Word of Salvation – Vol.14 No.11 – March 1968
The Covenant Of Grace
Sermon by Rev. A. l. De Graaf (B.D.) on Genesis 17
Scripture Readings: Genesis 17 & Romans 4.
Suggested Hymns: Psalter Hymnal: 180; 9:1,2 (new); 266; 273
Brothers and sisters in Jesus,
Thirteen years have passed by since Abram tried to make God’s promise come true by taking Hagar… thirteen years of which the Bible tells us nothing. But thirteen years are a long time when you’re getting over ninety!
The LORD surely takes His time! Well, He does! But then: He has plenty of it. He is the Maker of our time, too. We often get in a hurry, and feel that time makes US, and breaks us, too. But it is a good thing to realise that the Lord is above it. “Our times are in HIS hand”, the Bible says.
Yes, a good thing to realise, but NOT an EASY thing to do!
These must have been a tough 13 years for Abram and Sarai. Thirteen years in which Ishmael grew up to be a sapling of a boy, father’s pride.
And Abram must have wondered, and maybe just about made up his mind: “This’ll be the boy… this surely must be the one through whom God fulfils His promise.” And Sarai must have thought that too, rather sadly.
We can have our feelings that life is passing us by. And then we do not wait for God to act, but get used to the dull feeling that God WILL NOT act. That life WILL pass us by. That we must learn to get used to a second-rate existence. The way we say to ourselves sometimes, “just too bad”, while the heart screams out in pain… as a girl waits for a husband who never comes… or a boy waits for a wife… but one gets older and, well, maybe we’d better make the best of it – time is running out. The dull … resignation to the fact that our prayers won’t be answered anyway.
BUT THEN, AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS, COMES THE JOLT.
THEN, AFTER THIRTEEN YEARS, THERE IS THIS MIGHTY CHAPTER IN WHICH ABRAM IS REMINDED – AND WE ALL ARE REMINDED THAT WE HAVE AN ETERNAL COVENANT WITH GOD; A COVENANT OF GRACE WITH THE ALMIGHTY.
Then God has His way of coming to us, poor little doubters that we are, and tells us that we are NOT left alone, NOT walking life’s path by ourselves in a world sadly come of age, but that HE IS INVOLVED WITH US AND WANTS TO BE INVOLVED WITH US – for that’s what it is to have a COVENANT with each other: as MARRIAGE is a covenant between two people, and means INVOLVEMENT of these two people, “I is you and YOU is me,” and we shall be together forever.
Let us see then, the wonder of the COVENANT OF GRACE
and see first
(1) THE LORD IN THIS COVENANT.
You know, this is the first time in the Bible that we hear that Name of God: “EL-SHADDAI”, THE ALMIGHTY.
After thirteen years of listening to the whisper of the devil – that OF COURSE God could not give Sarai a baby, and that OF COURSE God would not do any such unscientific thing.
The Lord comes and introduces Himself as THE ONE FOR WHOM NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, the ALL-POWERFUL Maker of heaven and earth. What He can do is UN-limited.
And we tremble and remember how later, in the New Testament, both Zacharias and Mary had to be REMINDED of this word of the Lord. When Zacharias disbelieved that Elizabeth could have a baby in her old age, Gabriel asked him, “WOULD ANYTHING BE IMPOSSIBLE FOR THE LORD?” And when Mary wondered how “The Word would become flesh through her,” this word was repeated: “For with God nothing is impossible”.
Oh, brothers and sisters, we hear such a lot of talk in our day about things which OF COURSE we cannot believe in the Bible, because the laws of nature seem unbending, and space is so wide and empty, and the world is in such a mess, and it’s about time we stripped the Bible of all these so-called “fairy-tales”.
Satan seeks to whisper to us, too, that THERE ARE LIMITS to what God can do. And then, of course, he will go on till we believe that “my sin is too great to be forgiven” (the thing Cain said already), and then we are thrown back onto ourselves.
But here we meet the God who can make the foulest clean…
the God who COULD raise up His Son from the dead, that you and I might one day rise up in glory, too…
the God who COULD create the world in six days,
and who COULD redeem her from sin and evil when all looked hopeless…
the ALMIGHTY GOD who can take your lonely life,
AND MAKE IT MEANINGFUL.
the ALMIGHTY GOD in whose shadow His children may dwell;
who can make blessing out of misery;
and salvation out of what LOOKED LIKE a victory of Satan.
The God who makes His children discover and still sing today: “There are no limits to Jesus’ power…!”
For the Son of God also was to say it, when He went to heaven, to the throne on which he still sits today: “All power is given unto Me… in heaven and on earth…”
At the sound of this mighty Gospel, Abram knows but one thing to do: he throws himself down to earth and ADORES… He WORSHIPS.
And what else is there for man to do with such a message, with SUCH a God?
We can talk of Him, argue about Him, preach on Him… and a great deal of that has been done, and is being done, till sometimes it looks as if we claim to know the lot!
Oh, blessed is the man, the woman, the minister and the simple soul, the professor and the housewife and the puzzled student, who learns to stop arguing and to adore; to fall on his face before THIS God and say with trembling voice: “My God, how great Thou art!”
He shall learn to wonder that THIS God has NOT killed him, small sinner, in consuming fire, but has extended His hand to him in a COVENANT OF GRACE, and he will see…
(2) THAT GRACE in this Covenant.
“No longer shall your name be ABRAM (which is great father), but AB-RAH-AM, “FATHER OF MANY NATIONS’, says the Lord.
And we KNOW who these many nations are! We know that this isn’t only Israel, but all the peoples and tongues who through the Saviour of Abraham, would become children of Abraham.
For it is all God’s grace, God’s GIFT.
Abraham receives a great new name, a wonderful title: Father of many nations… but these nations are to be bought with the blood of Jesus. These nations are to be called out of death into life, out of darkness into light.
And that would all be the work of HIM, who would be bruised for our transgressions, and stricken for our iniquities!
And yet God calls this A COVENANT – as if Abram, too, did his part in it, as if Abram were GOD’S PARTNER.
Well, he was, but it would still all be the gift of God. Adam broke the partnership with God in Paradise. He broke the covenant of works, whereby through his own disobedience, man would for himself and for his children after him- deserve eternal death.
Ever since the bitter darkness of the fall of Adam and Eve, it became IMPOSSIBLE for any man to do what Adam should have done, and deserve for himself – and others – the joy of the friendship of God.
But THEN ONE STEPPED IN. One who said, “Father, I shall go to do Thy will: “the scroll of the book is full of My Name.” Then JESUS took over from Adam, and, as through one man sin had come into the world, and through sin… death; SO, THROUGH ONE MAN, THERE WOULD BE CLEANSING OF SIN – and life, NEW, glorious, eternal life!
THAT is the Covenant of Grace.
Calvary was still far off… and Abraham still lived in the days of shadows.
But, WHEN GOD SAYS SOMETHING, IT IS AS THOUGH IT’S ALREADY DONE… IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME… AND GOD HAS PLENTY OF TIME.
Therefore He “can afford” to say to this sinful man, Abraham:
NATIONS SHALL COME FROM YOU… AND KINGS… AND I SHALL MAKE MY COVENANT WITH YOU… AND WITH THEM! For it is a covenant of GRACE.
“I,” says the Lord, “I am going to GIVE Him to you, who shall fulfil ALL THAT IS NEEDED TO MAKE THIS COVENANT A REALITY.”
I shall do it all, I, THE ALMIGHTY!
I shall establish My Covenant… with YOU… AND WITH YOUR SEED AFTER YOU.
(3) Then the Lord shows indeed how much it is a Covenant of GRACE. He doesn’t say: “This thing is for those WHO FIRST HAVE BELIEVED, and WHO FIRST HAVE MADE THEMSELVES WORTHY…. for adults only…!
No; God then says that THE CHILDREN – the seed – ALREADY BELONG. For: GOD THE ALMIGHTY COMES FIRST.
God the Almighty GIVES this covenant, for He was to GIVE HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON!
The CHILDREN ARE IN THE COVENANT… because otherwise it would not be a covenant of GRACE.
Then it would again be a covenant of works. Then again it would depend on us.
But no… the CHILDREN were to belong too, because THE CHILD would belong, THE SEED, the Great Seed of Abraham, who would say to John the Baptist that HE WOULD FULFIL ALL RIGHTEOUSNESS.
(4) And to show this – both in its terror and in its comfort – the Lord then gave Abraham A SIGN OF THIS COVENANT, a SIGN with which every man-child, every name-bearer, had to be marked in his body: the sign of CIRCUMCISION.
It was a sign of BLOOD: it is as if we hear the Lord saying, “You and your children have NO RIGHT TO LIVE… I am a holy God, and I ask your blood… your life!”
God CANNOT leave sin unpunished. Grace is not EASY-GOING, condoning what was done against the most high majesty of God.
It was also a sign carried out in the very part of the body made for creating new life. “It’s no use, Abraham,” says God; “YOU CANNOT GET SINLESS CHILDREN GOOD ENOUGH FOR HEAVEN.”
Not even marriage, not even the wonder of the tender and beautiful relationship between man and wife can make holy children; not even that can give the world salvation… or a Saviour, for that matter.
When the great hour would come, God would have the Saviour born NOT of the will of man, and NOT of the endeavour of the flesh, because sinful man can only give birth to sinful man… then God Himself must come and form that Holy Child Himself within the womb of the VIRGIN Mary.
Oh, it wasn’t going to be easy; it wasn’t going to be a matter of course. But YET: it was going to happen, and, for both great and small, GOD WAS GOING TO PROVIDE HIS FREE SALVATION.
Therefore this sign must be given to YOUNG CHILDREN ALREADY. They, too, are not innocent, but sinful. But they, too, are receiving the PROMISE OF GOD’S WONDERFUL SALVATION.
They, too, are signed and sealed with the Covenant sign, which, as Romans 4 puts it, was a sign of the RIGHTEOUSNESS WHICH IS OF FAITH.
They, too, belong: in the flock of Jesus there are not only sheep, but also lambs: “Let them come unto Me,” the Saviour one day would say.
And in the New Testament, when the blood was to flow, and the blood of man NEED NO MORE FLOW when, on Calvary, all that God required has been accomplished, – then the New Testament sign of WATER (that has come instead of the blood), is also for believers AND THEIR SEED.
For it is GRACE, it is GOD FIRST, it is HIS FREE GIFT! For Jesus’ sake! “The blood can make the foulest clean…”
How the Old Testament saints must have trembled at the HOLINESS of God, when their small boys had to undergo this operation.
But we, too, must know that the Covenant with God is the Covenant with the Holy One… that we learn to wonder all the more that HE still has given THE blood on the altar, and that ONE has come to give HIS BLOOD, HIS SOUL, HIS LIFE as a ransom for many.
(5) When we have seen the MIRACLE in that, we shall be ready for all the other miracles also.
Then God says to Abram: Look, you thought up till now that I was going to do all this through ISHMAEL.
But no: SARAI, your wife, shall get a new name: SARAH, the Queen! And through her I shall make all this come to pass.
SHE shall have the baby. SHE who could NOT bear children shall bear the Child.
And she, who already in a way has died, shall again come to marvellous life. FOR I AM GOD, THE ALMIGHTY!
We read, then, that Abram falls on his face and laughs!
THIS is NOT the laughter of unbelief, rather the laughter of being overwhelmed… the laughter of one who can HARDLY believe it, because it is too great, too wonderful.
How different a reaction to the MIRACLE-WORKING God, than that of the man who does NOT fall on his face and does NOT laugh, but dismisses it coldly as a fairy tale, and tells God what He is allowed to be able to do!
The God of the Covenant is a miracle-working God. He who made Sarah bear a child when she was well past old age, was to make the virgin conceive and bear a son –
and His Name was called ‘IMMANUEL’ – God-with-us.
For He is the same God – HE never changes!
And the God who made the dead womb of a ninety-year-old woman come to life with the Seed from which His very Son would spring – and a nation of millions besides was to make life stir again in a cold grave-cave near Jerusalem.
.and Him who was dead,
He was to call BODY AND SOUL into the glory of Easter morning!
For He, our miracle-working God, has never changed! He is the same miracle-working God who can make a dead sinner alive forevermore, and who – out of an earth that seemed doomed forever shall call to Himself a nation that no man can number!
He shall fill the mouth of God’s children with laughter! With the mirth of never fully being able to grasp ALL the wonderful riches of what HE can do!
Brothers and sisters, Satan makes his attempts today – as he has always done – to undermine this glorious faith, and rob us of this ALMIGHTY God. He will not rest until he has us and our children back in an empty waste, a lonely desolation, with a powerless God who cannot do a thing we cannot do, who – as has been said really is dead.
Blessed are the children of Abraham who laugh with their old father, laugh and say: Lord, is it then real after all? Oh Lord, is it really SO wonderful? Who again become like children… who learn to wonder every new day… wonder at what GOD the ALMIGHTY can do. Certainly, to their wonder there shall be no end – not in all eternity:
This wonder, however, shall not be a SELFISH DELIGHT. The Covenant of Grace then shall also have a place for the STRANGER, ABRAHAM, as well as the LORD HIMSELF, shall be concerned about that. ABRAHAM asks the Lord, “But what then about ISHMAEL? Shall HE live BEFORE THEE? Ishmael was Abraham’s sin, in a way. Abraham’s responsibility, too. Lord… what about HIM?
The Lord first of all, then, repeats that the CHILD OF THE PROMISE shall be ISAAC – the child of the miracle whose name shall be LAUGHTER. But then He tells Abraham there shall also be a place for ISHMAEL. He, too may live within the gates of God’s wonder people.
And it is as if we hear there the CALL: to YOU shall be the promise and to your children AND TO ALL WHO ARE AFAR OFF… Ishmael may belong… Ishmael gets mighty promises.
Under the roof of God’s special people, STRANGERS too may find a place – IF ONLY THEY BE OBEDIENT! They, too, may receive the sign of God’s grace – IF ONLY THEY LIVE BY FAITH IN THE COMING SAVIOUR!
For in all covenants, there are TWO parties, and TWO parts. Not only PRIVILEGES… but also OBLIGATIONS. And, just as the Lord told Abraham: “Walk before Me and be ye upright..” – live with Me in prayer and in faith… be an open book to Me, – pray without ceasing… so this call to OBEDIENCE comes also to the stranger, to whom the missionary call goes out as it went out to him already in the Old Testament church.
The last thing our chapter tells us about this covenant of grace IS THIS OBEDIENCE-PART OF IT. For grace it is, and all God’s wonderful gift…but surely the question comes to us as it came to Abraham: WHAT DO WE DO WITH IT?
Abraham was obedient. He DID circumcise himself, and Ishmael and all the male slaves in his household – knowing that God is not a mean God, and that ALL WHO BELONG TO ME MAY BELONG TO GOD… And in that obedience, Ishmael and all those other strangers were GIVEN the sign… were GIVEN the call… and were GIVEN the promises. BUT ALSO THE OBLIGATION: “You, too: OBEY MY VOICE, now!”
But that obedience did NOT entail living perfectly, and thus earning a place in heaven. That obedience did NOT include the idea: do it yourself after all.
Only: to receive AND TO GIVE TO YOUR CHILDREN AGAIN the sign of the grace of God, and to hide under the mighty redemption of the Lord.
THAT is the obedience God asks in the covenant of His grace: to pray that He work in you; that you let HIM do in you all that is needed…
The obedience of the Covenant is TO STAY CLOSE TO THIS ALMIGHTY GOD, so that He can work His miracles in you, and give you daily a new and willing heart.
For God Almighty is willing and able to do that, even today.
Ishmael could have had that… and his offspring… if only they had OBEYED the Good Shepherd’s Voice, if only they had not hardened their hearts.
Whenever we begin talking about the law, we still talk about the COVENANT OF GRACE.
Whenever we mention the steely word OBEDIENCE, we do so, knowing that it all must be… and may be… THE GIFT OF GOD.
For your obedience is that you stretch out your hand to HIM, and to NO ONE ELSE;
and open your mouth wide to HIM, and not to any other…
and then to discover that HE can fill your mouth still with His goodness.
The obedience of the Covenant of grace is to pray with the church father Augustine, also as we go through the week that lies before us, that we pray with faith in God:
“Oh Lord, will You please give what you ask, and then ask from me what You want.’
Amen.