The Covenant of Redemption
Perhaps the most curious of the covenants we will study is this first one. Prior to my research into the topic, I had not heard of the covenant of redemption. This concept, though, has been around since at least the mid-1600s.
What makes this covenant so intriguing to me is when it was instituted. The covenant of redemption is the covenant that God made with Himself before the creation of the world. The purpose of the covenant is to establish an eternal plan of salvation for those chosen by God. (Although I should mention that there is some debate whether God’s eternal plan should be called a covenant.) In any case, the purpose of the covenant is to establish God’s eternal plan of salvation. According to Guy Prentiss Waters:
“In this covenant, the Father agreed in eternity to send his Son into the world to obey, die, and rise again for the elect. The Son agreed to take on our humanity, come into the world as one sent by the Father, and obey the Father completely. The Son’s reward for his obedience was the glory that the Father bestowed upon him at his exaltation. The Spirit consented to dwell upon Christ’s humanity during his public ministry and to raise his body gloriously from the dead.” (41)
This covenant details God’s plan of salvation that is worked out in time through the various administrations of the forthcoming covenant of grace, which is God’s plan of salvation being worked out through history.
The covenants of redemption and grace are closely interconnected with the covenant of redemption, enabling the outworking of the covenant of grace (we’ll discuss this more in the next post). The website Monergism has an article that explains the connection between the two:
“The counsel of redemption is the eternal prototype of the historical covenant of grace. This accounts for the fact that many combine the two into a single covenant. The former is eternal, that is, from eternity, and the latter, temporal in the sense that it is realized in time.” (The Covenant of Redemption)
Both covenants establish that we have a need for grace and forgiveness. God knew that there would be a need for an avenue to salvation for us. He knew of the fallibility of His creation to come, so He contracted with Himself to establish a plan for our salvation. The covenant of redemption from eternity allows for the covenant of grace in time.
We see evidence of this plan in verses like Ephesians 1:3-14 (emphasis my own):
“Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.
In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he richly poured out on us with all wisdom and understanding. He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure that he purposed in Christ as a plan for the right time—to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth in him.
In him we have also received an inheritance, because we were predestined according to the plan of the one who works out everything in agreement with the purpose of his will, so that we who had already put our hope in Christ might bring praise to his glory.
In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.”
The words that I specifically emphasized seem indicative of this covenant of redemption. The idea of being chosen before “the foundation of the world” is particularly striking in my mind. While different theological schools have differing views on the ideas of predestination and election (see this article or this podcast for more on this idea), the core idea that I wish to highlight is that this agreement happened before creation.
To be perfectly transparent, I have not fully determined where I stand on the idea of the covenant of redemption. However, I fully support the idea that God has always held a plan that would allow for a relationship with humanity. Even in the Garden of Eden, we can see that we were designed to have communion with God. When we broke that relationship through sin, God opened a door for us to have a relationship with Him still. Joanna Kimbrel writes, “Before there was a need for grace and forgiveness, God met it by entering into the covenant of redemption.” God the Son would ultimately fulfill the covenant when he came as a man who lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose again to redeem us from our sins. We see this idea reaffirmed by Peter when he writes:
“For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.” (1 Peter 1:18-21)
Perhaps the covenant itself can be disputed, but what cannot be disputed is that God has always intended to save humans, whom He loves so very much (John 3:16). Next time, we will see how this begins to play out in time with our next two covenants—the covenant with creation and the covenant of grace.
Other Verses to Explore:
Author’s Note:
Please realize that the resource list is a work in progress, and not all the sources listed are ones that I necessarily used or heavily considered in the development of this series. I also realize that a variety of schools of thought may be represented. I am not intentionally promoting one theological system over another. I also recognize that there are multiple approaches to the study of covenants, and I am not here to promote one over another. My goal is to present a basic understanding of the various covenants and how they promote God’s overarching plan of salvation for humanity.
