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Origin of Small Groups from the Creation (03)
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Paul Jang
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2008-03-24 15:19:46, hit : 2,907 |
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Origin of Small Groups from the Creation (03)
After the establishment of the family small group the origin and nature of the religious life of the small group were rooted in a covenant, just as the Christian life is to-day, and that covenant is known as the Edenic covenant, and the covenant of works (Berkhof 1971, 211).
God as the creator, the Lord and the Leader blessed this group, and would like to lead this group but the members of the group rejected to obey him as their leader. The family group (home group) had been, therefore under the control of Satan (Gen. 3:15). Hereafter the kingdom of God on the earth had temporally broken as the result of the original sin of the group members who had disobeyed the Word of God (Gen. 3:1-19; Rome 5:12-21).
Just after the bankruptcy of the first kingdom of God on the earth as the first small group community had been brocken as the result of the violation of man breaking the covenant of works (Gen. 3:23; Park 1971, 164), God has given them the covenant of grace with Christ (Gen. 3:15, 21; Park 1971, 357). By virtue of the merits of Christ everyone can be saved and get involved in the gracious second group. Charles Hodge explained the covenant of grace as follows:
It is plain, therefore, that Christ came to execute a work, that He was sent of the Father to fulfill a plan, or preconceived design. It is no less plain that special promises were made by the Father to the Son, suspended upon the accomplishment of the work assigned Him (Hodge 1973, 361).
In this statement the special promises made by God the Father to the Son (Christ) do certainly mean the covenant of grace given by the special grace of God. As Adam was the head and the representative of this posterity (human being), so Christ is the head and representative of his people, his church (Rom. 5:12-21). And as God entered into covenant with Adam so He entered into covenant with Christ. The one has been theologically called covenant of work, the other covenant of grace (Park 1971, 357).
According to this principle Christ came, therefore, in execution of a purpose of God, to fulfill a work which had been assigned Him (Heb. 9:27; John 14:31; 18:11). In a word, His work is the mission of reconstruction of the first kingdom of God in the Eden on the earth, which had been broken as the result of the sin of the first man (Adam). The covenant of grace has been made and executed between the Father and the Son (Berkohf 1971, 282-283).
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Introduction
Ch Growth 