To Glorify God

To Glorify God
How on earth do we, rebels against God's majesty, we whose best works in this life are still stained with sin, bring anything of value or worth to God? How can we be said to "glorify" God? To answer this question, we must first realize that our glorification of God does not actually contribute anything to God's essence or character. In other words, we do not make him happier, more satisfied, or majestic than he was before our existence. God can get along quite well enough without us. Nor is there anything intrinsic to us that glorifies God--even in Christians, which itself adds to God's praise. Everything we have of any worth that may be said to glorify God is the direct product of God's own gift and activity.

First, our creation brings glory to God. In Eden, God created the human being and gave both male and female his divine image. God took extreme pleasure in this image-bearing creature and in the Garden, before the Fall, Adam and Eve both glorified God in their righteousness, perfection, obedience, worship and also enjoyed him as he indeed enjoyed them. Second, even after the Fall, God was glorified in his providence as he preserved humanity despite its rebellion. But supremely, God glorified himself in the institution and execution of the Covenant of Grace, and that is where I want to spend the remaining space of this introductory article.

The Covenant of Grace Defined
We are familiar with covenants or treaties between nations, in which, especially in laying down the terms of peace, each nation lays down certain conditions and offers mutual obligations. Or in private affairs, one's last will and testament settles the assets in a trust and designates heirs. Both these images are employed in Old and New Testament descriptions of the covenant. Deriving from the Greek word diatheke, and its Latin translation, foedus, the scriptures frequently refer to the notion of "covenants." Richard Muller, in his Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms, observes that "covenant" is synonymous with "pact."

The Covenant of Grace Executed
While the seminal notions of "covenant theology" are drawn from the scriptures by the church fathers, Augustine, and the reformers, it was left to the heirs of the reformers, and especially the Puritans assembled at Westminster, to give more precise definitions. Question 70 in the Shorter Catechism marks the arrival at this summit: "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?" This is the question that provokes discussion of the covenant. It is not a question of the being of God or philosophical speculations, but the matter of salvation that brings these eminent theologians to explain the covenant of grace. Notice that it is not even the consideration of predestination, as important as it is, that leads into this topic. It is the salvation question and its Christ-centered focus, with the chapter titled, "The Covenant of Grace and Its Mediator."

First, it is impossible to read the Old Testament without noticing, as early as Genesis three, that God placed Adam in the position of representing the human race. This is implicit in Genesis, and explicit elsewhere, as in Romans five. The terms are clear: Glorify God by perfect obedience and enjoy him forever by receiving the good gifts of the garden as tokens of his favor and fatherly pleasure. By eating the forbidden fruit, in the presence of such abundant, luxurious, and liberal provision, Adam rejected his God-given freedom and meaning and instead sought to define freedom and meaning for himself and for his posterity. The reformed theologians who called this arrangement in the garden a covenant of nature or covenant of works were merely giving a name to it. When Paul states that "...the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, ..." and "...through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners..." (Rom 5:18­19), the covenant theme comes into sharp focus.

In the Garden, the covenant of nature or works included conditions (refraining from eating the forbidden fruit), with an accompanying blessing (eternal life) and curse (death). The tree is often seen as a sacramental sign and seal of this covenant; the tree of life promises eternal life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil promises judgment. By choosing to eat from the latter, Adam, representing the entire human race, plunged humanity into rebellion and the corresponding curses. In other words, Adam violated the covenant of nature or works and brought himself and his posterity under God's wrath.

It is against this tragic backdrop that God makes a new covenant with Adam after the Fall, and invites the rebels back into his favor. The problem, of course, is that now men and women are "by nature children of wrath" (Eph 2:3), spiritually dead, and incapable of fulfilling the covenant of works. They cannot recover the righteousness lost in the Fall, nor can they even pursue that righteousness. And that is why the Shorter Catechism begins its discussion of the covenant of grace with the question, "Did God leave all mankind to perish in the estate of sin and misery?" Answer: "No! He entered into a covenant of grace to deliver the elect out of that state, and to bring them into a state of grace by a Redeemer."

In spite of their sin, Adam and Eve were reconciled to God and were promised a redeemer, God himself replacing their fig leaves with the skins of an animal he sacrificed in order to cover them--of course, foreshadowing the Lamb of God. While Cain and his descendants pursue the covenant of works, ending in death, Seth and his descendants are heirs of the covenant and promise of grace. As early as Genesis 4, "men began calling of the name of the Lord." Much later, God appears to Abraham and promises, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." (Gn 12:2­3) Thus, the nation of Israel is founded on this promise or covenant of grace. Israel looks forward to the coming Redeemer, foreshadowed in the sacrificial, legal, and ceremonial life of Israel.

And yet, even in this covenant community, not every Israelite is necessarily elect. "For not all who are descended from Israel are Israel. Nor because they are his descendents are they all Abraham's children. ...In other words, it is not the natural children who are God's children, but it is the children of the promise who are regarded as Abraham's offspring," Paul explains. In fact, the apostle goes on to demonstrate that even though Ishmael was as much Abraham's natural son as Isaac, God elected the latter and rejected the former. The same was true, Paul says, of Isaac's sons Jacob and Esau. The former was chosen, the latter rejected, "before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God's purpose in election might stand: not by works, but by him who calls." (Rom 9:6­13)

In other words, God wanted all the glory for redemption. There is nothing in us that moves him to save us; rather, he is moved by his own character--his freedom, love, mercy, justice, wrath, kindness. "Not of works, but by him who calls:" that is the theme of this covenant. How different is this covenant of grace from the initial covenant of works! God elects apart from any conditions either present or even foreseen in us. It is an everlasting covenant, because it is founded on the mediation of Christ and his perfect righteousness (Is 55:3); it is a covenant of peace (Ez 37:26), because it reconciles sinners to God, and it is a covenant of grace because all the merit, working, and terms are fulfilled on God's side. Even the faith with which we accept this treaty of peace is itself included in the covenant.

This does not mean, however, that God's justice is sacrificed for his mercy. We are still justified by works, but not our own. We are saved because the Second Adam, Christ, became the trustee for the estate and, unlike Adam, fulfilled all obedience due to God's law. In his perfect obedience, sacrificial death, triumphant resurrection, and present mediation in heaven, Christ our Mediator has won for us full title to the inheritance lost by Adam. "Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Rom 5:19­21) Jesus said, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day." (Jn 6:38­39) Before the creation of the world, we are told in scripture, God chose us in Christ. (Eph 1:4) So, even before there was a fallen world, God had already planned a way of salvation and had appointed Christ as the mediator of this covenant of grace. Just prior to his death, Jesus prayed, speaking of himself in the third person, "For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him." The Father gave a people to the Son before the creation of the world. "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours." (Jn 17: 2, 9)