Theology

Book Recommendation: Sacred Bond

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Over at the Modern Reformation website, you can read an interview of the authors of Sacred Bond: Covenant Theology Explored. (interview here)

I've included an excerpt from the interview in order to whet your appetite for this excellent book that we'd highly recommend to you! I (Pastor Norm) have used it as a teaching resource for a course on covenant theology and it was great to see the reception it received among lay-readers! You can buy a copy through Reformed Fellowship


MR: How will this book impact the way lay Christians read the Bible devotionally?

MB: Our prayer is that reading Sacred Bond will help you know how to read and interpret the Bible more faithfully. Studying God’s covenants has one primary goal: to know God and our relationship with him more fully. Studying the covenants should never be a dry academic exercise. It has immense pastoral and practical value for the Christian. It revolutionizes our approach to Scripture, providing us with helpful categories to understand the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. It shows us that the Bible is actually one book with one story, told on the stage of real human history. It highlights the plotline and central point of Scripture, setting every story in the context of the larger story about Christ. More importantly, it comforts us as we learn that God accepts us not on the basis of our covenant faithfulness but on the basis of Christ’s. It sweetens our fellowship with the Father as we come to know his oath and promises to us, promises that are “yes” and “amen” through the Mediator of the new covenant. It changes our view of the local church as we discover that we are part of God’s covenant community and worship him in a covenant-renewal ceremony every Lord’s Day. It transforms the way we see our children—namely, as the baptized members of God’s covenant of grace. It helps us understand that covenant is not a means to an end, but it is the end itself—the communion between God and his people.


Still it remains true, "Whosoever shall believe, shall not perish."

Within the Christian church there has been considerable interest in Jesus’ words in Mark 3:29 and the sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

In words that are penetrating and gospel-oriented, Thomas Boston wrote the following about this particular matter:

I doubt if the sin against the Holy Ghost can justly be said to be a limitation of God's grace in Jesus Christ. For in the original authentic gospel-offer, in which is the proper place for such a limitation [if there was any] that grace is so laid open to all men without exception, that no man is excluded; but there is free access to it for every man in the way of believing, (John 3:15,16, Rev 22:17); and this offer is sometimes intimated to these reprobates, who fall into that sin, else they should not be capable of it. It is true, that sin is a bar in the way of the guilty, so as they can never partake of the grace of God in Christ; for it shall never be forgiven, (Matt 12:31, Mark 3:29); and any further ministerial application of the offer to them seems to cease to be lawful or warranted, (1 John 5:16). But all this arises from their own willful, obstinate, despiteful, and malicious rejecting of the offer: and fighting against the Holy Ghost, whose office it is to apply the grace of Christ; and not from any limitation, or exclusive clause in the offer, for still it remains true, "Whosoever shall believe, shall not perish."

Footnote 25 in Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Fig. Kindle Edition)

Photo credit to:  Ian Espinosa on Unsplash