Charles Haddon Spurgeon, arguably the most-quoted Baptist preacher in history, emphasized the God-centered and God-glorified nature of covenant theology: “Our God deserves exclusive glory. Covenant theology glorifies God alone. There are other theologies abroad which magnify men; they give him a finger in his own salvation, and so leave him a reason for throwing up his cap and saying, ‘Well done I;’ but covenant theology puts man aside, and makes him a debtor and a receiver. It does, as it were, plunge him into the sea of infinite grace and unmerited favour, and it makes him give up all boasting, stopping the mouth that could have boasted by filling it with floods of love, so that it cannot utter a vainglorious word. A man saved by the covenant must give all the glory to God’s holy name, for to God all the glory belongs. In salvation wrought by the covenant the Lord has exclusive glory” (C. H. Spurgeon, “The Blood of the Convenant,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 20 [London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1874], 443).

In our multi-month examination of covenant theology, we have discussed two of the three major areas: the covenant of redemption and the covenant of works. While the covenant of redemption was within the Trinity and determined the redemption of an elect people, the covenant of works was made with humanity and reveals the fallenness, helplessness, and hopelessness of our attempts to establish a righteousness which God will accept.

The third area of covenant theology is the covenant of grace, which is “the revelation and outworking of the Covenant of Redemption on earth in time and history. It, too, is based upon free grace alone and flows from the Covenant of Redemption. It is an overarching covenant, worked out in time through a series of subordinate covenants (administrations), starting with Adam (Genesis 3:15, 21), finding its pinnacle with the New Covenant (Hebrews 8:7-13), and culminating in eternal glory in heaven” (Earl Blackburn, “Covenant Theology,” in Going Beyond the Five Points: Pursuing a More Comprehensive Reformation, 139). 

Our fallenness, helplessness, and hopelessness does not mean that nothing can be done to altar eternal destiny. God himself has done what mortals could never do. Earl Blackburn maintains that the covenant of grace “is nothing more than the historical unfolding of God’s eternal and redemptive purpose in Christ Jesus in time and history” (Earl Blackburn, “Covenant Theology,” 149). 

Its very name, “covenant of grace,” indicates that God is the author and executor of this covenant and that man is the undeserving recipient. The fact that the covenant of grace is of divine origin indicates that it is an eternal ordinance. God was not surprised by Adam’s rebellion in the garden. Walter Chantry explains, “Even before the world was made, the Almighty had formed His purposes of grace. From all eternity, the Father and the Son entered into an agreement to recover God’s elect from the consequences of the predestined Fall. For reasons wholly found in the Godhead, the Lord did not wish to abandon all mankind to the curse they justly deserved for disobedience under the Covenant of Works” (Walter J. Chantry, “The Covenants of Works and of Grace,” in Covenant Theology: A Baptist Distinctive [Birmingham, Alabama, 2013], 63).

The covenant of works saves no one and was never a plan for salvation. A person who never sinned and always loved and obeyed God with every fiber of his being would not need saving. He would have done nothing wrong from which he would have to be saved.

The covenant of works allows for no sin, so if a person committed any sin, he would be guilty of transgressing the covenant. No amount of works could overcome that defect: “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it” (James 2:10 ESV).

Especially during this Christmas season, Christians look back to the Savior who came to live and die for repenting and believing sinners. Everything about a person’s salvation cries out, “Grace!” The apostle Paul writes, “As it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God” (Romans 3:10–11 ESV). Is such a condition hopeless? “But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8 ESV).  “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV).

No mortal son or daughter of Adam has kept the covenant of works. The incarnate Son of God alone has fulfilled the obligation to keep the covenant of works completely. Only through the covenant of grace can any mortal be saved, because no one is worthy of God’s favor.