God’s Everlasting Covenant
Scripture speaks often of the fact that God’s covenant is an everlasting covenant. It is from eternity because it is first of all the relationship between the three persons of the Holy Trinity. But it is also to eternity because God takes us into that blessed Trinitarian relationship and makes us partakers of the divine nature (II Pet. 1:4). That relationship of fellowship and love shall never end. God will be our God forever and ever and we shall always be His people (Rev. 21:3).
Believing this, we do not believe that God’s covenant can be an agreement or a contract, as is so often taught. It is not an agreement between the three persons of the Trinity to bring salvation to God’s people, nor is it an agreement between God and His people in Adam or in Christ.
Why cannot the covenant be an agreement?
An agreement or contract is not lasting! When its terms, whatever they may be, have been fulfilled, then the agreement itself is finished and can be discarded. It may continue to be a matter of historical curiosity, but it does not continue in force!
To put it a little differently, an agreement or contract is only the means to an end. A bottle of medicine is also a means (a way) to an end—renewed health. When we are healthy again, we no longer need the medicine. No more would we need God’s covenant to continue after salvation is finished if the covenant is only a means to salvation—i.e., an agreement to provide salvation.
Since the covenant is everlasting it cannot end or become unnecessary. It is not the means but the end (goal) itself. It is not the way of salvation but salvation itself!
Is not the essence of salvation the relationship that God establishes with His people in Christ? Is not Revelation 21:3 talking about the highest glory of salvation when it promises the day in which God will be our God and we His people? That, we believe, is God’s covenant with His people. And it is everlasting. It will not end but will continue forever and ever!
Eternal life, Jesus says in John 17:3, is to know God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent. That is God’s everlasting covenant with His people! Truly, there could be nothing more wonderful. Even streets of gold could not compare with that! It, and it alone, is the true glory of salvation, of heaven and of eternal life.
Not all shall enjoy this, however. Only they shall see God and know Him who have believed in Jesus Christ, for He is the way into the presence of the Father. That is why John 17:3 speaks not only of knowing God, but also of knowing Jesus Christ. Do you? Rev. Hanko
Loving Our Enemies (1)
“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).
This text from God’s holy word has caused problems of interpretation in the past and seems to continue to cause such problems. Two of our readers have written in for a discussion of these words. One reader has asked for a discussion of verses 44-46, and another reader for the entire passage. We will, therefore, discuss the entire passage, but concentrate on verses 44-46.
That we concentrate on those verses in the section is due to the fact that appeal is constantly being made to this passage as proof of “common grace.” Our readers know by this time that the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland (CPRCNI) rejects common grace as an innovation and heresy which is contrary to Scripture and to the Reformed creeds, including the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt and the Westminster Standard. It is not an exaggeration to say that this passage (along with its parallel passage in Luke 6:27-28) has been quoted more than any other passage of God’s word in support of a love and favour of God toward all humans bar none, which is the central doctrine of common grace—as the very name “common grace” indicates.
Although we have, in earlier issues of the News, discussed the passage in Luke 6, the question is of sufficient importance to consider this passage in Matthew with some care. One can almost say that the doctrine of common grace stands or falls with the interpretation of this passage.
We intend, therefore, to discuss this passage in this and a few subsequent newsletters.
We will refer to just one work in proof of the contention that this passage is used as proof for common grace.
John Murray, native of the British Isles, well-known theologian and former professor in Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, U.S.A., writes in connection with this passage: “There is a love in God that goes forth to lost men and is manifested in the manifold blessings which all men without distinction enjoy, a love in which non-elect persons are embraced …” (Collected Writings, vol. 1, 68).
Interestingly, Murray insists that the love of God for all men is rooted in the cross of Jesus Christ and His redemptive work on the cross: “Many benefits accrue to the non-elect from the redemptive work of Christ” (63). Mr. Murray represents a number of theologians who have taken the same position.
Their argument seems to go something like this: We must love our enemies. In loving our enemies, we will, as God’s children, reflect God’s love. If we reflect God’s love in loving our enemies, it must be that God also loves His enemies. God’s enemies are all men. The proof that God loves all men, so it is said, lies in the fact that God makes His rain to fall and His sun to shine on all men, not only the good and just, but also the evil and unjust.
Before we go into an explanation of this passage, it might be well to point out a few problems with the interpretation that has been offered by Murray and others. One problem which immediately stares us in the face is the fact that nowhere does the text say either that God loves all men, or that rain and sunshine are in themselves indications of God’s love and grace to all men.
However we may finally interpret the passage, everyone will have to admit that these are conclusions which the passage itself does not say. Prof. Hanko
II Samuel 10:18 and I Chronicles 19:18
One of our readers has sent the following explanation of the apparent discrepancy between the numbers in II Samuel 10:18 and I Chronicles 19:18. It is, we believe, an example of how careful study of God’s Word can find a solution to many of these “problem” passages. He writes:
I, too, hold firmly to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and infallibility, and believe the problem people have explaining the seeming differences between II Samuel 10:18 and I Chronicles 19:18 can be easily remedied if we study, “search,” and ”meditate on” the texts.
Such study shows, firstly, that both passages do describe the same battle and amazing victory of David over the Syrians. Secondly, when we read both passages in context it is not at all difficult to see how the two passages are in harmony. Thirdly, the Scriptures do not contain any error or scribal slips of pen or inaccurate counting techniques. In fact, this passage is a testimony to the accuracy of Scripture and the precision of the numerical data in the Bible.
Regarding the numbers, the English translators have enabled us to get closer to the Hebrew text by showing us that II Samuel is talking about “the men” of 700 chariots (not “700 men,” as our opponents claim). Verse 18 shows clearly that there were 700 chariots at the outset of the battle, but would each chariot have had only one man? What if that man were hurt or killed? Then a valuable chariot would be rendered inactive. So, naturally, each of the 700 chariots had each of charioteers to supply, aid, protect and even replace the driver in battle. Each chariot may very well have had a team of ten men bringing the total to the “7000 charioteers” described in I Chronicles 19:18 that lay dead at the end of the battle.
Regarding the other 40,000 casualties, there is also no major problem. The figures are accurate as they appear in both passages. At the start of the battle they were trained “horsemen” (II Sam. 10:18), but by the end of the conflict many would have abandoned their horses and run away on foot, either because their horses were dead or captured (cf. Judges 4:15) or because they did not want to be recognized as part of the defeated cavalry (Editor: the cavalry were often the nobility and the captains).
Proud human armies love their titles, “kings,” “horsemen” and “charioteers,” but as the Syrians fled the once proud host was massacred and the survivors humiliated as servants of David. So we have the picture in I Chronicles 19:18 of the once proud kinds disrobed (they are not even mentioned in Chronicles), the charioteers completely destroyed and the horsemen reduced to the status of fleeing “footmen.”
The wonder of these two passages is not their supposed disharmony, but the accurate insight it gives to God’s victory through David over the Syrians. (Mr. John W. Perkins)
