Hudsonville
Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 9, No. 4
The
Consummation of the Covenant
God’s
Saving Love (1)
Christ
Cursing the Fig Tree
The
Consummation of the Covenant
One reason we do not believe that the covenant is an agreement or contract by which salvation is brought to God’s people has to do with the consummation of the covenant. The consummation of the covenant is its final realization and glory in the. everlasting and heavenly kingdom of Christ our Lord.
If the covenant is a contract or agreement to bring salvation, then at the consummation, when we receive the fullness of our salvation, the covenant is cast aside and discarded in the same way that any other contract would be finished and done with when all that had been contracted was completed.
But this cannot be. For one thing the covenant is everlasting. It is not something that is only useful for a time and then cast aside as a contract or agreement would be. It must, then, be something other.
We insist, therefore, that the covenant
is a relationship or bond between God and His people in Christ. That relationship is described in Scripture
by the covenant formula: “I will be your God and ye shall be my people.”
If that is indeed the essence of the covenant, that God is ours and we are His, then in heaven the covenant will not be left behind or set aside but fully realized. That is what heaven is all about--that we will be with God to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever.
And that is exactly how Revelation 21:3 describes the glory of the new heavens and the new earth. When all is new there will be no more tears, no more death, no more crying or sorrow or pain. How wonderful that will be!
But even more wonderful is that which
the voice from heaven foretells: “Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he
will dwell with them, and they shall be his
people, and God himself shall be with them and be their God.”
Notice that this passage has in it the same covenant formula that is used throughout Scripture: “I will be your God, and ye shall be my people.” There is nothing more desirable or wonderful than that!
Notice, too, that the passage speaks of God’s tabernacle. In the OT that was the place of His covenant, the place where He dwelled with His people and revealed Himself as their God (Ex. 29:42-46).
That OT tent was a type and shadow of
better things, for it pictured the Lord Jesus Christ himself in whom and through whom God
dwells with us and is our God, and by whom He reveals Himself to us in all His glory. In
Christ He meets with us and speaks with us. In Christ He dwells
among us. In Christ we know Him as the Lord our God.
Rev. Ron Hanko
For the Lord your God is God of gods, and Lord of lords,
a great God, a mighty, and a terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward: He
doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving
him food and raiment (Deut. 10:17-18). The Lord trieth the righteous: but the wicked and
him that loveth violence his soul hateth (Ps. 11:5). Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I
hated (Rom. 9:13).
The writer also quotes Matthew 5:44-45 and
Acts 14:17, and asks, "Does God have a compassionate love, if not a redemptive love,
towards all his creatures? Or does he have only hatred towards the reprobate?"
Anyone engaged in the battle for the defence of the sovereignty of God in the work
of salvation will recognize immediately that these passages are crucial in the on-going
debate. Even those who profess to be Calvinists and who defend the fact that the elect are
the objects of God's love, which love brings them to heaven, will frequently speak of
another love of God for all men which love is not a saving love at all. These people do
not want a God who loves only some and hates others. I wish to make a few remarks about
the problem in general first, and then address the texts which seem to support a universal
love of God.
Scripture specifically states that God hates some. Psalm 11:5 and Romans 9:13 (a
quotation from Malachi 1:2-3) emphatically assert that truth. It is impossible to deny.
One must either repudiate the Bible or accept what these passages say. But there are many
who, while paying lip service to these passages, nevertheless insist that Scripture also
teaches that God loves all men. Their position raises the question: Does God love and hate
the same person at the same time and in the same way? So it would seem.
To avoid such nonsense, various ploys are used. One says, “These only seem to
us to be contradictory, but in the mind of God there is harmony between them.” This is a pretty lame way of getting out of the
problem, although it is frequently used. Those who do not accept such nonsense are called
rationalists. And those who defend contradictions in the Bible are frequently referred to
as unusually pious. For they are willing to bow before teachings in Scripture which are
flatly opposed to each other.
What they forget is that they are not merely saying something about our ability to
understand things; they are saying something about God. At the very least they are saying
that God does not know how to make things clear to us, so He speaks in flat contradictions
so that we can understand Him better. But usually these people are saying that in some
sense of the word God truly loves some people and hates these same people at the same
time. That kind of a god is strange and ultimately an idol.
Another evasion is to say that when Scripture says God hates Esau and the workers
of iniquity, it means that God loves Esau and the workers of iniquity less than others.
How I could justify myself to my wife by telling her that I love another woman less than I
love her is a dilemma which only these men can explain. My wife, I know with certainty,
would not buy that. Yet, I had a philosophy teacher in college, a Reformed Calvinist, a
theologian of great ability, who tried to defend this very position.
Taking a slightly different tack, some speak of different kinds of love: a saving
love and a love of compassion. But love is "the bond of perfectness" (Col.
3:14). As a bond, love is joyful and blessed fellowship. Moreover, as a bond of
perfectness, it can only exist between perfect people. This is indeed God's love for His
people for they are perfect in Christ. But how can that be for wicked sinners? What kind
of a love is a love of compassion which differs from saving love? Nowhere does Scripture
even so much as suggest this notion. And is a love of God which does not save really a
love of God at all? How can God love anyone and send that person to hell? How can God
shower a person with tokens of His love as long as he lives in the world, and then, when
he dies, send him directly to hell? How can anyone imagine a God like that?
One response is to describe God as changeable. God can indeed love a person one
moment and hate him the next. Does anyone with even a modicum of reverence dare to say
anything like that about God? Another way to avoid so obvious a caricature of God is to
say that God loves all men in the same way after all; that Christ died for all men; and
that salvation is now available to all men. The rest is up to man himself. Indeed, this is
the way almost all defenders of a universal love of God go, whether they really intended
to go that way or not. The very weight of the position carries them down that forbidden
path—a path which is that of accursed free-willism.
One question I shall never understand: Why do some men want to be more loving, more
merciful, more gracious, than God? Can mere man tell God that He is insufficiently kind
because His love is towards only a few? That sort of a thing takes more courage than
anyone who is saturated with the glory of God can manage.
Moreover, God's attributes are all one in Him. If God loves all men, no matter what
the "kind" of love, then God is also gracious, benevolent, merciful and filled
with compassion and longsuffering towards all men including Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin,
serial rapists, the worst of the popes, and even Satan and his demons.
Do you not see that it is better just to say what Scripture says? May we tell God
whom He should love? Let us not transfer our own sinful, puny notions to Him who made
heaven and earth and who does all His good pleasure. Instead, cry out, "O the depth
of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments,
and his ways part finding out!" (Rom. 11:33). And fall on your face and confess the
great wonder of sovereign grace shown to the greatest of sinners!
Prof. Herman Hanko
A reader asks several questions about
Christ's cursing the fig tree: "And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to
it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on
thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away" (Matt. 21:19).
(1) What is there in the fact that it was a
fig tree? The fig tree has two harvests: May-June and August- October. Jesus was in
Jerusalem for Passover which occurred about April. Thus as Mark says, "the time of
figs was not" (11:13), so ordinarily you would not expect figs. However, the fig tree
is remarkable in that it brings forth fruit either at the same time or even before it
bears leaves. In other words, a fig tree with leaves should have fruit no matter
what the season. This was why Christ came to this fig tree expecting fruit: He saw
"a fig tree afar off having leaves" (13).
(2)
Does the fig tree symbolize Israel? Yes. First, the fig tree elsewhere represents Israel
(Luke 13:6-9; cf. Hos. 9:10). Second, the context speaks of judgment upon Israel (e.g.,
Matt. 21:12-13, 33-46).
Israel was like this fig tree in that it promised fruit by its
leaves—its religious endeavors and ceremonies. It said by its many sacrifices, broad
phylacteries and intense study of the law, "I have fruit for God! All the other
nations have no fruit but I have!"
Israel
was also like this fig tree in that it actually had no fruit. Jesus Christ came to
the nation of Israel, as he did to this fig tree, looking for fruit and found none. His
verdict upon Israel was that it was a "wicked and adulterous generation" (Matt.
16:4).
Thus
in this passage Israel is presented not merely as a nation which didn't produce fruit, but
as a nation which didn't produce fruit and yet was proclaiming loudly that it did have
fruit! It was her proud boasts and her hypocrisy which made her sin the greater and
cried out for judgment.
Thus Christ's cursing the fig tree was not a display of childish petulance but an
expression of His righteous indignation. His pronouncement, "Let no fruit grow on
thee henceforward for ever," was a word of curse and wrath and death upon the
tree/Israel ending her role as the nation of God "for ever" because
of her sin, pride and hypocrisy. At no time in the future will Israel be restored to her
special nation status with God and certainly not in some future earthly millennium. This
severe word is in keeping with Christ's other judgments upon apostate Israel (e.g., Matt.
2l:43-44; 23:38).
This Word applies especially to congregations and denominations today which boast
of their fruit--their many converts, their religious zeal, etc.--but all the while they
lack true faith in the biblical gospel. There
are lots of leaves--religious trappings--but no fruit. Christ is dishonored by such
churches and even removes their candlestick for their apostasy (cf. Rev. 2:5). Let us
evaluate churches rightly, for not every church which has leaves also has fruit. And let
us individually and in our families and churches look to the crucified Christ from whom
our fruit is found (Hos. 14:8). Rev.
Angus Stewart