Revision as of 15:45, 19 February 2019

Objectives

• Students will recognize God's use of conscience to demonstrate that He alone is good.

Opening

Main Body

The Fall

• What events are described in Genesis 3:1-7?
  • The Fall. Whether we adopt a Covenant of Works, Edenic psuedo-covenant, or a dispensation of innocence we have a problem. Adam failed to live up to the standard God had set forth. A natural question is what does God do now?

A Covenant of Grace?

Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe.

This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in scripture by the name of a testament, in reference to the death of Jesus Christ the Testator, and to the everlasting inheritance, with all things belonging to it, therein bequeathed.

This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the Gospel: under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come; which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament.^[1]

• Pay special attention to some of the language. According to the confession, when does someone receive the Holy Spirit, and to what purpose is the Holy Spirit received?
  • According to the confession the Holy Spirit is received prior to salvation and the Holy Spirit serves the purpose of making someone willing and able to believe.

• According to the confession, what purpose did circumcision and other ordinances play in the Old Testament?
  • They were "sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah." So what do they mean by "build up the elect in the faith?" Based upon the Canons of Dort and the Heidlberg Catechism, it appears that one would argue that under the Covenant of Grace, grace is administered through the ordinances of circumcision, passover etc.

    Since we must make judgments about God’s will from his Word, which testifies that the children of believers are holy, not by nature but by virtue of the gracious covenant in which they together with their parents are included, godly parents ought not to doubt the election and salvation of their children whom God calls out of this life in infancy.^[2]

    Are infants also to be baptized? Yes, for since they, as well as their parents, belong to the covenant and people of God, and through the blood of Christ both redemption from sin and the Holy Spirit, who works faith, are promised to them no less than to their parents, they are also by Baptism, as a sign of the covenant, to be engrafted into the Christian Church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers, as was done in the Old Testament by circumcision, in place of which in the New Testament Baptism is appointed. ^[3]