the Fourth Week after Easter
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Daily Devotionals
Grace for Today
Hebrews 13:20-21
‘The everlasting covenant’
Read Psalms 89:19-37
We delight and take comfort in the fact that the Lord our God has established for us a covenant ordered in all things and sure. Its blessings upon the Israel of God, the church of Christ, are innumerable (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Hebrews 8:10; Hebrews 10:16-17). In our text, the apostle Paul tells us four things about the covenant of God’s grace.
1. Jesus Christ is the central figure in this covenant. The covenant of, grace is an eternal agreement between the three persons of the sacred Trinity for the salvation of God’s elect. But at the heart and foundation of the covenant is ‘our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep’. According to the Father’s command, the great Shepherd agreed to die for his sheep and assumed the responsibility of bringing them all safe to heaven. Because of Christ’s covenant engagements on our behalf, the Lord God says of his elect, ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom!’ God the Father says of his Son, ‘I have laid help upon one that is mighty!’
2. This covenant was sealed and ratified by the blood of Christ (Hebrews 9:15-17). Having fulfilled everything agreed upon in the covenant, the Son of God sealed it with his blood. Now the covenant has the force of a will or testament. The inheritance of the crucified Christ must be given to his redeemed, believing people.
3. This is a covenant that cannot be broken. It is everlasting, and therefore immutable. All who were given to Christ were redeemed by Christ, will come to Christ and will be raised again at the last day! God promised it. He swore by his holy name that he would do it! And it will be done!
4. God has so arranged things in the covenant of grace that he will get all the glory of it. His glory he will not share with another. He must have the glory exclusively. He must have the glory eternally. Let us give him the glory now. ‘Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and thy truth’s sake!'
