God’s Way of Salvation (WCF 7-8, WLC 20, 30-56; WSC 12, 20-28)

Question 1

What is a covenant?

Answer 1

“Covenant is a bond in blood sovereignly administered” O. Palmer Robertson

1. Bond – “oath bound commitment” (God bound himself to his promises)
2. “A Bond in blood” – life and death commitment
3. Sovereignly Administered – God sets the terms of the relationship and covenant

A divine covenant (Hebrew, berith; Greek, diatheke) (as distinguished from those made between human parties in the Scriptures) is a God-initiated, binding, living, relationship with blessings and obligations

• • Elements: Parties, Promise/Blessings, Conditions, Penalty, Sign(s)
• • WCF 7 - “voluntary condescension on God’s part”

Question 2

What is the covenant of works (life)? Who are its parties?

Answer 2

WSC 12 – When God had created man, he entered into a covenant of life with him, upon condition of perfect obedience, forbidding him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, upon pain of death.

Scripture: Romans 5, 1 Cor. 15 – Adam and Christ are both federal heads that represent two different covenants (Covenant of Works/Covenant of Grace); Hosea 6:7 – explicit testimony

Parties: God, Adam (and his posterity based on representative covenant headship)

Question 3

Is there a present validity to the covenant of works? What is it?

Answer 3

Yes: Romans 5, 1 Cor. 15 (Christ is the 2nd Adam)

Christ fulfills the stipulations of the covenant of works, so that we may receive the covenant of grace. Positively, he fulfilled the obligation of covenant of works in obedience. Negatively, he bore the penalty of the covenant of works in death.

Question 4

What is the covenant of redemption? Who are its parties?

Answer 4

Berkhof: “the agreement between the Father, giving the Son as Head and Redeemer of the elect, and the Son, voluntarily taking the place of those whom the Father had given him
– the Son was granted by the Father, by an eternal arrangement, a people to save and to redeem, to whom the Holy Spirit applies all the benefits of the Son’s covenantal work

Other notes:

• • The covenant of grace in time is made possible by the covenant of redemption from all eternity.
• • Holds Together: election in Christ, God’s activity in history, and the intra-Trinitarian love of God.

Scripture:

• • Promises from the Father to Christ he would be given a people (John 6:38-40, 17:4-12)
• • Psalm 2:7, Psalm 110 – decree where the eternal begotten son was given the nations
• • Luke 22:29 – the kingdom the Father has assigned to him

Question 5

Discuss the covenant of grace?

Answer 5

WSC 20: Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?

God, having out of his mere good pleasure, from all eternity, elected some to everlasting life, did enter into a covenant of grace to deliver them out of the estate of sin and misery, and to bring them into an estate of salvation by a Redeemer.

WCF 7.3 - God was pleased to make a second covenant 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.

Question 6

How does the Covenant of Grace relate to the other covenants in the Bible?

Answer 6

The other covenants are extensions and unfolding of God’s one covenant of grace; further established and expanded upon until its fulfillment in Christ.

As the covenant progressed, they are further established and expanded upon; extends and expands.

God does not save his people through an assortment of distinct dispensations or test which successfully fail and are exchanged, but he rather saves his people through a covenant of grace that is administered through an expanding series of connecting covenants from Adam to Noah to Abraham to Moses to David to the New Covenant prophecies to Christ.

Question 7

How does the Covenant of Grace relate to Abrahamic Covenant?

Answer 7

Extends and expands on the promise of presence (seed), people (nation), and place.

Seed to crush Serpent’s head would come through the line of Abraham; Abraham would become the Father of many nations;

ii. Gen 12 – Call
iii. Gen 15 – Promise
iv. Gen. 17 - Sign

Question 8

Covenant of grace relates to the Mosaic Covenant?

Answer 8

Mosaic Covenant is an extension and expression of the covenant of grace with Abraham

The Mosaic Covenant is part of the covenant of grace and that the law is not a different way of salvation, or a conditional covenant as opposed to an unconditional covenant with Abraham, but the law is in fact an advancement on the Abrahamic covenant.

What is clear is that the Mosaic covenant itself sees itself as a fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and thus in the line of the covenant of grace that God has established with Abraham. And the NT does not see the Mosaic Covenant as another way of salvation. The NT views salvation in the OT as always by faith. Doesn’t Paul make this point in the book of Galatians.
– Exodus 2:23-24 – everything that happens in Exodus is the answer that God gives for his people’s crying out to him, as he remembers his covenant.

Question 9

Noahic Covenant?

Answer 9

Gen. 9 – confirms the original covenant (9:8-9)

3-fold Promise to Noah, children, and offspring

• • Universal – God cares for all
• • Permanent – everlasting
• • Sign – Rainbow for reassurance

Question 10

Discuss the relationship between the Old and New Covenants. Defend from Scripture.

Answer 10

Discontinuities (not contradiction, but advancement)

1. ) Mediator – Old (moses) & New (Jesus)
2. ) Mosaic law forms Israel into a nation
   - - Abraham – promises are given to a family
   - - Moses – create a nation of families (national)
   - - Jesus – create a family of nations (trans-national)
3. ) Comprehensiveness of its revelation
4. ) Jesus abolishes the ceremonial code
   - - Mark 7 – Jesus declares all food clean
5. ) New covenant people are not defined ethnically or nationally

Continuities
God covenants with his same people, operates the same way with those people:
– expanded from israel to the Gentiles
– salvation by grace, through faith (Gen. 15:6)
– promise is to people and their offspring
– presence, people, place (holy spirit dwells)
1.) Blessing continues to come in obedience
2.) Chastening continues to come in disobedience
3.) Jesus will insist that we will be judged on the basis of our obedience (Matthew 25:31-33), but we will not be saved on the basis of our obedience.

Question 11

Explain and defend (with scripture) the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ.

Answer 11

WSC 21 – “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person forever.

Jesus is one divine person, with two natures, who fulfills a threefold office, in four moments of his saving mission. (Hebrews 2:10-18.)

2 Distinct Natures – “very god, very man, yet one Christ”
– two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and manhood, were inseperably joing together in one person, without confusion, without change, without division, without seperation.

Very God, very Man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.

Question 12

Briefly discuss the natures of Christ including: (1) Was Christ a human person?; and (2) Does Christ have a soul?

Answer 12

1. Was Christ a human person?
   - - Yes, John 1:14, Heb. 2:17, – made like his brothers in every way
   - - WSC 22 – Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.
2. Does Christ have a soul?
   - - Yes, Matthew 26:38 – “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death”
   - - “Reasonable soul”

Question 13

What is Kenosis? Did Christ lay aside any of His divine attributes at the incarnation?

Answer 13

What is kenosis?
– Philippians 2 – the theory that Jesus emptied some of his divine attributes when he took on flesh.

Did Christ lay aside any of His divine attributes at the incarnation?

• • No, “Incarnation happens by addition, not subtraction.”
• • Col. 2:9 – all the fullness of deity
• • Emptying was laying aside of privileges that his divinity deserved (glory); emptied himself by taking the form of servant; taking on something additional he didn’t have before (flesh).

Question 14

Briefly explain and defend against the challenges to orthodox Christology posed by Docetism, Nestorious, Eutyches, Arius, Apollinarius?

Answer 14

Docetism (How human was Jesus?) – Jesus was not really human, but only “seemed” to be human.

• • 1 Cor. 15 – our resurrection depends on Christ’s really resurrected body.
• • Heb. 2:17 - Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect

Nestorious (How was Jesus human and divine?) – Jesus Christ existed as 2 persons – the man and the divine – in one physical body.
– Colossians 2:9 – all the fullness of deity lives in bodily form

Eutyches – Christ had only one nature; human nature was absorbed into the divine.

• • Christ had to be fully human to atone for the sins of humanity. Perfect sacrifice.
• • Heb. 2:17; Colossians 2:9

Arianism (How Divine was Jesus?) – Jesus was created by the Father and is subordinate to Him as a lesser being. Christ is not eternal.
– John 1:1, Hebrew 1

Apollinarius (How human was Jesus?) – The divine Christ (Logos) takes the place of the human soul of Jesus (the man). In other words, Jesus had a human body in which dwelled a divine soul – but no human nature.
– John 1:14 – word became flesh and dwelt among us

Question 15

Are any of the early heresies regarding the natures of Christ held today? If so, by whom?

Answer 15

• • Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses – Christ is created, not eternal
• • Muslims – Christ isn’t son of God.
• • Eternal Subordination of the Son

Question 16

Explain and defend the doctrine of the communication of properties?

Answer 16

WCF 8.7 - “what can be said about either nature can be said about the Person of the Son, but cannot be automatically predicated to the other nature.”

For Reformed theology, the communicatio idiomatum means the attributes of each of Christ’s natures are communicated to the person of Christ.

– We can predicate what is true of each nature to Christ’s person. So, the person of Christ is omnipresent, but not according to His human nature. He is omnipresent according to His divine nature because only deity is omnipresent. Likewise, the person of Christ died on the cross, but Jesus experienced death according to His human nature, for the divine nature is not subject to death and decay.

Roman Catholics and Lutherans believe that the divine nature of Christ communicates (or shares) divine attributes such as omnipresence to His human nature; thus, Christ’s physical body can be in several locations at once.
– Reformed theology rejects this view of the communication of attributes as violating historic, orthodox Christology.

Question 17

What is the “extra Calvinisticum?”

Answer 17

In the Son’s Incarnation the divine Logos is fully united to, but never fully contained within, the human nature.
i. Lutherans real presence in the Lord’s Supper vs. Reformed spiritual presence

In other words, the Son, even in his incarnate state, is able to live a divine life outside (extra) his human nature

• • This doctrine safeguards the transcendence of Christ’s divine nature (it cannot be contained) and the genuineness of the human nature (it does not possess attributes reserved for divinity)
• • This extra reminds us that in the incarnation “the Son did not cease to be what he had always been”. He continued to sustain the universe (Col. 1, Heb. 1). Better to say The Person of the Son became incarnate, not the divine nature took on human flesh.

Question 18

Define the following names: Jesus

Answer 18

Jesus

• • Yahweh saves
• • Reflecting how, in the flesh, he is Jesus of Nazareth, a historical man from a specific place in time, born of Mary

Question 19

Define the following names: Christ

Answer 19

Signifying the Messiah or the Anointed One.

Christ is commonly used as the official title of Jesus (i.e. respecting his office as Messiah) but is also used as his personal name in many cases.

Question 20

Define the following names: Lord

Answer 20

Demonstrating his high and exalted character,

his possession of ruling authority from the right hand of the Father. It is practically equivalent to the name of “God.”

Question 21

Define the following names: Son of Man; Son of God

Answer 21

Son of Man – Jesus’s most common self-designation (more than 40x), emphasizing both his humanity and connecting Jesus to the prophecies of Daniel 7, and Ezekiel (ch. 32-40)

Son of God – reflecting Jesus’s position relative to God the Father. It has 3 dimensions (1) Messianic sense, showing Jesus’s position as the Father’s representative and heir; (2) Trinitarian Sense – showing his essential deity and ontological relationship with the Father; (3) Nativistic sense – showing his supernatural birth and his submission to the Father’s will.

Question 22

Define the following names: Lamb of God

Answer 22

John 1-

showing that he is not just the priest, but the sacrifice, atoning for the sins of mankind as their one true mediator.

Question 23

How was Christ born?

Answer 23

WSC 22: Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

Question 24

Explain and defend (including Scripture) the Virgin Birth.

Answer 24

Virgin birth upholds Christ as one divine person in 2 natures:

• • Fully God – Conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by man
• • Fully Man – conceived inside the womb of the Virgin Mary

Scripture

i. OT prophecy: Isaiah 7:14 – a virgin shall conceive
ii. NT fulfillment: Luke 1:31, 35, 41, 42; Galatians 4:4

Question 25

Trace revelation of the person and work of Christ from the beginning of the OT?

Answer 25

• Genesis 3:15 – snake crusher
• Gen. 12 – seed
• Exodus 12 – Redeemer of God’s people from bondage of slavery
• Joshua – into the promised land
• Numbers 24:17 – Star will come out of Jacob
• 2 Samuel 7 – Son of David will reign forever
• Psalm 110 – priest in the order of Melchizedek
• Isaiah 53 – suffering servant
• Jeremiah 31 – New Covenant
• Micah 5:2 – ruler of Israel will come from Bethlehem
• Zechariah 6:12 – Branch shall rebuild temple
• Malachi 3:1 – Messenger will prepare the way.

Question 26

What is the humiliation of Christ?

Answer 26

WSC 27: Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time.
– Philippians 2:5-11

Question 27

Define and distinguish the active and passive obedience of Christ.

Answer 27

1. ) Active Righteousness – Jesus’s perfect keeping of God’s law as condition for obtaining eternal life.
2. ) Passive Righteousness – Jesus’s atoning death as a substitute for sinner. His bearing the guilt of the sins of the elect, which were imputed to him.

2 Cor. 5:21

Question 28

What happened in the resurrection of Christ?

Answer 28

WSC 28: Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day

John 20:19-28 – Christ bodily rose from the dead on the 3rd day

The resurrection of Christ did not consist in the mere re-union of body and soul, but especially in this that in Him human nature, both body and soul, was restored to its original beauty and strength, and even raised to a higher level. He arose with a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:44-45)
– The first fruits of them that slept. (1 Cor. 15:20, Col. 1:18)

Significant for 3 reasons

i. ) Declaration of the Father that Christ met all the requirements of the law (Phil. 2:9)
ii. ) It symbolized the justification, regeneration, and final resurrection of believers (Rom. 6:4-5, 9)
iii. ) The cause of our justification, regeneration, and resurrection (Rom. 4:25, Eph. 1:20).

Question 29

What are the offices of Christ?

Answer 29

WSC 23: Christ, as our Redeemer, executes the offices of a prophet, of a priest, and of a king, both in his estate of humiliation and exaltation.

1. ) Prophet – representing God to man
2. ) Priest – representing man to God
3. ) King – God’s sovereign rule over his people

Question 30

How does Christ execute them?

Answer 30

1. ) Prophet – “In revealing to us, by His Word and Spirit, the will of God for our salvation.” WSC 24
2. ) Priest – “In his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, and reconcile us to God, and in making continual intercession for us.” WSC 25
3. ) King – “In subduing us to himself, in ruling and defending us, and in restraining and conquering all his and our enemies.” WSC 26

Question 31

Who is the only redeemer of God’s elect?

Answer 31

WSC 21 – “The only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal Son of God, became man, and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person forever.

Question 32

What is a redeemer?

Answer 32

The work of Christ.

One who delivers others from captivity or poverty by paying a price. Christ is our redeemer because he alone accomplished our redemption by giving his life in substitution for our own as the ransom price.

Question 33

What is the atonement?

Answer 33

The work of Christ.

Whereby the estrangement between two parties are overcome and god and humanity are made “at one.”

The primary purpose of the atonement is not to render something subjectively in the sinner (such as moral reformation) but to render objective satisfaction to the offended party – God. Atonement is achieved through the actual curse and death of a sacrifice.

• • Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of his people.
• • Christ died my death and paid my debt.
• • Romans 3:24-26; Gal. 3:13-14

Question 34

Was the atonement necessary? Explain and defend (include Scripture)

Answer 34

The Cause of the Atonement – The Love and Justice of God.
Rom. 3:26 - God is both just and justifier

It’s the only way a sinful humanity could be restored in relationship to a Righteous and Holy God.

• • Love offered sinners a way of escape, and justice demanded that the requirements of the law should be met (John 3:16, Rom. 3:24-26)
• • A Righteous and Holy God cannot simply overlook sin, but must punish it to be just. (Exodus 20:5, Psalm 5:5, Rom. 1:18, 32).
• -

Question 35

Why isn’t a good life enough to gain salvation?

Answer 35

No one’s life is good enough (Rom. 3:23); even seemingly good works are sinful (Rom. 14:23)

To atone for you sin you have to have perfect obedience as sacrifice.

Question 36

Define these words in the atonement: expiation, reconciliation, imputation, propitiation, and redemption?

Answer 36

1. ) Expiation – death of Christ served to cleanse/remove sin.
2. ) Reconciliation – restored alienated, enemies back into fellowship/relationship.
3. ) Imputation – charge to someone’s account; credit; Christ’s righteousness is credited to our life, our sin is credited to his.
4. ) Propitiation – the death of Christ served to propitiate or exhaust/turn away the wrath of God. Satisfaction of God’s wrath.
5. ) Redemption – rescue by payment

Question 37

What is the nature of the atonement? Discuss “penal substitutionary atonement.”

Answer 37

The primary purpose of the Atonement was to reconcile God to the sinner. (Satisfaction to God)

Substitute – (“in our place, condemned he stood”)
God graciously ordained that Christ should take the place of man as his substitute. Christ as our substitute atoned for the sin of mankind by bearing he penalty of sin and meeting the demands of the law, and thus wrought an eternal redemption for man.
– Christ died a sacrificial death as a substitute for the elect sinners who are united to him.
– The penal substitutionary view of the atonement holds that the most fundamental event of the atonement is that Jesus Christ took the full punishment that we deserved for our sins as a substitute in our place, and that all other benefits or results of the atonement find their anchor in this truth.

Question 38

What of Christ’s work remains to be done?

Answer 38

Christ work in atonement is finished.
– He saves to the uttermost (Heb. 7:25) and claimed it was finished (John 19:30)

His work now, is his continual work in his 3 offices.

WSC 28: “in his rising again from the dead on the 3rd day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day.”

• • Intercession
• • Judgment

Question 39

Were OT believers saved by Christ? Explain and defend (include Scripture)

Answer 39

Yes,

Justified at the cross - here is also a sense in which all the elect are objectively 
justified at the point of Christ’s death on the cross, which, in effect, accomplished the atoning work that is then imputed both to OT saints (retrospectively) and all other members of the invisible church from that point onward (prospectively). 


Romans 3 – passed over former sins

• • John 8 – Abraham rejoiced to see the Day of the Lord
• • 1 Cor. 10 – Israel drank from the rock, which is Christ
• • Isaiah 6 – saw Christ (John 12:41)

Question 40

Will any for whom Christ died be lost? Explain and defend (include Scripture)

Answer 40

No,
John 10:28 (no one will snatch them); Romans 8:30-37

Limited Atonement – Christ suffered and died for the purpose of saving only the elect, and that purpose is actually accomplished.

• • Christ not merely made salvation possible but really saves to the uttermost every one of those for whom he laid down His life.
• • Luke 19:10, Rom. 5:10, 2 Cor. 5:21, Gal. 1:4, Eph. 1:7
• • Christ laid down his life for his people (Matt. 1:21), his sheep (John 10:11, 15), for the Church (Acts 20:28, Eph. 5:25-27), or for the elect (Rom. 8:32-35).