If: God’s Covenant of Grace

By Carl Wells

Do we hear biblical Christianity
in our churches?

What if our brand of Christianity is only partly true to what the Bible teaches?
What if our understanding of eternal life/eternal death is flawed so dramatically as to harm both Christians and non-Christians?
Our Christian civilization currently seems to be at risk. What if that’s our fault because we have ignored vital Bible teachings? If: God’s Covenant of Grace traces the Bible’s use of the powerful little word “if” to discuss crucial life and death issues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jul 17, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728309026

Carl Wells

Carl Wells enjoys living in Southern Indiana, in what might be described as Flyover Country, except that almost nobody flies over.

Book preview

If

GOD’S COVENANT OF GRACE

by Carl Wells

48064.png

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2019 Carl Wells. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 07/17/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-0903-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-0902-6 (e)

Print information available on the last page.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Website

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, New American Standard Bible (NASB). Copyright ©2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

GettyImages-951702988---.jpg

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 A Covenant Of Grace

Chapter 2 The Ifs of Obedience (Blessing) or Disobedience (Disaster)

Chapter 3 The Ifs of Repentance

Chapter 4 Other Old Testament Ifs

Chapter 5 Other New Testament Ifs

Chapter 6 Partiality and Impartiality

Chapter 7 What Are God’s Goals?

Chapter 8 It’s a Jungle Out There

Appendix I. A Prayer

Acknowledgments

Other Books by the Author

For

Brad Herndon,

with gratitude and affection.

As for you, my son Solomon, know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing mind; for the LORD searches all hearts, and understands every intent of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will let you find Him; but if you forsake Him, He will reject you forever.

1 Chronicles 28:9

But if you do what is evil, be afraid;

Romans 13:4

GettyImages-951702988---.jpg

INTRODUCTION

If a frog had wings, he wouldn’t bump his fanny so hard when he landed.

Bob Wells, in conversation

But a frog doesn’t have wings. So he bumps his fanny hard when he lands. Sometimes conversations with my father Bob Wells went on in this way: I would say if something or other, which would prompt him to speak the words in the epigraph above. Eventually the general point stuck with me: if is an important word. If deals with reality, and exposes unreality. If holds our noses to the grindstone.

If, despite being a very small word—two letters, by my count—is also perhaps the biggest two-letter word in captivity.

The Bible seems to agree. The constant refrain of the Bible is if you behave in this way, then here is how God will deal with you and "if you do not behave in this way, then here is how the consequences from God will differ." This refrain is constant, but we seem to have tuned it out. This is probably because the ifs are so inconvenient for us. The ifs hold us to account. We don’t want to be held to account. We like to do things the way we like to do them.

When we do things the way we like to do them, rather than the way God instructs us, there are consequences. The consequences are bad.

One of the consequences is that Christian civilization is in danger of disappearing, or being driven underground, on this continent. God is not mocked, and He has created reality in such a way that our thoughts and actions have consequences. Only a biblical brand of Christianity will be honored by God—although He seems very patient in this regard—and our current brand of Christianity is not very biblical and hence not very Christian. The good news is that God will act to support His people if—there’s that word again—we obey Him from the heart.

This book has six basic goals.

1/To examine the Bible’s use of the word if. The study is not exhaustive—not every if is examined, and those that are examined are not lingered over for very long. If the study were exhaustive, the book would be even longer than it is. But enough ifs are discussed to enable us to get a beginning feel for the importance of the concept of if.

2/To warn and encourage people who are openly non-Christian or anti-Christian. The God of the Bible is real—that’s my theory, anyway, and I’m sticking to it—and He has sensible ways of acting which you can, potentially, understand and appreciate, and to which you can respond appropriately.

3/To warn professing Christians that many of you, perhaps most of you, are not converted. Measure yourself against Scripture, and you will see that God’s ifs are a serious warning that devastation may await you. You have been misinformed—perhaps not consciously misinformed, but misinformed nevertheless—about the nature of Christianity and the nature of reality. If you fail to wake up, bad things can and probably will happen to you. Eternal torment, physical and psychic, is one possibility—the possibility favored by much of Bible-believing Christianity. For my part, I lean toward annihilation as being far more likely. Annihilation will mean that your consciousness will cease to exist—after you have received the amount of punishment God deems just. If, on the other hand, the universalists are correct, and God through Jesus Christ ultimately will rescue you, even so there may be enormous painful consequences before you find peace and rest. Moreover, there is no guarantee that either of the optimistic latter two possibilities is correct. The eternal torment model is, by far, the numerically leading opinion among Bible-believing Christians.

4/To warn truly converted Christians that you are bringing unnecessary disasters on yourself, on your spouse, on your children, on the fellow Christians in your church, on the unconverted Christians among you, on non-Christians around you, on your nation, and on the world. Our antinomian (anti-God’s law) Christianity brings God’s chastisement, and is ruinous to our ability to live wisely in the world, and harms our neighbor in egregious fashion. Even though we Christians may be converted, will not be tortured in hell for eternity, and will not be annihilated, we still often end up doing much harm to ourselves and to others. Much of this harm could be avoided—if we took God’s ifs seriously.

5/To help us all to begin to understand God’s covenant of grace.

6/To contribute my widow’s mite (grumpy old man’s mite?) toward ending civil religion, ending antinomian pietism, and ending an attitude of mindless warmongering among Christians. I think God’s covenant of grace (see goal #5), properly understood, will go a long way toward helping us end those tragic errors.

These are all big goals, difficult of accomplishment. I may not accomplish any of them, but the attempt to do so keeps me off the streets and out of low dives. Most of the time, anyway.

There is one thing this book will not attempt to do. I will make no attempt to determine if the Bible teaches once saved, always saved as Calvinism believes, or teaches that one may be saved but lose one’s salvation. I consider myself a Calvinist. But I have no quarrel with Arminians. As we will see as we go along, the Bible bristles with many warnings for true believers. Yes, once saved, always saved may be correct—but man, you better really be saved!

If Calvinists and Arminians want to quarrel, I am ready to stand by and hold your jackets. Or, better yet, bravely run away as did brave Sir Robin in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

I considered other titles for this book. It could have been If: An Introduction to God’s Covenant of Grace. Many Christian theologians have written on God’s covenant. They might think that my book doesn’t even attain to the status of an introduction, and they would probably be correct. I am not a theologian. I deal with ideas that interest me, and God’s covenant of grace interests me. I think understanding it is crucial. Maybe this book will spark your interest in the topic. Feel free to consider this book an introduction, or considerably less than an introduction. Do lots of other reading and thinking.

Another potential title was If: God’s Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ. This has the advantage of reminding us of the centrality of Jesus Christ in God’s covenant.

Another option was If: An Introduction to God’s Covenant of Grace in Jesus Christ. That shoehorned in both the notion of introduction and the importance of Jesus Christ.

In the end I opted for a title which was concise and simple: If: God’s Covenant of Grace. Anyone reading the book will quickly be alerted to the fact that it is either an introduction or a pre-introduction or a sub-introduction. Anyone reading the book will also be pointed to Jesus Christ as being of central importance in God’s covenant of grace. So If: God’s Covenant of Grace is enough to go on with.

Chapter 1 gives a brief summary of God’s covenant of grace.

Chapter 2 points out how God uses the word if to alert us to the blessings for obedience, and to warn us of the disasters for disobedience.

Chapter 3 reminds us that God generously gives us the ifs of repentance.

Chapter 4 is about other Old Testament ifs which didn’t get covered in chapters 1, 2, and 3.

Chapter 5 concerns other New Testament ifs which did not get covered in chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Chapter 6 discusses the impartiality of God, and the impartiality He asks of us.

Chapter 7 discusses God’s goals.

Chapter 8 sums up what we have learned from our study.

Appendix I is a prayer.

Acknowledgments follow.

The final section gives information on my other books.

The organization of this book presented a problem. The introduction and chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, and 8 keep the theme of the covenant of grace in a position of central importance. However, both chapters 4 and 5 deal with many other uses of the word if. A few of those uses support my arguments concerning God’s covenant of grace. Many other ifs discussed in those two long chapters, however, do not directly apply to God’s covenant of grace. However, many of those uses of if are incredibly instructive. If is a very versatile word. The Holy Spirit has used it to help us understand God’s covenant of grace in Jesus Christ, but He has also used it to help us understand many other things.

So you will be breathlessly reading chapters 1, 2, and 3, yearning to reach the dramatic conclusion, when suddenly you will find yourself wandering in the wilderness in chapters 4 and 5, both very long in comparison to the other chapters in the book. Think of it as delayed gratification, and enjoy the great variety of ifs God has given us. Take along a flask. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 will appear on the horizon eventually.

If the ideas in this book are helpful, then I will have succeeded. If the ideas are not helpful, then I will have failed. If is a powerful little word.

GettyImages-951702988---.jpg

CHAPTER 1

A COVENANT OF GRACE

And Abel, on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.

Genesis 4:4-7

Our father and mother, Adam and Eve, fell to the lies and temptation of Satan in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1-6). They disobeyed the instructions God had given them. God in turn brought bad consequences upon them (Gen. 3:16-19), including physical death.

Was the fall of Adam and Eve necessary? If they had rejected Satan’s temptation, and had continued to live in heartfelt obedience to God, might our race have escaped all the subsequent disasters which have befallen us?

I don’t know. But my guess is that God decided from before the creation of our world, that He would have to come up with some way to teach us that we were totally dependent on His grace.

Had Adam and Eve not fallen, had they successfully negotiated a probationary period, had they been granted permission at the appropriate time to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 2:16-17), would that have been better for them, and for us their descendants?

It might seem so at first glance, but perhaps not. Perhaps the temptation to exercise their freedom of choice in a bad way would have continued even after they had gone through the probationary period without sin, even after they had been granted God’s permission to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, some of the angels had managed to bring disaster upon themselves by disobeying God (2 Pet. 2:4; Jude 1:6; etc.), despite what we must presume to have been enormous knowledge of the goodness of God. Would Adam and Eve have been incapable of sin, or would they instead have been tempted toward sin for thousands (millions?) of years? Would all their children be incapable of sin, or also tempted? Tempted, that is, for endless decades, endless centuries—with the danger of a fall in the short or long run?

Captain Renault said he was shocked—shocked to hear that gambling was going on at Rick’s Cafe in the movie Casablanca—indicating of course that the captain was not surprised at all. We can speculate that God was shocked—shocked to find that Adam and Eve had fallen. He must have known that their obedience would not stay the course. And I think He had decided that their fall was for the long-term benefit of our race. We had to be taught that we needed Him—that we needed grace.

We could not earn salvation and an eternity of joy. This was true even before the fall of Adam and Eve. They were from the start, recipients of grace. What had they done, but receive undeserved gifts? They had not existed—and then, by a gracious gift, they existed. Suddenly they had excellent bodies, excellent minds, and were enjoying life in a beautiful world. They had fellowship with a good and kind God, who had created them out of dust. Well, He had created man out of dust, woman from the rib of man (Gen. 2:7, 21). What had they done to deserve all the good they had received so far? Nothing. It was all a gracious gift by the powerful and gracious God.

They had excellent fellowship with each other. Adam had experienced a brief time of not having Eve, which certainly must have quickly taught him how much better life was now that she was there! All grace.

The lovely physical world they inhabited was not something they had earned; it was a gracious gift from their creator.

According to some theologians, God offered Adam a covenant of works. Obey Me, God was telling Adam, and you will earn eternal life. Adam of course failed to do the work appointed for him, and thus the covenant of works was also a failure.

The phrase and concept covenant of works I believe to be a theological error. There never was a covenant of works. God’s covenant with us has always been one of grace. As we saw above, all the wonderful blessings Adam and Eve had experienced were totally the result of the gracious gift of God.

Here is a parable. Your Uncle Ed is lovable but eccentric. (Every family has its crazy uncle whose appearances in public tend to evoke a nervous cringing among his loved ones; I’m the one in my family.) Uncle Ed may be eccentric, but he has proven to be pretty bright. In fact, many years ago he invented the self-doffing spindle, had it patented, promoted its use successfully, and the results have been spectacular.¹ In fact, the self-doffing spindle has earned Uncle Ed a fortune in the neighborhood of $70 million.

One day Uncle Ed takes you aside. Now what? You’re my favorite nephew. [Niece, for my female readers.] I’m getting on in years, my needs are simple, and I would like to put much of my fortune in your hands—say 50 million, of the approximately 70 million. Stunned, you are momentarily speechless. Uncle Ed continues, Do you like meatloaf?

Uh, no, you answer honestly.

Neither do I. In fact I hate it. I’ve never understood how civilized people can lower themselves to eat the stuff.

You realize that this may be going too far. After all, people do have different tastes, and apparently many otherwise normal people really do enjoy meatloaf. Still, you sympathize with Uncle Ed’s point of view. He speaks again. I’d like to make a covenant with you. If you go for a year without eating meatloaf, I’ll give you 50 million dollars. You won’t even have to wait for me to die. I’ll give it to you while I’m still living. However, if you eat meatloaf in the next year, you won’t get the 50 million.

You’re serious?

Of course I’m serious. I like you, but I hate meatloaf. Is this covenant acceptable to you?

Yes, of course. Uncle Ed is eccentric, but you also know him to be honest. He always does what he says he will do. You and Uncle Ed shake hands on the deal. You mark down the date. You need only remember not to eat meatloaf for one calendar year—not that you’re tempted—and you will be the recipient of 50 million dollars. Uncle Ed has excellent tax advisers who will see that all or most of the 50 million will be protected from the government tax vultures.

Uncle Ed came to you with a covenant proposal. You entered into this covenant with him.

Let’s say that you successfully go one full year without eating meatloaf. Uncle Ed follows through on his promise to give you 50 million dollars.

Would we say that you had fulfilled a covenant of works? I don’t think so. What work had you done? The covenant Uncle Ed brought you was one of grace. He wanted to bless you. You didn’t earn $50,000,000.00. You received it because of Uncle Ed’s grace to you.

Let’s change the parable slightly.

This time, Uncle Ed asks you, Do you like pizza?

Yes. It’s probably my favorite food.

I like it too. However, I notice you’ve been putting on a few pounds. More than a few, actually, and Uncle Ed is not the first to notice. I hate to see you get out of shape like that. I’d like to make a covenant with you. If you go for a year without eating pizza, I’ll give you 50 million dollars. You won’t have to wait for me to die. I’ll give it to you while I’m still living. However, if you eat pizza in the next year, you won’t get the 50 million.

While you will miss eating pizza for a year, this proposed covenant is far too good to pass up. You shake hands with Uncle Ed on the deal.

You successfully go a full year without eating pizza, and Uncle Ed signs over the 50 million dollars to you as he said he would.

Would we say that you had fulfilled a covenant of works? The answer is perhaps slightly more tricky than in the narrative in which you didn’t eat meatloaf for a year. This time you had to fast from a food you enjoy. There might have been a slight element of work involved, in not eating pizza. However, there were dozens of other foods you enjoyed during that year. Moreover, the reward for not eating pizza for a year was disproportionately large compared to the work involved. You received 50 million dollars because your Uncle Ed made a covenant of grace with you. He did not make a covenant of works with you.

Picture this scene. On the day you received $50,000,000.00, you run into an old friend. You tell him, Rejoice with me! I just received 50 million dollars!

What! Are you joking? How in the world did you get 50 million dollars?

I earned it! I worked for it!

Your friend probably was unaware that you were so talented and productive. He wonders aloud, How did you earn it?

I didn’t eat pizza for a year.

Wow, pretty difficult work. I’m glad your strength held out through the challenging ordeal, says your friend, who always did have a sarcastic streak.

Your claim that you worked for the 50 million dollars begins to sound more than slightly ridiculous, even to you. You received what amounted to total grace. To claim that you fulfilled a covenant of works would be to miss the fact that you were treated with tremendous grace.

Let’s think now about Adam and Eve. What if Adam, as our representative, had not fallen? Well, that might have complicated God’s plans for showing us how completely we need the grace of God. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume that would not have been a major problem to God. Adam, let us say, fulfilled the requirements of the probationary period, and was granted by God the right to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil at the appropriate time. Had Adam earned salvation? Had he fulfilled a covenant of works?

Only in the same way that you earned or worked for your 50 million dollar gift from Uncle Ed by not eating pizza for a year.

In a book I published some years ago, I phrased it this way. (I apologize to the almost countless readers who read the previous book—both of you.)

An angelic historian, assigned the duty of describing Adam’s obedience and blessing, might well have written a book with the following title: Great Day of Grace: Being a Faithful Account of God’s Gracious Creation of the Man Adam, God’s Gracious Early Gifts to Adam, and God’s Gracious, Wonderful, and Disproportionately Generous, and Unexpected Gift to Adam of Eternal Life as a Large Blessing in Reward of a Small Act of Expected Obedience; or, How the Father Delighted to Be Gracious to His Adopted Son Adam by Making a Gracious Covenant of Simple and Expected Obedience, Which Covenant Adam Gratefully Fulfilled.

A more accurate name for the so-called covenant of works might be the gracious covenant of simple and expected obedience.²

There never was a covenant of works. Adam was offered a gracious covenant of simple and expected obedience. However, he refused to obey. In Adam, we all fell, and a further practical application of the covenant of grace was made by God. That would mean, ultimately, the life and death of Jesus Christ. He was the second Adam, and a vastly more successful representative of us than was Adam (Rom. 5:12-21).

To believe that there was a covenant of works is a subtle error, not a dramatic one. But it is still an error, and it has consequences for our thinking. We need to be reminded, over and over, that our existence and our salvation occur totally by the grace of God. It’s grace all the way up and down from start to finish. This truth helps us understand better the generous and gracious character of God. It also should humble us, and remind us how everything we have is and always has been the result of the grace of God. To believe that there was a covenant of works reduces, at least to some extent, our appreciation of God’s generosity of spirit.

My own Bible-believing denomination is one in which there is a widespread belief that there was a covenant of works. Years ago I discussed the basic points made above with an elder in the denomination. He was unconvinced by my arguments. We didn’t quarrel, and he seemed to consider that while I might be in error, I was not a heretic rejecting the historic Christian faith. I was apparently just slightly confused.

Imagine my joy and relief to discover, several years later, that my rejection of the term and concept covenant of works was neither novel nor original. Reading a book by Ralph F. Boersema, I found ample evidence that there is an honorable Bible-believing tradition which doubts the existence of the covenant of works.

One of the points of contention between Shepherd and his critics is the function of merit in man’s relationship with God. Shepherd finds himself in agreement with theologians such as S.G. De Graaf, K. Schilder, J.G. Woelderink, G.C. Berkouwer, John Murray, Anthony Hoekema, C. Vander Waal and J. Faber who call into question the idea that in the Adamic administration confirmation in righteousness and entrance into eternal life were grounded in the merit of the works man was to perform. They prefer to not call the original covenant a covenant of works. They do not question the necessity of perfect, perpetual, and personal obedience in that administration, only whether the reward was to be in exchange for merits produced.³

Later Mr. Boersema writes,

Having been raised on the Heidelberg Catechism (1563) and the Belgic Confession (1561), the author of this book did not hear about the covenant of works until his later teens. When he did, he simply understood it to mean that righteous Adam and Eve were called to remain obedient to the Lord if they were to inherit eternal life. He did not attach particular significance to the term, works, other than a call to obedience. Probably many others think about this covenant similarly. Adam and Eve were righteous from the beginning and had to express this in perfect obedience. No Reformed Christian would ever want to deny the necessity of absolute obedience to God. However, if works are understood as referring to the way of acceptance with God that Paul contrasts with the way of grace, then a different picture emerges.

Paul criticizes the view that man earns God’s favor as a meritorious reward for doing enough good works or the right works in keeping the law. He rejects the view that man finds acceptance with God on the ground of achievements presented to him. The justification of a sinner cannot be through works regarded as those of a laborer who is worthy of his hire. God’s approval and rewards are not wages for worthy works presented to him. Paul sharply contrasts works with grace: Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift but as his due. And to the one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness (Rom 4:4-5).⁴

Here is a final quote from Mr. Boersema:

To reduce confusion, it would be good to follow the lead of those who choose names for the pre and post-fall covenants that more clearly point out the differences. Rather than covenant of works and covenant of grace, it would be better to use distinctions such as covenant of original favor and covenants of redemptive grace. Such names reflect the differences in terms of God’s attitude and commitments.⁵

God’s gracious covenant of simple and expected obedience—or His covenant of original favor, in Ralph Boersema’s formulation—was rejected by Adam. However, God did not in turn reject mankind, did not annihilate Adam and Eve, and did not bring an end to His dealings with Adam and Eve and with mankind as a whole. His grace, evident from His creation of mankind, continued. Despite Adam’s fall, God would rescue him. An early indication of His plan to rescue mankind was given in Genesis 3:15, which is a hint of the coming Savior Jesus Christ.

Grace, however, has never meant a license to sin. Sin brings consequences, always. When Adam sinned and thus rejected God’s gracious covenant of simple and expected obedience, God gave him bad consequences.

God’s covenant of grace continued, but sin would continue to threaten mankind. At every turn, individuals would need to demonstrate that they were on the side of God, or they would demonstrate that they were not on the side of God.

God’s covenant of grace was not an agreement entered into by equals. God had all the power and all the goodness. He, on His own initiative, brought His generous covenant of grace to mankind. For example, God chose when to speak to Abram (Abraham), what promises to make to him, what blessings to shower upon him (Gen. 12-24). Abraham was a recipient of unearned grace. Even so, the covenant of grace which God made with Abraham, also brought concomitant responsibilities for Abraham. God had graciously chosen Abraham, yes, but He also chose him so that Abraham would obey the will of God.

And the LORD said, Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, since Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed? For I have chosen him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him. (Gen. 18:17-19)

God’s gifts to Abraham were great, but Abraham was not chosen so that he could follow any sinful path he wanted. He was chosen ‘in order that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice. God’s covenant of grace brings blessings, but it also brings responsibilities. Note that the blessings were conditional. If Abraham commanded his children and household well, and led them in the way of righteousness and justice, this would occur ‘in order that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him.’ Obedience was ‘in order that.’ Failure to obey might cause God not to bring upon Abraham the blessings spoken of in so many places.

God’s covenant of grace is always total grace, but this total grace also gives us concomitant responsibilities.

We will never fulfill those responsibilities in a perfect manner, while we live on the earth. We all have a fallen nature, and even after we are regenerated by God, indwelling sin remains powerful in all Christians, from the best of us to the worst of us. Abraham was not perfect in his obedience, but he was faithful. We too will not be perfect, but we have the potential to be faithful. We, along with Abraham, need grace at all times.

If we presumptuously insist upon depending on God’s grace while we shrug at or ignore the responsibilities God has given us, we put ourselves on track to receive bad consequences. The degree of chastisement will vary from person to person, as I discussed briefly in the Introduction. Some of us have never been converted. We may loudly squawk about the grace of God, all the way until we enter eternal torment or just prior to our final annihilation ending our existence forever.⁶ Others of us may greatly weaken our service to God on the earth. Many of us will destroy our families, and make the conversion of our children much less likely; we’ve all seen it happen over and over. As I write I have in mind a young man I know. He seemed a very promising young Christian, but he presumed upon the grace of God and as a result has fallen into the sin of fornication, bringing disaster upon not only himself but also upon the girl whose purity he refused to protect. You will be shocked—shocked to discover that incidents like this are commonplace.

The grace of God, then, while a wonderful thing, is a dangerous thing also if we misunderstand what grace brings with it: responsibilities. If we refuse to understand the responsibilities, we risk horrific shipwreck on the shores of sin.

It probably should be pointed out immediately that the responsibilities God gives us are not onerous duties we can only carry out grudgingly, because we have to do so. Our responsibilities are often also opportunities! God is good, and gives us responsibilities which are good for us and good for other people. A few examples should suffice to prove the point.

The responsibility to tithe is also the opportunity to be a participant in seeing that God’s church has enough money to advance the gospel in the world.

The responsibility to avoid fornication is also the opportunity to treat members of the opposite sex as people made in the image of God whose purity we can encourage and support.

The responsibility not to steal is also the opportunity to protect the property of our neighbor, our friend, our enemy.

The responsibility to work diligently is also the opportunity to further the success of our employer, to earn our own way in life, to have enough to share with others, to feel a deserved self-respect.

The responsibility not to murder is also the opportunity to protect the life of our neighbor, our friend, our enemy, unknown foreigners, and unborn children.

And so on, endlessly: our responsibilities are opportunities, and are excellent things.

Adam and Eve rejected the first offer of the covenant of grace, when they refused to obey God in regard to the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God gave serious bad consequences to Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:14-19).

However, God was full of grace, and did not end the human race. He hinted at His plans—and hinted only at this point, it seems—in promising the deceiving serpent that the seed of the woman would battle the seed of the serpent (Gen. 3:15).

God’s covenant of grace continued, but would operate in a different fashion than if Adam and Eve had obeyed.

Adam was our representative. This is both bad and good. It is bad because when he fell, we all fell. From the time he fell until the present, and onward for as long as human beings are born, we are all born with a fallen nature which inclines us toward sin.

This may seem unfair, but it is what it is—and it has a very good aspect as well.

If the painful truth is that one man, Adam,