A Bible lesson by Ivor Jefferies
1. What is a covenant?
Read Genesis 15 or 31:43-45 for an example.
2. When and with whom did God first make a covenant, and what did He promise in that covenant?
Read Isa. 42:6, 1 Pet. 1:20, Ps. 40:6-8, 2 Tim. 1:9, Heb. 13:20, John 17:2, 6, 9, 24, Tit. 1:1-2. John Flavel imagines a hypothetical dialogue in eternity past between the Father and the Son:
Father: My Son, here is a company of poor miserable souls that have utterly undone themselves and now lie open to my justice! Justice demands satisfaction for them or will satisfy itself in the eternal ruin of them. What shall be done for these souls?
Son: O my Father, such is my love to and pity for them that, rather than they shall perish eternally, I will be responsible for them as their Surety. Bring in all thy bills, that I may see what they owe Thee. Lord, bring them all in, that there may be no after-reckonings with them. At my hand shalt Thou require it. I will rather choose to suffer Thy wrath than they should suffer it. Upon me, my Father, upon me be all their debt.
Father: But my Son, if Thou undertake for them, thou must reckon to pay the last mite. Expect no abatements. If I spare them, I will not spare thee.
Son: Content, Father. Let it be so. Charge it all upon me. I am able to discharge it. And though it prove a kind of undoing to me, though it impoverish all my riches, empty all my treasures, yet I am content to undertake it.
[Mark Jones, Knowing Christ (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2015), 17-18].
3. How are God’s covenant dealings with his people different from his dealings with the world, and how should we respond?
Read Ps. 145:8-9, 89:49, Isa. 62:6-7.
4. How do you know if you have been included in the eternal covenant?
Read Acts 13:48, 1 Thess. 1:4-5, 2 Pet. 1:5-10.
The Bible does not tell unbelievers to make sure that they are included in the eternal covenant, but to repent and believe in the gospel. “Let a man go to the grammar school of faith and repentance, before he goes to the university of election and predestination.” [John Bradford quoted in The Journals of George Whitefield (Oswestry, England: Quinta Press, 2009), 627]. God has not revealed the eternal covenant to trouble believers, to cause conflict between them, or to draw out objections from unbelievers, but to comfort his people.
5. How does God’s eternal covenant help us practically?
Read Jer. 31:3, Matt. 25:34, Rom. 8:18, 29-30, Eph. 1:3-6, Heb. 6:17-20.
My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
When darkness veils his lovely face,
I rest on his unchanging grace;
in every high and stormy gale,
my anchor holds within the veil.
His oath, his covenant, his blood,
support me in the whelming flood;
when all around my soul gives way,
he then is all my hope and stay.
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand:
all other ground is sinking sand;
all other ground is sinking sand.
—Edward Mote