About Post Author

Nick Batzig is the senior pastor of Church Creek PCA in Charleston, SC and an associate editor for Ligonier Ministries. Prior to serving at Church Creek, Nick was a pastor at Wayside PCA on Signal Mountain, TN. Formerly, Nick served as the founding pastor of New Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Richmond Hill, GA and as the editor of Reformation21 and the Christward Collective--sites of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. He frequently writes for Tabletalk Magazine, Reformation 21, He Reads Truth, and the Christward Collective. Nick was also the host of East of Eden, a podcast devoted to the Biblical and Systematic Theology of Jonathan Edwards. You can friend him on Facebook here and follow him on Twitter @nick_batzig

3 Responses

  1. MikeD
    Reply

    Nick,

    Great show, thanks very much! I know you’re busy but I have a couple of questions when you have time. At around 37 minutes you said that Christ was our representative eternally. You then said that we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world and who can deny that? But my question is, if we have always been represented by Christ from eternity past, then when could it be said we were represented by Adam? My second question is that towards the end when you said that the Bible is very easy to understand you broke down the Bible into two categories here and there… Amen!  In more than one case you said that there was a covenant of works, and a covenant of grace. Please do not take this to be unnecessarily polemical, but does this mean that you think the covenant of grace is equivalent to the new covenant? It really is an inquiry because I know there’s difference on this in Presbyterian circles. Thanks again for all the work you do, and you might find it interesting that we have some friends in common: Joseph Randall and Brian Erwin. I’m out here in LA at that small little church in Compton. I really hope to meet you one day.

  2. Nicholas T. Batzig
    Reply

    Hi Mike, thank you for the kind words and the thoughtful questions. I will try to answer them as clearly as possible in a blog comment forum. I think there is mystery in how we were chosen in Christ in eternity and eternally loved by God–yet, fallen and under God’s wrath by nature in Adam. It is clear in Scripture that we are not “in Christ” in time until we are regenerated and brought to repentance. There are three stages of union with Christ: 1) Decreetal (Eph. 1:4), 2) Redemptive-historical (Romans 6:1-14), and 3) existential (Romans 16:3). The third of these stages is the one in which we are regenerated, given faith and united to Jesus ravingly. The first two form the basis for this existential union.

    As far as the Covenant of Grace and the New Covenant, I believe that the New Covenant is the ultimate fulfillment of the Covenant of Grace. The CoG began in eternity when God the Father chosen the elect in His Son. In time, it was inaugurated after the fall in the curse on the serpent (Gen. 3:15). I wish I could help you more than that, but it would require writing a Covenant Theology 🙂

    Jo and Brian are dear brothers. I am so thankful that the Lord brought them into my life. Thanks again for your feedback and questions. Many blessings to you in Christ, Mike.

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