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D. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE COVENANT OF GRACE.
1. IT IS A GRACIOUS COVENANT.
This covenant may be called a gracious covenant, (a) because
in it God allows a Surety to meet our obligations; (b) because He Himself provides the Surety in
the person of His Son, who meets the demands of justice; and (c) because by His grace,
revealed in the operation of the Holy Spirit, He enables man to live up to His covenant
responsibilities. The covenant originates in the grace of God, is executed in virtue of the grace
of God, and is realized in the lives of sinners by the grace of God. It is grace from the beginning
to the end for the sinner.
2. IT IS A TRINITARIAN COVENANT.
The triune God is operative in the covenant of grace. It has
its origin in the elective love and grace of the Father, finds its judicial foundation in the
suretyship of the Son, and is fully realized in the lives of sinners only by the effective application
of the Holy Spirit, John 1:16; Eph. 1:1-14; 2:8; I Pet. 1:2.
3. IT IS AN ETERNAL AND THEREFORE UNBREAKABLE COVENANT.
When we speak of it as an
eternal covenant, we have reference to a future rather than to a past eternity, Gen. 17:19; II
Sam. 23:5; Heb. 13:20. Past eternity can be ascribed to it only, if we do not distinguish between
it and the covenant of redemption. The fact that the covenant is eternal also implies that it is
inviolable; and this is one of the reasons why it can be called a testament, Heb. 9:17. God
remains forever true to His covenant and will invariably bring it to full realization in the elect.
This does not mean, however, that man cannot and never will break the covenant relationship
in which he stands.
4. IT IS A PARTICULAR AND NOT A UNIVERSAL COVENANT.
This means (a) that it will not be
realized in all men, as some Universalists claim, and also that God did not intend that it should
be realized in the lives of all, as Pelagians, Arminians, and Lutherans teach; (b) that even as an
external covenant relation it does not extend to all those to whom the gospel is preached, for
many of them are not willing to be incorporated in the covenant; and (c) that the offer of the
covenant does not come to all, since there have been many individuals and even nations who
were never made acquainted with the way of salvation. Some of the older Lutherans claim that
the covenant may be called universal, because there have been periods in history when it was
offered to the human race as a whole, as for instance, in Adam, in Noah and his family, and
even in the days of the apostles. But there is no ground for making Adam and Noah
representative recipients of the offer of the covenant; and the apostles certainly did not
evangelize the whole world. Some Reformed theologians, as Musculus, Polanus, and Wollebius,
and others, spoke of a foedus generale, in distinction from the foedus speciale ac sempiternum,
but in doing this they had in mind the general covenant of God with all creatures, men and
beasts, established by Noah. The New Testament dispensation of the covenant may be called