Word of Salvation – February 2025
Covenant
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Isaiah 59:1-2; 20-21 & W.C.F. 7:1 & 3
Reading: Isaiah 59; Westminster Confession – art.7:1-3
Singing: BoW.514 The God of Abram praise
– BoW.460 O God of Bethel, by whose hand
– BoW.105 Unto the Lord lift thankful voices [1,5,6]
– BoW.159 Glory be to God in heaven
Theme: God’s Covenant of grace thru His Redeemer affirmed in context of human sin that alienates from God.
Introd: Occasionally it hits home to me that we pastors are a formidable figure to some.
On a pulpit-swap Sunday a child in my congregation came home and said: God wasn’t in church today.
Her Mum corrected her by telling her that God was always in church.
Later that week she told her mother that God’s children had been while she was away.
That’s when the penny dropped for the Mum. A horrible case of mistaken identity.
In a similar way most people often find the leaders in our society very formidable people.
You and I would not phone the Premier and ask if we might drop in for a cuppa.
It’s most unlikely we would get an appointment anyway.
That becomes even more so with the Prime Minister in Canberra.
He is a formidable figure in the sense that he is the head of our Government.
The distance becomes even greater when we think of the Queen.
There is an enormous chasm between the royal family and us ordinary mortals.
But now let’s add to that unequal relationship another factor.
You have publicly slandered the Premier or the Prime Minister.
You have insulted the Queen and deeply offended her.
You are now even less inclined to contact these people… even if you could.
And they for their part would not be all that interested in talking to you.
There is even a technical term that now applies to you: “persona non grata”.
That means that you are now an unacceptable person.
If we magnify that imagery many times over then we have some idea of our situation with God.
He’s the most formidable Authority Figure there is. And we have deeply offended Him.
The gap between God and us is so great as to separate us from Him eternally.
Isaiah 59 and the West. Confession chap.7 tell us we are God’s “persona non grata”.
A] THE DISTANCE THAT GOD BRIDGES IN THE COVENANT.
- Isaiah spends a whole chapter explaining why the nation of Judah is “persona non grata”.
It’s not a pretty picture… (and in these studies from Isaiah we’ve seen that over and over.)
This is a sinful nation under God’s judgment… effectively banished from their land.
To say that things are not going well would be an immense understatement.
And right now it seems that the gap between God and them has never been wider.
That’s the situation pictured in the opening verses of this chapter.
Judah is a nation that is in big trouble… and Isaiah especially highlights that this isn’t God’s fault.
Behind this lies a very common scenario: When things go wrong people blame God…!
People do that all the time… even agnostics and atheists do it.
I’ve known a man who said that he didn’t believe in God.
But then trouble came into his life he asked: Why is God doing this to me?
Sometimes people have the idea that God knows and cares but that His power is limited.
Maybe God can’t really fix my problem.
But Isaiah says: The arm of the Lord is not too short to save.
Other folk do believe in God’s power… it’s just that God doesn’t know about them.
He’s got billions of other people in the world to look after.
So maybe my prayers got lost somewhere along the way.
But Isaiah says: Nor is His ear too dull to hear.
- Isaiah is saying: being ‘persona non grata’ is not God’s fault. He is not to blame.
God could very easily deal with their troubles. So what’s the real issue…?
Let’s go back to that technical term ‘persona non grata’.
Imagine I become an unacceptable person to an authority figure.
Through something I said or did I alienated the Prime Minister.
At that point I do not declare myself ‘persona non grata’ – the Prime Minister does that.
Because I have offended him by my words or actions.
So the PM now warns his staff not to give me any access to him.
That problem is not of the PM’s making. It’s not his fault.
But my alienated standing is what he now declares to be so. He labels me: persona non grata!
Or think of a marriage in which a husband has verbally and physically abused his wife.
So a restraining order is taken out by the wife against her husband.
The situation is not her doing… it’s her husband’s doing.
But she is the one who takes out the restraining order.
Isaiah has affirmed God’s power and God’s ability to hear our prayers.
But he goes on to highlight that our sins make us ‘persona non grata’.
It is as if God the husband has taken out a restraining order on His abusive bride.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God.
Your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
Our sin does impact God in the sense that he now has to declare us ‘persona non grata’.
In the rest of the chapter the reasons for this are given.
From verses 3 to 8 we have a lengthy catalogue of their offences.
It reads like a list of abuses leading to a restraining order.
Bloodshed… lies… injustice… violence… – the list goes on and on.
In verses 9 to 15a Isaiah then confesses that this is indeed so.
He confesses on behalf of the people that they have been abusive.
They deserve to be regarded as ‘persona non grata’… they deserve a restraining order.
One of our problems is that we read about sin in the Bible so often that it doesn’t shock us anymore.
But at the end of Isaiah’s confession we get a glimpse of just how awful things are.
In verse 16 we actually read that God is appalled.
Appalled not just by Israel’s sin… but that no one does anything about it.
There is no one found to take up God’s cause.
In fact it is possible to read that God is stunned… stunned at Judah’s situation.
- It’s interesting to notice some parallels between Isaiah and the Westminster Confession.
Isaiah wants to tell us in a little while about God’s wonderful covenant of grace.
And that’s what this chapter of the W.Conf is about too.
But it too gives us the context: that we are by nature ‘persona non grata’ with God.
The WCF also shows clearly that there is an immense gap between God and us.
Chapter 6 dealt with our inability do anything about our spiritual condition.
That we come into this world physically alive but spiritually dead.
As Paul said: We are dead in our transgressions: Persona non grata.
We are people against who God has (as it were) taken out a restraining order.
We’re not allowed to go anywhere near God.
WCF chapter 7 now makes us acutely aware once more that from our side all hope is cut off.
Human beings cannot make themselves “persona grata”… they cannot remove the restraining order.
The distance between God and His creation is so great.
By our Fall into sin we made any relationship with God from our side impossible.
B] GOD’S REDEEMING WORK – THE HEART OF COVENANT.
- The point Isaiah especially wants to make is that God takes the initiative.
There is this daunting gap between God and us human beings.
Not just because God is the Creator… and we are the creatures.
God is the Authority Figure… we the people under authority.
But sin has further widened the gap between God and humanity.
Your iniquities have separated you from your God.
But now the wonderful thing is that God takes action to deal with that hopeless situation.
In verses 16 and following, we see God in the role of a Warrior King.
He is busy putting on His armour.
And He is going to bring about salvation and deliverance.
He is going to deal with the hopeless situation Judah is in.
You find exactly the same language in Isaiah 63.
There too – in vs.5 God is stunned that there is no one on His side.
And there too God’s own arm works salvation for Him.
So we have a God who is not only deeply affected by human sin.
And especially by the sin of His own people.
But we also have a God who stirs Himself to do something about it.
A God who will go out punishing and rewarding as appropriate.
In order to deal with this terrible state of affairs.
In the process of doing so Isaiah speaks of God’s armour.
It’s imagery that Paul takes up in Ephesians 6.
But here God Himself is wearing the armour of a well armed warrior.
And the various parts of the armour are really God’s attributes.
Righteousness, salvation, vengeance, zeal.
The Lord is going to make sure that this immense problem is solved.
- Isaiah shows us the reason for that.
God’s intention is for some wonderfully positive results:
So that people will come to fear God’s name.
So that they will revere His glory thru all the earth.
That shows us that God is not just concerned with Judah back in the time of Isaiah.
He is looking ahead to the time when people will praise God from all nations.
They will come from every language and tribe and people group.
So there are multiple fulfilments here.
Yes… God is going to deal with Judah’s ‘persona non grata’ status.
But He is going to do that for far more people than just Judah.
That’s why we have a picture of God’s coming like a pent-up flood.
God is going to unleash his power and glory in a wonderful way.
And then suddenly in that context we get introduced to a Redeemer figure.
The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins.
In the OT a Redeemer (literally: a Goel) was a kinsman – just like Boaz was for Ruth.
That kinsman was called on to take up the cause of widowed and orphaned relatives.
He was to provide for them in a number of ways.
1) If a family member was murdered he was the avenger of blood to bring about justice.
2) He was to look after relatives materially by buying back any property they had lost.
3) He was to carry on their family name by marrying the childless widow.
So his task was to protect the person… the property… and the posterity of his relatives.
- Again it almost seems as if the Westminster Conf. took its cue from Isaiah 59.
Like Isaiah 59 it doesn’t beat around the bush about the seriousness of our problem.
But it also gives us precisely the same answer.
That God took the initiative and did something about the problem in the Covenant of Grace.
The covenant is about God taking the initiative in a situation that was hopeless.
God provided a way to remove our ‘persona non grata’ status.
God found a way to withdraw the restraining order that stopped us coming to God.
God found a not-so-daunting way for us to approach Him, the supreme Authority Figure.
And the answer, of course, is that God did that in Jesus Christ.
Ultimately He is the Redeemer kinsman, pictured in vs.20.
Jesus is the One who avenges our wrong.
He is the One who guards our inheritance.
And He is the One who protects and blesses us.
Jesus is the Redeemer kinsman of whom Boaz in the OT was shadowy picture.
So the heart of the Covenant is God’s redeeming work in Jesus His Son.
The Covenant of Grace is all about God offering salvation thru Jesus.
And we find this link between the covenant and the Redeemer often in Isaiah (cf.42:6; 49:8).
The Redeemer is the One who makes God approachable. We come to God through Jesus.
He is the One who has cancelled the restraining order that stopped us coming to God.
He is the One who changes our ‘persona non grata’ status to ‘persona grata’.
However, as Isaiah reminds us: He does that for those who repent of their sins.
We can’t change our status… only the Redeemer can.
We can’t remove the restraining order… only the Redeemer can.
But we can cry out to Him for mercy as we repent of our sins.
C] THE COVENANT OF GRACE THAT LASTS FOREVER.
- That brings us to the heart of the issue: The Covenant of Grace.
We all know what a covenant is. It’s an agreement… it’s a biding contract.
But why is it called the Covenant of Grace?
Grace is undeserved favour… grace is being given what we have not deserved.
Grace is a gift… it’s not a earned by our merit.
And we see that very clearly here in Isaiah.
That catalogue of sin in vss.3-8 makes clear that Judah had no claims on God.
Isaiah’s confession in vss.9-15 highlights they deserved nothing from God.
So when God takes the initiative and steps in to act anyway… that is Grace.
Grace is that God takes the initiative when we can’t.
God makes Himself approachable to sinners through Jesus – that’s grace.
In Jesus’ death He took away what restrained us from coming to God – that’s grace.
Jesus changed our status from “persona non grata” to “persona grata” – that’s grace.
Today we don’t use the term “persona non grata” very often.
It is still found in some legal documents like restraining orders.
Apart from that you’ll probably only find it in the dictionary under “foreign phrases”.
However the Latin word ‘grata’ is the root word for ‘grace’.
A ‘persona non grata’ is literally a person without favour… without grace.
Jesus changes graceless people into persona grata… people of favour… people of grace.
That covenant of grace is defined for us in the last verse of Isaiah 59.
Of course it is not a new covenant really.
It is rather the renewal of the covenant that goes right back to the time of Abraham.
Because God has always dealt with His people in a covenant relationship.
He has always taken the initiative and extended His grace.
There is no other way for human beings to live in relationship to Him.
The only way is under the covenant of grace – as persona grata.
People are pleasing to God only on the basis of what the Redeemer has done.
- Isaiah tells us only a little about that covenant of grace.
If you want more details – read the rest of chapter 7 of the Westminster Confession.
Or take up a concordance and trace the way the word ‘covenant’ is used in Isaiah and elsewhere.
Let me say just three things about it.
First, that covenant has always been linked to the Lord Jesus Christ.
The promise of the Redeemer is linked to Isaiah’s words about the covenant.
And that’s the way it was throughout the OT.
Covenant people looked forward to God’s promised Redeemer.
And as they repented and believed God’s covenant promise they became persona grata.
Secondly, Isaiah speaks of the covenant in a way that is unusual in the OT.
And that is because he is looking forward here to its NT fulfilment in Jesus.
The covenant is about God’s Spirit on them and God’s Words put in their mouth.
Word and Spirit… that’s the only way God’s people can live as ‘persona grata’.
We are different people when God’s Spirit is in our hearts and His Word on our lips.
Thirdly, this covenant is an eternal covenant (Isaiah calls it that more often cf. 54:10).
An eternal covenant made with successive generations.
So it applies to us and to our children and to their descendants.
Not because our kids are so good… only because God is so faithful.
But then they too will need to repent of their sins.
- Let me close by reminding you that God’s dealings with humanity are always covenantal.
And you can trace those covenant concepts right back to Adam.
The language is there also in God’s dealings with Noah.
We find it especially in God’s friendship with Abraham.
It is also there with Israel, and with David, and with the priesthood.
Because of our weakness and our inability God arises and does what we cannot do.
He has bound Himself contractually to His people.
Always relating to them through the covenant of grace.
So He puts His Spirit in their hearts and His Word in their mouth.
In this chapter then we get a wonderful overview of salvation history.
Or if you like: those three well-known themes of Sin, Salvation and Service.
Judah sinned, but God in grace saved them so that they might serve Him.
That pattern of grace is even more clear for us today in the gospel.
We were people who were ‘person no grata’ – unable to solve our sin problem.
Now Redeemed and restored into favour with God with the barrier removed.
And now through God’s Spirit and Word empowered to live as “grace people”.
What a wonderful thing it is… to belong to God’s covenant of grace.
None of it was our doing… all of it was His work.
To Him be the glory… now and always.
Amen