Part 2 — Chapter 11: Of the Promises Made to Christ in the Covenant of Mediation

To Christ-God promises of reward cannot be made, nor can Christ-God suffer, but they are made to the Person God-Man, for the encouraging of the Man Christ, and he encourages himself with them (Isaiah 50:7-8). Christ-Man lived the life of faith by depending upon God for the joy set before him, and therefore did run (Hebrews 12). Our life should be sweeter, should we fetch all our comforts and actings from his influences by the faith of daily dependency. Faith here promises to itself good (Isaiah 26:12; Isaiah 30:31; Psalm 118:10-11; Psalm 16:9-11).

If the kinds of promises made to Christ be asked for: then first, no such promise as remission of sin can be made to him; but a twofold justification must be promised to him. A law-justification — this do and live: for the promise was made to the first Adam, to wit, that he should be justified and live, if he give consummate and perfect obedience to the law; now this Christ did in all things. Second, there is a justification of Christ from the bond of suretyship, he having completely satisfied for our debts; this was due to him, and promised (1 Timothy 3:16): justified in the Spirit; (Romans 1:4): declared to be the Son of God, by the resurrection from the dead — that was a judicial declaration. (Acts 2:24): having loosed the pains of death [Greek text], as a King by authority and judicially looses a prisoner from his fetters, having no more to say against him. (Psalm 105:20): The King sent and loosed him. (Isaiah 50:8): He is near that justifies me, who is he that contends with me in judgment? (Romans 6:9): Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead, dies no more, death shall no more have lordship or lordly dominion over him [Greek text]. So the word, (Luke 22:25): The Kings of the Gentiles bear dominion over them. (Romans 14:9): Death had some kingly dominion in justice and by law over him: but Christ by law of satisfactory payment, who was also the mighty Son of God, wrought himself out of the grips and fetters of death. So in Christ death has lost law-dominion over the believer. It is against justice and the just covenant between Jehovah and Christ, that we should be forever among the worms and not at length be loosed from the sting and victory of the [reconstructed: grave]: O death, you shall, you must let the captives go free (1 Corinthians 15:55; Hosea 13). The prison must be a free jail, when iron gates and fetters are broken. We have in Christ a good cause, the cause and action of law is [reconstructed: won], and carried in our favor.

Second, there is a promise of heavenly influences made to Christ (Isaiah 50:4): He wakens morning by morning, he wakens my ear to hear as the learned. Verse 5: The Lord has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious. Some great divines say, Christ had no sleepy nor closed ear: he must there speak of Isaiah. But so there was no sinful dryness in Christ; was he not therefore anointed? (Isaiah 42:1): I will put my Spirit upon him. Then all influences are promised also (Isaiah 11:2): The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him — and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord, and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, etc. Second, Christ was assured he could not sin, and so of influences to duties (John 5:30; John 8:26-27, 38, 50, 55; John 10:38), though he wanted influences at a time, as touching consolation and the felt fruition of God, being forsaken for a time (Psalm 22:1; Luke 22:44; Matthew 27:45). But Adam, as he was not to believe perseverance, nor yet sinfully to fear falling, so neither was he to believe influences to all acts of obedience, they not being promised to him. Yet was not Adam to believe his own reprobation; for it was neither true nor a revealed truth. Then the only nearest way against deadness and dryness, is to have recourse to the fountain and fullness of life that is in Christ. Literal quickening of ourselves, ignoring Christ, out of whose fullness we receive, produces but [reconstructed: literal tardiness]. Third, the special and cardinal promise — I will be his God (Psalm 89:26), and he shall cry to me, You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation — is bound up with Christ in the covenant of suretyship, and is the key and cornerstone of the frame and building of the covenant of grace (John 20:17): Go to my brothers, says Christ to Magdalen, and say to them, I ascend to my Father and to your Father, and to my God and your God. It is comfortable talking that Christ says to us, I and you believers are the children of the same Father, and have one covenant-relation to one God: though, as is said, Christ bears the relation of a surety-covenant to God, and we of a covenant of mediation; and notwithstanding the differences, yet it may be said that Christ and believers are in one writ, and one letter of acquittance discharges both from condemnation — Christ from condemnation of punishment, us from condemnation of inherent guiltiness and punishment. Blessed are we to be united to him every way, and to join our Amen and consent to the covenant: indeed, and in regard of profession, we should subscribe and write our names to it (Isaiah 44:1-3). Our maimed and broken and half consent proclaims an overly cold covenanting. It is true, parties are but once married, once covenanting by oath is as good as twenty: but frequent and multiplied acts of marriage-love add a great deal of firmness and of strength to the marriage bond, they are confirmations of our first subscription. Renewed acts of faith to take Christ for Jesus and Redeemer, and renewed acts of love, do more and more engage the heart to Christ as Lord and King. Little conversing with Christ deadens marriage-love. Rare visits and thin bring on worn-out acquaintance. We are apt to complain he visits us seldom: that is because we have not the childish hire of consolation and feeling, we refuse to work, and yet we should look at comfort for the duty, and not on the duty for the comfort, when it is a duty to our Father; and who looks upon the comfort both as a comfort and a duty? (1 Thessalonians 4:18): Comfort one another with these words: and so must they comfort themselves. Comfort is mainly for believing (Colossians 2:2; Hebrews 6:18), and there is a feast and a fill of joy in believing (Romans 15:13). We seek but a comfort and a joy of cheering and solacing ourselves, and that is all.

4. There is promised to Christ a seed (Isaiah 53:10): When you shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed. (Hebrews 2:13): Behold I and the children that God has given me. Jacob by Covenant served for Rachel: Christ also served, suffered and died of love for his Spouse (Ephesians 5:25-26) (Isaiah 53): he shall be satisfied. A redeemed seed was his end, and we endure hard labor for a desired end, and we are sick till we get the great end we aim at. It's true the honor of God was the special end (John 12:28) (John 17:1), yet it was heart satisfaction to Christ to have all his offspring and children with him (John 17:24). How should Christ not be our end? See if you do all, and suffer all, to fetch this shore (Philippians 3:8-9). Examine comparative ends, by-ends, self-ends. It's impossible a man can be ignorant of his last and main end, so strong an impulsion it has upon his heart.

5. There's not only a seed, but a rich conquest, the heathen promised, and the ends of the earth (Psalm 2:8-9). Dominion from sea to sea (Zechariah 9:10) (Psalm 72:8) (Daniel 7:14), and both this and the former satisfies Christ. There is not a sight so desirable to the eye of Christ, as to see all his redeemed ones conquering and last in the fields, and fairly landed on the shore, passed gun-shot and reach of all temptations. We satisfy our unbelieving hearts too much — Ah! who can stand, temptations are so strong. But as JEHOVAH fully satisfies Christ's soul, his hope, his aim and intended end in all the articles of the Covenant of Redemption: so fear not, JEHOVAH cannot break off the treaty with his Son, nor can Christ be left unsatisfied.

6. The Lord promises help to Christ against his enemies (Psalm 89:21): With him my hand shall be established, mine arm also shall strengthen him. There be many against Christ, but he has a divine furniture of strength. Hence protection is promised to him in the discharge of his office (Isaiah 49:2): In the shadow of his hand has he hid me, and made me a polished [reconstructed: shaft]: in his quiver has he hid me. The outlettings and manifestations of strength and furniture that is in the [reconstructed: head] redounds to a seasonable supply of all his afflicted ones, that they shall not be overwhelmed.

7. Victory is promised to Christ over all his enemies: The Lord will not leave his soul in grave (Psalm 16:10). Therefore (says the Lord speaking in covenant ways, Isaiah 53:12) will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong: because he has poured out his soul to death. He shall triumph over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15) (Luke 11:22), and shall make all his enemies his footstool, and subdue them, so that he shall fill the pits with the dead bodies (Psalm 110:1, 6), and plague all his enemies [reconstructed: (Genesis 3:15)] (Psalm 89:23): I will beat down his foes before his face, and plague them that hate him. It supports not a little our faith, that when we tremble before temptations from Satan and the mighty of the world, the Lord has written and covenanted to Christ all his and our enemies' destruction. Our turning away our eye from the Covenant is the cause why we succumb; Christ, under his sorest assault with hell and hell's pursuivants and officers, devils, and the felt anger of a forsaking God, doubles his grips on the Covenant, my God, my God (Psalm 22:1) (Matthew 27), O my Father (Matthew 26) (Psalm 89:26): He shall cry to me, my Father, my God. A Covenant is (as it were) more than a promise, being a solemn promise in condescension of mercy: So the Church (Psalm 89:38-39) and (Jeremiah 14:21), and the afflicted people (Isaiah 63:16), and (Daniel 9:4-6) (Ezra 9:6, 10:15), Hezekiah in a day of rebuke (Isaiah 37:16, 20), the slain Church (Psalm 79:9) (Psalm 80:1), flee to this shore in their storms, and the Lord professes he will be broken, entreated, and held by his Covenant (Leviticus 26:41-42).

8. There is a promise of glory, of a name above all names made to Christ for his sufferings (Psalm 16:9-11) (Isaiah 53:12) (Acts 5:31), and to such as suffer with him, and overcome (Luke 22:29-30) (Revelation 3:21) (Revelation 2:10). As also, he shall bear all the glory of his Father's house (Isaiah 22) (Zechariah 7:13).

9. The Lord promises forbearing mercy to the children of Christ; if they sin, he will correct them in measure, and in a fatherly way give them repentance, but not remove the covenant-mercy. So has the Lord covenanted and articled in the writ with his Son, a rod to children, to difference them from bastards (Hebrews 12). And he that has his fire in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem, writes this up as a covenant-mercy, that he will not suffer them to perish with the world. Hence, the rods of the wicked stand booked in the Covenant of Works among the curses of the book of the Law (Leviticus 26) (Deuteronomy 28:15-17, etc.): our rods are covenanted mercies in the compact between the Lord and Christ, and written in the gospel-book of the Covenant of Grace.

10. All the promises of the Gospel are first (as it were) promised to Christ; the Gospel is put over in his hand. Jesus is the Angel (Revelation 10:1), clothed with a Cloud, and a rainbow on his head (verse 2), and has in his hand a little book open; the Testament, and the book of all the promises to dispense them to such as the Father has given to him, to give his Spirit to his own, to intercede and advocate for them, to ratify and seal them with his blood.

11. There is promised to him a headship, and power of judgment, over man and angels, with an oath, that to him all knees shall bow (Romans 14:11) (Isaiah 45:23) (Philippians 2:10), and that he shall add his seal to gospel-hell and vengeance inflicted upon the despisers of the Gospel (Luke 19:14) (Matthew 26:64). The threatenings against gospel unbelief are put in the hands of Christ, not as Redeemer and Surety, but as a refused Surety and King, whom unbelievers will not have to reign over them.

12. Adam broke the whole frame of heaven and earth: and to the Second Adam the whole broken and marred lump of the Creation is promised, that he may be the repairer of the waste places. I will preserve you, and give you for a Covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages (Isaiah 49:8). Under the reign of the Messiah, there shall be a handful of corn upon the top of the mountains, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon (Psalm 72:16). Therefore shall they come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together for the goodness of the Lord (Christ) for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd (Jeremiah 31:12).

1. The Lord made all things at the beginning very good (Genesis 1:31). Heaven, Earth, Sun, Moon, Beasts, Birds, etc. being all made servants to man, were in a manner fellow-Covenanters in their kind with man in the Covenant of Works: As a King covenants with a great family, his servants and dependents have the benefit of the King's Covenant-peace, all obeyed Adam without jarring: but when Adam sinned, war between the Lord, and between the master and the servants is denounced, the earth is cursed for his sake (Genesis 3:17-18), and lions and wild beasts rise against him like loose borderers. But in the Covenant of Grace (Hosea 2:18-20), the beasts of the field, the fowls of the heaven, the Sun which shall not smite by day, nor the Moon by night (Psalm 121:6), are by the Surety of the Covenant brought in a new league: yes the stones of the field (Job 5:23) are co-partners of the peace, and Christ the King takes off the forfeiture upon all, and looses the arrestment of vanity that by sin was laid upon the Creation, which was made sick like a woman travailing in birth (Romans 8:20-22). Hence are they blessed in Christ to the saints (Deuteronomy 28:4-5; Leviticus 26:4-6), and the angels come in under their Head Christ (Colossians 2:10), and serve the new restored heirs (Hebrews 1:13), for their Head's sake.

2. God has appointed Christ the Heir of all things (Hebrews 1:2), and has given a Charter to Christ and put in bread, garments, houses and all to the believer in Christ the first Heir: his great evidence is (1 Corinthians 3:21), "All things are yours."

3. He makes all things new (Revelation 21:5). This Christ mends the broken gold ring which was broken by the first inattentive and rash Heir Adam; so that now heavens, earth, mountains (Isaiah 49:13), sea, trees, fields (Psalm 96:11-13) are commanded to sing a Gospel-Psalm of joy, because Christ the new King and Restorer of all is come to the throne: yes let the [reconstructed: floods] clap their hands (Psalm 98:9), and he purposes to purge with fire the great Pest-house infected with sin and under bondage of corruption (Romans 8:21; 2 Peter 3:10-11), that he may set up the new world in Gospel-beauty — the new heavens and the new earth (2 Peter 3:13; Isaiah 65:17; Isaiah 66:22; Revelation 21:1). Oh what a life to have a cottage and a little yard of herbs in that new world, and how base to be but citizens of this world!