Covenant initiation, maintenance, realization

This post may in fact belong as a comment under the Aug. 5 post. Without completely reopening the can of worms, the focus of that session was on covenant keeping. The charges against Future Grace by the video were, in my opinion, really distracting and sensational. However, I did benefit significantly from that post from what JP said, the comments, and in realizing how inadequate my understanding of the covenant really is.

RC Sproul says that to accuse Rome of teaching salvation by works is slander, and I agree with him. Based a recent waste of a lunch hour spent skimming the new catholic catechism (1994), I believe it would be fair to say that the papacy teaches salvation is by God's grace, received at and through the event/act of baptism, and kept through a faithful life in which the supposed believer lives in such a way to continue receiving fresh infusions of grace. How Rome would fit the covenant in there I really don't have the patience to find out.

My interpretation of what Dr. Piper teaches in FG is that salvation is by grace: it is by God's grace that we enter into the covenant, then God gives us the grace to keep the covenant, and finally receive the promise of salvation.

During my considerations of covenant keeping after that post, I became sincerely troubled by what I was hearing. The reason is that although I may be maturing in the faith, I know that I am not a covenant keeper, in fact I am certain that I'm a covenant breaker. My conscience is at rest when I hear Luther's teaching of "simulateously just/sinner". But I cannot make any sense out of simultaneously covenant keeper/breaker.

The writing of Cornelius Venema (Mid-America Reformed Seminary) has really addressed my confusion head-on. First some general statements on the importance of the covenant:

Covenant expresses the manner in which the Triune God enters into and maintains fellowship with His people. (Venema)
The content of God's self-revelation in expressed as a covenant. (Vos)

Due to the recent discussion on covenant keeping, these statements really got my attention:

God alone effectively and graciously brings the covenant relationship to bear fruit through the mediation of Christ and the working of the Holy Spirit. The covenant relationship is, in its origin and administration, an initiative and work of God's undeserved grace and mercy.

The covenant relationship is marked by communion and friendship between God and His people. This relationship involves mutual promises and obligations. God makes promises and stipulates obligations, and so binds Himself to His people as a husband to his wife, as a bridegroom to his bride, or a father to his children. For their part, the covenant people of God are invited to embrace the covenant promises by faith and to acknowledge their corresponding obligations. This mutuality and fellowship, which mark the union and communion of the covenant relationship, however, do not reflect a parity between God and His people in the covenant. God takes the initiative in establishing the covenant. He graciously administers and sustains the covenant. And He ensures the fruitfulness of the covenant. The Triune God begins, maintains, and finally realizes His covenant purpose of saving communion with His people.

Venema also discusses the conditional-ness of the covenant:

One of the more difficult questions...in the formulation of covenant theology is whether the covenant is conditional or unconditional...One one hand, it would seem unconditional: God sovereignly and unilaterally establishes the covenant...However, when the covenant is viewed from the point of view of the work of Christ and the manner of its administration, it is conditional. The blessings of the covenant are contingent, for example, upon the work of Christ in fulfilling the conditions of obedience first set in the pre-fall covenant of works (Rom. 5:12-21).

God the Father secures the covenant's blessings for His people by sending his Son, Christ the Mediator of the covenant of grace, to accomplish their redemption by His atoning sacrifice and the outpouring of His Spirit. Everything that God demands of His people in the covenant of grace, He graciously grants them in Christ.

The obligations of faith and obedience, though not meritorious conditions, are necessary responses to the covenant's promises and are, as such, instrumental to the enjoyment of the covenant's blessings.

With all the talk of a personal-relationship-with-God, it is just wonderful to hear that the relationship is covenental, and have what that means actually explained to me. What's really ironic, is that Venema's statement about God demanding from us what he grants in Christ sounds very much like something Dr. Piper would say. Nevertheless, while our interpretation and understanding of the significance of his statements may be uncertain, I am certain that what he wrote blurred the meritorious/necessary distinction and was not even close to the Reformed doctrine of the covenant. But I really do not wish to end the post on that note. I have no delight in analyzing where someone's writing is lacking; this is not for sport. I just feel justified in my confusion and overjoyed in the correction.

P.S.
To bring up Kyles question on the covenant renewal ceremony, I am not at all concerned of basking in false humility when I say that I am such an infant in my understanding of the renewal ceremony. What I can say is that we attend church to relate to God uniquely compared to the rest of the week (right?!) and our relationship with him is covenental- so the significance of the covenant must be great in relation to worship. The beautiful thing about the covenant is that it is initiated by God, not God & man, so God is addressing His people. He is addressing his people in the Invitation to Worship, the Assurance of Pardon, the minister's sermon (Spirit ministers internally through your external announcement of the Gospel), the sacraments (as visible signs of invisible grace, as "tokens" (not badges) of God's grace towards His people), benediction, etc. The worship service also contains opportunity for the people to respond to God in singing, prayer, etc; this is the basis for the Reformed Dialogical principle of worship. The idea is that NC worship should be a ceremony of covenant renewal just as the OC worship service clearly was. In any case, the accusations against orthodox Reformed theologians for using Old Covenant precendent and a sledgehammer to define New Covenant practice are unfounded and just wrong- I say orthodox because the non-orthodox proponents of Federal Vision are coming up with crazy stuff because they are doing just that.