However, the covenant of grace must be traced back to Paradise not only, as we did a moment ago, but to eternity itself.  It is rooted in God.  Our God is the Covenant God, not only because he established a covenant with us but especially because there exists between the persons of the Trinity an eternal, voluntarily assumed relation of love and friendship, each working for the glory and the honor of the others, John 14:13; 16:14; 17:4, 5.  Men have supposed that when we thus speak of God as the Covenant God we are merely employing figurative language, and ascribing to God that which in reality exists only among men.  Quite the opposite is true, however.  God’s covenant is the real, the original covenant, while covenants among men are merely dim shadows and faint reflections of this great original.  The covenant existing between the persons of the Trinity is the eternal foundation of all covenants.

Source: Wedgeworth on Xanga