Covenant Theology at a Glance

Joseph M. Gleason

 

This page last updated:   March, 2006

 

 

The Covenant of Works

·        Parties: God & Man (the first Adam)

·        Time: Beginning of the world, in the Garden of Eden

·        Terms: Man must obey God's laws perfectly in order to inherit eternal life

1)      All of the markings of covenant-making are present in Genesis 2.

2)      The 1st usage of the word “covenant” in Gen. 6:18 suggests an earlier covenant.

3)      In fact, God Himself explicitly says that He had a covenant with Adam (Hos. 6:7).

 

 

 

The Covenant of Redemption

·        Parties: God the Father & God the Son (the second Adam)

·        Time: Eternity past, before time began

·        Terms: As a reward for obedience, the Father will give the elect to the Son.

1)      The parallelism of Romans 5:12-21 & 1 Corinthians 15:21,45 tell us that God’s arrangement with Christ was covenantal. 

2)      Zech. 6:13 – “The counsel of peace shall be between them both” (between the Father and the Son).

3)      In Luke 22:29, Jesus refers directly to His covenant with the Father.

4)      Scripture tells us that the Father gave the Son things to do, and the Son accomplished those things in obedience.  For example, see Ps. 110, Is. 53, John 6:37-40, John 10:26-29, John 17:4, etc.

 

 

The Covenant of Grace

·        Parties: God and Man

·        Time: After man’s first sin

·        Terms: Man must trust in Christ for salvation, based on His finished work on the cross.

 

In Genesis 3:15, after the fall of man, the Gospel is first preached, and the “two seeds” of covenant history are prophesied.  Two lines of descendants are promised:  the seed of the serpent, and the seed of the woman. In promising to put enmity between the woman and the serpent, between her seed and the serpent’s seed, God is promising to sanctify the woman and her seed. In the ultimate sense of the prophecy, Christ is “her Seed”.  He is the coming Messiah who will defeat Satan (bruise the head of the serpent) by Himself taking punishment for our sins (His heel bruised by the serpent).

 

1)      In the genealogies of Genesis 4-5, we get to see the beginning of the "two seeds", the two prominent lines of descendants from Eve.  No one in Cain’s line is said to be pleasing to God.  None of the woman’s seed, from Seth to Noah, are said to be displeasing to God.

2)      The people of God began to intermarry with the people of the world. Wickedness covered the face of the earth, and God judged the world with a flood.  Only Noah and his family were saved.  In Genesis 9, after the flood, Ham & his son Canaan took the place of the seed of the serpent, while Shem continued the line of the seed of the woman.

3)      The descendants of the serpent and the woman continue side by side from the time of Noah to the time of Abraham. Ham's descendants (through both Canaan and Mizraim) were pronounced in wickedness.  But through Shem, God brought about Terah.  Terah's sons, Haran, Nahor, and Abram, all were ancestors to Jesus.  God changed Abram's name to Abraham, and continued the line of the seed of the woman through him.

 

 

 

 

 

I am still working on this document . . . God willing, there is more to come soon . . .