Sermon Tone Analysis

(Ligonier) Some things are carried over from the Old Testament into the New and others are left buried in Jesus’ grave.

(Ligonier) Obedience to God’s law is the benchmark of continuing in God’s covenant.

Yet no Israelite could be saved by law-keeping — that was the point Paul would argue forcefully in his letter to the Romans, showing that the true Israelite was not the one who gave mere outward regard to the required ceremonies.

(Ligonier) In Christ, however, old things have passed away.

There is now no single ethnic group, for example, whom God favors with the privileges of redemption.

Israel, like Adam, broke covenant with God

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(Ligonier) Unlike the ancient Israelite, I can now say that Christ the last priest has done His work, and the last sacrifice for sins has been offered.

I need no lamb of my own, for God has provided a lamb for Himself

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(1689) 1.

Though rational creatures are responsible to obey God as their Creator, the distance between God and these creatures is so great that they could never have attained the reward of life except by God’s voluntary condescension.

He has been pleased to express this through a covenant framework

(1689) 2. Since humanity brought itself under the curse of the law by its fall, it pleased the Lord to make a covenant of grace

(1689) In this covenant he freely offers to sinners life and salvation through Jesus Christ.

On their part he requires faith in him, that they may be saved

Jonathan Edwards, “And the covenant of grace is not really a covenant- for there was no agreement between believers and the Father—but simply a “free offer of life.”

Faith is not the condition for receiving the offer, “for it is the receiving itself.”

(1689) and promises to give his Holy Spirit to all who are ordained to eternal life, to make them willing and able to believe

(1689) 3.

This covenant is revealed in the gospel.

It was revealed first of all to Adam in the promise of salvation through the seed of the woman

(1689) After that, it was revealed step by step until the full revelation of it was completed in the New Testament

(1689) This covenant is based on the eternal covenant transaction between the Father and the Son concerning the redemption of the elect

(1689) Only through the grace of this covenant have those saved from among the descendants of fallen Adam obtained life and blessed immortality.

Humanity is now utterly incapable of being accepted by God on the same terms on which Adam was accepted in his state of innocence