Series: Isaiah
Title: Christ the Covenant
Text: Isaiah 42: 5-8
Date: July 17, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
God saves by promise. He makes with his children an everlasting covenant. His promises are ordered by God and sure because God leaves nothing in the hands of his people to perform. Last week we heard the LORD God’s command to us to behold Christ (Isaiah 41: 1-4). Today we hear the LORD God call his Son in righteousness and send him on his great mission of mercy.
Divisions: 1: The calling of Christ in righteousness; 2: Jesus Christ the Covenant Given of God; 3: The sure results of his grace; 4: Why does God save this way?; 5: How can we be sure?
I. CHRIST WAS CALLED BY THE LORD IN COVENANT RIGTHEOUSNESS
A covenant is a mutual agreement between two parties. Certain conditions must be met with the promise of certain rewards given. Each party is bound to fulfill his own conditions in order for the promise to be received. If either party fails then the covenant becomes null and void.
God made a covenant with man in Adam—but in Adam our federal head we broke it. But before God made his covenant with Adam, God chose a people in Christ, making a covenant with Christ.
Isaiah 42: 5: Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
God the LORD is he that created the heavens and stretched them out
God the LORD is he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh of it
God the LORD is he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein
THUS SAITH GOD THE LORD…6: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness,…
This is God who can swear by no greater, making his oath by himself to himself—that is, to his Son Christ, Jesus the Lord. This is God the Father making covenant with God the Son. The LORD God gave Christ his Son the sole privilege to establish and mediate the new covenant-I the LORD have called thee…And God called his Son, Jesus Christ, in faithfulness—making a covenant promise to him.
Isaiah 42: 6: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee…
We behold the righteousness of God faithfulness to fulfill his covenant promise when we behold God fulfilling what he promised Christ—I will hold thine hand and will keep thee. God did exactly as he promised!
Application: In declaring to Christ his faithfulness to accomplish judgment in the earth—the LORD God swears by his own name who created and sustains life. We see that the laws God created which hold the earth in place and sustain life do not do so partially--partly so, partly not. Gravity works in judgment, in truth, because it is God’s law. Concenring the human body, it either has breath and lives or the breath is gone and we die—God does not work in ambiguity in the realm of his laws of nature and life.
Neither in the salvation of God’s elect: God does all in righteousness, in truth, in judgment and brings all to pass effectually—not in ambiguity—not in yes and no—but yes and amen—because God is righteous. His law is honored and magnified in truth even by the death of his own Son. He sends forth his gospel in truth (pastors according to mine heart which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding, for how can you call on him in truth, of whom you have not heard in truth). God regenerates to life his elect because he is righteous to do so, justice demands it. God gives an unction to the believer so that we know all things (youngest to oldest believes salvation is of the Lord, by his grace, apart from any works or will or additions of man’s flesh). Every believer worships God in spirit and in truth because it is God who creates spiritual life and teaches his children himself.
The same God who is omnipotent to create heaven and earth and life is the omnipotent God who creates the new heaven and new earth by the righteousness of his Son, who set judgment in the earth by his life and death, who sets judgment in the heart of his people in truth. We would do well to listen to this omnipotent God tell us how he saves and believe on his Son.
II. CHRIST IS THE COVENANT GIVEN OF GOD
Isaiah 42: 6: I the LORD will…give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
There are many names to convey to the believer who Christ is to us.
· His name is Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins (Matthew 1: 21).
· John 1: 29: The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
· John 14: 6: I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man cometh to the Father but by me
· John 10: 7: Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep…9:…by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
· John 10: 11: I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep… 14: I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.
· John 11: 25: Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
· John 6: 35:…I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
· Isaiah 42: 1: God the LORD says of Christ, “Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth;”
· But here Christ is called “a Covenant of the people”—GIVEN TO MEDIATE THIS COVENANT OF GRACE BETWEEN GOD AND HIS PEOPLE.
On one side: Christ is God—God was in Christ. Christ as God fulfilled the conditions required of God’s holy character: Christ magnified the law and made it honorable that God might is both just and the justifier of all who believe on Christ. God is just to show mercy to his people for his righteousness is upheld by Christ
On the other side: Christ as Man fulfilled the conditions required by all the elect given to him of God. He obeyed the precepts of the law in perfection as our representative Man. And he satisfied the debt of justice we owed as our Substitute dying in our place. Every believer has fulfilled the covenant of God as if he did it himself through faith in Christ who did it for us. Job said:
Job 9: 32: For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment. 33: Neither is there any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.
But there is a Daysman, Christ Jesus the Mediator of the Covenant: Christ laid his hand upon God fulfilling all the conditions God requires. And Christ lays his hand upon his elect—in the day of his power making each one willing to trust Christ alone to bring them to God. In this, Christ manages and dispatches all the business of the covenant, from the first to the last.
1 Timothy 2:5: For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
Hebrews 9:15: And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
III. THE EFFECTUAL RESULTS ACCOMPLISHED BY OUR COVENANT HEAD.
Isaiah 42: 7: To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
This is what all God’s elect are by nature: blind, in prison, sitting in darkness in the prison house of our own sin-dead hearts. But when the Spirit of God calls us to life, when Christ is formed in us—truly the everlasting covenant is made with us by God. Christ is that Light, that Covenant wherein our blind eyes are opened,the prison door is opened and Christ says to us through the Spirit
Isaiah 49:9: That thou mayest say to the prisoners, Go forth; to them that are in darkness, Shew yourselves. They shall feed in the ways, and their pastures shall be in all high places.
All the everlasting promises of complete salvation are given in Christ who is the substance of the everlasting covenant of grace. We are given the earnest of the Spirit so that we are assured that all the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus.
Ephesians 1: 13: in [Christ] also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14: Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.
IV. Why Does God Save Sinners The Way He Does?--That “no flesh should glory in his presence”
Isaiah 42: 8: I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images
God will not share his glory with any man. God will not give the praise due to him to some idol of man’s imagination. “He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” (Ps. 115:1).
V. What Assurance Do We Have That The Lord God Will Perform Everything Promised In The Covenant?
His Past Performance—Isaiah 42: 9: Behold, the former things are come to pass,--has he not brought to pass exactly what he said he would do—he is faithful and immutabile—
By His Divine Revelation…v9:… and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
· A New and Living Way!
· A New Creation!
· A New Relationship!
1 John 3: 1: Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
· A New Heavens and a New Earth!
· A New Song!
· BEHOLD I MAKE ALL THINGS NEW
Isaiah 42: 10: Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth,…12 Let them give glory unto the LORD, and declare his praise in the islands.
May God put this new song in our hearts and our lips.
Amen!