Theology E. Covenant Theology

Question 1

What is a covenant?

Answer 1

-It is an agreement between persons. The elements of a covenant consist of parties, obligations/stipulations, promises, oaths/vows, blessings and curses and witnesses. God’s covenant with man is described as a “voluntary condescension on God’s part” (WCF 7).

Question 2

What is the Covenant of Works? 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.
• The parties are God and Adam, as well as all the descendants of Adam.

Question 3

Is there a present validity to the Covenant of Works?

Answer 3

-The present validity of the Covenant of Works is the federal headship of Adam. He is our representative, and his sin and the subsequent effects of the fall are passed down to his descendants. We have sinned, fallen, and reaped the consequences of disobedience in Adam.

Question 4

What is the Covenant of Redemption? who are its parties?

Answer 4

• (WC 20) 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.
• (WLC 31) The covenant of grace was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed.

Question 5

Discuss the Covenant of Grace

Answer 5

• Gracious = God had no obligation to enter into covenant and his word is the insurance of its validity.
• Trinitarian = Father elects, Son justifies, Spirit applies effectually
• Eternal = cannot be broken
• Particular = only effectual for the elect, not universal in scope
• One covenant of grace with various administrations (dispensations)

Question 6

How is the Covenant of Grace related to the Abrahamic Covenant? Mosaic? Noahic?

Answer 6

• The promised Redeemer (seed0 of Gen 3:15 is coming one step closer in the covenant with Abraham. God chooses one man to be the eventual father of the promised Redeemer, the scope of the covenant encompasses all nations (eventually), and the sign of circumcision is added to the covenant as a physical reminder of God’s faithfulness to his covenant.
• The stipulations of the law are given in great detail under this administration of the covenant, regarding sacrifice, worship, and community, as a response to the redemption God achieves on behalf of his people.
• This administration of the covenant underscores God’s intention not to abandon the work of his hands but to sustain, preserve, and redeem his good creation through families, despite the ongoing presence of sin in the world.

Question 7

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

Answer 7

a. WCF 7. 6
b. WLC 32, 33, 34, 35
c. There is one covenant with different dispensations. (Galatians 3:14)
d. There is a distinction between the Old and New (Hebrews 8:13), and the New in this sense replaces the old.

Question 8

Explain and defend with Scripture proofs the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ.

Answer 8

• (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 continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.
• Luke 1:35 = birth of Christ, fully man
• Colossians 2:9= fully God
• Hebrews 1:1-4 = the union of both God and man

Question 9

Briefly discuss the natures of Christ, including:

a. Was Christ a human person?
b. Does Christ have a soul?

Answer 9

(WSC 22) Christ took to himself a true body and a reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary and born of her, yet without sin.

Question 10

What is kenosis?

Answer 10

• Kenosis is a theological term from Philippians 2:5-11 which refers to the incarnation of Christ. He is described as having “emptied himself” and taken human form. In taking on human flesh, Christ is spoken of undergoing some manner of self-limitation. The emptying has two aspects to
  it: taking on the likeness of sinful humanity and enduring death on the cross. Dr. Bayer underscores the humility of Christ in not exercising all the privileges of the godhead in the incarnation.

Question 11

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

Answer 11

-No, Colossians 2:9 - “in Christ, all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form”

Question 12

Docetism

Answer 12

= Christ only appears to become a man, the suffering and other human traits were merely imaginary phenomena - not a true body and a rational soul at the incarnation. John 20 and Thomas touching the nail prints and the wounded side of Jesus.

Question 13

Arius

Answer 13

= Christ is not the eternal son of God, the first created being. John 1:1-14.

Question 14

Apollinarius

Answer 14

=Christ lacked a human soul. WSC 22 - “reasonable soul”

Question 15

Nestorius

Answer 15

= Christ is divided into two persons, a human and divine. Colossians 2:9.

Question 16

Eutyches

Answer 16

= Christ only had one nature, a mixture of both human and divine. WSC 22- “two distinct natures”.

Question 17

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

Answer 17

-The Jehovah Witnesses and the Mormons hold a form of Arianism.

Question 18

Explain and defend the doctrine of the “communication of properties.”

Answer 18

• A term within Christology that attempts to account for the way in which each of Christ’s natures’ properties are interchanged in the unity of his personhood. Both the human and divine properties are held in common by the one person of Christ in the incarnation

Question 19

Define the following names: Jesus

Answer 19

= he will save his people from their sins

Question 20

Define the following names: Son of Man

Answer 20

= Jesus favorite title for himself, taken from the book of Daniel c. Christ = Messian, the anointed one of God

Question 21

Define the following names: Son of Man

Answer 21

Son of God= Jesus unique reality as the second member of the trinity

Question 22

Define the following names: Lord

Answer 22

= New Testament designation for Christ as Yahweh.

Question 23

Define the following names: Lamb of God

Answer 23

= Jesus as the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world 16. How was Christ born?
-WSC 22

Question 24

Explain and defend the Virgin Birth.

Answer 24

Christ, the Son of God, became man, by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul,
1 being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her,
2 yet without sin.
- WSC 22
-Isaiah 7:14, Luke 1:16-38
John 1:14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Hebrews 2:14. Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.

Question 25

Trace the revelation of the person and work of Christ from the beginning of the Old Testament.

Answer 25

a. promised redeemer in Gen 3:15
b. prophet, priest, and king
c. temple implements, sacrifices, and laws
d. Angel of the Lord

Question 26

What is the humiliation of Christ?

Answer 26

-(WSC 26) Christ’s humiliation consisted in 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.”

Question 27

Define and distinguish the active and passive obedience of Christ.

Answer 27

• Active = He fulfills the stipulations of the moral law in perfect obedience
• Passive= He willingly undergoes the curses of the law for our sakes.

Question 28

What happened in the resurrection of Christ?

Answer 28

-He bodily rose from the dead. WSC 28

Question 29

Discuss the “glorified body”

Answer 29

• The glorified body is the resurrected state whereby the body is animated and guided wholly by the Spirit, free from sinful inclinations, imperishable, glorious and powerful.

Question 30

What are the offices of Christ? How does Christ execute them?

Answer 30

• WSC 23- 26

- prophet, priest, and king

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,1 who, being the eternal Son of God, became man,2 and so was, and continueth to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever.

1 Timothy 2:5. For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

John 1:1, 14. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John 10:30. I and my Father are one.

Question 32

What is a redeemer?

Answer 32

-Someone who buys back another from slavery or bondage of some sort.

Question 33

What is the atonement?

Answer 33

• Christ paying the penalty for our sin. He died my death and paid my debt. It combines the images of justifying, reconciling, substituting, and assuaging God’s wrath

Question 34

Was the atonement necessary?

Answer 34

• You bet, baby! Man is spiritually unable to please God or turn away his wrath by nature. We are enslaved to sin, and God must punish sin by death (Romans 3:23). God made Christ who
  knew no sin to become sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (2 Cor 5:21).

Question 35

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

Answer 35

-Isaiah 53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
-Ephesians 2:1-10

Question 36

Define: Expiation

Answer 36

= atonement for sins through the death of Christ on the cross as the sacrifice once and for all

Question 37

Define: Propitiation

Answer 37

= turn away/satisfy God’s wrath

Question 38

Define: Reconciliation

Answer 38

= restoring alienated people back into fellowship

Question 39

Define: redemption

Answer 39

= to buy back at a price

Question 40

Define: imputation

Answer 40

= to reckon, to charge to one’s account. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers

Question 41

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

Answer 41

. - Galatians 3:13-14 = Christ became a curse for us that we may avoid the curse
-2 Corinthians 5:21 = Christ became sin for us that we may receive declaration of righteousness from God.

Question 42

What of Christ’s remains to be done?

Answer 42

-The calling of the elect to salvation, his second coming, and the subsequent judgement of all the nations.

Question 43

Were the Old Testament believers saved by Christ?

Answer 43

• WCF 8.6

- Promise of the Redeemer looked forward to by OT saints as we look back at the cross

Question 44

Will any for whom Christ died be lost?

Answer 44

To all those for whom Christ has purchased redemption, He does certainly and effectually apply and communicate the same;[199] making intercession for them,[200] and revealing unto them, in and by the word, the mysteries of salvation;[201] effectually persuading them by His Spirit to believe and obey, and governing their hearts by His word and Spirit;[202] overcoming all their enemies by His almighty power and wisdom, in such manner, and ways, as are most consonant to His wonderful and unsearchable dispensation.[203]

• WCF 8.8
• John 6:37
• John 10:27-28
• Romans 8