Pro Rege

Extracted from David Dickson’s Therapeutica Sacra, Chapter IV: “Of divine covenants about the eternal salvation of men; and in special, of the Covenant of Redemption, shewing that there is such a Covenant, and what are the articles thereof.”

The First Proof

As to the expressions, importing a formal covenant, first, Ephesians 1:7, it is called a redemption, or a buying of the elect out of sin and misery by blood, showing that no remission of sin could be granted by justice, without shedding of blood, and Christ undertook to pay the price, and has paid it.

Second, the inheritance which the elect have promised unto them, is called a purchase, importing, that the disponer [the party making the legal disposition or grant] of the inheritance to the elect, must have a sufficient price for it, and that the Redeemer has accepted the condition and laid down the price craved for it (Ephesians 1:14), and so bought back lost heaven and forfeited blessedness to so many sinners, who otherwise for sin, might justly have been excluded and debarred therefrom forever.

A third expression is holden forth in Acts 20:28, wherein God disponer and God Redeemer, are agreed, that the elect shall go free for God the Redeemer’s obedience unto the death, who has now bought them with His blood.

A fourth expression is in plain terms set down by Paul: Ye are bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:20). God the disponer sells, and God the Redeemer buys the elect to be His conquest, both body and spirit. And Peter more particularly expresses the price of redemption agreed upon, to be not gold or silver, but the blood of the Mediator Christ, the innocent Lamb of God, slain in typical prefigurations from the beginning of the world, and slain in real performance in the fullness of time (1 Peter 1:18-21).

A fifth expression is, that of our Lord Jesus in the institution of the sacrament of His Supper: This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many, for remission of sins (Matthew 26:28). Here an agreement between the Redeemer and God disponer, that these many which are the elect, shall have remission of sins for the Redeemer’s ransom of blood paid for them. The purchase of this ransom of blood, He makes over in the Covenant of Grace and Reconciliation to believers in Him, and seals the bargain with them by the Sacrament of His Supper.

The Second Proof

The second evidence of this Covenant of Redemption passed between God and God the Son Mediator designed, is from such titles and styles as are given to Christ in relation to the procuring of a Covenant of Grace and Reconciliation between God and us.

First, He is called a Mediator of the Covenant of Reconciliation, interceding for procuring of it, and that not by a simple entreaty, but by giving Himself over to the Father (calling for satisfaction to justice, that reconciliation might go on) for paying a compensatory price, sufficient to satisfy justice for the elect. There is one God and one Mediator between God and man—to wit, God incarnate—the man Christ Jesus who gave Himself a ransom for all—to wit, elect children—to be testified in due time (1 Tim. 2:5-6).

Another title is given to Him by Job (Job 19:24), where He is called a Redeemer, a near kinsman, who before His incarnation had obliged Himself to take on human nature, and to pay the price of redemption—represented by slain sacrifices—for the elect His kinsmen.

A third title is held out, in that He is called a surety of a better covenant (Heb. 7:22), whereby is imported, that God would not pass a Covenant of Grace and Reconciliation to men, except He had a good surety who would answer for the debt of the party reconciled, and would undertake to make the reconciled stand to his covenant. And Christ undertook the suretyship, and so procured and established this Covenant of Grace, much better than the Covenant of Works, and better than the old Covenant of Grace with Israel, as they made use of it. This necessarily imports a covenant between Him and the Father’s justice, to whom He becomes surety for us: for, what is suretyship, but a voluntary transferring of another’s debt upon the surety, obliging to pay the debt for which he engages as surety?

A fourth title given to Christ, is, that He is a reconciliation by way of permutation: the atonement (Rom. 5:11). We have by Christ received the atonement, that is, that which has pacified the Father’s justice and reconciled Him to us, is made over in a gift unto us; for procurement we have God made ours by Christ; and Christ, pacifying God, put—as it were—in our bosom. For, God having sold us to Christ, by taking Christ’s satisfaction for ours, He has come over to us as reconciled, and given us Christ the Reconciler and the atonement, to be ours. Here is an agreement made between God and Christ, and the condition of the agreement between the parties for our behoof, clearly imported and presupposed.

The fifth title given to Christ, is this, He is called the propitiation (1 John 2:2), whereby God is pacified, not only for the believing Jews, but also for the whole elect world which should believe in Him. And if He be the pacifying propitiation, then God has satisfaction in all that His justice craved from Christ for the elect. And, in Romans 3:25, He is called a propitiatory sacrifice, wherewith God is so well pleased, that He makes offer of Him to us, and sets Him forth to us for pacifying our conscience through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for remission of sins, without breach of justice; wherein, what price God required and was paid by Christ, is insinuate and presupposed; for, satisfaction could not be, except the price agreed upon, had been promised and accepted before in covenanting.

The Third Proof

The third evidence, proving that there was a Covenant of Redemption passed before the beginning of the world, is, because the eternal decree of God was fixed about the way of redemption to be fulfilled in time: for, Known unto God were all His works from the beginning Acts 15:18. And whatsoever God does in time, He does it according to the eternal counsel of His own will (Eph. 1:9). Now, Christ the eternal Son of God, being made man, laid down His life for His sheep: The Son of man goes, as it was determined, but woe unto that man by whom He is betrayed (Luke, 22:22). And whatsoever Christ suffered, was by the determined counsel of God (Acts 2:23). And God the Son, before He was incarnate, declares the decree of the Kingdom promised unto Him by the Father, and of the victories which He should have over all His enemies, and of the felicity and multitude of the subjects of His Kingdom, that should believe in Him: I will declare the decree, saith He (Ps. 2:7); presupposing therefore the decree of God, of sending His eternal Son into the World, to become a man and to suffer, and thereafter to reign forever. We must also necessarily presuppose the consent of the Son, making paction with the Father and the Spirit, fixing the decree and agreement about the whole way of redemption, to be brought about in time: for, the same person, Christ Jesus, who dwelt among men in the days of His humiliation was with the Father from eternity (John 1:14): and as by Him all things were made, which were made (John 1:2-3), so without Him nothing was decreed which was decreed (Prov. 8:22-32), which also is manifest in the apostle’s words: He saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began (2 Tim. 1:9).

For, as before the beginning of the world, the elect were given to the Son designed Mediator to be incarnate, and the price agreed upon; so also grace to be given in time to the redeemed by compact, was given from eternity unto Christ, their designed advocate. Also, we were elected in Christ, unto holiness and salvation and unto all spiritual blessings, and were predestinated to the adoption of sons by Jesus Christ. And, we are redeemed, not with gold or silver, but by the precious blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:18-20), who was predestinated before the beginning of the world. Whereby it is manifest, that the Covenant between the Father and the Son, was transacted concerning the incarnation of the Son, and His sufferings, death and resurrection, and all other things belonging to the salvation of the elect.

The Fourth Proof

The fourth evidence of the passing of a Covenant between the Father and the Son, is holden forth in the typical priesthood of Levi, by the altar and sacrifices, and the rest of the Levitical ceremonies which were prescribed by God: for, as these things were testimonies, preachings, declarations and evidences of a Covenant, passed of old between God the disponer, and the Son the Redeemer, about the way of justifying and saving such as believed in the Messiah by an expiatory sacrifice, to be offered in the fullness of time, for the redeemed; so also they were prefigurations, predictions, prophesies and pledges of the Redeemer’s paying of the promised price of Redemption. And this agreed-upon-price—because of the perfections of the parties contractors, the Father and the Son—was holden and esteemed as good as paid from the beginning of the World; and the agreed-upon-benefits purchased thereby to wit, grace and glory, were effectually bestowed on the faithful before Christ’s incarnation, as the Psalmist testifies, The Lord, saith he, is a sun and a shield, the Lord will give grace and glory, and no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly (Ps. 84:11); and, Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel, and afterward receive me into glory (Ps. 73:24); and because the promised price of Redemption was of no less worth, to give righteousness and life eternal to believers in the Messiah to come, than the price now paid is now of worth to give for it, righteousness and life eternal to these that believe in the Messiah now come, Jesus Christ incarnate. And this donation of saving graces, as remission of sin, and carrying on to life eternal, was sealed unto believers in the Covenant of Reconciliation [or Covenant of Grace], by the appointed Sacraments of circumcision and the paschal lamb.

The Fifth Proof

The fifth evidence of a Covenant passed between the Father and the Son Mediator to be incarnate, is this, Christ now incarnate, ratifies all these things which the Father and Himself not yet incarnate, and the Holy Spirit had spoken in the Old Testament about the salvation of the elect, and the price of their redemption, and of the conditions to be performed on either hand; and, as it were of new, repeats and renews the covenant which before was passed between the Father and Himself before He was incarnate: for, speaking to Joseph and His mother when He was about twelve years old, He saith, Wist ye not, that I must be about My Fathers business? (Luke 2:49) And, he presents Himself pledge and surety for sinners before the Father, to be baptized for them with the baptism of affliction, and to fulfill all righteousness, as was agreed upon before, whereupon the Father receives and admits the surety and His undertaking for payment, and, Lo, a voice from heaven, saying, this is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased (Matt. 3:13-15, 17); and he stands to all things which were testified of Him in the Scriptures: Search the Scriptures: for in them ye think to have eternal life, and they are they that testify of Me; and he professes, that all that He does, is with the Father’s consent and concurrence, and that He came into the World, that He might finish what the Father had sent Him to do and suffer, which He calls His work that He was about (John 5:39, 36). And more specially He shows the agreement passed between the Father and Him before He came into the world concerning his incarnation, and the discharge of his Mediatory office, and his power to give eternal life to those that believe in him: for, the Father sent him to be incarnate (John 5:37), and that he with the Father, might give eternal life to whomsoever he will, and might quicken the dead, (John 5:21), and that he might exercise judgment, authority was given to him as the Son of Man (John 5:27). Yea, he shows, that it was agreed upon between the Father and him about all the doctrine which he should reach, I speak to the World these things which I have heard of him (John 8:26); and he shows that they were agreed about the price of redemption of the elect, and about his resurrection from the dead, and that his death did fully satisfy the Father, As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep, and, therefore doth the Father love Me, because I lay down My life that I might take it again; and, this commandment have I received of the Father (John 10:15, 17, 18). And, Luke 24:25, he propones [sets forth] in short the sum of the covenant passed between the Father and himself, speaking to the two disciples going to Emmaus, O fools and slow of heart, to believe all that the prophets have spoken, ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter in his own glory? But most briefly he shows the whole matter so oft as he calls the Father his God, and that in respect of the covenant passed between God and him to be incarnate, and now incarnate indeed.