The covenant of grace

The seed of the woman

On the very day Adam fell, God gave a new promise.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

Genesis 3:15

The church has called these words ‘the first gospel’. Matthew Henry calls it the dawn of the gospel day: "no sooner was the wound given, than the remedy was provided and revealed." Matthew Henry The promise passed to Abraham: Scripture "foretold the gospel to Abraham" (Galatians 3:8), and the seed promised to him is "One, who is Christ" (Galatians 3:16). So "if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians 3:29).

To those who could no longer gain life by the covenant of works, God made a second covenant. The Westminster Confession says:

Man by his fall having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace: wherein he freely offered unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe.

Westminster Confession 7.3

God gives as a gift even the faith he requires. The Larger Catechism teaches that this covenant was made with Christ as the second Adam, and in him with all the elect as his seed Westminster Larger Catechism, Q. 31. Because Christ, its mediator, rendered the obedience and paid the price we could not, the covenant comes to us as free grace.

One covenant in many ages

Reformed theology holds that the Old and New Testaments are not two ways of salvation but one covenant of grace administered differently. Under the law it pointed to the Christ who was to come through promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision and the Passover lamb; under the gospel it offers the Christ who has come, through the word, baptism and the Lord's Supper, more fully and clearly and to all nations Westminster Confession 7.6. The saints of old "saw them and welcomed them from afar" (Hebrews 11:13). The covenant opens out fully in the new covenant Jeremiah foresaw.

Where the traditions differ

Within the Reformed family Christians differ over who belongs to the covenant. Presbyterian and Reformed churches hold that the promise to Abraham, "you and your descendants" (Genesis 17:7), continues in the new covenant; pointing to "This promise belongs to you and your children" (Acts 2:39), they give the covenant sign to believers' children (see infant baptism). Baptists who follow the Second London Confession hold that the covenant of grace was revealed by promise, step by step, in the Old Testament and fully disclosed in the new covenant, whose people are those who know the Lord; so they baptize those who profess faith Second London Baptist Confession (see believers’ baptism). Both read Scripture seriously, and both confess that salvation comes by grace alone in Christ.

Dispensationalism focuses instead on the distinct dispensations through which God governs history, though dispensationalists today generally affirm that in every age salvation is by grace through faith. Lutheran, Catholic and Orthodox theology do not use this covenantal framework, but they confess one saving plan of God running through both Testaments and fulfilled in Christ. See the lessons One covenant of grace in many ages and The sign of the covenant: baptism and infant baptism.