Latest / Reformed Thinking / Dead in Sin, Raised by Grace: The Case for Original Sin | Jonathan Edwards

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Dead in Sin, Raised by Grace: The Case for Original Sin | Jonathan Edwards · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reformed thinking, and this is the deep dive.
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  Glad to be back today. We're really stepping into the
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  courtroom. I think we're going to be
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  looking at a piece of reasoning that functions almost like a
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  legal argument. That's a great way to put it.
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  Our mission for this deep dive is to get into the details of
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  Jonathan Edlunds's methodical case for Original Sin and
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  Redemption. And specifically how he
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  constructs this almost airtight case against the theology of his
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  day, which was, you know, a bit more liberal.
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  Right. And it's all personified in his
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  opponent, a man named Doctor T Our source for this is Edwards's
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  big work, The Doctrine of Original Sin, defended.
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  We're pulling from that very heavily today.
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  And to really get what Edwards is doing, you have to sort of
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  put yourself in that 18th century mindset.
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  Dr. T and thinkers like him were pushing back hard against ideas
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  like inherited guilt. They couldn't stomach it.
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  No, their focus was on human autonomy, free will, the idea
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  that you can choose to be virtuous.
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  They would argue that God just wouldn't condemn someone for
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  something they didn't, you know, personally do themselves.
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  So that puts Edwards in a tricky spot.
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  He can't just get up and say, well, the Bible says humanity is
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  corrupt, end of story. That won't persuade anyone on
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  the other side. He has to be much smarter than
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  that. He has to meet Doctor T on his
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  own terms and use Doctor TS own definitions, his own admissions
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  about what salvation is, to build his case.
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  So that's the tactic. That's the whole hinge of the
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  argument. It is, Edwards basically says,
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  OK, you can't deny what the New Testament says about being
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  saved. So let's take your own
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  definitions of the cure, regeneration, repentance,
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  conversion, and let's see what they logically tell us about the
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  disease. OK, so let's frame this up for
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  everyone. The core premise we're looking
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  at is this. If the Bible says that every
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  single person needs a total spiritual heart transplant,
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  that's the cure, then it must be because every single person is
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  born with a fatal heart condition.
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  That's the disease. Right.
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  The nature of the remedy reveals the nature of the problem.
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  So the big question for this deep dive is what does this
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  universal requirement for salvation actually tell us about
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  the original native state of humanity?
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  It tells us that our native state is, from the very first
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  moment we exist, completely and universally corrupted.
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  And Edwards makes this case so tightly that it becomes almost
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  undeniable. All by arguing from the effect
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  back to the cause. All.
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  Right, let's get into Part 1. We have to start where Edwards
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  starts, which is with the absolute non negotiable
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  requirement for salvation, the new birth.
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  This is the foundation of his whole logical structure.
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  And the text for that the foundational 1 is John 3.3.
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  Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus. Except a man be begotten again
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  or born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
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  The first pillar of the argument is the sheer universality of
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  that command. Notice Christ doesn't say except
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  a gentile or except a really wicked person.
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  He says except a man. And who is he talking to?
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  He's talking to Nicodemus, a master of Israel, a respected,
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  high-ranking religious authority.
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  So if a man like that who had reached the pinnacle of
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  religious life in his culture, a man who was, you know, actively
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  trying to live by the law, if even he needed a completely new
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  divine birth. Then the requirement has to
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  apply to every single person born from Adam.
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  It's not about your circumstances or your choices,
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  Edwards is arguing. It's a requirement of your very
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  nature. And that's a direct shot at
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  Doctor T's whole premise, isn't it?
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  The idea that human nature is basically OK, or at least
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  neutral, and just needs a little bit of improvement.
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  It completely undermines it. If our nature was just neutral,
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  why would we need a new birth? You don't need to be born again
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  if the first birth was fine. The very term implies the
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  original was deficient contaminated.
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  OK, now here's where Edwards makes his brilliant strategic
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  move. He zooms in on a concession that
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  Doctor T makes about what this new birth means.
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  Right, Doctor T can't just ignore the language of the New
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  Testament, so he has to define it somehow.
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  He admits that being born again means attaining habits of
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  virtue, religion and true holiness.
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  And that's the admission Edwards was waiting for.
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  It's the whole trap. Doctor T is basically admitting
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  that salvation results in a complete moral overhaul.
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  He even says the new birth brings a person to a divine life
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  and a right use of the natural powers.
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  He also uses some very specific language.
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  He says the new birth is putting on the new nature of right
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  action, a new nature. That's the key phrase.
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  By conceding that Doctor T has handed Edwards the core of his
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  argument, he's acknowledged that this change gives people the
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  real character of true Christians and makes them
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  children of God. So if the new birth creates a
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  nature that is defined by holiness.
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  Then whatever came before it, the first birth must have
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  produced a nature defined by the opposite of holiness.
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  It's simple logic. But Doctor T tried to wiggle out
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  of this, didn't he? I thought he argued that the old
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  man that we have to put off wasn't personal corruption, but
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  something more collective. He did.
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  Elsewhere in his writings, he tries to say the old man just
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  means the, you know, the Pagan world of the Gentiles or a
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  generally immoral lifestyle. He tried to define it as an
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  external state you leave behind. So how does Edwards counter
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  that? He uses Doctor TS own definition
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  of the new man against him. He says, look, if you admit the
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  new man is about personal virtue and internal holiness and
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  individual disposition, which you just did, then the old man
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  that has to be put off can't just be a general category like
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  being a gentile. The two have to correspond.
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  They have to be parallel. If the positive side of the
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  equation is creating a holy individual nature, then the
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  negative side, the part that gets destroyed, has to be the
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  original corrupt individual nature.
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  The need to gain personal holiness proves that what came
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  before it was personal unholiness.
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  It's just a flawless critique of his opponent's own logic.
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  So, moving on from the mandate of the new birth, Edwards then
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  connects it all to the idea of conversion and its ultimate
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  goal, which is receiving an inheritance.
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  He brings in Acts 26.18 here. Yes, that verse is so clear.
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  It outlines Christ's mission through Paul to turn men from
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  darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God then.
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  Why? What's the purpose?
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  The verse tells us that they may receive forgiveness of sin and
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  inheritance among them that are sanctified.
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  Edwards points out that the turning the conversion isn't the
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  end goal, it's the necessary step you have to take in order
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  to receive the inheritance. And he's drawing an equivalence
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  here, right? He's arguing that this
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  inheritance is the same thing as the Kingdom of heaven that Jesus
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  told Nicodemus. You can't see unless you're born
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  again. Exactly.
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  So the universal need for the new birth is the same as the
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  universal need for conversion, and both of them are required
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  for the universal goal of receiving the inheritance.
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  The logic holds together. He then ties this idea of
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  inheritance back to the concept of birth, which makes perfect
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  sense. He uses first Peter 1.3.
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  Begotten again to an inheritance incorruptible.
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  The language is so deliberate. You receive an inheritance
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  because you are a Son, and you become a Son by being begotten
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  again and. What's so interesting is how he
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  pulls Dr. T right back into it, showing how his opponent's own
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  statement support this, even if Doctor T didn't see the full
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  implication, right. Edwards points out the Doctor T
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  himself wrote that good men are said to be the sons of God, as
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  they are the sons of the resurrection to eternal life.
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  Another trapdoor. A huge 1.
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  Edwards basically says OK, if you agree that sonship is tied
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  to a resurrection, to eternal life, and if the Bible defines
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  the new birth as a spiritual resurrection, which we'll get to
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  later, then you have to admit the new birth is absolutely
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  necessary to become a son and get the inheritance.
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  It forces Doctor T into a corner.
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  He has to concede that every human by nature is outside the
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  family of God and needs this radical change to be brought in.
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  The universal need for the inheritance proves the universal
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  need for the change, which proves that our natural state by
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  default is 1 of exclusion. OK, so that sets the stage.
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  Now. In the next part, Edwards shifts
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  his focus. He moves from the mandate for
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  the new birth to the actual components of it.
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  He starts to break down what words like repentance and
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  conversion actually mean, showing that they're all
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  different facets of the same single internal radical change.
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  And this is where his precision as a thinker really comes to the
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  forefront. He's using the original Greek to
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  show just how deep this required change really is.
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  Let's start with repentance. Right.
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  His whole point here hangs on a close reading of the Greek word
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  for repentance, which is metanoia.
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  And he breaks that word down. He does.
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  He points out that it's made of two parts, Meta, which means
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  change and noose, which is the mind, the intellect.
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  So literally it means a change of the mind.
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  Why is that literal definition so critical for him?
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  I think most people hear repentance and they think of
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  feeling sorry for what you did or maybe just stopping bad
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  behavior. That's exactly why it's so
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  important. If repentance just meant feeling
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  sorry for your mistakes, Doctor T could argue that people are
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  perfectly capable of that on their own.
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  Maybe they need a little help from God, but it's basically a
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  human act. But a change of the mind is
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  something else entirely. It's a different category of
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  event. It suggests a complete reversal
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  of the minds fundamental disposition, the operating
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  system of the will. And if that's what's required,
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  well, human autonomy just evaporates.
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  So it's not a change in feeling, but a change in your core
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  cognitive structure. It's not just feeling bad that
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  you were going the wrong way, it's the mind itself realizing
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  that its entire orientation, its default setting, is
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  fundamentally flawed. That is precisely it.
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  And that's why Edwards is so careful to draw a distinction
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  between repentance and conversion, even though they're,
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  you know, completely linked. What's the distinction for him?
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  Repentance is the internal shift.
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  It's the decision, the moment of realization.
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  My entire way of thinking has been a lie.
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  I have to embrace the truth. It creates a new mind.
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  And conversion is what follows from that.
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  It's the action that results from the new way of thinking.
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  Yes, exactly. Repentance is the precondition.
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  This internal rewiring is the state you have to be in to even
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  be capable of saving faith. That's why Mark 1.15 puts them
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  in that order. Repent ye and believe the
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  gospel. The repentance has to come
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  first. You can't truly believe until
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  your mind has been changed. So the logic follows.
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  If repentance is required for everyone to have faith, then the
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  natural, unchanged human mind must be universally hostile to
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  the gospel. It needs a divine reversal of
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  its programming. And building right on top of
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  that internal change of the mind.
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  Edwards then moves to the will. He talks about conversion.
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  Which he calls the turning of the heart.
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  Right, it's the active part, he says.
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  This is the same thing as changing it so that there shall
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  be a new heart or a new spirit. So this isn't just a minor
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  course correction, it's a complete directional overhaul of
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  what a person loves and desires. And He proves how deep this goes
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  by showing that it's demanded even of the most committed
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  people. He uses Matthew 18.3 where
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  Christ tells his own disciples these are men who had already
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  left everything to follow Him, that they must convert and
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  become as little children. That's a powerful piece of
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  evidence. He's not telling this to pagans
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  or tax collectors. He's telling it to his inner
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  circle. And that proves that this need
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  for conversion isn't just for outsiders.
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  It applies to those who are already religious, already
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  trying to do the right thing. So if even the disciples needed
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  to be radically converted to the state of, you know, childlike
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  humility and dependence, then the default adult human state,
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  even at its most moral, must be infected with pride and
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  self-reliance. That's the deduction Edwards
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  makes. The need for conversion, a
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  turning from sin to God, proves that the native mind is
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  naturally turned away from God. If you have to be turned around,
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  it means you were facing the wrong way to begin with.
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  And if the turn has to be that radical, the original error must
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  be just as radical. So this leads us to a really
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  stark conclusion. If you have to be turned, if you
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  have to be changed so completely, it means that the
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  old thing has to be dealt with. It has to be destroyed.
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  This is the next phase of his argument.
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  Before the new life can be created, the old life has to be
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  systematically condemned and executed.
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  There's no renovation project here, it's a demolition.
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  And this is so important because it just dismantles any idea that
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  original sin is just a bit of weakness or, you know, an
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  absence of something good. Edwards is showing the Bible
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  talks about it as a positive, active force of corruption that
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  has to be killed. He begins by defining where this
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  corrupt nature comes from. He calls it the old Man.
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  And this old man, he says, is what is produced by the 1st
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  birth by our natural generation from our parents.
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  It's what we inherit. This is the nature that bears
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  the image of the earthly atom. Right.
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  It's our biological, psychological, and spiritual
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  inheritance from the first man. And Edward shows how the Apostle
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  Paul uses all these different terms to describe how wicked
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  this nature is. The old man is the same thing as
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  the body of sin or the body of the sins of the flesh.
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  So when he says body of sin, he doesn't just mean a list of bad
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  things we've done. No, it's the source, it's the
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  governing principle, the entire carnal nature, which he says is
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  corrupt according to the deceitful lusts.
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  And this native structure, this old man, what is it capable of?
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  According to Edwards, interpreting Paul, it's capable
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  of nothing but wicked deeds. It's a factory that only
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  produces one product, sin, and the New Testament never talks
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  about trying to reform that factory.
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  It talks about its execution. Exactly.
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  The old man isn't retrained, it's associated with crucifixion
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  and destruction, which he pulls from Romans 6.6.
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  That language is so strong. Crucifixion.
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  It's the theological opposite of rehabilitation.
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  Edwards stresses that the old man must die, be buried and
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  never rise more. It proves the entire substance
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  of our native correction is so condemned legally and morally
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  that it must be judicially destroyed.
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  It simply cannot coexist with a new life from God.
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  From there, Edwards gets even more specific.
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  He moves from the general term old man to the internal
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  component that has to be replaced, and he uses the
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  language of the Old Testament prophets.
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  He talks about the heart. He identifies the old heart with
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  the heart of stone from Ezekiel 36.26.
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  And that's such a powerful metaphor, a heart of stone.
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  It is. It's hard, it's unresponsive,
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  it's cold, it's totally impervious to the warmth of the
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  Holy Spirit or the commands of God's law.
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  It's not just a weak heart, it's a dead heart that resists life
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  itself. And how does he connect that Old
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  Testament prophecy to the New Testament requirement for
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  salvation? He just equates the terms.
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  He argues that putting off the old man is the very same thing
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  with the removal of the old heart, and then putting on the
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  new man is receiving the new heart, the heart of flesh.
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  The removal has to happen before the replacement.
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  And the fact that this surgical removal is necessary for
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  everyone proves that the native heart is just non functional.
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  It's incapable of responding to God.
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  If we were born with even a weak but, you know, pliable heart of
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  flesh, why would this radical surgery be the universal
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  prescription? It settles the debate about
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  human ability right there. A person can't, by their own
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  power, turn a stone into flesh. That requires a creative act of
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  God. It proves our spiritual
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  inability is absolute. Edwards then keeps building this
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  case, bringing in the ceremonial metaphors.
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  He talks about spiritual circumcision and spiritual
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  baptism. And he says they are the same
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  thing, just described with different metaphors, but both
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  are about the removal of corruption.
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  So let's take circumcision first.
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  Spiritual circumcision, he says, is the surgery that removes the
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  body of the sins of the flesh, citing Colossians 2 point level
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  1. It means the very substance, the
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  bulk of the sinful nature is cut away.
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  And this act is what makes a person a true Jew, inwardly
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  fulfilling the old promise that God would circumcise the hearts
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  of his people so they could truly love.
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  Him, right? And then, on the other hand, you
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  have spiritual baptism. This metaphor focuses on the
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  cleansing that's needed once the old nature is, you know, dealt
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  with. He defines it as a cleansing
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  from moral filthiness. Yes.
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  And the universal necessity of this washing of regeneration
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  from Titus 3.5 proves that every single person is born in a state
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  of moral pollution. That really is the final nail in
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  the coffin for any idea of native innocence.
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  If every member of the human race needs a divine washing, it
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  can only be because every member is born dirty.
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  The cure proves the contamination.
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  If you need cleansing, you were born polluted.
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  If you need surgery, you were born with a fatal disease.
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  So with that old nature defined, condemned and destroyed, Edwards
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  then turns to describe the positive work of God, the
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  creation of the new existence. Right.
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  And the transition he describes is so radical from death to
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  life, from stone to flesh, that can only be described using
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  language that the Bible reserves for God's most powerful creative
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  acts. This demolition of the old man
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  clears the ground for something entirely new to be built, and
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  Edwards pulls together three main ideas to describe this
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  resurrection, creation and the new spirit.
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  Let's start with resurrection. This is a fascinating connection
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  he makes. He shows that the Bible's
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  language of being begotten or born is actually applied to
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  Christ's own resurrection. Where does he get that from?
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  From Psalm 2.7 Thou art my son this day, as I begotten thee.
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  He points out that the New Testament in Acts 13.33
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  specifically applies that verse to the moment Christ rose from
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  the dead. So in the Bible's way of
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  thinking, resurrection is a kind of birth.
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  It's being born into a new, higher form of existence.
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  Exactly. And This is why Christ is called
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  the first born from the dead in Colossians and the first
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  begotten of the dead in Revelation.
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  He is the prototype, the first of a new humanity.
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  And that link is absolutely central to his point.
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  It is because it means that conversion in a believer is
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  nothing less than a spiritual resurrection.
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  We are risen with Christ. We are begotten and born with
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  Him. We go from being described as
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  dead and sins to walking in newness of life.
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  That terminology just completely destroys any idea that
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  conversion is just, you know, turning over a new leaf for
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  improving your habits. You can't improve something
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  that's dead. Edward's point is that our state
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  before conversion isn't just flawed or sick, it is
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  spiritually, biologically deceased.
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  It requires a divine act of resurrection to bring it to
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  life. The resurrection metaphor then
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  leads him straight into the idea of a new creation.
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  Right. He argues that all these terms
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  of regeneration, resurrection, conversion are all synonymous
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  with being created anew, with becoming a new creature that
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  uses the word equal, pollent. Let's just clarify that for a
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  moment. By equal pollent, he just means
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  that even though the words are different, birth, resurrection,
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  creation, they all carry the same theological weight.
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  They all point to the same unified act of God.
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  Yes, it's his way of showing the systematic consistency of the
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  Bible and defining this change as a work of creation is
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  fundamental to his whole case. He is being very explicit here.
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  This is not human moral improvement with a little help
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  from grace. No, this is a radical
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  ontological change. It requires the same mighty
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  power of God that was used in the original creation of the
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  universe. The power isn't persuasion, it's
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  not motivation. It's creative life giving power,
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  and it's exerted a second time to give the person a new
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  existence. And the character of this new
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  man proves its divine origin. He does.
• 19:16
  The new man he shows from Ephesians and Colossians is
• 19:19
  created after God in righteousness and true holiness.
• 19:23
  It is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created
• 19:26
  him. So the quality of this new
• 19:27
  nature is divine. It has righteousness and
• 19:30
  holiness, which stands in, you know, stark contrast to the old
• 19:34
  man who was corrupt with deceitful lusts.
• 19:37
  The excellence of the new creation reveals the ruin of the
• 19:40
  old. One and then finally, to bring
• 19:42
  it all together, Edwards circles back to the Old Testament
• 19:45
  prophets. He goes back to the very words
• 19:47
  that Jesus expected Nicodemus to already know.
• 19:50
  Right, Jesus command to be born again refers back to Ezekiel's
• 19:54
  prophecy. A new heart also will I give
• 19:57
  you, and a new spirit will I put within you.
• 20:00
  And Edwards uses this to show the amazing continuity of God's
• 20:03
  plan and to synthesize all this vocabulary.
• 20:06
  He shows that this new spirit isn't some separate idea, but
• 20:09
  it's synonymous with almost everything else we've just
• 20:12
  talked about. So the new spirit is the same as
• 20:14
  the new mind of repentance. And the new creature of the new
• 20:16
  creation and the inward man that you put on all of these terms
• 20:20
  just confirm that the work of salvation targets the very core,
• 20:23
  the disposition, the vital principle of the soul.
• 20:26
  So whether the Bible talks about it as birth or rising from the
• 20:29
  dead or getting a new spirit, the theological reality is the
• 20:32
  same. The person must be totally
• 20:34
  transformed from a state of spiritual death and stoniness
• 20:38
  into a living principle of righteousness.
• 20:40
  And now that he has established the complete, comprehensive and
• 20:45
  non negotiable nature of the cure, Edwards brings it all
• 20:48
  home. He presents his final,
• 20:51
  inescapable deduction to his opponent.
• 20:53
  This is really the climax of the whole argument, the proof of
• 20:56
  original sin derived not from just quoting a few verses, but
• 21:00
  from the logical necessity of how redemption is applied.
• 21:02
  You can really feel the weight of his systematic approach here.
• 21:06
  His medical deduction, as we call it.
• 21:08
  And it's just devastatingly simple, since the Bible mandates
• 21:11
  a remedy, this radical remedy that involves execution,
• 21:14
  resurrection, and recreation for every single member of Adam's
• 21:17
  race. Then the natural native state of
• 21:19
  every single member must be universally and utterly
• 21:22
  defective. Let's just walk through it one
• 21:24
  more time, piece by piece, to see the full force of it.
• 21:27
  This is where he really makes Doctor T look at the bill for
• 21:29
  salvation and admit just how fatal the disease is.
• 21:33
  OK, lay it out for. Us first the universal need for
• 21:36
  repentance, defined as that divine change of the mind.
• 21:40
  The metanoia proves that our native state isn't neutral.
• 21:44
  It is fundamentally turned away from God in its intellect and
• 21:47
  its will. The mind is hostile and needs a
• 21:50
  complete reversal. Second.
• 21:52
  Second. The universal need for spiritual
• 21:54
  washing, baptism, the washing of regeneration, proves that our
• 21:58
  native state is 1 of comprehensive moral pollution.
• 22:01
  We are born soiled, not as clean slates. 3rd And this is a big
• 22:06
  one. 3rd The universal need for a spiritual resurrection proves
• 22:10
  that our native state is not just sick or wink, it is
• 22:13
  spiritually dead. The Bible says we are dead in
• 22:16
  sins. You have to be raised because
• 22:18
  you are totally incapable of spiritual life on your own. 4th
• 22:21
  The heart. The need for a new heart, a
• 22:23
  heart of flesh, proves that we are all born with a heart of
• 22:26
  stone that must be surgically removed because it cannot
• 22:29
  respond to God. And finally, the big picture.
• 22:31
  Finally, the universal need for a new creation for putting off
• 22:34
  the old man proves that our first birth is not redeemable.
• 22:38
  It's totally corrupt. It produces a body of sin that
• 22:41
  has to be destroyed, crucified and condemned to never to rise
• 22:45
  again. So when you put it all together,
• 22:47
  if the required procedure for every human being is a spiritual
• 22:51
  execution followed by a total heart and mind transplant and
• 22:54
  concluded by a reservation from the dead.
• 22:57
  Then the only possible diagnosis for the condition we're born in
• 23:00
  is universal, total and fatal corruption.
• 23:03
  It proves the doctrine of original sin from the very terms
• 23:05
  of salvation itself. So Edwards's point is that if
• 23:08
  Doctor T accepts the need for the cure, which as a Christian
• 23:12
  he has to, then he has already implicitly accepted the reality
• 23:16
  of the disease. Exactly.
• 23:17
  You can't praise the brilliance of the rescue mission while
• 23:19
  denying the depth of the disaster that made it necessary.
• 23:22
  Edwards then finishes by just reinforcing this grand contrast
• 23:26
  that defines the two possible states for humanity.
• 23:29
  He summarizes the sources of life and death.
• 23:31
  On one side you have Adam, the first man.
• 23:34
  He's the source of the first birth and the entire old,
• 23:37
  corrupt and condemned nature. And on the other side.
• 23:39
  You have Christ, the second man. He is the head of the new
• 23:43
  creation, the first to be begotten from the dead, and He's
• 23:46
  the source of the new birth and the new righteous nature.
• 23:49
  So the entire human race is divided between these two heads.
• 23:53
  The old man comes from Adam by natural generation.
• 23:57
  And the new man comes from Christ by spiritual
• 23:59
  regeneration. This isn't arbitrary, it's the
• 24:02
  core structure of redemption. So Edwards is exhaustive
• 24:06
  comparative use of scripture provides this.
• 24:08
  You know clear and abundant evidence that our native state
• 24:11
  is a body of sin it has to be destroyed and replaced by divine
• 24:16
  creative power. The doctrine of original sin
• 24:19
  becomes undeniable the. Application of redemption is
• 24:22
  perfectly tailored to the state of ruin that comes from the
• 24:24
  first birth. You simply cannot separate the
• 24:27
  condemnation of the old nature from the necessity of the new
• 24:30
  creation. They stand or they fall
• 24:31
  together. The necessity of the new birth
• 24:34
  is the proof of original sin. And that really brings us to the
• 24:38
  close of this deep dive into Edwards's methodical logic.
• 24:41
  It's it's just remarkable how he takes all these different
• 24:45
  metaphors from Scripture, birth, washing, death, creation, and
• 24:51
  synthesizes them to show they all describe one single unified,
• 24:55
  necessary act of God that's required for every single
• 24:58
  person. It really forces you to
• 25:00
  appreciate that God's plan is so comprehensive.
• 25:03
  He doesn't just, you know, forgive our past mistakes.
• 25:06
  He replaces the entire inherent condemned structure of our
• 25:09
  existence with a new one created by the Holy.
• 25:11
  Spirit OK, so here's a final thought for you to consider, and
• 25:14
  it builds on the context of Jesus and Nicodemus.
• 25:17
  We saw how Jesus rebuked him, saying, art thou a master of
• 25:20
  Israel and knowest not these things?
• 25:22
  Edwards points out that this whole doctrine of the new heart
• 25:24
  was plainly taught in the Old Testament.
• 25:26
  He cites Ezekiel, but also the requirement for the circumcision
• 25:30
  of the heart all the way back in Deuteronomy 30.6.
• 25:33
  Which means the need for a total internal renovation wasn't some
• 25:36
  new idea that showed up in the New Covenant.
• 25:38
  It was anticipated and required by the Old Covenant as well.
• 25:41
  So think about this. If the necessity of this total
• 25:45
  internal renovation, this replacement of the stone heart,
• 25:49
  was a doctrine so plainly revealed and required in the Old
• 25:52
  Testament, what other critical truths about the Christian
• 25:55
  spiritual life do we sometimes treat as new inventions of the
• 25:58
  New Testament when in fact their roots and their necessity were
• 26:02
  clearly revealed in the covenant God made with Israel, proving
• 26:05
  the seamless continuity of God's redemptive plan across all of
• 26:09
  time? That's a powerful prompt, a
• 26:11
  great place to end reflecting on the coherence of God's Word.
• 26:13
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive on reformed
• 26:16
  thinking. Until next time.