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The sermon teaches that Christ is not merely the Mediator or Surety of the covenant but its central gift to believers. Through union with Christ, His attributes, obedience, atoning death, resurrection, ascension, life, and fullness belong to His people. This gives assurance and directs believers to use Christ in every circumstance while living distinctly as His purchased and adopted people. Sinners are urgently invited to abandon all self-righteousness and trust Christ alone, because He receives every person who comes to Him.
Theological center: Christ Himself is the fullness and guaranteeing substance of the covenant of grace, whose saving work and life become the believer’s through union with Him.
Applications: Use Christ in every need · Live as Christ’s possession · Come to Christ · Trust Christ alone
Primary texts: Isaiah 49:8 · Romans 8:32 · Ephesians 2:6
“I will give thee for a covenant of the people.” Isaiah 49:8 WE all believe that our Savior 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. We have considered Him to be the Mediator of the covenant, for we were certain that God could make no covenant with man unless there were a mediator—an days-man who should stand between them both. And we have hailed Him as the Mediator, who with mercy in His hands, came down to tell to sinful man the news that grace was promised in the eternal counsel of the Most High. We have also loved our Savior as the Surety of the covenant, who, on our behalf, undertook to pay our debts and on His Father’s behalf, undertook also to see that all our souls should be secure and safe, and ultimately presented unblemished and complete before Him. And I doubt not, we have also rejoiced in the thought that Christ is the sum and substance of the covenant. We believe that if we would sum up all spiritual blessings, we must say, “Christ is all.” He is the matter, He is the substance of it. And although much might be said concerning the glories of the covenant, yet nothing could be said which is not to be found in that one word “Christ.” But this morning 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. It is our firm belief that Christ is ours and is given to us of God. We know that “He freely delivered him up for us all,” and we, therefore, believe that He will, “with him, freely give us all things.” We can say with the spouse, “My beloved is mine.” We feel that we have a personal property in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it will therefore delight us for a while, this morning, in the simplest manner possible, without the garnishing of eloquence or the trappings of oratory, just to meditate upon this great thought that Jesus Christ in the covenant is the property of every believer. First, we shall examine this property. Secondly, we shall notice the purpose for which it was conveyed to us. And thirdly, we shall give one precept, which may well be affixed upon so great a blessing as this, and is indeed an inference from it. I. In the first place, then, here is a GREAT POSSESSION—Jesus Christ by the covenant is the property of every believer. 1. By this we must understand Jesus Christ in many different senses. And we will begin, first of…