Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 2


only condemn? Did the law negate the promise of grace?’ No, says the apostle, the law ‘cannot disannul’ grace (verse 17). It cannot ‘make the promise of none effect’, because grace would still be preached, because the covenant of grace would operate alongside the law. Then why did God


give the law? Paul asks, and answers (verse 19): ‘It was added because of transgressions, till the seed should come.’ God’s holy law, written in the heart of man, needed to be de- fi ned in words and published. These standards would serve to keep Israel from paganism and gross corruption until the Saviour came. But also they would teach men their sinfulness and need, driving them to Christ and to grace (verse 24). Throughout Galatians 3 the law is spoken of as the opposite of grace. It is weak, while grace is strong to save. It condemns, while grace justifi es. The inspired apostle will never imply that the law was an administration of grace.


The same ravine between law and


grace opens widely in Hebrews 6 – 8. In chapter 8 and verses 7-10, for ex- ample, we are given a startling view of the gulf between them:–


‘For if that fi rst covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For fi nding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new cov- enant with the house of Israel and


C H Spurgeon – ‘The doctrine of the divine covenant lies at the root of all true theology. It has been said that he who well understands the distinc- tion between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is a master of divinity.’


with the house of Judah: not according to the cov- enant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out


of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.’


How, in the light of such passages, can the Mosaic law be seen as an administration of grace? The truth is that grace runs at the same time as law, but it is quite distinct. And grace shines with increasing glory as new promises and prophecies add to all that is known of it, until in Christ it is fully revealed. Then the ceremonial shell of the law, having waxed old, is ready to vanish away. Without doubt grace began to be announced and to save in the Garden of Eden. We see it justifying Abraham and the patriarchs, preached by Moses as an alternative covenant (the ‘evangelical covenant’), continuing in David, be- ing reaffi rmed in the prophets, and fi nally taking the supreme place of glory with the work of Christ.


God’s Parallel Covenants page 9


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