God’s Covenant with God
January 20, 2022 | by: Dale Thiele | 0 Comments
Posted in: Pastoral Encouragement
What was God doing before he “made the heavens and the earth”?
I must acknowledge right up front that there is a danger in asking such a question. In one sense, this question imposes on God creaturely limitation, as if he is subject to time progression. J.I. Packer explains, “God is limited neither by space (he is everywhere in his fullness continually) nor by time (there is no ‘present moment’ into which he is locked as we are). Theologians refer to God’s freedom from limits and bounds as his infinity, his immensity, and his transcendence. As he upholds everything in being, so he has everything everywhere always before his mind, in its own relation to his all-inclusive plan and purpose for every item and every person in his world” (Concise Theology, page 28).
Therefore, the word “before” cannot speak about time sequence for God. But the Bible uses this word, “before,” in several places. Consider these:
John 17:5, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Ephesians 1:4, “God chose us in him before the foundations of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.”
2 Timothy 1:9, “God saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began.”
Passages like these give us a glimpse into the working of the Trinity. In what we might call a logical progression, before the work of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection, God the Father and God the Son made a plan to redeem a people out of the destruction of sin. “The God of Scripture has no ‘plan b’ or ‘plan c.’ His ‘plan a’ is from everlasting to everlasting. It is both perfect and unchangeable as it rests on God's eternal character, which is among other things, holy, omniscient, and immutable. God's eternal plan is not revised because of moral imperfections within it that must be purified. His plan was not corrected or amended because He gained new knowledge that He lacked at the beginning. God's plan never changes because He never changes and because perfection admits to no degrees and cannot be improved upon” (R.C. Sproul, What is the Covenant of Redemption?).
This everlasting plan is called the Covenant of Redemption by some theologians. This is not a covenant between God and people, but a covenant between God the Father and God the Son. In the Covenant of Redemption, God promises to glorify the Son by redeeming a people out of fallen humanity and conforming them to the image of the Son. The Son promises to be the Mediator of this redemption, taking on human flesh and suffering under the wrath of God due our sin. We are beneficiaries of this grand plan taking place within the Trinity. Without God’s plan, we would be hopeless.
Mark Jones reflects on this plan: “This covenant, made between eternal persons from eternity to eternity, delights God, and it should likewise please us. Nothing happens concerning Jesus and the church that was not decreed by covenant before the foundation of the world” (Knowing Christ, page 22). As we come to study John 17 and Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, we will see how the Covenant of Redemption undergirded all of Jesus’ work and his relationship with his Father. Out of this covenant, we receive grace upon grace.
