The Three Covenants

"First, God established a Covenant of Works with Adam as federal head of mankind. In this covenant, eternal life was acquired by perfect obedience to God's commands. After the fall God established the Covenant of Grace as 'that particular form of the administration of salvation in which God, in Christ, gives himself as Mediator to the sinner who, in the way of the covenant, becomes the possession of God.' The foundation of the Covenant of Grace is the Covenant of Redemption or the Pactum Salutis, which is 'that arrangement in God's triune being, whereby the Father ordained the Son to be Mediator and demanded the fulfillment of all righteousness, with the promise of glory; and the Son freely gave himself thereto; while the Holy Spirit took on himself, to apply the work of salvation according to the will of the Father and the Son.'" - David Kranendonk & J.J. van der Schuit (Vital Balance, FRP, 2006).