The Divine Covenants Quotes

“This is ever God’s way: in the darkest night He causes the stars of hope to shed forth their welcome light, bidding His people to look beyond the gloomy present to the brighter future.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“There must be a true delight in the purity which the law inculcates, for this is the only effectual preparation for obedience. So long as the law of God utters its voice to us from without only, so long as there is no sympathy in the soul with its demands, so long as the heart is alienated from its spirituality, there can be no obedience. worthy of the name.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“What has just been pointed out reveals a principle which is of great practical value for our own souls today. The further Israel’s religious apostasy advanced and wickedness increased, the more were the godly handful among them taught to look away from the present to the future, to walk by faith and not by sight, to regale their desponding hearts with those covenant blessings which the Messiah would obtain for all His people.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Psalm 89, then, is the key to 2 Samuel 7:4-17. Not only does it unlock for us the meaning of the Davidic covenant, but it also fixes the interpretation of those passages in the prophets which obviously look back to and are based upon the same. "The covenant is made with David, the covenant of royalty is made with him, as the father of his family, and all his seed through him, and for his sake, representing the Covenant of Grace made with Christ as Head of the Church, and with all believers in Him. . . .”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Scholars tell us that "Zion" is derived from tzun, which means "a monument raised up." Such indeed is the church of God: a monument of grace now, and of glory hereafter; raised up to all eternity.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“If I preach the law to the unsaved, showing its spirituality and the breadth of its requirements, pressing upon them the justice of its demands, proving they are under its righteous condemnation, and all of this with the object of driving them out of themselves to Christ, then I make a right and legitimate service of the law. I "use it lawfully" (1 Tim. 1:8) and do not pit it against the gospel.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Every aspect of the cardinal truth of justification is found in the Psalms just as it is set forth in the New Testament. First, the same confession of sin and depravity (Ps. 14:1). Second, the same acknowledgment of guilt and ill-desert (Ps. 40:12, 13). Third, the same fear of God’s righteous judgment (Ps. 6:1). Fourth, the same sense of inevitable condemnation on the ground of God’s law (Ps. 143:2). Fifth, the same cry for undeserved mercy (Ps. 51:1). Sixth, the same faith in God’s revealed character as a just God and Savior (Ps. 25:8). Seventh, the same hope of mercy through redemption (Ps. 130:7). Eighth, the same pleading of God’s name (Ps. 15:11). Ninth, the same trust in another righteousness than his own (Ps. 71:16; 84:9). Tenth, the same love for the Son (Ps. 2:12). Eleventh, the same joy and peace in believing (Ps. 89:15, 16). Twelfth, the same assurance in God’s faithfulness to fulfill His promises (Ps. 89:1, 2). Let the reader carefully ponder these passages from the Psalms, and he will discover the gospel itself in all its essential elements.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“The law was given that grace might be sought; grace was given that the law might be fulfilled" (Augustine).”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“And what is faith but the acceptance of heaven’s gifts, or the trusting in the record wherein those gifts are promised.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“upon the condition of outward national obedience; and the covenant of Grace was ratified personally with true believers, and sealed and secured spiritual blessings to them, by producing a holy disposition of heart, and spiritual obedience to the Divine law. In case Israel kept the covenant, the Lord promised that they should be to Him ‘a peculiar treasure.’ ‘All the earth’ (Ex. 19:5) being the Lord’s, He might have chosen any other people instead of Israel: and this implied that, as His choice of them was gratuitous, so if they rejected His covenant, He would reject them, and communicate their privileges to others; as indeed He hath done, since the introduction of the Christian dispensation" (Thomas Scott).”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“The promises of God to Abraham and his seed were never made to his natural descendants, but belonged to those who had a like faith with him. It could not be otherwise, "For all the promises of God in him [Christ] are yea, and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us" (11 Cor. 1:20). All the "promises" (not "prophecies") of God are made in Christ; that is, all the blessings promised are placed in the hands of the Mediator, and none who are out of Christ can lay claim to a single one of them. All who are out of Christ are out of God’s favor; and therefore the divine threatenings, and not the promises, are their portion. Here, then, is our reply to those who complain, "You apply to the church all the good things of the Old Testament, but the bad ones you relegate to the Jews." Of course we do; the blessings of God pertain to all who are in Christ; the curses of God to all—Jews or Gentiles—who are out of Christ.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“We fully agree with John Kelly when he said, "If we would form an accurate estimate of that covenant, and of the truth which it was the means of revealing, we must not confine ourselves to any one particular transaction in which allusion is made to it, however important that transaction may have been. Our examination must embrace all the incidents recorded. We must bear in mind that everything that occurred to Abraham, from his call to the close of his life, was intended to explain and illustrate the nature of the Covenant.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“might be objected, This is bringing in a legalistic inducement and inculcating a mercenary spirit to put the believer upon using means in order to obtain his preservation, and setting before him heaven or eternal life as a reward for his faithfulness. In reply, let us quote from the renowned and evangelical Dutch theologian: "A mercenary baseness is certainly unworthy of the high-born sons of God, but their heavenly Father does not forbid them to have any regard to their own advantage in the exercise of holiness. David himself confesseth that, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. ‘By them is Thy servant warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward’ (Ps. 19:9, 11). And the faith of Moses is commended because ‘he had respect unto the recompense of the reward’ (Heb. 11:26). Yea, that faith is required of all who come to God, that they ‘must believe that He is, and that He is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him’—Heb. 11:6" (from Irenicon, by H. Witsius, 1696).”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“may be replied, But this is to leave all at an uncertainty. It all depends upon the angle from which you view it. Considered as the object of God’s everlasting love, as chosen in Christ, as redeemed by Him, as indwelt and sealed by the Spirit, the believer’s safely reaching heaven is placed beyond all peradventure. But consider the believer as a responsible agent, as still having the "flesh" in him, living in a world where he is beset by temptation on every side, called upon to "fight the good fight of faith" and to "lay hold on eternal life," and the matter appears in quite another light; and the one viewpoint is just as real and actual as is the other! The difficulty here as to whether or not the believer’s "keeping" or "breaking" the covenant renders all insecure, is precisely the same as showing the consistency between divine preservation and Christian perseverance. Though the "ifs" of John 8:31 and Colossians 1:23 do not annul the promise of Philippians 1:6, nevertheless, they are there, and must be taken into account by us.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Christ’s obedience has not rendered ours unnecessary: rather has it rendered ours acceptable.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Nor does what has just been said in anywise conflict with what was pointed out in previous chapters. The above elements just as truly shadowed forth another fundamental aspect of the everlasting covenant as did the different features singled out from the Adamic and the Noahic. In the everlasting covenant, God promised a certain reward unto Christ upon His fulfilling certain conditions—executing the appointed work. The inseparable principles of law and gospel, grace and reward, faith and works, were most expressly conjoined in that compact which God entered into with the Mediator before the foundation of the world. Therein we may behold the "manifold wisdom of God" in combining such apparent opposites; and instead of carping at their seeming hostility, we should admire the omniscience which has made the one the handmaid of the other. Only then are we prepared to discern and recognize the exercise of this dual principle in each of the subordinate covenants. Not”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Moreover, in the exercise of His sovereignty God never enforces the responsibility of the creature; and unless we keep both of these steadily in view, we not only become lopsided, but lapse into real error. The grace of God must not be magnified to the beclouding of His righteousness, nor His sovereignty pressed to the exclusion of human accountability.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Abraham’s obedience to the divine command was both partial and tardy. God had bidden him to leave his own country, separate from his kindred, and "come into the land" which He would show him (Acts 7:3). His failure is recorded in Genesis 11:31: "And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." He left Chaldea; but instead of leaving behind his kindred, his father and nephew accompanied him. This was the more excuseless because Isaiah 51:2 expressly declares that God had called Abraham "alone." It is significant to note that the word "Terah" means "delay," and such his presence occasioned Abraham, for instead of entering the land of Canaan at once, he stopped short at Haran, and there he remained for five years until Terah died (Gen. 11:32; 12:4, 5).”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“The lesson to be learned here is a deeply important one: the connection between Genesis 11 and 12 is highly significant. The Lord God determined to have a people of His own by the calling of grace, a people which should be taken into privileged nearness unto Himself, and which should show forth His praises; but it was not until all the claims of the natural man had been repudiated by his own wickedness, not until his utter worthlessness had been clearly exhibited, that divine clemency was free to flow forth on an enlarged scale. Sin was suffered to abound in all its hideousness, before grace superabounded in all its blessedness. In other words, it was not until the total depravity of men had been fully demonstrated, first by the ante-diluvians and then again by the concerted apostasy at Babel, that God now dealt with Abraham in sovereign grace and infinite mercy.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“The covenant of grace could no more have been made by man, than he can form a bow in the clouds.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Therefore, before we seek to point out the various typical, mystical, and spiritual features of the Noahic covenant, we must first establish the fact that something more than the temporary interests of this earth or the material well-being of its inhabitants was involved in what God said to our patriarch in Genesis 9.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“It seems pitiable that at this late date it should be necessary to labor a point which ought to be obvious to all God’s people. And obvious it would be, at least when pointed out to them, were it not that so many have had dust thrown into their eyes by carnal "dispensationalists" and hucksters of "prophecy." Alas,”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“In one respect the world seemed to have suffered material loss by the visitation of the deluge. Along with the agents and instruments of evil there had also been swept away by it the emblems of grace and hope—paradise with its tree of life and its cherubim of glory. We can conceive Noah and his household, when they first left the ark, looking around with melancholy feelings on the position they now occupied, not only as being the sole survivors of a numerous offspring, but also as being themselves bereft of the sacred memorials which bore evidence of a happy past, and exhibited the pledge of a yet happier future. An important link of communion with Heaven, it might well have seemed, was broken by the change thus brought through the deluge on the world" (P. Fairbairn).”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“But I would more fully explain the nature of this (spiritual) death. Both living and dead bodies have motion. But a living body moves by vegetation, while it is nourished, has the use of its senses, is delighted, and acts with pleasure. Whereas, the dead body moves by putrefaction to a state of dissolution, and to the production of loathsome animals. And so in the soul, spiritually alive, there is motion, while it is fed, repasted, and fattened with Divine delights, while it takes pleasure in God and true wisdom; while, by the strength of its love, it is carried to and fixed on that which can sustain the soul and give it a sweet repose. But a dead soul has no feeling; that is, it neither understands truth, nor loves righteousness, but wallows and is spent in the sink of concupiscence, and brings forth the worms of impure thoughts, seasonings and affections” (H.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Our covenant oneness with Christ is clearly revealed in Ephesians 1:3-5, that marvelous declaration reaching its climax in 1:6: “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.” “Accepted in the beloved” goes deeper and means far more than “accepted through him.” It denotes not merely a recommendatory passport from Christ, but a real union with Him, whereby we are incorporated into His mystical body, and made as truly partakers of His righteousness as the members of the physical body partake of the life which animates its head.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“not”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Genesis 15:5,6, the great requirement of the covenant—namely, faith—was then more fully made known.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“A true knowledge of the covenants is indispensable to a correct presentation of the gospel, for he who is ignorant of the fundamental difference which obtains between the covenant of works and the covenant of grace is utterly incompetent for evangelism”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“Those subordinate covenants were less than the Lord’s making manifest, in an especial and public manner, the grand covenant: making known something of its glorious contents, confirming their own personal interest in it, and assuring them that Christ, the great covenant head, should be of themselves and spring from their seed.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants

“The continual additions which God subsequently made to the revelation He gave in Genesis 3: 15 were, for a considerable time, largely through covenants He made with the fathers, covenants which were both the fruit of His eternal plan of mercy and the gradual revealing of the same unto the faithful. Only as those two facts are and held fast by us are we in any position to appreciate and perceive the force of those subordinate covenants.”
― Arthur W. Pink, Divine Covenants