"A Promise in a Picture" (Genesis 17:1-11, 15-17)

Welcome to the Reformed University Fellowship at UNCW Podcast! Each week, we will post the messages from our RUF Large Group meetings at UNCW. This semester, we are looking at the big storyline of redemption that is laid out for us in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation. In this week's message from Genesis 17, we see how throughout the Bible God names and claims his covenant people as his own, giving them covenant signs and seals to help build up their weak, flagging faith. “This is what God does through the Sacraments: he signifies his covenant promises, he seals those promises, and he actually applies to us the promises of the gospel.”— Scott Swain “Nothing that we do, whether it be ceremonial or whether it be moral, contributes to [our] justification, because the ground of that justification is not something in us, and it’s not something that we do, it’s grounded in what Christ does. And therefore, circumcision, and outward rituals contribute nothing to that justification. . . . We still live in a day and time where people teach that there are certain religious rights that need to be done in order to be right with God. And it’s very important for us to know the difference between something which is necessary for salvation and something which is necessary for obedience. And it’s very important for us to know the distinction between something that is required in order to be accepted by God, and something that flows from and confirms that we have been accepted with God. Knowing that difference is very, very important, and Paul is pointing to it here. For instance, it is clear from what Paul is saying [in Romans 4] that to say that baptism, that water baptism is somehow necessary for salvation is wrong. You know Baptists and Presbyterians, for instance, have some differences over baptism. Who ought to receive it? How it ought to be done. Who are the proper recipients? What’s the right mode? But we’re absolutely agreed on this: water baptism is not necessary for salvation, and yet there are many who teach that it is; that if you do not receive water baptism, you are not and cannot be saved. So that in some cases, there are priests and people who will actually go to a dying infant’s hospital room and attempt to baptize the child before the child dies because baptism is necessary for salvation. And the apostle Paul is saying there is no rite which is necessary for justification, because justification is not based on what we do, it’s based on what Christ has done. And the righteousness that we received in justification is not our righteousness, it’s not our moral righteousness, it’s not our ritual righteousness, it’s Christ’s righteousness. “And furthermore,” Paul says, “the ceremonial code pointed to a greater righteousness to come and that righteousness is the righteousness of Christ.”- Ligon Duncan