How Does God Relate to Man? with Dr. David Filson
Today we have the joy of learning from Dr. David Filson on one of the most beautiful aspects of Old Testament literature - the covenants. Dr. Filson is a father and a pastor. He has been in pastoral ministry for over thirty years, and has served at his current church in Nashville for the last decade. We pray this conversation will truly help you see Jesus in all of Scripture and that it serves to remind you of God’s steadfast, unshakable covenantal love for his people.
INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
How does God relate to man?
J.I. Packer said, “the Word of God is not properly understood until it is viewed within a covenantal frame.” And the great preacher C.H. Spurgeon said, “The doctrine of the covenant lies at the root of all true theology.” Why did theologians like Packer and Spurgeon hold the covenants in such high regard?
What is a covenant?
How does the way we understand the covenants impact our understanding of the story of the Bible?
What are the predominant theories when it comes to understanding how God relates to his people through the covenants and how the story of the Bible fits together? Which of these do you hold to?
The word “covenant” is mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. What covenants will we come across as we read through the text? What should we pay attention to when we come across them?
What moves us from Adam to Christ? How does this covenant story help us better understand our salvation? How does it offer us assurance of salvation?
How is the New Covenant a fulfillment of the Old Covenants?
What did Jesus mean when he took the cup before offering it to his disciples and called his own blood “covenant blood”? (Matt. 26:28) What role does Christ play in the covenant relationship between us and God?
How does considering the covenant promises of God help us to know and love him more? How does it help us to know and love God’s people and to be deeply invested in our local churches?
NOTEWORTHY QUOTES
“God relates to man covenantally, and there is no man, woman, boy, or girl who ever has, is, or will live who has not related to God covenantally. What I mean by that is by virtue of creation, everyone is in covenant with God - we’re either covenant keepers or covenant breakers. We’re either represented by the first Adam, who was a covenant breaker, and we in him are covenant breakers, or we’re represented by the last Adam, who is the true covenant keeper, and we in him are viewed as covenant keepers.”
“By virtue of creation, every person is in covenant with God.”
J.I. Packer - “The Word of God is not properly understood until it is viewed within a covenantal frame.”
Charles Spurgeon - “The doctrine of covenant lies at the root of all true theology.”
“Calvin talks about man’s relationship to God as a covenantal creature, a man who is in covenant with God by virtue of the fact that he’s created in the image of God and he has certain obligations to the God whose image he is created in. And so man relates to God covenantally through what Calvin calls general revelation.”
“Man relates to God because man is himself unavoidably revelational. You and I as creatures are revelatory of the Creator. Even if I deny the existence of God, that doesn’t change the fact that I am, by virtue of my very existent revelatory of the God who has created me. And even if I shake my first in the face of God, I am obligated to God who has created me. I owe him obedience and deference.”
“God has revealed himself as Creator in general revelation and as Savior in special revelation. Special revelation is the revealed Word of God, inscripturated in the Bible and incarnated in Christ (who is, John 1:1, the Word of God). So we see God as Redeemer in Christ, revealed inscripturated and incarnated, the Word of God written and the Word of God incarnate.”
“As God has revealed himself in special revelation, since we are related to him covenantally, he reveals his activities with man, his ways with man, through the covenant.”
“There are three primary covenants: redemption, works, and grace.”
“The covenant of grace is seen in a number of administrations in the Old Testament, all of which are revealed in Christ.”
J.I. Packer - “The Trinity is the basis of the gospel, and the gospel is the declaration of the Trinity in action.”
“To take seriously the Trinity and the way that the Trinity, the three members of the godhead, are active in our salvation, we are going to either intentionally or accidentally stumble into covenant theology in the Scripture.”
“The goal of the Father is to glorify himself through the work of the Son. The goal of the Holy Spirit is to point us to the Son who has worked for us.”
“The proper way to read the Bible is through a Christ-centered lens.”
“The Bible can be an intimidating book, but if you get up to 30,000 feet and look down, you can see that there are some contours of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. And that is a covenantal way of looking at the overarching narrative of the Bible.”
“The Bible, covenantally speaking, is simply a tale of treason temples. In the garden of Eden, that was a temple-like setting. The point of the temple is never the building, the point of the temple in Scripture is God dwelling covenantally with his people. In the garden of Eden, God dwelt covenantally with his people, he was in covenantal intimacy and relationship with Adam and Eve.”
“God comes along and covers them with garments of skin, prefiguring blood had to be shed. You see a covenantal mechanism already in place - the covenantal mechanism of representation. The blood of another had to be shed, because without the shedding of blood there's no remission of sins. So for them to be covered, blood had to be shed, that prefigures the Christ covenant. Then, of course, they are removed from the garden, not for punishment, but for protection.”
“Our covenantal representative has opened the way for us.”
“The fingerprints of all three members of the Godhead are all over our salvation. The Father chose us, the Son purchased us, the Spirit redeems and regenerates us and unites us to Christ. Our salvation is a Trinitarian thing.”
“Reading the Bible covenantally gives us the lens through which to see how the whole Bible hangs together. It’s not just a collection of disparate books that have been sewn together. There is one overarching salvific thread that holds the whole Bible together and it's the covenant.”
“There are theologically speaking three covenants that structure the Bible:
1) The covenant of redemption, that before the foundation of the world the triune God covenanted together to provide for us what we could not have provided for ourselves.
2) The covenant of works/obedience, where God in the garden covenants with Adam and all of Adam’s posterity (Adam as the representative of all his posterity) that if Adam obeyed the law of God as given to him in the garden, he would be rewarded with life.
3) The covenant of grace, promised in Genesis 3:15 - the protoevangelium, or the first gospel, the promise that the seed will crush the serpent’s head. The promise is there, and then the first visible manifestation of the covenant of grace is when God covers our first parents with garments of skin - blood has to be shed.”
“From then on in Scripture we see that one covenant of grace. It becomes a hermeneutical or interpretive principle by which we read the whole Bible and see how the Bible is structured.”
“We see the covenant of grace in Genesis 6 in the covenant with Noah, and in Genesis 9 a covenant with the whole of humanity at the end of the Noahic episode. In Genesis 12:17 you have that same covenant of grace administered with Abraham in the promise of a seed. All of these covenant administrations of grace are the perpetuation of that seed promise...we see it in Genesis 19-24 in the Mosaic generation with the giving of the law at Sinai and in 2 Samuel 7 with the promise of the covenant with David, that David will have an heir on the throne to be the covenant leader and shepherd of God’s people. These are all administrations of that one covenant of saving grace.”
“David and Goliath… To see that story covenantally is not to see David as he’s like us and when we face our own giants to just have courage and try our best and try to be brave… No, assurance of salvation is seen in this. David comes as the son sent by his father, Jesse sends David down to fight on behalf of the scared, helpless people of God against their enemy, the giant. He crushes the giant in the head.”
“This covenantal way of reading the Bible shows us Christ on every page.”
“All of these administrations - Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Jeremiah - are administrations of the one overarching covenant of grace...that covenant is opening up a little more and a little more until finally what is revealed is that our sins are going to be held against us no longer. This new covenant Jeremiah 31 talks about is ultimately the promise of the next administration of the covenant of grace which is going to be the person and work of Christ.”
“Christ comes along as the second Adam, obeys the covenant of works, which the first Adam failed to obey, thereby establishing our access to the covenant of grace. The condition of the covenant of works was perfect obedience to the law of God by God’s representative on behalf of the people. Well, Jesus has perfectly obeyed the covenant of works. The condition of the covenant of grace in all of these administrations is that we have faith in someone who can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves… The condition of the covenant of grace is our faith in a mediator.”
“We have faith in the mediator who has obeyed the law for us.”
“This second Adam comes, and he is in one person the perfect obeyer of the law of God, and the one who has been sacrificed for our sins, perfectly paying for them, so that in trusting in him rather than ourselves we now are united to the one who has perfectly obeyed the law of God (active righteousness) and through his suffering righteousness (passive righteousness) has paid for all our sins.”
“Our assurance of salvation is grounded not in our own efforts, not even in how strong our faith is, because even a weak faith in a strong Savior is enough. Our assurance of salvation is grounded in the reality that the Triune God conspired our salvation in the covenant of redemption, performs it and makes it available for us in the covenant of grace, the second member keeps the covenant of works on our behalf, we enter that covenant of grace and all the promises of it are given to us, we are clothed no longer with fig leaves, but a robe of Christ’s righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). And so our assurance is grounded in the fact that the Triune God finishes what he starts.”
“The Triune God causes, completes, and carries our salvation.”
“Our assurance of salvation is in God, who keeps his covenant promises.”
“Salvation is dependent on the works of Christ on our behalf.”
“Jesus’ death corresponds to and fulfills the Old Testament teaching on animal sacrifices… That’s why John says ‘Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.’”
“This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord is making with you this day” - When Jesus says what he says in Matthew 6:28, he’s not just making something novel up, he’s quoting and saying ‘this is being fulfilled right in your presence - it is me - I am the blood that was thrown on the people of God, it was my blood ultimately that covers them, it is my blood that is the securing of the covenant that God is making.’ He is intentionally saying that his blood is the fulfillment of Exodus 24:8.”
“There is ultimately only one blood that we must drink that can give us life, and it is the blood of Christ.”
“When Christ says take my blood and drink, he is saying take and drink this blood because this is actually the blood that all other blood was pointing forward to - namely my blood which was shed for you. When he says this is the cup of the covenant in my blood, he is saying it is finished.”
HYMN
RESOURCES
Calvin’s Institutes (specifically book 2, chapters 9-12)
Westminster Confessions - Chapter 7 - God’s Covenant With Man
Covenants Made Simple: Understanding God’s Unfolding Promises to His People, by Jonty Rhodes
Systematic Theology, by Louis Berkhof (specifically the sections on covenant theology)
Ligon Duncan’s lectures on covenant theology
Covenant Theology: Biblical, Theological, and Historical Perspectives
What is Covenant Theology?, article by R.C. Sproul
SCRIPTURE REFERENCES
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
How does God relate to man?
What role does Christ play in the covenant relationship between us and God?
How does the covenant story (from Adam to Christ) help you better understand your salvation? How does it offer you assurance of salvation?
How does considering the covenant promises of God help you to know and love him more? How does it impact how you invest in your local church?
What are you going to do or implement as a result of what you’ve learned this week?
IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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