The Covenant of Grace - Gen 3:15
[10th May 2013]
On Sunday I went to the opening of a new church building for a church plant which my own church Chapel Hill has made here in Hamilton. I was very interested though the two congregations have been meeting amicably as separate groups for about 8 years. I am on the trust that bought the land on which the church was built and of course we know many of the members of the congregation. They are lovely, deeply committed, energetic people – which I need to state before my next comments. I wanted to support them and was keen to be there.
I was less pleased when I heard the numerous short speeches. The speeches worried me. They were all about the fact that it was a community church. There were speeches in Te Reo Maori, speeches from committee members, speeches of mention of the building contractors, praise of the architect, mention of committee members, speeches of acknowledgement from MPs, speeches that it would be a place of unity, a place of welcome, a place to serve the local community … and so on.
As these speeches continued I began to ask myself, … But is this going to be a place of grace? It’s going to be hard work being a member of this church from what I heard. I came away thinking not about this new church, but about all churches, and asking myself is church getting too complicated (and expensive $1.2M in this case) and is church life losing grace?
The Covenant of Works was “Do this and you will live ...” In the Garden of Eden the Devil tempts Adam and Eve so that the Covenant of Works is broken and he succeeds in trapping Adam and his descendants into death. Adam had failed in the Covenant of Works in his priestly duties to bring his people to the tree of life.
But the so-called “Proto-evangelium” announced to the Devil by God in Gen 3:15, is a message of hope for the failed Adam and his descendants. This is the Covenant of Grace:
“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.”
The Devil did not foresee that God planned to send a Second Adam who would perfectly keep the Covenant of Works on behalf of the offspring of the first Adam. God put enmity between the Devil’s offspring and the Eve’s offspring (who are Jesus Christ and his redeemed people). This is the great division in the world: It is not Gentile v Israel; It is not black v white; it is not a division by bloodline as such, but a line of division on the basis of faith, between people of belief and people of unbelief.
This is Covenant of Grace is the only way by which a sinful human being can be saved and escape the Devil’s death grip. The Covenant of Grace is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved ...”. The Covenant of Grace was visible before its fulfilment in the Person and Work Christ in a series of types in the patriarchal period and in the history of Israel. In both the New Testament and the Old Testament, the only way God saves sinners is by faith alone, through grace alone by Christ alone.
My missionary friend John Buchanan has been reflecting on Jesus’ “Church Shrinkage Seminar”, otherwise known as John chapter 6!
60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offence at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
We can rediscover the grace of God in even the hardest discipleship sayings of Jesus Christ. Yes, Christian service can be hard work sometimes, but it is the Spirit who gives life. Even if you are ‘successful’ (whatever that really means) in your Christian service it is only going to be by the grace of God, led by his Spirit.
This is a healthy reminder that we Christians do not relate to God on the basis of our law-keeping, church building or church-planting. The Christian believer is righteous by virtue of the righteousness of Christ alone. The whole Bible is about one thing – God redeeming a people for himself by grace alone. One book, one story. We are still pilgrims en route for the final destination. Things are still going to go wrong. We are not going to achieve perfection until the consummation of the covenant and the return of Christ. There is no normal life, there is just life … by grace alone.
The best is yet to come.