6-7, 13
For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. - 2 Corinthians 1:20-22
God hath decreed in himself, from all eternity, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, whatsoever comes to pass;1 yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin nor hath fellowship with any therein;2 nor is violence offered to the will of the creature, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established;3 in which appears His wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing His decree. - The 1689 London Baptist Confession
Never Make a Promise You Can’t Keep
If you are ever in Louisville, KY, you should hit up Bluedog Bakery and Cafe on Frankfort Ave., but I remember sitting with my mentor and his wife there asking them dating questions. I don’t recall what brought up the conversation about romantic relationships, but when I asked his wife the question, “What is the best piece of advice you could give me for dating?” she answered, “Don’t make a promise you can’t keep.” This simple, cliche-sounding saying seemed obvious, but a decade of adulting has taught me how immensely serious this is. Maybe you also aren’t a stranger to making false promises or breaking commitments and thus hurting others in the process. It’s easy to make great promises with our mouths, but keeping it with our lives and actions is hard.
But does God keep his promises? Has God ever made promises that he couldn’t keep? Will God say one thing to us but then do the complete opposite of what he said? As we’ve previously learned, God is the complete opposite of us regarding his pedigree with promise-making and promise-keeping. As we will see, God is the Covenant LORD who has not only made many promises to others but also has kept every single one of them. In fact, what if all of God's promises he has made reflect a promise not made in time but beyond time by his eternal decree?
And here’s what makes this amazing: God chose to personally covenant with you through our Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world.
“For all the promises of God find their Yes in him.” - 2 Corinthians 1:20
In this post, we will explore the realities of God’s eternal decrees, his one plan of salvation, and his covenant promises, but, before we do so, we have to answer this question: “What makes God able to do these things?” Remember that God is the simple, all-sufficient God who is infinite in all his perfections which has massive implications for how he conducts his works.1 Herman Bavinck writes, “all the decrees of God are based on his absolute sovereignty. God is self-sufficient: in him there is no need or compulsion to actualize any of his ideas in a world of creatures. He is perfectly free in his choices; it is only by his will that all things exist and were created (Rev. 4:11).”2 This all-sufficient God eternal lives as three distinct persons that communicate the divine nature as Father, Son, and Spirit and “by nature . . . is not static, inert, or immobile. Within his being, there is a shared fullness of life and love. . . . As such, God is totally self-sufficient; he needs nothing external to himself to be made complete or satisfied (Acts 17:25).”3 Put plainly, God’s nature remains infinite and immutable even as God has ordained all that will come to pass in time and space because “The creation of the world does not exhaust the riches of God’s knowledge and wisdom. The infinite being of God is infinitely more abundant than the whole world in all its dimensions could ever present to our view.”4
With the “God-ness” of God in mind, how do we define God’s divine decrees? The Westminister Larger Catechism defines them as follows:
God’s decrees are the wise, free, and holy acts of the counsel of his will, whereby, from all eternity, he hath, for his own glory, unchangeably fore-ordained whatsoever comes to pass in time, especially concerning angels and men.5
The term “divine decrees” refers to God’s eternal plan by which all of the works that God has done and will do in time and space have been ordained by him from eternity. “God’s plan is eternal (Isa. 37:26; 46:9-10; Matt. 25:34; 1 Cor. 2:7; Eph. 1:4; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9). . . . God’s plans can be historical and temporal in the sense that he wills for things to happen at one time rather than another. And sometimes he ordains something to happen temporarily. But the plan by which he ordains these temporary states of affairs is nevertheless eternal. Therefore, his plan is immutable, unchangeable.”6 Stephen Wellum explains further, “God’s decree is the ‘blueprint’ for all things, and by creation, God enacts his plan by bringing all things into existence. By providence, God further enacts his plan by sustaining, ruling, and governing nature and history to its planned end, yet in different ways.”7 As God himself declares through Isaiah, “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’” (Isa. 46:8-10).
In addition to this, Steven Duby writes, “God’s decree includes the full scope of created existence and its historical development, but in Scripture it focuses especially on the destiny of human beings, particularly chosen to inherit salvation in Christ. God elects and determines to save a people for the glory of his name (Mark 13:20, 22, 27; Rom. 8:28-30, 33; 9:11; 11:2, 7; Eph. 1:3-14; 2 Tim. 2:10; Titus 1:1; 1 Pet. 1:1-2; 2 Pet. 1:10).”8 God’s eternal plan of salvation has been sometimes referred to as the pactum salutus or the “covenant of redemption,” but regardless of which term is used, it “is about God’s eternal determination and agreement among the divine persons to share their life in covenant relationship with the elect. In this eternal agreement.”9 We see how our salvation was part of God’s eternal plans when reading Ephesians 1 where Paul states that God “has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:3-7) and sealed us with the Holy Spirit a guarantee towards the full consummation of his purposes.”10
So if God ordained all that will come to pass, how does his eternal plan, especially of his works of salvation, come to pass? We read throughout Scripture that God has unfolded and revealed his works primarily through the creation of multiple covenants which are “relationship[s] between two parties involving permanent and serious commitments of faithful, loyal love, obedience, and trust.”11 Imagine you and a friend make a super-serious, intense, promise of friendship but have obligations for each person and major consequences if broken. In the same way, since creation, God has established covenants with specific people and groups to unfold his glorious plans of salvation, and these covenants form the backbone for understanding the storyline of Scripture and God’s redemptive plans. Though much more can be said, here is a summary of God’s major covenants:12
God’s Covenant with Adam and All Creation (Creation/Adamic Covenant)
God’s Covenant with Noah and Reaffirmation of the Creation Covenant (Noahic Covenant)
God’s Covenant with Abraham (Abrahamic Covenant)
God’s Covenant with Israel through Moses (Mosaic/“Old” Covenant)
God’s Covenant with David (Davidic Covenant)
There is one more covenant, but what is one thing that is common with all of these covenants? God has made promises to human representatives all with obligations for them to be faithful to him as he will be to them. But what’s the problem? Not on God’s commitment to keep his promises.13 From Adam to David’s descendants, none of the human covenant heads were perfectly faithful because of their sinfulness.
Instead of trusting in God’s word about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve chose to trust in the lies of the serpent and brought the fall of man.
Instead of being a “new Adam,” Noah gets drunk, naked, and brings shame upon himself.
Instead of demonstrating perfect faithfulness as the father of faith, Abraham takes matters into his own hands multiple times.
Instead of being the obedient son possessing all God’s written laws, the nation of Israel fails to be faithful through their constant idolatry and rebellion against God.
Instead of being a faithful king representing Israel, David sins royally and his sons sin to the point of splitting the kingdom and the judgment of exile by foreign powers.
Every single covenant head was a sinner like you and me. All, except one. This covenant head is unlike every other one because he is not only truly a man but also truly God. Isaiah wrote that God promised that this covenant head is not like any other when he states, “I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols” (Isaiah 42:6-8). This person will be himself “a covenant,” and his names is Jesus who came to save his people from their sins and bring about an everlasting kingdom (Matt. 1:21; Luke 1:31-33). Duby writes “Indeed, YHWH gives Christ, the true Israel, to be a covenant for the people and a light to the nations (צָם לְאו̇ר גּוֹיִם וְאֶתֶּנְךָ לִבְרִית) (Isa. 42:6; cf. 49:8).”14 It is this Jesus whose perfectly obedient life, penal substitutionary death, and defiant resurrection who ushers in the New Covenant through which all the previous covenants are fulfilled.
Jesus is the true and better Adam where, unlike the first Adam all died, in him all can have new life.
Jesus is the better Noah who is the ark that we are baptized into by faith in him and thus saved from eternal damnation.
Jesus is the better Abraham in that all who trust in him are children of not only Abraham, the father of faith, but also of God (Gal. 3:23-29; Rom. 8).
Jesus is the better Moses and better Israel who makes the Old Mosaic Covenant obsolete (Hebrews 8), gives us new hearts with the law of God written on them by the Holy Spirit (Jer. 31:31-34; Ezek. 36:22-27), and truly obeys the Father’s will perfectly.
Jesus is the better David who is the victorious, resurrected king who rules over all creation and to whom every knee, in heaven and earth, will one day bow and worship, either with hearts of joyful faith or hearts of sinful terror.
Yes! Praise the LORD that all of his promises find their “YAS!” and “Amen!” in Jesus Christ.
He Has Good Plans for Me
What do we do with this majestic reality about God’s Covenantal work? Here are several implications that should convict and encourage us.
First, here’s a question everyone needs to answer: Whose story are you living in? Yours or God’s. Trent Hunter and Wellum write:
God, through his Word, never lets us read the Bible and walk away unchanged. Jesus did not come so that we could merely know about God and about his promises. God the Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, came so we could know him and become a new creation. Jesus came so that we, as the church, would be an out post of that future age, living now in the world as we await his return. The Bible is more than a story about Christ; it’s God’s love letter to you.15
Because God is the perfect author of all history, we have the underserving privilege of being written into it as part of displaying his glory and grace. Everyone exists on a stage created by God to showcase his story of salvation through Jesus Christ, but do you recognize and believe in this story? Will you trust in the one who not only came to die for you but also fulfills every single covenantal promise God has made and includes you in that?
Second, because God is eternal, sovereign, trustworthy, and faithful, we can live every day knowing that God is in absolute control over all things that come to pass. If God is all that he infinitely is, then all that comes to pass will never have any mistakes. All that he has ordained in time-space reality is all according to his meticulous sovereignty. This leads us to reject any form of nihilism, atheistic existentialism, and even evolutionary theory because all regard that there is no ultimate purpose in life. These opposing views look at life as either a product of random chance, an empty canvas needing meaning, or an arena for the survival of the fittest. But if God is the author of all history, then nothing that happens is a waste of time in his eyes. Let me bring this close to home for us all: you—yes you, reader—are not a waste of space and breath. You were created to be an expression of God’s glory according to his infinitely wise and eternal plan. Therefore, the purpose of every human being ought to be as the Westminister Shorter Catechism states, “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”
Third, if God has eternally ordained all things according to his good pleasure and executed them all through his covenants with us, then surely only his goodness and mercy will follow all who hope in his Son! Psalm 23 is in full view here because the LORD God is not a sterile equation of mere determinism but our shepherd. Everything that comes to pass, from the good to the bad, has a purpose according to God’s infinite wisdom, and Christians take great comfort in this deep truth because they know that “for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). Paul goes on to state the following:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:35-39
Nothing is wasted in the Christian’s life because the God who has secured his saints through the New Covenant of Christ is the same God who ordained all things for his glory and our good and joy in him.
He has good plans
He has good plans for me
So, I will take heart in deserts and gardens
He has good plans
He has good plans for me
If I know my Father
I know my Father has
- Red Rocks Worship, “Good Plans”
Father, thank you for ordaining all things for your glory and my good. Thank you for being the Triune LORD God who is the Covenant Lord. According to your eternal, definite plan, you wrote the greatest love story full of wonder and rescue. You chose before the foundation of the world to save a people for your own possession by sending your Son to slay the dragon of sin and death. You unfolded this story starting from the creation of this universe through your covenants, and although all the human representatives were not perfect, your Son was perfect. Thank you Jesus for fulfilling every divine promise and including us in them by faith in You. Help me, Holy Spirit, to remember that all things are according to your sovereign plan. Empower, O LORD, to live standing on your promises knowing you are working all things for your glory and my good. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
See the previous posts on God as LORD, Simple, Self-Sufficient, and Infinite.
Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend, 4 vols. (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003-2008), 2:343.
Stephen J. Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1: From Canon to Concept (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2024), 727.
Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 2:342-3.
John M. Frame, The Doctrine of God (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., 2002), 316.
Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 728.
Steven J. Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism: Biblical Christology in Light of the Doctrine of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2022), 98.
Wellum, Systematic Theology, Volume 1, 740; See also Robert L. Reymond, A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2nd ed. (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 502. Also, per Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 77n89: “If covenant is defined solely in terms of ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal treaties, then GOd’s eternal plan is not covenantal, since Scripture knows of no suzerain-vassal arrangement between the persons of the Godhead. As Horton notes, ‘After all, each person [of the Trinity] is equally divine: there are no lords and servants in the eternal trinitarian relationship. Furthermore, there is no formal treaty structure to this covenant in Scripture—no historical prologue, stipulations, sanctions, and so forth. . . . Only an overly restrictive definition of covenant would seem to justify the claim that the covenant of redemption is speculative rather than biblical.’ God of Promis, 81-82”
Ibid.; See also Frame, The Doctrine of God, 325-330.
Gentry and Wellum, KTG, 165.
Full disclosure, I affirm the biblical theology framework of “Progressive Covenantalism” which asserts that God’s one plan of redemption is unfolded through a plurality of covenants ultimately fulfilled in Jesus Christ in his New Covenant. This has been seen as a “middle way” between Covenant Theology and Dispensationalism. For further reading, see Peter J. Gentry and Stephen J. Wellum, Kingdom Through Covenant: A Biblical-Theological Understanding of the Covenants, 2nd ed. (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), Stephen J. Wellum, “Progressive Covenantalism,” in Covenantal and Dispensational Theologies: Four Views on the Continuity of Scripture, ed. Brent E. Parker and Richard J. Lucas (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2022), 74–111; Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum, Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018); Stephen J. Wellum and Brent E. Parker, eds., Progressive Covenantalism: Charting a Course Between Dispensational and Covenant Theologies (Nashville, TN: B&H Academic, 2016), and Christ Over All’s September 2023 theme: A Primer on Progressive Covenantalism.
Duby, Jesus and the God of Classical Theism, 102.
Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum, Christ from Beginning to End: How the Full Story of Scripture Reveals the Full Glory of Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 260.