The Covenant of Grace
If God’s covenant is a relationship or bond between Himself and His people (cf. Covenant Reformed News, volume II, issue 13), then it cannot rest on human merit but only on God’s (undeserved) grace. Such covenant fellowship does not arise from man, therefore, but from God, who sovereignly establishes and maintains it.
This is especially evident when we remember that we are sinners. It is almost unthinkable that the infinitely holy and righteous God should dwell with us and be our God, yet He nevertheless promises, “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (II Cor. 6:16). How wonderful!
What is true for us was also true of Adam before the fall. Adam’s creation as one who knew and loved God from the beginning was not grounded in merit. Before he was created in such an exalted position, he did not exist and therefore had no opportunity to merit anything with God. Nor can any creature ever merit with God, as we learned in the last issue of the News from Luke 17:10.
For this reason we reject any notion of a covenant of works that was based on merit. We are willing to use the expression “covenant of works” only as a description of God’s covenant with Adam, provided it is clearly understood, first, that this was not another covenant but only a revelation of the one covenant of God, and second, that Adam’s obedience and good works were not the basis or reason for the covenant, but only the means by which Adam continued to enjoy covenant fellowship with God.
That the covenant is “of grace” is simply another way of saying that the covenant is made and kept by God alone, without man’s help or cooperation. The covenant never depends on man, though man has real duties and responsibilities within it.
An analogy may help. We know that we must eat in order to live, yet we also recognize that our life does not depend on food and drink, nor do we receive life from them. Our life depends on God, from whom we receive it every moment. Food and drink are only the means by which life is sustained, not the reason for life itself.
So it is in the covenant. Obedience is only the means by which we enjoy the blessings and privileges of God’s covenant, never the reason for the covenant itself. Otherwise grace is no more grace (Rom. 11:6).
Because the covenant is of grace, it is sure and everlasting and cannot be broken. Though Adam was unfaithful and we with him, God remains faithful, never breaking His covenant or altering the thing that is gone out of His lips (Ps. 89:34). Great is His faithfulness! To Him alone be glory! Rev. Hanko
Loving Our Enemies (3)
“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:43-48).
That this passage from Matthew 5 is much used to prove the doctrine of “common grace” (that God loves and gives grace to all men) goes without saying. Whether, in fact, the passage teaches that view is quite another question.
One question that badly needs answering is: Did Christ die to earn that common grace? We looked at that question in the last newsletter and concluded that the defenders of common grace can never get around making the cross of Christ a universal cross. This is serious heresy.
But another objection, equally as serious, must be raised. That objection is: If God loves all men—something which Scripture nowhere says—why do these same Scriptures teach that God hates the wicked?
That is the question we propose to treat in this article.
Scripture never teaches anywhere that God blesses those who are not His own people whom He has chosen in Christ and for whom Christ died. Let the defenders of common grace show just one passage that clearly and unambiguously states this.
Scripture does teach that God curses the wicked. “The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just” (Prov. 3:33).
How can anyone get around this clear statement?
It not only says that God curses the wicked, but emphatically tells us that His curse is in their house, which means “in all their activities.” He curses them when they plant their crops and reap the fruit. He curses them when they eat the produce of their fields and store their bounties in granaries. He curses them when they rise up and lie down, when they are awake and when they are asleep, when they bring forth their children and raise them and when they welcome their grandchildren into their homes. The curse of the Lord is in their house—always, fiercely, destructively and continuously.
So Scripture teaches that God hates the wicked. “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Ps. 5:5). While we quote only this one passage, the reader may consult also Psalm 11:5, Hosea 9:15, Malachi 1:2-3 and Romans 9:13, etc.
The defenders of common grace say that God loves the wicked; Scripture says that God hates the wicked.
Notice too that the word Scripture uses is the word “hate.” That God is angry with the wicked is also true; but God is also angry with us. Anger is not incompatible with love. A father who loves his child may very well be angry with it. But God not only is angry with the wicked; He hates them.
Nor does the text say, as some are wont to say, “God hates the sin but loves the sinner.” The text says: “thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” Those are people, not deeds.
Some have even said that the word “hate” means “love less.” We ought to have no time for such word games. If “hate” does not mean “hate,” we can no longer know anything in the English language.
Others have said that Scripture teaches both: God loves and God hates. But does God love and hate the same person? Does God love and hate the wicked? Does God, then, perhaps, love and hate me? If words have any meaning such nonsense ought to be repudiated out of hand.
There is a kind of spiritual adultery in this language. The relation between God and His people is a marriage relation, reflected in the marriage of two saints here below. I do not have to try to tell my wife that I love other women besides her, even if I carefully explain that my love for them is qualitatively different from my love for her, for it would still be adultery. In marriage there is room for love for my wife alone. Love for another woman is adultery.
So it is with God. He loves His people with an everlasting love. He loves them alone. Anything else (I speak as a man) is a kind of adultery on God’s part. Prof. Hanko
How Do I Answer the Ecumenicals?
One of our readers asks: “How do I answer people who insist on church unity through the various councils of churches and ecumenical movements? I know it is wrong, but so many think it is right.”
We, too, believe that the ecumenical movement is wrong, wrong in its methods and wrong in its aims. Its aims are wrong in that it seeks union with those who are enemies of God, with the false church, with Roman Catholicism and other apostate Protestant denominations, even with different heathen religions. Therefore the Word of God applies, “Shouldst thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord? therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord” (II Chron. 19:2).
Its methods are wrong in that it always seeks unity at the expense of the truth, even of the most important truths of the Christian faith: the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, blood atonement and the infallibility and authority of Scripture. Ecumenism says or implies that all religions are equal, that all have a measure of truth and that all are but different ways to God. And this, too, is a denial of the fundamental biblical truth that God alone is God, and that there is no other beside Him.
One of the best answers, then, to those who are involved in and defend ecumenism is found in Amos 3:3, “Can two walk together except they be agreed?” We should note that this is a rhetorical question—a question the answer to which is not given because it is so obvious.
We experience the truth of this question in every area of our earthly lives—in marriage, in business, in politics, in international relations and in the church. Two can never walk together unless they are agreed. There can be disagreement on minor things, but on anything important there must be agreement or else unity, fellowship and cooperation are impossible.
Amos 3:3, then, explains why the ecumenical movement has abandoned or denied so many cardinal Christian teachings. To have some kind of unity they must agree; and to agree they must abandon even the “fundamentals” of the faith, especially when seeking ecumenical unity with other false religions.
In fact, many churches and organisations that have joined the ecumenical endeavour have done so because they long ago departed from the faith and believe almost nothing that Scripture teaches. They have found agreement with Roman Catholicism, apostate Protestantism and other false religions by reducing faith to little more than a denial of Scripture’s teaching.
Unity is important. It is commanded in Scripture, but it must be unity in the truth and by the truth. If we are to walk together we must be agreed about the truth. May God in His mercy give us true unity in these evil days. Rev. Hanko
