God's Covenants With Men: August 2008
Table of Contents
God’s Covenants
Hail, sovereign love, which first
began
That scheme to rescue fallen man!
Hail, matchless, free, eternal grace,
Which gave my soul a hiding place.
Against the God who built the sky
I fought, with hands uplifted high;
Despised the mention of His grace,
Too proud to seek a hiding place.
And thus the eternal counsels ran,
“Almighty love, arrest that man!”
I felt the arrows of distress,
And found I had no hiding place.
Indignant Justice stood in view;
To Sinai’s fiery mount I flew;
But Justice cried with frowning face,
“This mountain is no hiding place!”
On Jesus, God’s just vengeance fell,
Which would have sunk a world to
hell;
He bore it for a sinful race,
And thus became their hiding place.
A few more rolling suns at most,
Shall land me on fair Canaan’s coast,
Where I shall sing the song of grace,
And see my glorious Hiding Place.
J. Brewer
How Covenants Are Ratified
In Scripture we find covenants among men with terms which are mutually considered and agreed to and then ratified by an oath or some token before witnesses. God’s covenants with man on earth are of a different character. Their conditions are established by God under which man is to live with Him. The terms of relationship may be either conditional or unconditional as God chooses. The primary covenants that God has made and will make with man are called the “old” and the “new” covenant. The old was made at Sinai with Israel; its terms were conditional — if they kept the law they would be blessed; if they broke it they would be cursed. The Lord Jesus, by the shedding of His blood in death, laid the foundation of a “new” covenant to be made with Israel in a still-future millennial day. The gospel is not a covenant, but the revelation of the salvation of God by grace, and those who receive it become children in God’s family and members of Christ’s body. Such enjoy all the essential privileges of the new covenant, its foundation being of God, but they are in a family relationship with God and in a body relationship with Christ — not in a covenant relationship.
The Ministry of the New Covenant
In this period of God’s grace, He has not put us under covenant, yet we get new-covenant blessing. Speaking generally, any terms by which God sets man in relations of a definite character with Himself may be called a covenant. Scripture speaks especially of the “everlasting” covenant, that of the bruising of the woman’s seed and the final overthrow of the power of evil, of the “old,” which was a covenant of works, and of the “new,” which is purely of grace and thus unconditional. This last is to be made “with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put My laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people, and they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:8-13). But when we turn to Hebrews 10:16-17, we find this quotation from Jeremiah 31 summarized in these words: “I will put My laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more,” and this is distinctly constituted a part of the blessing of Christian believers, so that while the new covenant is not made with us, but with Israel, we are participants in the blessings of this new covenant.
The Everlasting Covenant
Now, the Lord spoke of the new covenant as in His blood, and the Apostle, in Hebrews 13, speaks of “the blood of the everlasting covenant,” which is clearly the precious blood of Christ. The only basis of all unconditional blessing is thus exhibited in connection with these two covenants. God’s original promise of blessing to man through the bruised Seed of the woman and the specific blessing which shall by-and-by be enjoyed by Israel and Judah are alike unconditional, because they are both founded on the eternal efficacy of that blood concerning which the Lord said, “This is My blood of the new [covenant] which is shed for many.” Thus, whenever we partake of the cup, it is the pledge of these new covenant blessings, and the blood which it symbolizes is the blood of that new covenant, that blood which is the basis of God’s righteousness in grace now and in glory hereafter.
The Blessings of the Covenant
Since covenant and conditions go along together and conditions imply competency to fulfill conditions, we clearly see that, as believers in Christ, we are not judicially set under any kind of covenant or under conditions of a covenant character. On the other hand, we happily observe that we have the blessings which the new covenant, when established, will bring to Israel, every one of them already ours, received from Christ in glory! The Apostle could fittingly speak of himself as an able minister of the new covenant, for while it is not yet established, it is by anticipation (for all things are ours) ministered to the church of God. This is really the character which the gospel takes in 2 Corinthians 4. Paul ministers the unconditional blessing of the new covenant to the Gentiles, which glad tidings, if hid, were hid where Satan had cast a veil of moral blindness over his votaries. Wherever they were received, it was because God had shone into hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Referring to 2 Corinthians 3, he speaks of those to whom he wrote as Christ’s epistle ministered by the Apostle, the writing of the Spirit of the living God, not, as of old, upon stone tables and ordained by angels, but on the fleshy tablets of their hearts. And the Apostle had confidence before God about this, for, disclaiming personal competency for such service, he avows his competency to be of God, who had made him a competent minister of the new covenant, not of letter, but of spirit. Then rising higher, with one inspired touch he marks the contrast between the two things; the letter condemns, but the Spirit gives life — thus bringing forward the Spirit of God objectively, to whom he returns in verse 17, after the digression of verses 7-16, which form a parenthesis, and at which we will now look for a little.
The Two Ministries
We have here what constitutes the ministry of the new covenant as contrasted with the old. The latter, it is admitted, “began with glory” (vs. 7 JND), for it began when Moses’ face shone so brightly that the children of Israel could not bear to look upon it. But this was after he had smashed the first tables in holy indignation and received the second in his character as mediator, receiving these written with the finger of God on the ground of redemption foreseen. Thus, when he came down this time among the people, he carried the law in his arms and the grace in his face. (Compare 2 Corinthians 4:6.) The Apostle then is speaking in contrast. He does not here say that the old covenant was glorious, but that the glory it was introduced with was merely temporary, and even that was too much for Israel. Moreover, the flash of glory it began with did not alter the fact that it was a ministry of death. The ministry of the new was that of a life-giving Spirit, and it subsists in glory, having a glory that shall never be done away. Another contrast is between the ministry of condemnation, which had a measure of glory, as we have seen, and the ministry of righteousness which abounds in glory. Thus, the former covenant ministered condemnation and death, but God glorified it in grace (on account of mediatorship, and in connection with the person of the mediator) with a measure of temporary glory accompanied with a veil. But for us the new covenant is a ministration of the Spirit. It is crowned with surpassing glory and is without a veil either upon our hearts or upon the face of Christ who is our Mediator — the true Moses gone into the presence of the Lord. For, be it remarked, when Moses “went in before the Lord to speak with Him, he took the veil off until he came out” (Ex. 34:34), typical there of Christ surely, but also of our own blessed place and portion now in Him, for there is no veil upon our hearts (alas! there is upon Israel’s), and there is no veil upon our faces either, when we go in before the Lord. So, also, when Israel shall turn to the Lord, there will be no longer any veil — they will find it is taken away.
Liberty and Transformation
There the parenthesis ends, and two things follow connected with verse 6 and which form a corollary to our subject, namely, first, the liberty of the Spirit which His presence will certainly secure and, second, transformation, unknown under the old covenant. There could be no transformation in the absence of a transforming object, and that object could only be a glorified Christ. Beholding Him upon whose face is no veil, His image is produced in us, such transformation from glory to glory being by the Lord the Spirit.
This then constitutes Paul’s ministry of the new covenant, its present ministration to the church before it is yet made. In the higher character it has to us, it evidently reaches to the reproduction of a glorified Christ in His saints on the earth, that is to say, not our standing before God in glory, but the direct effect of the glory upon our state here.
May the fruit of this wonderful ministry be more and more seen in us, to His present and eternal praise!
W. Rickards, adapted
The Everlasting Covenant
The everlasting covenant has a different character from the new covenant. There are many covenants in Scripture, but the old and new are distinct, and with Israel only.
Bible Treasury, 7:258
The Two Covenants
Hebrews 8 treats of the two covenants. You may look at them as the patriarchal and the legal. The patriarchal covenant was all on the ground of promise. There were not two parties to it. When we get under law, the very form and phase of the covenant is changed. The Israelites had to act their part in the covenant just as much as God. It is no longer a covenant of promise but of works. It is no longer one undertaking to do and the other bowing the head in the dependence of faith, but one undertaking to do this, and the other undertaking to do that; that is the legal covenant. Then in the prophets we get the new covenant, which falls back on the patriarchal covenant and shows it to be simple promise. That is what the New Testament takes up and calls “the new covenant.” Hebrews 8 shows that the Lord found fault with the old covenant, and why? Because it made Him a receiver. He rests in the new covenant, because it puts Him in the place of Giver and the sinner in the place of receiver. He takes delight in it, because He has found it “more blessed to give than to receive.” Of that style of thing, Paul declares himself the minister. It is not prophetically fulfilled yet, but it will be, with the house of Israel and Judah in the day of their repentance. Paul is the minister of that which makes God a Giver and me a receiver. So there is an element in both these things that is prophetic. We must wait for His millennial manifestation and wait for the accomplishment of the new covenant in the day of Israel’s repentance.
Cast Out the Bondwoman
Isaac was the son of the free woman, even of Sarah, according to the promise. Galatians 4 lets us know that God allowed the circumstances of these two sons in order to give us a picture of the two covenants. Ishmael was the son of a bondslave and represents Israel under the law, while Isaac came in as the son of the free woman, without knowing bondage, and represents those under grace and promise. Christendom has sought to mix law and grace, but “what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son: for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman” (Gal. 4:30). The two principles cannot mix.
The Covenant in the Land
of Moab
“These are the words of the covenant which the Lord commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, beside the covenant which He made with them in Horeb” (Deut. 29:1).
Let the reader note, particularly, these words. They speak of two covenants, one at Horeb and one in Moab, and the latter is far from being a mere repetition of the former. It is as distinct from it as any two things can be. Of this we shall have the fullest and clearest evidence. It is true, the Greek title of the book Deuteronomy, signifying the law a second time, might seem to give rise to the idea of its being a mere recapitulation of what has gone before, but we may rest assured it is not so. The book has its own specific place. Its scope and object are as distinct as possible. The grand lesson, which it inculcates from first to last, is obedience, and that, too, not in the mere letter, but in the spirit of love and fear —an obedience grounded upon a known and enjoyed relationship —an obedience quickened by the sense of moral obligations of the weightiest and most influential character.
The Covenants Are Perfectly Distinct
Under the law, God, as it were, stood still to see what man could do, but in the gospel, God is seen acting, and as for man, he has but to “stand still and see the salvation of God.” This being so, the inspired Apostle does not hesitate to say to the Galatians, “Christ is become of no effect unto you; whosoever of you are justified by the law, ye are fallen from grace.” If man has anything to do in the matter, God is shut out, and if God is shut out, there can be no salvation, for it is impossible that man can work out a salvation by that which proves him a lost creature, and then if it be a question of grace, it must be all grace. It cannot be half grace, half law. The two covenants are perfectly distinct. It cannot be half Sarah and half Hagar. It must be either the one or the other. If it be Hagar, God has nothing to do with it, and if it be Sarah, man has nothing to do with it. Thus it stands throughout. The law addresses man, tests him, sees what he is really worth, proves him a ruin, and puts him under the curse, and not only puts him under it, but keeps him there, so long as he is occupied with it — so long as he is alive. “The law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth,” but when he is dead, its dominion necessarily ceases, so far as he is concerned, though it still remains in full force to curse every living man.
The gospel, on the contrary, assuming man to be lost, ruined and dead, reveals God as He is — the Saviour of the lost — the Pardoner of the guilty — the Quickener of the dead. It reveals Him, not as exacting anything from man, but as exhibiting His own independent grace in redemption. This makes a material difference and will account for the extraordinary strength of the language employed in the Epistle to the Galatians: “I marvel.” “Who hath bewitched you?” “I am afraid of you.” “I stand in doubt of you.” “I would they were even cut off which trouble you.” This is the language of the Holy Spirit, who knows the value of a full Christ, and a full salvation, and who also knows how essential the knowledge of both is to a lost sinner. We have no such language as this in any other epistle, not even in that to the Corinthians, although there were some of the grossest disorders to be corrected among them. All human failure and error can be corrected by bringing in God’s grace, but the Galatians, like Abraham in this chapter, were going away from God and returning to the flesh. What remedy could be devised for this? How can you correct an error which consists in departing from the only remedy? To fall from grace is to get back under the law, from which nothing can ever be reaped but “the curse.” May the Lord establish our hearts in His own most excellent grace.
C. H. Mackintosh, adapted
How Covenants Are Ratified
The new covenant is founded and ratified in the blood of Christ. “This is My blood of the new testament” (more accurately, “the new covenant”), said our Lord to His disciples as He gave to them the passover cup (Matt. 26:28), and we read also in Hebrews of “the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Heb. 13:20). The force of these expressions will be best understood by a reference once again to the old covenant. Moses, when he had sprinkled the blood upon the people, said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words” (Ex. 24:6-8; Heb. 9:18-20). God thus confirmed His covenant with Israel at Sinai by blood — the blood of animals — but He has founded and made the new covenant immutably secure in the blood of Christ. By confirming the new covenant with the blood of Christ, God has declared not only its everlasting and unchangeable character, but also the priceless nature of the blessings which He has thereby secured to His people. How stable a foundation, moreover, God has thus laid for the confidence of His saints! In the Old Testament He often encouraged them to rest in the certainty of His word and promise, and in writing to the Hebrews the Apostle speaks of the two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie — His oath and His promise — which afforded strong consolation to them who had fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them. Even beyond these certainties He has sealed His truth, as it were, by the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son.
It is in the fulfillment of this new covenant, so ratified, that Israel’s hopes of future blessing rest (Heb. 8:6-13). At Sinai they rashly entered into the engagement of obedience to procure the blessings promised, but they failed and lost everything. God, acting in grace in pursuance of His purposes and in virtue of the blood of Christ, will yet bring them into the enjoyment of all that He has promised. The new covenant is made, not with believers now, but with Israel, but all its spiritual blessings are ministered to us through the Spirit. Hence, the Apostle speaks of himself and his fellow-laborers as being “able ministers of the new covenant” (2 Cor. 4:6). We enjoy these blessings now, blessings of a higher character than those promised to Israel, but in a future day God will cause them to enjoy every blessing specified in His Word. Both we and they alike will owe everything to the precious blood of Christ.
The Resurrection of Christ
In this connection, it should be pointed out that the resurrection of Christ Himself, as the Great Shepherd of the sheep, is through the blood of the everlasting covenant (Heb. 13:20). This indeed was God’s public testimony to its value — His declaration that the blood shed in the death of Christ had made a full, adequate and everlasting atonement for sin. Therefore, He brought again from the dead the Mediator of the “better covenant,” that all its objectives might be accomplished. Hence it is that as the Great Shepherd He will seek out and gather together the sheep from every land, in accordance with His own words to the Jews: “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and there shall be one flock [not fold], and one Shepherd” (John 10:16). Thus the covenant, sealed by His blood, has been certified in His resurrection, the value of the blood securing all, and, finally, its entire and complete accomplishment.
E. Dennett
Covenants and Death
The old covenant was broken, and because it was broken death came in, but the new covenant is founded upon death.
The new covenant is not made with anyone; it is a law written in the heart; when it is established, a “minister” of it will not be wanted. We get the benefit of it before it is made. We get the good of the new covenant, but we get things which are far beyond it.
J. N. Darby
The New Covenant and Blood
The new covenant is founded on the blood here drunk in figure: “This cup is the new testament [covenant] in My blood” (Luke 22:20). The old was done away. Blood was required to establish the new. At the same time the covenant itself was not established, but everything was done on God’s part. The blood was not shed to give force to a covenant of judgment like the first; it was shed for those who received Jesus, while waiting for the time when the covenant itself should be established with Israel in grace.
J. N. Darby
Are We Under the New Covenant? or Any Covenant?
In Galatians 3:15-29 we have the relationship between law and promise discussed, showing how they stand one to the other. Unconditional promise was made of God to Abraham 430 years before the law, and law then coming in with its conditions could not set aside the unconditional promises. Moreover, in the law there were two parties and a mediator; in promise there was only one — God Himself, acting from Himself, and requiring no conditional terms. One was a contract; the other was grace. God ratified the previously-given promises of Genesis 12-25 by His oath, to which no conditions were attached. “This I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul” (Gal. 3:17). The law was added “because of transgressions” but did not disannul the previous purpose of God, while testing man.
There are really only two covenants in Scripture — the old covenant and the new. Still the word covenant is used in several places in connection with the Lord, when it is only the enunciation of certain relationships into which He was pleased to enter with man or the creature, or to be approached by him, but without conditions. See Genesis 9:8-17.
In Hebrews 89, He shows the setting aside of the old covenant and the introduction of a second, yet to be made with Judah and Israel. Meanwhile, a Mediator is introduced previous to the time when Israel and Judah are again in the land. This Mediator has shed the blood necessary for its establishment, but has not yet established the covenant — the party concerned not yet being under this dealing of God, that is, Israel and Judah. If Jeremiah 31:31-40 be read, where the new covenant is enunciated, it will be seen that no mediator is named. Christ, having been rejected when He came to fulfill the promises made to the fathers, sheds His blood and goes on high, and all direct dealings with Israel are suspended, though all necessary for its ultimate establishment has been accomplished. In Matthew 26:28, He says, “This is My blood of the new testament [covenant]”; not, This is the new covenant, but “the blood” of it. The covenant itself has not yet been established.
Hence in Hebrews, while the writer shows the passing away of the old and introduction of the new, he never shows its application as a present thing. Two blessings of the new covenant which we get, as Christians, are forgiveness of sins and direct teaching from God. Christians are not under a covenant in any wise. They have to do with the Mediator of it while hidden in the heavens before He renews His relationship with Judah and Israel, to whom alone the covenant pertains. Hence too in Hebrews 9:15, he says, “For this cause He is the mediator of the new [covenant], that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament [covenant], they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” He does not say, The establishment of the new covenant, but the “eternal inheritance,” as it has to do with the Mediator Himself whose blood had been shed.
It is striking the way the writer avoids the application of the new covenant to Christians while often speaking of it with reference to Judah and Israel, and at the same time appropriating to Christians the two blessings which flow from it to them.
Adapted from
Words of Truth, 4:41
Covenants of Destruction
In other articles in this issue we have been speaking about covenants made by God with His people on earth — covenants that were made with them for His glory and their blessing. However, men have made and will continue to make covenants that involve death and destruction. Let us look at two of these covenants that have particular relevance in the present day, in view of the prophecies in God’s Word concerning Israel.
The Hamas Covenant
Nearly twenty years ago, on August 18, 1988, the Islamic Resistance Movement declared the so-called “Hamas covenant” as a statement of its aims and methods concerning future activities. Formed by radical and extremist Muslims, the movement vows to take over the entire land of Palestine and place it under Muslim control. It is interesting that they not only view themselves as children of Abraham, but also bring in the name of Moses to this end. The covenant says, “If Moses comes and throws his staff, both witch and magic are annulled,” no doubt referring to the power they hope to have over their enemies.
The avowed aim of this movement is also to annihilate Israel, as evidenced by the following words:
“Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all our sincere efforts. . . . The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realized. The Islamic Resistance Movement . . . strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.”
There is no doubt in this covenant of the ways and means that are advocated to attain this objective. Another quotation says:
“The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him.”
“Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. . . . The Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realizing the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. . . . There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad.”
“Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem.”
In view of these expressions, and many others like them, it is easy to see why all the efforts of world leaders to seek peace in the Middle East are doomed to failure. The Hamas covenant, by its very words, becomes binding on every Muslim, whether man or woman, young or old, and of any nationality. In spite of these aggressive statements, the covenant claims that:
“Under the wing of Islam, it is possible for the followers of the three religions — Islam, Christianity and Judaism — to exist in peace and quiet with each other. Peace and quiet would not be possible except under the wing of Islam. . . . Islam confers upon everyone his legitimate rights.”
This is indeed a strange claim by those whose recent history has been characterized by vicious bloodshed and terrorism of every description. The Koran gives full license to Muslims to kill those who do not submit, and conversion from Islam to another religion is also a crime punishable by death. While some Muslims continue to insist that theirs is a peaceful religion, there is peace only if there is total submission to its demands.
During the past twenty years, the Hamas group, both on its own and in association with other Islamic organizations such as the Palestinian Liberation Organization, has been responsible for countless atrocities and terrorism, both in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. By their own admission, they will never rest until all Jews are destroyed and Palestine is firmly under their control.
A Covenant With Death
In view of all this, Israel is determined to hold its own and to defend itself against such an agenda. To this end they have enlarged their borders during the past forty years, armed themselves with the best of weapons, and made alliances with other nations for protection. For the time being this has worked reasonably well, for unlike most Arab nations, Israel is prosperous and has a strong economy. They have doubtless suffered from the attacks of terrorists and suicide bombers, but their ability to retaliate with sophisticated weapons has kept the somewhat disorganized Arab world at bay. We know from Scripture that this will not continue indefinitely.
In a coming day, after the church is called home, God will begin to work in this world in judgment. At that time Israel will consider itself secure from the invasion of the king of the north (the latter-day Assyrian) because of their covenant with the Roman beast. Israel’s attitude will be one of scorn, but the Lord calls that covenant with the West “a covenant with death.”
“Wherefore hear the word of the Lord, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves” (Isa. 28:14-15).
In the middle of the last prophetic week, we know that the western powers (the confederacy under the Roman beast) will break its covenant with Israel, leaving them open to attack. We read in Daniel that “he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease” (Dan. 9:27). Israel will be forsaken by those on whom they have relied, for God wants them to rely on Him, not on human help. This is confirmed by what we read in Isaiah, for the Lord says, “Your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it” (Isa. 28:18). During that time their worst fears will be realized, and they will not be able to escape the “overflowing scourge.”
Future Blessing
However, the Lord has His eye on that nation and upon that land. He will not allow them to be devastated beyond what is necessary to work repentance in their hearts. They must learn to trust the Lord and not put confidence in man. When they have been reduced to total desolation, both by the king of the north and by direct judgment by the Lord, He will appear on their behalf. When a second attack is planned, the Lord will “roar out of Zion” (Joel 3:16) and destroy their enemies. Islam claims the land of Palestine for its own and wants dominion over it, but the Lord speaks of “My people and . . . My heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted My land” (Joel 3:2). The Lord will bring in millennial blessing and establish Israel again in their land, not in their own strength and in unbelief, but on the ground of what Christ has done.
Then only will there be real peace and real blessing. The Islamic Resistance Movement, in their covenant, calls Palestine “the navel of the globe and the crossroad of the continents.” No doubt this is true, and the eyes of the whole world are now focused on that small area. But God will make it His center in a coming day, when He establishes Israel again. More than this, He will set His rightful King “upon My holy hill of Zion” (Psa. 2:6). There cannot be real blessing and peace in this world until the Lord Jesus is given His place as King.
While we, as the church, do not look for earthly blessings, how good it is to be among those who “love His appearing” (2 Tim. 4:8)!
W. J. Prost
Two Mountains
In Hebrews 12 two mountains are spoken of, one that speaks of law and one that speaks of grace. It is an important question for our souls, to which one of these mounts we are brought, for in connection with one, we have to do with God as making demands upon us, while in connection with the other, we have to do with God as acting in grace. “Ye have not come to [the mount] that might be touched and was all on fire, and to obscurity, and darkness, and tempest, and trumpet’s sound, and voice of words; which they that heard, excusing themselves, declined the word being addressed to them anymore: (for they were not able to bear what was enjoined: And if a beast should touch the mountain, it shall be stoned; and, so fearful was the sight, Moses said, I am exceedingly afraid and full of trembling;) but ye have come to mount Zion; and to the city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem; and to myriads of angels, the universal gathering; and to the assembly of the firstborn who are registered in heaven; and to God, judge of all; and to the spirits of just men made perfect; and to Jesus, mediator of a new covenant; and to the blood of sprinkling, speaking better than Abel” (Heb. 12:18-24 JND).
The Failure of Law
God had spoken the law to Israel at Mount Sinai, and their responsibility was according to the just requirements of that law. In this they failed and utterly broke down, and in the days of Eli, the ark — the only remaining link between Jehovah and His people — was taken by the Philistines. At the end of this career of failure, God in grace chose David the king, who, with his son Solomon, founded the temple on Mount Zion. This was the expression of God’s grace to a failing people, when all was over on the ground of responsibility under the law.
And this is the grace according to which God had visited the Hebrew saints who accepted the Messiah. It is the same grace that has taken us up and that goes on with us day by day. And on this principle only can we get on with God. God acts toward us in grace. This is an immense truth for our souls to grasp, for only as we lay hold of this can we realize the character of our relationships with God and with one another as Christians, and the principles that are to govern us in our ways with one another. Our sins have been purged through the blood of Christ. This is pure grace.
Holiness
But is not holiness required? Without holiness no man can see the Lord, we are told in verse 14. Is this grace also? The need of holiness surely is not grace, but if God’s character and nature are such that none can be in His presence without holiness, He furnishes it to us in grace, blessed be His name! We have it not of, or in, ourselves, but He makes us “partakers of His holiness,” even if He has to bring us into that exercise of soul in which we can receive all from Him. All blessing flows down from Him in perfect grace, and our place before Him is that of subject receivers.
Grace Toward One Another
But now if God acts toward us on the principle of grace, we are to be imitators of Him, as dear children. Grace is the principle on which we are to act toward one another. Do we sufficiently realize this in our souls, so as practically to act according to divine principles? We find in the beginning of Hebrews 12 that we are in the racecourse, and weights are to be laid aside, and sin which entangles the feet, and then God comes in and helps us by chastening, making us partakers of His holiness. Now we are not alone in this path. There is a company — the whole company of God’s people — moving on together toward Him who has finished the course of faith and who has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, but who will soon rise up to receive His own. With this company we have to do. It is not a mere selfish running where only one receives the prize. We all journey on together, and, as a flock of sheep, there are the weak and the lame, not to be left behind, but to be helped on. There are “hands that hang down,” and there are “feeble knees.” How are we to act toward such? The passage is plain: “Lift up the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees; and make straight paths for your feet, lest that which is lame be turned out of the way; but let it rather be healed” (Heb. 12:12-13). This is not the terrible mount that burned with fire; it is the pure grace of God.
On the one hand, grace leads us to minister help to the weak and the faint. On the other hand, it will lead us to be watchful, taking heed to our own ways, lest the lame be turned out of the way. There are lame ones in the flock, and they do not get on well, but the whip would be no remedy for such. We must not act toward them on the principle of Pharaoh’s taskmasters with the bondslave children of Israel. This is not God’s way. He acts toward us in grace and helps us in our infirmities, or if He chastens, when needs be, it is “that we might be partakers of His holiness.” What should we think of a shepherd taking a whip to a poor, weak, lame sheep? Yet how often is this done among the flock of God! The whip instead of grace! Mount Sinai instead of Mount Zion! God’s Word is, “Let it rather be healed.” It is not that holiness can be dispensed with, and therefore it is written, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.” Only let us remember that the whip and the burning mount will neither heal nor produce holiness. Grace only can do either, and so it is added, “Looking diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God” (vs. 15). If I lose in my soul the sense of that grace in which God is ever acting toward me, I shall fail in manifesting grace toward my brethren. And who can tell the loss and damage to the saints? Some root of bitterness springs up, and trouble arises, and many are thereby defiled.
Failure in Showing Grace
What sorrow is sometimes caused in the assembly of God, just because someone — a leader, it may be — has failed of the grace of God and acted in the spirit of the law, rather than the Spirit of Christ! Or someone, through greed of gain, has driven a hard bargain or defrauded his brother! Or some word has been unadvisedly spoken, and an evil seed has been sown in some heart, which springs up as a root of bitterness, producing trouble, which passes from tongue to tongue, thereby defiling many! Surely such conduct is most sad, utterly contrary to the Spirit of Christ, and, if not unsparingly judged by those who so act, will bring down the hand of the Lord in discipline.
Oh to realize in our innermost soul that we are saved by grace, that we stand in grace, and that it is grace every step of the way to the end! And to realize that we are called to live and act toward one another in the power of the same grace in which God has acted, and ever acts, toward us.
A. H. Rule
Covenants and Priesthood
The priesthood of Christ brings in also a new covenant more excellent than the first and grounded upon better promises. When God gave the first covenant, He also gave a priesthood which was the keystone of the whole economy. This being changed, there is consequently a change of covenant; the first falls with its obsolete priesthood, and the second takes its place. J. N. Darby
The Blessing of Boaz
The blessing extended to Ruth the Moabitess when she clave to Naomi is a beautiful example of the way the Lord has reached out in grace to the Gentile nations today. No covenant was ever made with her or her people. Naomi was even reluctant to take her back to the land of Bethlehem-Judah when she decided to return. There was, however, the allowance for the strangers. Ruth had no claim to blessing, but when she said, “Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee,” her mother-in-law took her along. This was the means of blessing to them both. Naomi was too old to have children and Ruth as a Moabitess was not allowed in the congregation.
The necessity for food obligated Naomi to send Ruth out in the fields to glean. The family of Elimelech had given up their land when they left Bethlehem-Judah, so now they must resort to gleaning in the fields of someone else. Boaz proved to be a compassionate man who made special allowances and gave extra portions to Ruth because of her need. Later Naomi sent Ruth to Boaz, with the claim that he was to raise up a seed to the dead. This was an even greater act of dependence on the graciousness of Boaz. Boaz proceeded to help them, after the nearer kinsman refused to do so because of Ruth. He (Boaz) bought all that had belonged to Elimelech’s family, and also Ruth the wife of Mahlon he purchased to be his wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance. When the child was born, Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom and became nurse unto it. If Ruth had made any claim to the child it would have spoiled the inheritance of the child. She followed through with her words, “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God,” and there she died. She shall have her portion when Christ comes.
What an example Ruth is of one who trusted in promises made to another family, continued steadfastly in pursuit of them, and found them through a good man — Boaz! How thankful we can be that our Lord Jesus Christ has become a kinsman-redeemer to us who have no claim to blessing through the covenants of God. He alone of His own desire sold all that He had to buy the pearl of great price.
D. C. Buchanan
New Creation
In Ephesians we find that the whole wide world presents to the eye of God nothing but what I might call a moral graveyard. There is not a single pulse in the heart of man toward God. If this is our spiritual condition, how is anything to be got out of it? The answer is that nothing can be got out of it. God, if He is to work at all, must work from Himself absolutely and independently, for there is no material to work upon. Hence, what we find in the Scriptures is that an absolutely new creation is called into being by God, perfectly distinct from the former creation, but no less real. Just as God, when there was nothing, spoke into existence all that is, so when morally there was not a living thing for God’s eye to rest on, He, not by the mere breath of His mouth, but by “the exceeding greatness of His power,” by the might of His strength, wrought to bring into moral existence a creation, absolutely new and distinct from anything that ever existed before. To this new creation believers belong.
W. Kelly