What did you learn from Sunday’s sermon “Redemption in Three Covenants”?
Q1: What is a covenant?
Q2: What is the first covenant?
Q3: Why are covenants important?
Q4: Why didn’t Adam and Eve die when they broke the first covenant?
Q5: The covenant of redemption was a covenant between who and when was it made?
Sermon Summary & Answers
This Sunday’s lecture-sermon, “Redemption in Three Covenants” was a doozy. Pastor Steve pulled a 50-ounce cowboy ribeye off the grill and started slicing. Now, in Luke 1:57-80, Luke brings us back to Zecharias. It’s time for Elizabeth to give birth.
“Knowing God is life as a human being. Knowing God is salvation. ‘This is eternal life that they may know God.’ That’s life forever. True understanding is why God works to reveal Himself in scripture. How else could we know Him without the Bible? Captured in the Bible is His revelation of Himself to man. We being small, limited creatures can barely understand the things we can see, let alone big things we can’t see. God knows our limits and stoops to us. He understands if we are going to know Him, we need little pieces progressively delivered.”
Pastor Steve Wilson
So, how can I possibly know Him with my limited brain power? Deuteronomy 7:9, this is what we can know. He is faithful and keeps His covenants with those who love Him and keep His commandments. Perhaps, the greatest manifestation of God is found in the understanding of covenants, and to know that He is God and He is faithful. Faithful to what? Faithful to His covenants. A covenant is an agreement that rests on God’s sovereignty with divine sanction. A Covenant is a command with consequences and a promise.
Covenant Reference List:
- The Adamic Covenant/The Creation Covenant
- The Noahic Covenant-Genesis 6:5-8; Genesis 9:1-11
- The Abrahamic Covenant- Genesis 12:1-3; Genesis 15:1-6; Genesis 17:1-8
- The Mosaic Covenant- Deuteronomy 9:9-10; Exodus 20:1-2; Exodus 24:7-8
- The Davidic Covenant-Deuteronomy 31:19-20
- The Covenant of Redemption/The New Covenant
For the sake of a summary, we can only cover two of the covenants above, the first covenant in Genesis 2:15-17 is the Adamic Covenant. God says this is all for you except this tree. If you eat from it, you will die. A command with consequences. Where’s the promise? The promise came before, when they were told to be fruitful, multiply, and have dominion. It should be noted that Adam and Eve were not perfect, they were innocent with the potential to fail. They possessed the capacity to disobey God. Like being on probation; there was a test and if they passed, they could live forever and enjoy what God created them for. But they weren’t perfect, and they disobeyed the covenant. Such a bummer, but I couldn’t have done it any better if I did it myself.
But they didn’t die that day; even though God said they would. They didn’t die, so God could reveal another covenant, the grand covenant that began before man. When they sinned, God killed an animal and covered their nakedness, and they lived in a fallen state. When He didn’t kill them, God gave them something they didn’t deserve – grace.
Anytime we see grace, God is working in accordance with His covenant of redemption between God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God the Father said He’d have a people of His choosing from the fallen, and God the Son agreed to pay the price to redeem them, and the Holy Spirit said He’d apply the price paid to any sinner who believes. Adam broke the first covenant, but Adam and Eve are the first chosen by God and would be redeemed. This is God’s first act of redemption in accord with His covenant when He killed that animal and hid their nakedness. When He acts with grace. He is acting in accord with the covenant of redemption, the string that pulls through the entire revelation of God seen in Philippians 2:5-11 and also seen in Isaiah 53:10-11 with the promised offspring of many who are justified. Jesus is rewarded with a people, me and you. This is the covenant of redemption.
Through the covenants, our picture of God gets bigger and clearer. He is going to fulfill the covenant of redemption that He made. It all points to Jesus, the only one who could keep all the commands of God. Deuteronomy 31:19-20, the song of Israel says they cannot keep the covenant and will always break it just like me and you and Adam and Moses and Abraham and David. Israel will always break God’s covenant, but He made a covenant with Himself. The new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31-34 is not like the ones with our fathers that they broke. God said He will put the law on their hearts, and they will all know Him. He said, I’ll forgive their sins and remember no more. That’s the end of it. The only way it can happen. A covenant made in heaven and played out on earth through each covenant. The foundation of Zecharias’ song is the bible and the covenants of God! These covenants are the foundation of every song we sing. You have to know His promises that He makes and keeps, so that you know God.
Did you find this quiz and sermon summary helpful? Log on to gccbg.com/blog each week for the latest Q&A. Jessica will send the link out in the Midweek church emails. I’d love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Please email me at thepew@gccbg.com.
- A covenant is an agreement that rests on God’s sovereignty with divine sanction
- The adamic covenant
- To know God. Knowing God is salvation. True understand is why God works to reveal Himself in scripture.
- When they sinned, God killed an animal and covered their nakedness and they lived in fallen state. When He didn’t kill them, and gave them something they didn’t deserve, it’s called grace. God gave them grace. That is God working in accord with His covenant of redemption.
- God, the Father, God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit determined before time. The Father said He’d have a people of His choosing from the fallen and God, the Son agreed to pay the price to redeem them and the Holy Spirit said He’d apply the price paid to any sinner who believes.
