# Covenant Mediators and the CoG



## zsmcd (Jan 13, 2016)

Still trying to fully understand CT, so bear with me.

- If Christ is the mediator of the NC, who is the mediator of the covenants before the NC (ie Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, etc.)? If there is one CoG, than is Christ the mediator of all previous covenants? Or are Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David the mediators of their respective covenants?

- If Christ is the fulfillment of the promised seed of Abraham, then is the "seed" aspect of the CoG (Abrahamic Covenant) thus fulfilled? i.e. if he has fulfilled that promise than why would children of believers still be included in the NC? 

- If the NC is in Christ's blood (Luke 22) and we believe in a particular and effectual atonement, than wouldn't the NC be, as reformed baptist's suggest, "unbreakable" and include the elect only? I am familiar with the "warning" texts in the NT, this is partly why I am asking. 

Thanks for bearing with me ladies and gents, trying to work this all out in my mind!


----------



## Contra_Mundum (Jan 13, 2016)

There were LOTS of mediators in the OT period. And there were Principals with their respective covenant-arrangements.

Moses is the main OT Principal, for it is he who is the plainest example of a covenant-mediator for a host of others, and he is treated as such by the rest of the OT believing actors through their generations. The Pentateuch as we receive it (the form) is given by Moses to the Exodus generation and their descendants as their formative constitutional documents. And all the OT documents are revealed, then, into the context of the Old Covenant--a true evaluation, even when we recognize that the Mosaic Prologue is descriptive of the time _outside of_ the main era.

Now, ALL the prophets, priests, and kings were mediators in their respective ages. Abraham is also the Principal of his age's covenant. These Principals die, which shows their weakness. The Noaic and Davidic covenants are different from the "defining" covenant-arrangements of Abraham and Moses, though the two men are Principals in their rights. David's successors looked back to him. Noah, as humanity's new progenitor, does bear a similar relation to all humanity succeeding him in the setting of that promissory moment.

Hebrews makes it clear that Moses, for all his prominence, is a servant in Christ's house. So, indeed, Christ is supremely the Mediator par excellence in all ages; but he does not appear in the same aspect in every age. Christ is "hidden" in the cloud of Sinai, and is the Lawgiver himself. We understand from the vantage point of the NT that Christ is Mediating also there for the Father transcendent, for He Who does not manifest His Pure Essence. None of the other Principals can measure up to the Fulfillment or exhaust their own covenant's meaning. Christ fulfills all the previous typological/prophetic and subordinate/anticipatory covenant arrangements.


Christ is the Seed of Promise. But he also has a seed, Is.53:10, "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, *he shall see his seed,* he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand." So, there is no reason to say that in the fulfillment of the promise of One Seed there is no more interest the Bible or Covenant has in a "people for his name," Act.15:14.


As for covenants that can be broken or not, the only question I think is relevant is whether believers were saved particularly in OT ages, just as in the NT age. There's an overrealized eschatology (in my estimation) to the view that the NC has no temporal administration. Nor can I agree that sacrificial blood shed in OT ages sufficed for the sins of any who belonged not to the "remnant," i.e. the honestly believing members of the nation. Unbelievers got zero benefit, except for that which was external and associative. Just as in the present age, unbelievers attached to the church experience some "common operations" of the Spirit, and yet have no saving benefit.

The powerful external exhibitions of the Siniatic covenant make it appear _largely_ to have the character of formal and outward essence. But we know it was not so _in essence._ We know it from the mouth of Moses himself, from his sermons to the people found in Deuteronomy. The Abrahamic covenant is still operative at the core of the Mosaic covenant, beneath all the glory-trappings of the later exhibition.

So, when the Lord by Jeremiah declares that he will make a "new covenant," he is certainly not declaring an exclusively "heart covenant" in contrast to a supposed exclusively formal covenant from Sinai; or else Moses is made to speak nonsense. The Lord is not speaking of a new way of salvation, or else covenant was by way of legal obedience in the OT, which was impossible. But he speaks of the removal of the heavy typology (Act.15:10) and the yoke of a pathetic sinner's promise, "All that the Lord says we will do."

The promise of the Spirit was not given at Sinai in the Law, but is given by Christ. It was given to believers (to make them so) in OT times; but there lacked the promise to make Him so generous a gift, whereby to write that law on the hearts.

Divine ordination to include the children of believers in the covenant sign was not a Siniatic ordinance, but an Abrahamic. And Paul tells us that Christians are the true inheritors of the Faith of Abraham. The children have not had their right to this mark revoked. They have always required more than the mark to make them his children.

Hope this is helpful.

Reactions: Like 1


----------



## MW (Jan 13, 2016)

The subject can suffer from over-generalisation of the types. Each type has its own point of resemblance to the Antitype. The fact that one type like Moses resembled Christ in the work of mediation does not mean that all the others functioned as mediators. In Christ there is a collation and culmination which "gathers up" everything within Himself and issues in the dispensation of the fulness of times. All the "covenant" administrations become one in Him. Even "covenant" itself is subjected to Him. He is party, mediator, and surety of the covenant, as well as the covenant itself. This is the reason why the "new covenant" is final.

The "law" specifically required a mediator, Gal. 3:19, but not the law as a covenant. Galatians speaks of the law as being "added" to the covenant promise, not as forming a distinct covenant in itself. Mediation, then, is only necessary to covenant administration in so far as law is concerned; and not moral law, but the law in its totality as governing and tutoring Israel until "the faith" (that is, Christ as the object of faith) should be revealed. As such mediation was extended through the priesthood and sacrifices, and further still into the tabernacle and temple with their furnishings.

The seed-promise had a twofold function. One was moral, the other was typical. The fact is, infants were saved under the covenant promise. That was its moral function. It also served to typify Christ. This has been fulfilled by Christ, and therefore the particular sign of circumcision has been done away and baptism has come in its place; but the moral element of covenant inclusion of infants continues.

That the inclusion of infants is moral, and not merely typical, is acknowledged by the 1689 "Baptist" Confession. First, infants are regarded as being among the elect that are saved by the covenant of grace. Secondly, the decalogue is identified as the moral law that for ever binds all, and the decalogue includes promises and threatenings to covenant children, namely, commands two, four, and five, but especially and explicitly the fifth command.

The blood of Christ is the blood of the everlasting covenant and secures the benefits of the covenant to the elect, but there are elect infants. Moreover these covenant benefits are offered to sinners indefinitely in the gospel that whosoever believes in Christ shall not perish but have everlasting life, and excluding none that will come unto Him. Christ's blood "professedly" and "outwardly" sanctifies those who are baptised but who may nevertheless fall away; and so by the judgment of charity those who are not elect may be regarded as being within the administration of the covenant. When antipaedobaptists require a personal confession of faith in order to baptism, they recognise that "election" is not the pre-requisite to baptism, and that the covenant administration includes those who are not necessarily elect.


----------



## MSH (Jan 14, 2016)

> The seed-promise had a twofold function. One was moral, the other was typical. The fact is, infants were saved under the covenant promise. That was its moral function. It also served to typify Christ. This has been fulfilled by Christ, and therefore the particular sign of circumcision has been done away and baptism has come in its place; but the moral element of covenant inclusion of infants continues.



Rev. Winzer,

Would it be correct to say that circumcision looked forward to the person and work of Christ and that baptism looks back?

Thanks,
Shane


----------



## MW (Jan 14, 2016)

MSH said:


> Would it be correct to say that circumcision looked forward to the person and work of Christ and that baptism looks back?



That is how I understand it. There are various characteristics in the different symbols which show they operate with distinct perspectives. Perhaps foremost is the basic alteration in physicality. Circumcision was a fleshy mark and well adapted to the fleshy and earthy institutions under which covenant benefits were administered until Christ came in the flesh. In contrast "waters" are connected with the "Spirit," and are instrumental in judgment and renewal. The waters of baptism are a fitting indication of the fulfilling of righteousness, the renewing work of the Spirit, and the spiritual administration of grace.


----------



## MSH (Jan 14, 2016)

Rev. Winzer,

Thank you sir! 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------

