Word of Salvation – Vol.39 No.24 – June 1994

 

From Glory To Glory

 

Sermon: by Rev. B. Hoyt on 2 Corinthians 3:18 & WCF 7:5,6

Readings: Hebrews 8; 2 Corinthians 3

Songs:

201; 120; 169:1-4; 386; 224:1

 

Congregation, beloved in Christ the Lord,

In the seventh chapter of the Westminster Confession, we confess that God relates to His people by means of covenants.  I put covenants in plural, because our confession does.  God relates to man through the first covenant and also through the second covenant, or more commonly, the Covenant of Grace.  The first covenant, in Presbyterian theology, is called the Covenant of Works.  That’s perhaps a rather bad name, but the concept of a covenant made with Adam before the fall is certainly biblical.  God presently relates to His people through the Covenant of Grace.

The first covenant was given to Adam and, to say it in the vernacular, “he blew it.”  He failed to keep the Covenant of Works.  And therefore he did not receive the reward promised in that covenant, namely, life eternal.  Furthermore we, who are sons and daughters of Adam, cannot receive life through that covenant.  We are incapable, as our confession says, of obtaining life through that covenant.  The one who wishes to work for his salvation, must work perfectly.  We certainly are not perfect so we cannot obtain life in this way.

Precisely because of our inability, God was pleased in His eternal plan to make a second covenant, says our confession, the Covenant of Grace.  We should not assume there was no grace in the first, nor should we assume that there are no works in the second.  These are terms that may rightly be applied to both covenants.  The Covenant of Grace is called the ‘Covenant of Grace’ because God did the work, not we.  He did it through Christ.  He did all the work necessary.  He accomplished our salvation.  And He established that covenant of grace on His perfect work.  Therefore that covenant will never be broken.  It is firmly established.

The Covenant of Grace that Christ established in His work, was administered differently in the Old Testament than it is now in the New Testament.  It is called the Old Covenant in its old form of administration.  The same covenant under a new form is called the New Covenant in this day and age.  But it is one covenant differently administered.  It is the difference between these administrations that I want to consider with you and which the paragraphs of the Westminster Confession here set forth.  It is especially the glory of the Covenant of Grace under its two administrations that I will focus on.

The Glory of the Old Covenant

First, let us think about the glory of the Old Covenant.  We don’t usually think about this but the Bible speaks of it this way in 2 Corinthians 3.  There the Apostle Paul speaks about the glory of the Old Covenant.  One specific aspect of that glory was the glory that came upon Moses as he went into the presence of God.  The glory was so great that he had to put a veil over his face so he wouldn’t blind the people with that reflected glory of God in the Old Covenant.

The glory of the Old Covenant was manifested in other ways.  But before we consider some of these we must ask a question: “Was the Old Covenant bad?  Is the New Covenant good?”  Well, yes, and no, to both questions.  There is some truth of course in the idea that old is bad and new is good.  Certainly that is often the way we in this modern age think.  You know, the old car is bad and a new car is good.  Well, maybe not so good any more these days!  After all, they’re rather cheap.  It’s not always true, is it, that old is bad and new is good?  Think of a fine red wine.  There the new is bad, and the old is good.  So we’ve got to be careful.  We have to be especially careful regarding things that are given by revelation concerning the Old and the New Covenant.

Consider the nature and the effect of the old administration of God’s covenant.  It was full of splendid ceremonies.  Splendid!  And I mean that in the fullest sense of the term.  There were external things of great beauty that pervaded the Old Covenant.  Brothers and sisters, in the Old Covenant there was divine art.  Divine art!  Think of the tabernacle.  Think of how they were to follow the detailed plans God gave Moses on the Mount.  They gathered gold and silver and fine materials and put it together.  They did all the sewing and all the work of hammering the gold and shaping the wood; all that was required to make it an object of great beauty.  A skilled craftsman, specially empowered by the Holy Spirit, was chosen by God, appointed and anointed by God, so that the glory of God might be manifested in this divine work of art.

It wasn’t just any old tent, you see.  No, there were beautiful curtains, heavy, carefully woven curtains with threads of gold and blue in them.  There were beautiful rings, an intricately designed framework so that it could be set up, transported, and yet remain beautiful.  There were specially selected skins of animals that were used.  We’re not quite sure which animals they were because we don’t know the meaning of some of those Hebrew words.  Some scholars translate the word as ‘badger’ and some translate as ‘porpoise’ and some translate it other ways.  We don’t know, but those skins were specially selected for their beauty and durability.  Inside that tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant, an object of great beauty, covered over with solid gold.  And over that ark were the cherubim with their wings stretched out and touching at the top covering the mercy seat of solid gold below them.  The cherubim were beaten out of a solid piece of gold.  I wouldn’t even know how to begin such a work today, but they had skilled craftsmen anointed by the Holy Spirit to do this work.  There was the incense altar, carefully made, standing before the inner curtain, before the holy of holies, on which the incense was offered from which the smoke rose up to heaven as a sign of the prayers of God’s people.  There was the lamp.  There was the table on which the bread of the presence was set.  Both were carefully made with skilled craftsmanship and intricately designed.  Outside, a little larger, and a little more coarse, and yet still beautiful, was the bath in which the priests washed themselves so they would remain clean before God, and the altar of the burnt offering.  All the work of a skilled craftsman.  In Hebrews chapter 8 we see that God commanded Moses, warning him specially, to pay attention to the exact design and not to deviate from it.  This was divine art.  A work of great beauty.

Yes, brothers and sisters, it was glorious.  The things which copied the heavenly pattern were glorious because they were ordained by God and built by those who were empowered by His Holy Spirit.  Not only was the tabernacle glorious, but the temple, which replaced the tabernacle, was even more glorious.

We must also think of the Old Covenant ceremonies.  How wonderful they were.  Think what it must have been like to go up in procession to Mt. Zion with all of the people of God, singing and praising Him, ascending that holy mount, anticipating eagerly the worship of God in His awesome presence while the sacrifices were offered and while the trumpets which symbolised God’s judgement were blowing.  They blew and blew and blew as the offering was burned up.  How glorious to see the smoke filling the temple; the smoke of God’s glory, rising up to heaven.  How glorious to stand in awe before the temple as the glory of God appeared in of the temple.

Think of all those priests, think of the celebrations that were connected with the special sacrifices.  They were celebrations also, not only times of sacrifice and worship.  They were times of re-creation before God.  You recall: the ones who lived far away were to take their tithes in their hand, that is, they were to sell their tithes and take the money in their hands to Jerusalem.  There they were to buy whatever their heart desired: oxen, sheep, strong drink, and celebrate before the Lord in the feast.  And it was glorious.  Seven whole days of feasting before God with His people.  Wouldn’t you have liked to have lived then?  It must have been wonderful.

Every aspect, brothers and sisters, of the administration of the Old Covenant pointed to Christ.  Everything pointed to the One to come and His glory, and therefore those things were glorious in themselves in order to point to One who is glorious.  They must be glorious to reflect the glory of God.  They must be glorious to reflect the glory of His plan which was embodied in those feasts, celebrations, sacrifices and buildings.  And as they gathered for worship, and went through the ceremonies, as they assembled at the Mount of God, they were reminded time and time again, that they were to reflect upon the significance of these glorious things.  They were to think of the glorious things to come which these types pointed to.  In this way, the Covenant of Grace was administered in great glory in the Old Testament times.

Before Christ came, God dealt graciously with His people.  He saved them through the Covenant of Grace.  And these glorious things were the means by which they were brought into that salvation which had not yet fully come.

You see, the church didn’t really start on the day of Pentecost.  No, as the Belgic Confession in Article 27 confesses, the Lord has always had a church.  Sometimes it has been very small.  In fact even invisible to men.  Elijah couldn’t see it at all.  He thought he was the only one left, but God still had his church.  Through that whole time of the Old Testament God administered His grace to His church.  As His people drew near to Him in faith through the means that He had appointed, they obtained their salvation, the forgiveness of their sins and eternal life.  Not because they went through the ceremonies.  They didn’t earn their salvation through the works they did.  No!  Rather they obtained it through faith in the promise embodied in the ceremonies and sacrifices, through Him who is the object of the promise.  Glorious!  It was all very glorious.

The Westminster Confession of Faith teaches us that the Old Covenant was then sufficient for the instruction of God’s people in that time, for the building up of their faith in the One to come.  He was the One who would deliver them.  He, their God, would come as Messiah and all that they did in those glorious ceremonies, pictured Him.

And yet, there was something about the Old Covenant that could be called bad.  The Old Covenant was incomplete.  And, brothers and sisters, it was powerless!  That’s what the writer to the Hebrews says.  It was incomplete, it was insufficient actually to accomplish salvation.  It could not remove their sins.  It only symbolised the saving work of God.  And so Jeremiah, already in the Old Testament, speaks about the New Covenant that God would make in the future.  The Old was bad, in this sense: God’s people kept breaking it.  They didn’t live in it.  And so a better one would be made with the house of Israel.  Something that would replace, something that would be powerful, something that would effect salvation with God’s people.  That’s the way Jeremiah speaks about it.  And that’s the way the Apostle Paul brings it out: I will write this New Covenant on your hearts and not on stones.  I will actually grant forgiveness of sins not just promise and symbolise it.  The Apostle speaks some very strong words in 2 Corinthians 3:7, He says, ‘If the ministry of death….!  Note carefully that Paul is speaking about the administration of the Old Covenant!  He calls it the ministry of death, engraved in letters on stone.  He speaks of its glory.  It came with glory.  It was glorious.  It was a glorious ministry of death.  And the Apostle Paul, refers to its terrible result in Romans 7:10ff.  ‘And I once was alive, apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died, and this commandment, (this administration of the Old Covenant) which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me.  For sin taking opportunity through the commandment deceived me and through it killed me.  So then the law is holy, the commandment is holy and righteous and good.’  Don’t misunderstand Paul.  He is not saying that the commandments of the Lord are bad.  No, they are holy and good.  Yet he continues, ‘therefore can that which is good become a cause of death for me?  May it never be, rather it was sin, my sin in the face of that commandment, that was the cause of death.  In order that it might be shown to be sin by effecting my death through that which is good, that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.’  This was the purpose of the Old Covenant administration, to make sin utterly sinful, to show God’s people that they were wretched and miserable and hopeless.  So Paul calls the Old Covenant a minister of death.  Its ceremonies could not save them.  That’s why they had to offer sacrifices over and over without end.  Those sacrifices, each one of them, were saying, ‘You’re a sinner.  You can only be saved by the perfect sacrifice to come.  This sacrifice won’t save you.  You must offer another one tomorrow.’

The Greater Glory of the New Covenant

Yes, the Old Covenant was glorious.  But it was also bad; bad because we are sinful.  The Old Covenant could not accomplish what was necessary to save us.  And it’s for that reason that God sent Christ as the object to which all of those things in the Old Testament pointed.  It’s for that reason that He made the New Covenant, as it’s called in the book of Hebrews.  God founded it and established it in Christ.  It’s the better covenant that works effectually to save God’s people.

I know that today many feel that they have been short-changed in the New Covenant, which is the new administration of God’s grace.  They feel that we are missing out on all the glorious things that God gave to His people in the Old Covenant, missing out on all those wonderful ceremonies.  They’re gone, all the feast days, and the rejoicing in them.  They’re all gone.  All the celebrations, the glorious architecture of the temple, it too is gone.  That divine art has no place any more.  So we feel a certain loss, don’t we?  You can see that people have felt that loss down through the history of the church.  So the church has tried to make up for the loss people felt.

For example, a glorious cathedral, is erected reaching into heaven in an attempt to lay hold of the glory of the Old Covenant.  As beautiful and as awesome as is the great cathedral in Cologne; as majestic and as magnificent as is the Notre Dame, brothers and sisters, the glory of God is not there!  Wonderful art, beautiful architecture, yes, even inspiring symbolism.  Yet the glory of God is not there.  Those great cathedrals are only human art.  We may enjoy that human art, as art.  But such monuments are only a hollow shell.  Those buildings are cold stone, dead art.  And we know that the living God does not dwell in cold stone and dead art.

You might ask: ‘Well then, how could the temple in the Old Testament be glorious if these great, wonderful cathedrals today aren’t glorious?  What’s the difference?’  The difference is the administration of God’s grace.  It has changed.  Then God was pleased to administer His grace by manifesting His presence in a temple of stone, built according to His appointment, to symbolise, according to His divine will His eternal plan for our salvation.  Now everything has changed.  Where does God dwell now?  That it might not be the word of man, but clearly the word of the Lord, I read John 1:14: ‘And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.’  The living God dwells, in Christ.  Christ fully manifests all of the glory of God to us.  He does not merely symbolise it to us, but He manifests it in our midst, for He is Immanuel, God with us.

And where else does the glory of God dwell?  In Ephesians 2 Paul speaks of the building of God, the house of God, as having been “built upon the foundations of the apostles and the prophets, Christ Jesus Himself, being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together is growing into a holy temple of the Lord.  In whom you are also being built together in the dwelling of God.”  Brothers and sisters, the church of God, as it is gathered here today, is the dwelling place in which God Himself dwells.  In this church His glory and the glory of Christ our Saviour, is revealed.  It is revealed more fully, more completely, more perfectly, more really, than it ever was in the Old Testament.  Brothers and sisters, let us never fall into the trap that the church has fallen into so many times.  Let us not fall into the trap of longing for those glorious things of the Old Testament.  Rather let us rejoice in the glory of God, which is now more perfectly revealed to us in Christ than it ever was to Abraham or David or Isaiah.

Of course this means that we have to work and learn and understand and submit ourselves again and again to our Lord and Master that we may see His glory in the church.  His glory revealed in the church is not visible to the human eye.  It is only visible to the believer.  But it’s more glorious than the temple.  The living reality of God with His people is Christ proclaimed as crucified and risen again, not just with the trumpets blowing, but really and truly crucified for us in history, raised after three days and now reigning in heaven.  Christ buried, Christ raised, Christ ascended, Christ reigning to save to the uttermost.  Christ our Prophet, Priest and King.  Christ dwelling with His people by His Spirit.  Where Christ is worshipped and served, where Christ is seen and known and believed, where Christ is confessed as Lord, where He is loved, where men humble themselves day by day before Him, there is the glory of God!

This is the administration of God’s grace in the New Testament.  Yes, outwardly, these things are few in number and much simpler.  Outwardly they are not nearly so splendid.  But really and truly the proclamation of the Word and the visible symbols of the sacraments show the glory of God’s grace more gloriously and more clearly and more powerfully than the old things ever did.  And, praise God, they do so not only to the Jews but also to the Gentiles.,

Brothers and sisters, the glory of God is manifested in and to all of God’s people as they gaze on Christ, for as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 3:14, under the Old Covenant their minds were darkened, for until this very day in the reading of the Old Covenant the same veil remains un-lifted.  Why?  Why do the Jews have the veil over their eyes?  Was it not removed in Christ?  No, to this day whenever Moses is read, the veil lies over their hearts, because they do not believe in Christ.

Paul here tells us that whenever a man turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.  We all with unveiled face, for the veil is removed in Christ, behold in the mirror, a clearer mirror than they had under the Old Covenant, the glory of the Lord.  And we are being transformed into that same image to reflect the glory of God.

Brothers and sisters, the difference between the glory of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant could be illustrated as the difference between the glory of the moon and the glory of the sun.  Every young couple in love will tell you that the full moon is glorious, on a warm, clear night, as they walk hand-in-hand along the beach.  The moon is glorious.  But it is only glorious when the sun is far away on the other side of the earth and not shining in the sky!  When the sun comes up, its brilliance, the glory of the moon disappears.  So the Old has become obsolete with the coming of the New.  The Son now shines in all His glory.

AMEN