Isaiah 49:8

CHRIST IN THE COVENANT

Isaiah 49:8. I will give Thee for a covenant of the people.

We all believe that our Saviour has very much to do with the covenant of eternal salvation. We have been accustomed to regard Him as the Mediator of the covenant, as the surety of the covenant, and as the scope or substance of the covenant (see pp. 113–115). But now I shall dwell on Christ, not as the Mediator, nor as the surety, nor as the scope of the covenant, but as one great and glorious article of the covenant which God has given to His children.

I. EXAMINE THIS PROPERTY.
Here is a great possession. Jesus Christ by covenant is the property of every believer. By this we must understand Jesus Christ in many different senses.

1. He is ours, in all His attributes. He has a double set of attributes, seeing that there are two natures joined in glorious union in one person. He has the attributes of very God, and He has the attributes of perfect man; and whatever these may be, they are each one of them the perpetual property of every believing child of God.
2. He is ours, in all His offices—prophet, priest, king, &c. How varied is the value to us of this property!
3. Christ is the believer’s in every one of His works. Whether they be works of suffering or of duty, they are the property of the believer.

4. His fulness is ours (Colossians 2:9; John 1:16).

5. The very life of Christ is the property of the believer. “Because I live, ye shall live also.” “Ye are dead; and your life”—where is it? It is “hid with Christ in God.”
6. And best of all, the person of Jesus Christ is the property of the Christian. The wife loveth her husband; she loveth his house and his property; she loveth him for all that he giveth her, for all the bounty he confers, and all the love he bestows; but his person is the object of her affections. So with the believer; he blesses Christ for all He does and all He is.

But oh! it is Christ that is everything. He does not care so much about His offices as he does about the Man Christ.
II. THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH IT WAS CONVEYED TO US.

1. Christ is in the covenant in order to comfort every coming sinner. “Oh,” says the sinner who is coming to God, “I cannot lay hold on such a great covenant as that, I cannot believe that heaven is provided for me,” &c. Here comes in the thought that Christ is in the covenant. Sinner, canst thou lay hold on Christ? Canst thou say,

“Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling?”

Well, if thou hast got that, it was put in on purpose for thee to hold fast by. God’s covenant mercies all go together, and if thou hast laid hold on Christ, thou hast gained every blessing in the covenant. That is one reason why Christ was put there.

2. Christ is put also to confirm the doubting saint. Sometimes he cannot read his interest in the covenant. So he lays hold of Christ, and were it not for that even the believer dare not come at all.
3. It was necessary that Christ should be in the covenant, because there are many things there which would be nought without Him. Our great redemption is in the covenant, but we have no redemption except “through His blood.”
4. Christ is in the covenant to be used. Believer, use Him. Thou dost not use thy Christ as thou oughtest to do. Why, man, when thou art in trouble, &c., why dost thou not go and tell Him? Has He not a sympathising heart, and can He not comfort and relieve thee? There is nothing Christ dislikes more than for His people to make a show-thing of Him and not to use Him.

III. A PRECEPT; and what shall the precept be? Christ is ours; then be ye Christ’s. Ye are Christ’s, ye know right well. Ye are His, by your Father’s donation, when He gave you to the Son, &c. Show the world that you are His in practice. Stand fast in the evil day, remembering that you are one of Christ’s.
CONCLUSION.—Some of you have never laid hold of the covenant. I sometimes hear it whispered, and sometimes read it, that there are men who trust to the uncovenanted mercies of God. Let me solemnly assure you that there is now no such thing in heaven as uncovenanted mercy; there is no such thing beneath God’s sky or above it, as uncovenanted grace towards men. All ye can receive, and all you ever ought to hope for, must be through the covenant of free grace, and that alone. Mayhap, poor convinced sinner, thou darest not take hold of the covenant to-day. Canst thou not trust to Christ?

“Are not His mercies rich and free?
Then say, poor soul, why not for thee?”

“I dare not come; I am so unworthy,” you say. Hear, then, my Master bids you come, and will you fear after that? “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest.”—C. H. Spurgeon: Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, vol. ii. pp. 393–400.