The Everlasting Covenant

Extract

The Everlasting Covenant – Part One

Dr. Hugh Martin (1821-1885) began his invaluable work on the atonement by saying, “If we would investigate the very doctrines of atonement which God’s Word sets forth—avoiding arbitrary and capricious speculations, and illegitimate and useless trains of thought—it must be laid down at the outset, as a proposition of transcendent importance, that the doctrine of the atonement ought to be discussed and defended as inside the doctrine of the Covenant of Grace.” Alas that so many have failed to do so, with the result that the foundations of faith have been undermined, truth has been perverted, the people of God have been perplexed, and the enemies of the Lord afforded every opportunity to attack with no little success an otherwise impregnable fortress. The satisfaction or atonement of Christ ought never to be separated from its source, that source being the eternal agreement entered into by the Persons of the Godhead. That which Christ wrought out in time was what had been determined upon in the timeless counsels of the Holy Trinity. That which was accomplished here in this world was what had been decided upon and ordained in heaven before ever this earth had an existence. Christ did not propose the plan of reconciliation or offer to carry it into execution, instead it was proposed unto Him. The Father drew the plan and proposed it unto Christ as the God-man, the Mediator. He most cheerfully engaged to carry out that plan. The Holy Spirit was a witness unto that great transaction between the Father and the Son, and He recorded it in the eternal volume of the divine decrees, and has accurately and authentically stated it in the Holy Scriptures, in which we read of, “The blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13:20).

When writing or thinking of the work of redemption, we ought to ascend to its source, and begin with the consideration of that eternal agreement between the Persons of the Godhead on which the whole dispensation of divine grace to the elect is founded. It is failure to recognize or refusal to believe what is revealed in the …