The Nature of God’s Covenant

The general nature of this covenant is common with all other covenants.²⁵ Whatsoever different peculiarity they have,²⁶ this is essential and common to all covenants: they are agreements. And this is an eternal transaction and agreement between [the Father] and Christ the Mediator about the work of our redemption. The peculiar propriety²⁷ of its nature will appear by inquiring a little into‌…the various eternal acts of the will of God that concurred²⁸ to make up this agreement.

Supposing that God purposed in Himself not to save man without a satisfaction to His justice, these eternal acts of the will of God…did concur and meet together in this agreement:

(1) The designation of a person to do this work. There must needs have been a person set apart and designed²⁹ from eternity unto the doing of the work of redemption, and this person was the Son only, not the Father or the Spirit: “Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you” (1Pe 1:20).

(2) The preparation and fitting of the person set apart to take our Law-place and room so that justice might smite Him in our stead. [This] also was decreed by an eternal act of the will of God: the Son of God should be Immanuel—“God with us” or “God…manifest in the flesh” (Isa 7:14; Mat 1:23; 1Ti 3:16). Unto this incarnation of the Son of God,³⁰ His own words have reference. [And] unto this grand qualification, He was destinated beforehand³¹ that He might be in a capacity to do this work. “A body has thou prepared me” (Heb 10:5).

(3) The calling of the person designed. Calling is an act different from designation—it is something further. Christ was by an eternal act of God’s will called to this work, and that long before He came into the world. “Then thou spakest in vision to thy holy one, and saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people” (Psa 89:19). And, “I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles” (Isa 42:6). “So also Christ glorified not himself to be made an high priest; but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to day have I begotten thee” (Heb 5:5).

(4) The investing of the person designed with offices, powers, and authorities for the doing of this work…By an eternal act of the will of God, He was set up and vested³² with these offices and powers from everlasting and had the glory of the designed, called, invested Mediator. As He plainly insinuates, “I was set up from everlasting,” saith Wisdom (Pro 8:23). Several expositors render it, “I was called, or I was anointed.” “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (Joh 17:5).

(5) The mission of the Son. Christ…was sent to do this work by an eternal act in the counsel of God. He had a solemn, eternal, authoritative mission, a command to go, and was bidden to go. He had the will of God by an eternal act or commission given out to Him concerning all this work, long before He was actually made under the Law, to which He hath respect when He saith, “Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God” (Heb 10:7)—even that will of God that was in the book of His eternal decrees: “And this is the Father’s will which hath sent me” (Joh 6:39). And “This commandment have I received of my Father” (Joh 10:18). But in all these, we do not so much multiply the distinction of acts, as we take notice of the distinction and difference of phrase used by the Holy Ghost, speaking of this mystery in the Scriptures.

Upon the other part, [Christ] concurred unto this agreement [with] an eternal, personal consent and compliance unto all these eternal acts of the will of God. For Christ as God, equal with the Father, does not begin to consent and agree unto anything in time, nor can the eternal Son of God will anything in time, which He did not will and consent unto from eternity. But Christ was present with the Father and did from eternity consent and agree to these eternal acts:

(1) [He consented to be] the person that should satisfy the justice of God. He heartily acquiesced and offered Himself; He said, “Lo, I come to do thy will” (Heb 10:5,7). He poured out His soul unto death (Isa 53:12).

(2) He consented to putting Himself in that low capacity that [accomplishing] this work required. “Thou madest him a little lower than the angels” (Heb 2:7), to leave the throne of glory and come down to His footstool, there to be in disgrace. The Lord of the Law to be made under the Law (Gal 4:4)! The Holy One that knew no sin to be made “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom 8:3). “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phi 2:6-8).

(3) He consented and agreed unto the eternal act of His calling to this work. No sooner was it His Father’s will that He should travel in the business, but it was His also. He was as a ready servant…“The Lord GOD hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back” (Isa 50:5-6).

(4) He consented to take on these offices and trusts that the work of our redemption required. There was no force nor constraint upon, no necessity of nature that He should step in between the disagreeing parties, that He should step into the fire that we had kindled, that He should make Himself a sacrifice for our sins, that He should receive a dispensatory³³ kingdom; but frankly and freely He consented to do all these things. “No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself” (Joh 10:18). “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him” (Joh 17:2). “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was” (Pro 8:23).

(5) He consented to His Father’s sending Him [on this] mission and was well content to go [on] that errand. Yea, so hearty was His consent that He took delight in it: “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart” (Psa 40:8). “Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (Joh 4:34). And to all these things He gives a personal consent from eternity, and with so much delight that He solaced³⁴ Himself, and took pleasure in the future accomplishment of these eternal acts of the will of God concerning the sons of men: “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was...Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men” (Pro 8:23, 30-31). This is the nature of this eternal transaction.

From The Ark of the Covenant Opened, in the public domain.

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Patrick Gillespie (1617-1675): Scottish minister, Covenanter, and Principal of Glasgow University; died at Leith, Scotland, UK.

God, for the glory of His rich grace, hath revealed in His Word a way to save sinners, viz., by faith in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, by virtue of and according to the tenor of the covenant of redemption made and agreed upon between God the Father and God the Son, in the council of the Trinity before the world began…The sum of the covenant of redemption is this: God, having freely chosen unto life a certain number of lost mankind for the glory of His rich grace, did give them, before the world began, unto God the Son, appointed Redeemer, that, upon condition He would humble Himself so far as to assume the human nature of a soul and a body unto personal union with His divine nature and submit Himself to the Law as surety for them, and satisfy justice for them by giving obedience in their name, even unto the suffering of the cursed death of the cross, He should ransom and redeem them all from sin and death and purchase unto them righteousness and eternal life, with all saving graces leading thereunto, to be effectually, by means of His own appointment, applied in due time to every one of them. This condition the Son of God (Who is Jesus Christ our Lord) did accept before the world began and in the fullness of time came into the world, was born of the Virgin Mary, subjected Himself to the Law, and completely paid the ransom on the cross: But by virtue of the aforesaid bargain made before the world began, He is in all ages, since the fall of Adam, still upon the work of applying actually the purchased benefits unto the elect; and that He doth by way of entertaining a covenant of free grace and reconciliation with them through faith in Himself; by which covenant, He makes over to every believer a right and interest to Himself and to all His blessings.—David Dickson & John Durham

The efficient cause of our salvation consists in God the Father’s love; the material cause in God the Son’s obedience; the instrumental cause in the Spirit’s illumination, that is, faith; the final cause in the glory of God’s great generosity.—John Calvin