If we were to stop there, the godly sentiments of Psalm 119 are left sounding completely foreign to us. How then are we to understand the law as a source of blessing and delight?

Protestants have historically recognized three uses of the law: to restrain our wickedness, to reveal sin, and to direct and guide the lives of Christians. We might say that this third use, often called the “rule of life,” is to be led in the pleasant “paths of righteousness.” It is in this way that the law brings us life and joy rather than condemnation. And in fact God always intended for his people to relate to his law this way. We can see this in the very giving of the law: he introduces it by emphasizing that “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus 20). Israel was to obey God as those who were already saved, whom God had already chosen to dwell among — not as those who were trying to earn God’s favor and salvation in the first place. It is true that God is holy, that none of us is without sin, and we cannot approach him without suffering the curse of the law. But God knows our frame; he understood that we would sin. He made temporary provision for sins in the sacrificial system, and made permanent provision for our sins in Jesus, who became a curse for us.

Judicially the law does accuse us, and we must deal judicially with the law through Jesus or else suffer condemnation and wrath. But as Trinitarians we know that there are always complementary facets. Relationally God’s people deal with the law as those who are adopted sons. God is the father who puts a dollar in our grubby little hands to buy him a birthday present, and then delights in our present! Calvin puts it this way:

When God is reconciled to us, there is no reason to fear that he will reject us, because we are not perfect; for though our works be sprinkled with many spots, they will be acceptable to him, and though we labour under many defects, we shall yet be approved by him. How so? Because he will spare us; for a father is indulgent to his children, and though he may see a blemish in the body of his son, he will not yet cast him out of his house; nay, though he may have a son lame, or squint-eyed, or singular for any other defect, he will yet pity him, and will not cease to love him: so also is the case with respect to God, who, when he adopts us as his children, will forgive our sins. And as a father is pleased with every small attention when he sees his son submissive, and does not require from him what he requires from a servant; so God acts; he repudiates not our obedience, however defective it may be.

Because the law comes to us from a wise and loving father, a wise and good king and shepherd, and a life-giving helper, we ought to count it as a delight — and we can be confident that patient trust and persistent obedience will bring us true blessing. And because we are sons, we ought also to be growing in the law, seeking to imitate our father by meditating on his law and obeying it.

The fact that law is instruction from our father means that it helps to make us wise and mature. That should come as no surprise: Solomon, who excelled all the kings of the earth in wisdom, gave us the book of Proverbs, which is itself an extended meditation on the ten commandments. Consider: it comes to us in the context of the fifth commandment (“my son”), and teaches us about the fourth commandment (work), the sixth commandment (anger), the seventh commandment (the forbidden woman), and others. Jesus, the one greater than Solomon, does exactly the same in the sermon on the mount, drawing wisdom from God’s law (“you have heard”) to teach us how we ought to tend the soil of our hearts and to warn us of the ensnaring and hardening effects of sin.

Paul speaks similarly of maturity in Galatians 4. The law is a guardian or tutor, under which we are indistinguishable from slaves. But in Jesus the Son we receive adoption as sons; we are no longer under the tutor but are heirs come into our inheritance. And yet clearly this does not mean we should put our tutor and lessons out of mind. True, there are some parts of our discipline and training (e.g., dietary laws) from which we are now set free, just as a child no longer drinks from a bottle, a runner in a marathon is no longer running sprints, and a pianist on stage is no longer playing scales and etudes. But God intends that even in the freedom of sonship we live out of all of our training; and there is a great deal of the law that we must still obey and build upon with patience and persistence. In fact, God now imprints his law on our minds and hearts (Hebrews 8-10).

Since we now deal with the law relationally, our obedience is not a matter of earning and keeping God’s favor but is a matter of loyalty and allegiance to God. And so the law may sober us but it cannot terrify us. In fact, we must follow the pattern of David, Solomon and Jesus: we should train ourselves to think of God’s expectations for his sons as a delight, as the path of blessing and protection; and we should labor to grow in wisdom and maturity through studying God’s law, meditating on it and disciplining ourselves to obey it.

Mark Horne has recently been posting on Proverbs and wisdom, and quoted Bilbo’s riddle of Strider:

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.

This made me think: Middle-earth is a world in which Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon are all true. It is a creation subjected to futility, unwillingly, but in hope, with an end of maturity and glory. Patience, waiting, longing, work and groaning are all required; and there is a bittersweetness to most joy and victory, because life comes through sacrifice and death. Tolkien does an outstanding job of helping you to feel the passage of time. The length of the book, Bombadil, the scouring of the Shire — it is all necessary in this light.

Tolkien writes of a story’s having a “glimpse of Truth.” Death and life themselves in Middle-earth have the savor of God’s world.

And [David] said, “Is there not still someone of the house of Saul, that I may show the kindness of God to him?” Ziba said to the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is crippled in his feet.” The king said to him, “Where is he?” And Ziba said to the king, “He is in the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar.” Then King David sent and brought him from the house of Machir the son of Ammiel, at Lo-debar. And Mephibosheth the son of Jonathan, son of Saul, came to David and fell on his face and paid homage. And David said, “Mephibosheth!” And he answered, “Behold, I am your servant.” And David said to him, “Do not fear, for I will show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan, and I will restore to you all the land of Saul your father, and you shall eat at my table always.” And he paid homage and said, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?” Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson. And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.” . . . So Mephibosheth ate at David’s table, like one of the king’s sons. — 2 Samuel 9:3-11

Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine David saying to Mephibosheth: “You must eat at my table in a worthy manner.” Does David mean that:

1. Mephibosheth should approach David at every meal, confessing “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?” Or that
2. Mephibosheth should eat each meal with joy and congenial fellowship befitting the king’s sons.

We know that Mephibosheth never forgot he was undeserving of David’s favor, and continued to approach David with appropriate humility, respect and love (2 Samuel 19:24-30). But this is not incompatible with Mephibosheth’s living in the good of David’s favor. This is a meal, after all: my answer is #2. David made Mephibosheth his son and would have expected him to behave as a son.

We are as undeserving of God’s favor as Mephibosheth and the prodigal son. And yet in Jesus we do receive God’s favor; we been made not merely servants, but beloved sons and fellow heirs. Both David and the prodigal father are types of our Father in heaven, who by his grace now names us not sinners but saints. This shapes even our fear of the Lord: we fear the Lord not as impostors hanging by a thread, but as sons who have a responsibility to be loyal. He has made it fitting for us to approach his table as sons: he has given us the proper attire (Matthew 22:1-13) and has made his feasts a time of joy and not sorrow (Nehemiah 8:9-12).

Obviously I have 1 Corinthians 11 in mind in this thought experiment. There, Paul commands us (1) not to eat of the Lord’s supper unworthily, (2) to examine ourselves, and (3) to discern the body. It is common to read Paul as saying that (1) our sin — whether in general or only unconfessed — is what makes us unworthy for the supper; (2) therefore we examine ourselves and confess sin, (3) discerning that Jesus’s own body and blood offered on the cross are our only hope. Is this what Paul is saying? This is roughly the interpretation that Calvin, the Westminster catechisms, and others take. But it is to say the opposite of what I concluded in my thought experiment above, and to make the Lord’s supper into something different from a family meal.

Certainly we should not approach the table with unconfessed sin, or lacking appreciation for God’s great mercy to us. But there is a better way of understanding Paul’s warnings. Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul is concerned for unity in the church. Beginning in chapter 10, he names the church as the body of Christ, and he continues without interruption to emphasize the unity, interconnectedness and interdependency of the body through chapter 12. In this context, his overwhelming concern for their practice of the Lord’s supper (chapters 10-11) is that it must reflect their unity and love as the body of Christ. Reading Paul’s warnings in light of all this, it becomes clear that (1) to eat unworthily is actually to eat without consideration of one another; (2) we therefore examine ourselves to ensure we are including, loving, preferring one another; and (3) we do this because we discern that we are Christ’s body, and Christ’s body is not divided. Considering this, and considering Mephibosheth and the prodigal son, we should not eat the Lord’s supper reservedly, but joyfully, as fellow sons and daughters.

Wayne Grudem concludes this as well. In Systematic Theology, he writes:

In the context of 1 Corinthians 11 Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for their selfish and inconsiderate conduct when they come together as a church: “When you meet together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal, and one is hungry and another is drunk” (1 Cor. 11:20-21). This helps us understand what Paul means when he talks about those who eat and drink “without discerning the body” (1 Cor. 11:29). The problem at Corinth was not a failure to understand that the bread and cup represented the body and blood of the Lord — they certainly knew that. The problem rather was their selfish, inconsiderate conduct toward each other while they were at the Lord’s table. They were not understanding or “discerning” the true nature of the church as one body. This interpretation of “without discerning the body” is supported by Paul’s mention of the church as the body of Christ just a bit earlier, in 1 Corinthians 10:17: “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread.” So the phrase “not discerning the body” means “not understanding the unity and interdependence of people in the church, which is the body of Christ.” It means not taking thought for our brothers and sisters when we come to the Lord’s Supper, at which we ought to reflect his character.

What does it mean, then, to eat or drink “in an unworthy manner” (1 Cor. 11:27)? We might at first think the words apply rather narrowly and pertain only to the way we conduct ourselves when we actually eat and drink the bread and wine. But when Paul explains that unworthy participation involves “not discerning the body,” he indicates that we are to take thought for all of our relationships within the body of Christ: are we acting in ways that vividly portray not the unity of the one bread and one body, but disunity? Are we conducting ourselves in ways that proclaim not the self-giving sacrifice of our Lord, but enmity and selfishness? In a broad sense, then, “Let a man examine himself” means that we ought to ask whether our relationships in the body of Christ are in fact reflecting the character of the Lord whom we meet there and whom we represent. (997)

Grudem goes on to cite Matthew 5:23-24 as an example of making relationships right before coming to worship.

God could have chosen for this sacrament to take any form. It is highly instructive that he chose for it to take the form of a meal, with all the rich imagery that carries. He intends for us to enjoy it in fellowship with him and one another.

‘That is a fair lord and a great captain of men,’ said Legolas. ‘If Gondor has such men still in these days of fading, great must have been its glory in the days of its rising.’

‘And doubtless the good stone-work is the older and was wrought in the first building,’ said Gimli. ‘It is ever so with the things that Men begin: there is a frost in Spring, or a blight in Summer, and they fail of their promise.’

‘Yet seldom do they fail of their seed,’ said Legolas. ‘And that will lie in the dust and rot to spring up again in times and places unlooked-for. The deeds of Men will outlast us, Gimli.’

‘And yet come to naught in the end but might-have-beens, I guess,’ said the Dwarf.

‘To that the Elves know not the answer,’ said Legolas.

I don’t know whether there is one true Roman Catholic eschatology or what it might be. Tolkien at least had a pessimistic eschatology which he thought was a necessary part of his Roman Catholicism. And as much as the fall of Sauron was an epic victory, this pessimism shades his work as well. But the above is a wise and I think true observation regardless of one’s eschatology. Death and resurrection is a pervasive and inescapable motif in life and creation.

Whether for civilization, church or family, better the deaths should be ones of repentance and self-sacrifice than of reaping and judgment.

Even in Genesis 2 Moses makes much of the fact that God provided Adam and Eve with food to eat. Adam’s sin involved eating, and God’s curse after the fall meant not only that fellowship with God was broken, but also that eating would require pain and toil (Genesis 3). As God’s plan of redemption unfolds in his covenants with man, food and table fellowship are not far, so that we often speak of a covenant meal.

God gave Adam the plants of the field, and to Noah he added living things (Genesis 9): God’s covenants keep getting better! Melchizedek, who we know is a type of Christ, set before Abram a meal of bread and wine (Genesis 14). Later Abraham prepared a meal for the three strangers who visit him (Genesis 18).

The Mosaic covenant is full of covenant meals. Passover commemorates God’s deliverance from Egypt, and Israel was commanded to celebrate it throughout their generations (Exodus 12). God provided water, meat and daily bread for Israel in the wilderness; both the bread and the rock that gave the water are types of Christ. Through Moses God also established Sabbath days and years for feasting and refreshment, and a calendar of other covenant feasts throughout the year. These holy feasts were such times of rejoicing before God that grief and weeping in conviction over sin was to be put aside (Nehemiah 8). Even tithing seems to have been not simply handing things over to the Levites, but also feasting with them before God (Deuteronomy 14). “Whatever you desire” — oxen, sheep, wine, beer. Finally, sacrifices regularly involved the priests’ eating the sacrifice, and sometimes the worshipper’s eating as well (Leviticus 7, 1 Chronicles 16). Covenant meals and feasts are not merely gifts from God, but a real part of regular fellowship with God.

Even among the covenants of men we find covenant meals. Jacob and Laban established their covenant with a meal (Genesis 31). David kept his covenant with Jonathan not simply by preserving Jonathan’s crippled son Mephibosheth, but by ensuring his food was provided for and furthermore bringing him to eat perpetually at his table (2 Samuel 9). David is certainly a type of Christ here.

Jesus was falsely accused of sin over who he shared meals with and how he ate (Luke 7). He declared that “whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” (John 6). Many turned away at this; I wonder if they were offended not so much by the suggestion of cannibalism as by the implication of human sacrifice. John certainly intended for us to connect Jesus’s statement here to the Lord’s supper, which Jesus also explicitly relates to his sacrifice in the new covenant (Luke 14).

Feasting is a deep picture of how God relates to us. Peter Leithart has this to say about covenant meals and the Lord’s supper:

[T]he rite for animal offering ends, in most cases, with a communion meal. Priests and sometimes the worshipper receive a portion of “God’s bread” to eat. Eating together is a way to make a covenant or have fellowship. Throughout the Bible, when people conclude treaties, they eat a meal together to show that they are now friends. Jacob and Laban ate together after they had made a treaty of peace between them (Genesis 31:44-55). so also, when men draw near to God, they eat with Him. The elders of Israel eat and drink in God’s presence, and He does not stretch out His hand against them (Exodus 24:9-11). The end—the goal and the conclusion—of Israelite worship is a fellowship meal with God, and this renews the covenant. Our worship in the church is the same: After we have confessed our sins, heard God’s word, and praised Him, He invites us to His table to share a meal. We don’t eat the flesh of an animal, but the flesh and blood of the perfect sacrifice, Jesus. — A House for My Name, pp. 91-92

In a way, the old debates over “where is Christ in the Lord’s supper?” are asking the wrong question. Where are we in the Lord’s supper? We are feasting together in the presence of the one who clothes us and prepares a table before us.

God welcomes all of us to table fellowship with him, and this means we ought to welcome one another in the same way. Paul is concerned that we do not exclude one another from the Lord’s supper (1 Corinthians 10-11), and that our table fellowship does not become an occasion for despising or judging one another (Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8-10). He even admonished Peter in this (Galatians 2).

Jesus invites and welcomes you to eat and drink at his table. Take, eat!

And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law. Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” So the Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be quiet, for this day is holy; do not be grieved.” And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. — Nehemiah 8:9-12

The Psalm says that kings should be worried about the anger of the Lord, not that the Lord’s followers should be worried about the footdragging of kings. (204)

Because we men cannot be God, we must learn to be good poets. (181)

And of the limits of precision compared to connotation, imagery and symbolism:

Words do not have decimal places. (191)

Children should be almost criminal in their love of stories. If they aren’t regularly begging you for stories, even after you seem to have been reading all day, then something may be wrong with them. They live and grow by means of narrative, especially fiction. Families and schedules differ, but our family . . . reads passages from one to three books (fiction, history, theology, or Scripture) at every meal, making sure that we begin the day with plenty of poetry. Meals are especially important for families, since they naturally display sacrifice, intimacy, and beauty. (124)

You sum up the whole of New Testament teaching in a single phrase, if you speak of it as a revelation of the Fatherhood of the holy Creator. In the same way, you sum up the whole of New Testament religion if you describe it as the knowledge of God as one’s holy Father. If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. “Father” is the Christian name for God.

Peter Lillback, in his book The Binding of God, assembles a picture of John Calvin’s understanding of God’s covenants with man. Throughout the book what I am most struck by is how often Calvin links covenant theology with the doctrine of adoption in order to either make careful and helpful distinctions, or else to illustrate how God’s covenanting with us ought to be a real engine for responsive affections and actions on our part. Probably half of my dog-ears are for adoption-related passages.

So, we see Calvin summarizing the covenant as an adoption (pp. 137-138):

For if God only demanded his due, we should still be required to cling to him and to confine ourselves to his commandments. Moreover, when it pleases him by his infinite goodness to enter into a common treaty, and when he mutually binds himself to us without having to do so, when he enumerates that treaty article by article, when he chooses to be our father and Savior, when he receives us as his flock and his inheritance, let us abide under his protection, filled with its eternal life for us. When all of these things are done, is it proper that our hearts become mollified even if they were at one time stone? When creatures see that the living God humbles himself to that extent, that he wills to enter into covenant that he might say: “Let us consider our situation. It is true that there is an infinite distance between you and me and that I should be able to command of you whatever seems good to me without having anything in common with you, for you are not worthy to approach me and have any dealings with whoever can command of you what he wills, with no further declarations to you except: ‘That is what I will and conceive.’ But behold, I set aside my right. I come here to present myself to you as your guide and savior. I want to govern you. You are like my little family. And if you are satisfied with my Word, I will be your King. Furthermore, do not think that the covenant which I made with your fathers was intended to take anything from you. For I have no need, nor am I indigent in anything. And what could you do for me anyway? But I procure your well-being and your salvation. Therefore on my part, I am prepared to enter into covenant, article by article, and to pledge myself to you.”

And again Calvin summarizes even the old covenant as a gracious act of adoption (p. 140):

The Psalmist addresses himself by name to his own countrymen, whom, as has been stated, God had bound to himself by a special adoption. It was a bond of union still more sacred, that by the mere good pleasure of God they were preferred to all other nations. . . . He expressly states both these truths, first, that before they were born children of Abraham, they were already heirs of the covenant, because they derived their origin from the holy fathers; and, secondly, that the fathers themselves had not acquired this prerogative by their own merit or worth, but had been freely chosen; for this is the reason why Jacob is called God’s chosen.

Lillback moves on to explore several facets of God’s covenants in Calvin’s understanding. We have already seen above that, perhaps unlike Packer, Calvin considers adoption to be a blessing common to both the old and new covenants. First, Lillback explores Calvin’s complex understanding of mutuality and conditionality. Calvin carefully balances an understanding of God’s sovereign working in our salvation with how we as God’s creatures see, understand, receive and respond to his working in time and history. Adoption is a perfect picture of this because it is an undeserved gift that God undertook wholly on his own initiative, but which makes us God’s children and wholly obligates us to him. Lillback quotes Calvin on p. 172:

[Hosea] says that they had acted perfidiously with God, for they had violated his covenant. We must bear in mind what I have said before of the mutual faith which God stipulates with us, when he binds himself to us. God then covenants with us on this condition, that he will be our Father and Husband; but he requires from us such obedience as a son ought to render to his father; he requires from us that chastity which a wife owes to her husband. The Prophet now charges the people with unfaithfulness, because they had despised the true God, and prostituted themselves to idols.

On p. 192 we see how Calvin both distinguishes and weaves together faith and works. The language of sonship and union with Christ serves as a subtle backdrop, underscoring that obedience does not somehow perversely purchase our freedom from slavery and adoption into God’s love (as if it were possible!), but that pleasing our Father is nevertheless a wonderful combination of duty and delight:

When, therefore, we say that the faithful are esteemed just even in their deeds, this is not stated as a cause of their salvation, and we must diligently notice that the cause of salvation is excluded from this doctrine; for, when we discuss the cause, we must look nowhere else but to the mercy of God, and there we must stop. But although works tend in no way to the cause of justification, yet, when the elect sons of God were justified freely by faith, at the same time their works are esteemed righteous by the same gratuitous liberality. Thus it still remains true, that faith without works justifies, although this needs prudence and a sound interpretation; for this proposition, that faith without works justifies is true and yet false, according to the different senses which it bears. The proposition, that faith without works justifies by itself, is false, because faith without works is void. But if the clause “without works” is joined with the word “justifies,” the proposition will be true, since faith cannot justify when it is without works, because it is dead, and a mere fiction. He who is born of God is just, as John says. (I John V. 18) Thus faith can be no more separated from works than the sun from his heat: yet faith justifies without works, because works form no reason for our justification; but faith alone reconciles us to God, and causes him to love us, not in ourselves, but in his only-begotten Son.

Thus good works are not only possible but acceptable to God because, in Lillback’s words, “in the covenant, God ceases to be a strict judge and becomes a father” (p. 196). Quoting Calvin on the same page:

Moreover, we do not deny that for believers uprightness, albeit partial and imperfect, is a step toward immortality. But what is its source except that the Lord does not examine for merits the works of those whom he has received into the covenant of grace but embraces them with fatherly affection?

But this is the peculiar blessing of the new covenant, that the Law is written on men’s hearts, and engraven on their inward parts; whilst that severe requirement is relaxed so that the vices under which believers still labour are no obstacle to their partial and imperfect obedience being pleasant to God.

It is therefore necessary, even when we strive our utmost to serve God, to confess that without his forgiveness whatever we bring deserves rejection rather than his favour. Hence the Prophet says, that when God is reconciled to us, there is no reason to fear that he will reject us, because we are not perfect; for though our works be sprinkled with many spots, they will be acceptable to him, and though we labour under many defects, we shall yet be approved by him. How so? Because he will spare us; for a father is indulgent to his children, and though he may see a blemish in the body of his son, he will not yet cast him out of his house; nay, though he may have a son lame, or squint-eyed, or singular for any other defect, he will yet pity him, and will not cease to love him: so also is the case with respect to God, who, when he adopts us as his children, will forgive our sins. And as a father is pleased with every small attention when he sees his son submissive, and does not require from him what he requires from a servant; so God acts; he repudiates not our obedience, however defective it may be.

This wonderful result is because of our union with Christ the firstborn Son. Quoting Calvin on p. 209:

Yet notwithstanding, the persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works are also accepted in him, not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight; but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections.

Nevertheless, there are those who apostatize or break covenant. Calvin depicts this too using familial language: those who break covenant are rebellious children who are disowned, ones who “degenerate from legitimate children to bastards” (Calvin, p. 217). Yet as God’s children we have great assurance of our perseverance, and encouragement to persevere, because our Father who dwells in our midst has pledged himself to us (Calvin, pp. 270-271):

But the inspired writer, calling to remembrance the promises by which God had declared that he would make the Church the object of his special care, and particularly that remarkable article of the covenant, “I will dwell in the midst of you” (Exodus xxv. 8), and, trusting to that sacred and indissoluble bond, has no hesitation in representing all the godly languishing, though they were in a state of suffering and wretchedness, as partakers of this celestial glory in which God dwells. . . . What advantage would we derive from this eternity and immutability of God’s being, unless we had in our hearts the knowledge of him, which, produced by his gracious covenant, begets in us the confidence arising from a mutual relationship between him and us? The meaning then is, “We are like withered grass, we are decaying every moment, we are not far from death, yea rather, we are, as it were, already dwelling in the grave; but since thou, O God! hast made a covenant with us, by which thou hast promised to protect and defend thine own people, and hast brought thyself into a gracious relation to us, giving us the fullest assurance that thou wilt always dwell in the midst of us, instead of desponding, we must be of good courage; and although we may see only ground for despair if we depend upon ourselves, we ought nevertheless to lift up our minds to the heavenly throne, from which thou wilt at length stretch forth thy hand to help us.” . . . . As God continues unchangeably the same — “without variableness or shadow of turning” — nothing can hinder him from aiding us; and this he will do, because we have his word, by which he has laid himself under obligation to us, and because he has deposited with us his own memorial, which contains in it a sacred and indissoluble bond of fellowship.

In seeking to secure our perseverance, God uses both fatherly enticings and fatherly threatenings and discipline. Yet in the end, “the Christian’s life of covenant-keeping, although imperfect before God, is nevertheless a life of encouragement since God is pleased with His adopted children’s faithful efforts” (Lillback, p. 275).

There are some areas of covenant life where Lillback does not quote Calvin in reference to adoption, but where there is a clear link to adoption. One such area is that of “covenant prayer.” The nature of our prayer to God is precisely that of a child appealing to a loving father (Luke 11:1-13).

This is also the case for the sacraments, the covenant signs. Baptism is a pronouncement by God through his church of our adoption and justification. Consider that our baptism is a key beginning of our union with Christ (Romans 6) and Christ’s own baptism was a pronouncement of sonship and acceptance (Matthew 3). (Baptism is of course not the cause of our adoption and justification any more than a minister’s pronouncement of “man and wife” is the cause of a couple’s union.) Similarly, the covenant meal is a family meal. God provides food for us, his children, and we eat before him. This is true of both the Lord’s Supper and also Old Testament meals that priests and often worshippers enjoyed before God after offering sacrifice.

There are, of course, plenty of other ways we can think about God’s covenanting. Adoption showcases the work of God the Father, but we could equally explore the work of Christ or of the Spirit in our salvation. Or we could consider how our children relate to God, explore Calvin’s letter-Spirit distinction over against a Lutheran law-gospel distinction, or consider the many ways in which the old and new covenants are similar yet different.

An advantage of looking at adoption specifically is that it stands up well as a proxy for the kind of questions we want to ask about covenant and sacraments. In particular, it helps us to remember that God’s covenants are not merely legal, but also affective, personal and social. What does it mean to be in covenant with God through Christ and his Spirit? More than anything else, it means to be adopted, named and kept as his own child.

For [that fairy-story essay] I coined the word ‘eucatastrophe’: the sudden happy turn in a story which pierces you with a joy that brings tears (which I argued it is the highest function of fairy-stories to produce). And I was there led to the view that it produces its peculiar effect because it is a sudden glimpse of Truth, your whole nature chained in material cause and effect, the chain of death, feels a sudden relief as if a major limb out of joint had suddenly snapped back. It perceives — if the story has literary ‘truth’ on the second plane (for which see the essay) — that this is indeed how things really do work in the Great World for which our nature is made. And I concluded by saying that the Resurrection was the greatest ‘eucatastrophe’ possible in the greatest Fairy Story — and produces that essential emotion: Christian joy which produces tears because it is qualitatively so like sorrow, because it comes from those places where Joy and Sorrow are at one, reconciled, as selfishness and altruism are lost in Love. Of course I do not mean that the Gospels tell what is only a fairy-story; but I do mean very strongly that they do tell a fairy-story: the greatest. Man the story-teller would have to be redeemed in a manner consonant with his nature: by a moving story. But since the author of it is the supreme Artist and the Author of Reality, this one was also made to Be, to be true on the Primary Plane. So that in the Primary Miracle (the Resurrection) and the lesser Christian miracles too though less, you have not only that sudden glimpse of the truth behind the apparent Anankê of our world, but a glimpse that is actually a ray of light through the very chinks of the universe about us. I was riding along on a bicycle one day, not so long ago, past the Radcliffe Infirmary, when I had one of those sudden clarities which sometimes come in dreams (even anaesthetic-produced ones). I remember saying aloud with absolute conviction: ‘But of course! Of course that’s how things really do work’. But I could not reproduce any argument that had led to this, though the sensation was the same as having been convinced by reason (if without reasoning). And I have since thought that one of the reasons why one can’t recapture the wonderful argument or secret when one wakes up is simply because there was not one: but there was (often maybe) a direct appreciation by the mind (sc. reason) but without the chain of argument we know in our time-serial life. However that’s as may be.

– 7–8 November 1944, pp. 100–101 of The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien