It is correctly said that covenant theology is the center of Reformed theology. In Eden, while under the covenant of works, all of humanity fell when the first of our race (Adam), rebelled against his creator, thereby plunging the entire human race into sin and death. It will take a second Adam (Jesus Christ) to perfectly obey the commandments of God so as to fulfill all righteousness (cf. Matthew 3:15). It will also require this second Adam to remove from us the guilt of our individual sins, as well as that guilt imputed to us from our first father, Adam’s “original sin” (cf. Romans 5:12-19).
But in order for the second Adam (Jesus) to accomplish these things, there must be a gracious covenant in which God sends Jesus to do what is necessary to redeem us from the consequences of our sin and guilt by earning sufficient merit to provide us with a righteousness which can withstand God’s holy gaze. This brings us to the covenant of grace in which all the requirements of the covenant of works (and its demand for perfect obedience) are fulfilled by the mediator of this covenant, the Lord Jesus.
The covenant of grace is the historical outworking of an eternal covenant of redemption (the so-called “covenant before the covenant”) in which the members of the Holy Trinity decreed before time that Jesus was to be the redeemer of those whom the Father had chosen in him, and that Jesus would do this on behalf of, and in the place of, all those elect sinners chosen from before the foundation of the world (cf. John 17:4-10; Ephesians 1:3-14). God’s saving grace is not directed to the world in general, making people “savable” if only they meet certain conditions (i,e., faith, repentance, or good works). Rather, God’s saving grace is directed to those specific individuals whom he intends to save through the person and work of Jesus. In this covenant of redemption, the Holy Spirit will apply the work of Christ to all those whom the Father had chosen, and for whom the Son will die, ensuring that all of God’s elect will come to faith in Jesus Christ through the preaching of the gospel–which is the divinely appointed means by which God’s elect are called to faith.
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