God's Covenant with Man
R. H. Davies, B. A. Isaiah 42:6 I the LORD have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and give you for a covenant of the people… We are apt to understand that there are two covenants, respectively called the covenant of works and the covenant of grace. 1. Let us define what a covenant is. In its primary sense it signifies a mutual compact or agreement between two parties. The covenant is kept on the one side by those conditions being ratified in a full and faithful observance of them; on the other side by the conferment of the benefit upon the completion of the conditions. 2. When viewing God and man as the two parties between whom a covenant has been made, we perceive that there have been two covenants entered into; in each the benefit offered by the Father has been the same, viz., eternal life, but the terms or conditions are different. (1) In the covenant of works, the condition to be accepted and ratified by man was single, that is, obedience to the moral law of God, which law contains within its sanctions not merely an obedience to any positive commands or implied wishes, but an inward heart-observance of a complete holiness, this complete holiness being in fact itself the law, and any deviation whatever from the prescription of a complete holiness being an infraction of the law, and consequently that flaw in the covenanted obedience on man's part, which destroys the covenant altogether, and thus, annulling it, renders it nugatory. (2) The conditions in the covenant of grace are twofold, repentance and faith, obedience to the law constituting no part of the terms on which God will confer the promised boon, though according to this, He will regulate the degrees of glory to be known and shared in and through the heavenly immortality. For the law of God has never been repealed, and never can be; neither does the covenant of grace at all make void the law, nay, as the apostle says, "it establishes it." 3. An ordinary attention to the constitution of these two covenants will show us that there is between God and man, now (the "now" taking in the position and history of man from the fall, to the finished and ultimate recovery of redemption) but this one covenant of grace. Consider, and this partly by contrasting the two, in what this second or new covenant consists. (1) It agrees with the first in this, (a) that the ultimate object is the same, viz., everlasting life for man; (b) that in God's part of the contract the promise attached to it is the same. (2) It differs from the other in these respects. That a third party is introduced — the Mediator Christ Jesus, the Son of God. That on man's part the conditions are different, repentance and faith being in the stead of obedience. 4. See the vital importance of understanding the truth with respect to the two covenants. There are not two covenants. There never have been two co-existing covenants. When man broke the first, it was at an end. Morally speaking, it could not be re-instituted; because, the nature of man having become sinful, and this sinfulness a necessary entailment on all his children, it was rendered impossible for man to keep a covenant of works. And a covenant broken is no longer a covenant. God, then, in His mercy and love, instituted another covenant, the same as to intent, but differing in its conditions for man, prescribing conditions which he could observe, because of the new provision made in the Mediator Christ Jesus, by whom the law should be inviolably kept, and so a justifying righteousness procured, and by whom a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice should be made in the offering of His own spotless body for the sins of the whole world. See how this strikes at the root of all man's pride and self-dependence, and attempts at working out a self-righteousness for his justification. See, too, the surpassing consideration of God for the pour, condemned helpless, sinner. See also the wondrousforce of our text. It was to the dearly-beloved Son that God said, "I, the Lord, have called Thee in righteousness," etc. Because on Him devolved the work of rescue, because He is the Mediator, because He will ensure the final victory, because in Him the new covenant was opened, in Him established, by Him maintained, Himself is called the covenant. To reject Him is to reject the covenant; to look anywhere else for salvation, to attempt any other way to God's favour than by Him, to try any other terms than those of His Gospel, is to reject Him; and that is to reject the covenant of God and to enter into covenant with death. (R. H. Davies, B. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; WEB: "I, Yahweh, have called you in righteousness, and will hold your hand, and will keep you, and make you a covenant for the people, as a light for the nations;