Riddlebarger continues in his book, "What God demanded of us under the law, he freely gave us in the gospel. What God demanded of humanity under the covenant of works, he gave us in Jesus Christ, the Mediator of the covenant of graces."
Two covenants run throughout Scripture, one of works and one of grace. There is unity in the gospel and in God's awesome plan of redemption. Interestingly, and this may not be a direct cause and effect, but two christian friends this week, who both suffer severely from a works oriented worldview, expressed an wrong understanding of the Old Testament being about the Law and the New Testament being about Grace. One even admitted to struggling to love the God of the Old Testament yet was easily attracted to Jesus in the New.
They miss that since man's initial rebellion was immediately followed by God's promise of grace (Ge 3.15) and that from that point forward humanity awaited our coming redeemer (Gal 4.4). As Riddlebarger puts it (1 Tim 2.5), "the Bible does not have two divergent testaments bound under one cover. Rather, the Bible is one book with one ultimate author and one central character who appears in two testaments, the old of promise, the new of fulfillment." Eschatology must be Christ centered.
Riddlebarger writes, "The story of redemption is nothing less than the story of Jesus Christ and his kingdom, which is manifest in the covenant of works, the covenant of grace, and finally the new creation. God's kingdom is the consummate manifestation of his covenant with his elect, originally made with Jesus Crist before the foundation of the world."
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