Certainly, Christians have, and are to cultivate, private fellowship with God. But if that is all we have—if we do not worship with God’s people and become actively engaged and involved in the lives of God’s people, simultaneously allowing them to become engaged and involved in our lives—then we are obscuring the image of God that we bear. God’s purpose is not met by a large group of individual Christians. God’s purpose is met by the church—a community of people bearing God’s image, bearing it in fellowship with each other, and worshiping the One who made them. So often, Christians feel an impulse to separate themselves from the church, whether that impulse arises from self-absorption, or from an insistence upon personal preferences, or from the retention of old grudges. But true and full humanity is found not in seclusion, but in communion. True and full worship occurs not as an individual distances himself or herself from the church, but as that person seeks to fold himself or herself ever more into the church.
STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 112.
Condescending Grace & Redemptive Grace
While God’s covenant with Adam is properly called the covenant of works, that covenant nonetheless was suffused with grace. But it was a very specific kind of grace. Theologically, it is important to distinguish between redemptive grace and condescending grace. Redemptive grace is that grace which overcomes demerit and redeems God’s people from their sin. There was no redemptive grace in the covenant of works. Indeed, there was no logical place for redemptive grace since sin and demerit themselves were absent. Condescending grace, on the other hand, operates without regard to demerit and stoops to bestow something that has not been deserved.
STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 108.
Doctrine of Trinity: Supernatural Revelation
The book of Scripture, however, by the supernatural revelation of the Holy Spirit alone, conducts the Christian faith to that profound secret of piety about the one God who is threefold in persons — which cannot be comprehended by reasoning, nor be perceived by senses, nor be expressed in words, nor be taught by experience, nor be explained by example.
Disputation 7. 35 in Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 74.
Should be Adored in Humble Faith
And we think that one cannot state that the essence of God is imparted as something whole to the three divine persons, or that the persons exist in that essence like parts in a whole that they share. For since God’s essence is infinite, and utterly incapable of being parted, it cannot be predicated of the divine persons as a whole is of its parts.
Therefore, as it cannot be explained by human reason, the mode of this mystery should be adored in humble faith, rather than be defined by risky statements.
Disputation 7.13 & 14 in Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 71.
Trinity: Demonstrated from Scripture Alone
This Trinity of divine persons cannot, unlike the unity of the essence of God, be demonstrated from documented proofs in nature, but from what we can learn from Scripture alone.
Disputation 7.33 in Synopsis of a Purer Theology, 74.
Pre-fall Covenant
Even before there was sin to be remedied, God was condescending via covenant in order that He might be the “blessedness and reward” of His covenant people.
STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 22.
Covenant Friendship
The Old Testament is peppered with instances of berith, but God’s covenants with human beings are distinct. In them, God is sovereignly fostering “friendship” with humanity and declaring the parameters within which that “friendship” can flourish. Berith is God making His people.
STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 16.
OT/NT Covenant Terminology
As the Holy Spirit led the authors of the New Testament in their writing, He always chose diathēkē to speak of “covenant,” and He always chose diathēkē to express in Greek what He previously had expressed by berith in Hebrew. What berith meant in the Old Testament, diathēkē means in the New Testament.
STEPHEN G. MYERS, GOD TO US – COVENANT THEOLOGY IN SCRIPTURE, 19.
Covenant Theology
When we understand covenant theology, our knowledge of God, our peace in our relationship with Him, and our grasp of what it means to live as His people grow deeper and richer.
Stephen G. Myers, GOD TO US – Covenant Theology in Scripture, 13.
Fundamental Principle and Rule and Standard
So then this Scripture alone is the fundamental principle by which, and the material from which, every saving truth must be drawn. It is the rule and standard by which every true and also every false teaching about the things of God must be determined (Isa 8:20; Luke 16:29; Acts 17:10, 11). In sum, it is a self-convincing and irrefutable witness and Judge, namely by virtue of its own demonstrated proof by which every controversy which arises over divine matters must be judged (John 5:39, 45).
Synopsis of a Purer Theology, Vol. 1, 23.