Scripture has much to say of the will of God. There is that which God has determined to do for His own glory, and which will assuredly be accomplished, there being no one in heaven or on earth who has the power to hinder Him from doing exactly what He wills to do. How blessed it is that God has willed the blessing of men in spite of all that man is and has done. To secure this blessing for men the Son of God came into the world, saying, “Lo, I come to do Thy will, O my God.” From John 6:38–40 we learn that it was the will of the Father that the Son should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day, and that all who believe in the Son should have life eternal and that they should be raised up at the last day.
The Blood of the New Covenant
When God made a covenant with Israel at the foot of mount Sinai, it was ratified with blood (Heb. 9:18), and all God’s dealings with Israel rested upon the base of atonement. Once a year there were the sacrifices of the day of atonement, when the blood was sprinkled once upon the mercy seat, and seven times before the mercy seat; but these sacrifices had no intrinsic value, their real value was in indicating that man could not be in God’s presence except on the ground of the great sacrifice to which they pointed forward. The ashes of the Red Heifer only sanctified “to the purifying of the flesh” (Heb. 9:13); nevertheless, this sacrifice also pointed forward to a sacrifice that would truly cleanse the conscience.
The blood of Christ is the great antitype of all the blood shedding and sprinkling of the Old Testament sacrifices, for by His own blood, Jesus has entered into the very presence of God “having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. 9:12). This same precious blood ratified the new covenant that will be able to bless His earthly people who failed so miserably under the old covenant of Sinai. On the night when Jesus was delivered up He introduced His supper, and on giving the disciples the cup He said, “This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you” (Luke 22:20).
Regarding the new covenant, which tells of God’s disposition in grace towards His people, the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews says, “For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator” (Heb. 9:16); and we know from what the Lord said on that night of nights, that He is the Testator who has shed His precious blood that all the blessing that lies in the will of God for His people might be secured to them.
The Blessing of the New Covenant
Although the new covenant will be made with Israel, as foretold in Jeremiah 31:31–34, the spirit of the new covenant is brought to believers now in the Gospel, as Paul clearly states in 2 Corinthians 3:6. In the new covenant we learn of God’s disposition towards His people, and it is in marked contrast to the demands made upon Israel by the old covenant. Under the old covenant the demands were “Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not,” but under the new covenant God says “I will.” The old covenant had two parties to it, and blessing from God depended on Israel fulfilling the conditions to which they had bound themselves in a covenant of death, but the new covenant is the expression of the sovereign goodness of God.
In Hebrews 10:16, quoting from Jeremiah 31, the word is, “This is the covenant that I will make with them, after those days, says the Lord.” Israel had to be fully tried under the old covenant, and their utter inability to procure blessing by their own efforts made manifest, before God made known what was in His heart for them, though it was clearly written in Jeremiah 31. It could not then be revealed that the new covenant would be ratified by the precious blood of God’s own Son. In the Gospel we learn of God’s disposition towards His people in sovereign grace, anticipating God’s will for the blessing of Israel in a coming day.
Having stated that He will intervene in sovereign grace with a new covenant, God tells us of its terms, saying, “I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them.” The writing of the old covenant on the tables of stone was a witness against Israel, for it showed how far short they came of God’s demands, but the law written upon the hearts of Israel, and in their minds, will show what Israel are for God. God and His word will be cherished in the hearts of His earthly people in the millennial day, and their thoughts will be governed by the will of God.
Paul, in 2 Corinthians 3:2-3 shows how new covenant ministry has written indelible impressions of Christ upon the hearts of God’s people now. The Spirit of the living God makes living impressions on the fleshy tables of our hearts, so that what is written there might be manifested in testimony for God in our lives. Each saint of God has received some divine impression of Christ upon his heart, so that the assembly, the sum of all true believers in any locality, might be “the epistle of Christ,” to be “known and read of all men.”
The next term of the new covenant is, “their sins and iniquities will I remember no more” (Heb. 10:17). Under the first covenant sins were brought to remembrance very year, on the day of atonement, but because of the shedding of the precious blood of Jesus, God is able to forgive the sins of His people. All our sins, and all Israel’s sins, were remembered when Christ “once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18), and God will never bring them to remembrance again.
From 2 Corinthians 3 we learn that the old covenant was a “ministration of condemnation” and a “ministration of death,” but that the new covenant is a “ministration of righteousness” and “the ministration of the Spirit” (verses 7–9). When Israel are blessed under the new covenant there will be with each one the knowledge of God (Heb. 8:11), but believers now have the knowledge of God, and “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
“Peace I leave with you”
What the Lord Jesus spoke to His disciples in John 13–16 was in view of His going to the Father, as He tells them again and again. He was going to prepare a place for them in the Father’s house, but would make ample provision for them during the time of His absence. The Holy Spirit would come, caring for them in every way, even as He had cared for them while with them. In John 14:27 the Lord speaks of one of the special things He was leaving for them, a legacy from Him that would keep them free from anxious care amidst all the trials that faithfulness to Him would bring them into.
Amidst all His own trials the Lord had known a deep, deep peace, and this is what He was leaving with them, even as He said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” They had often seen Him undisturbed when confronted with the deepest troubles, and this same peace was to be their portion. When the sisters of Bethany sent to Him saying, “Lord, behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick” (John 11:3), He said, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.” Undisturbed, Jesus waited two days where He was, His heart feeling with the bereaved sisters, but His movements being directed by the glory of God, and the fulfilling of His will.
The peace that Christ has left us is only known by those He loves, for in no other circle on earth is He known. Before the high priest, before Pilate and before Herod, and in the presence of all His foes, the peculiar peace that Jesus calls “My peace” was in evidence for His disciples to observe. We may truly marvel that such peace possessed His heart in such dreadful circumstances, but it was His because of who He was and uniquely His because it belonged to the eternal life that He manifested, and that He had come to impart to His own. He made peace by the blood of His cross; He secured peace of conscience to His own, a peace with God through faith in what He has accomplished in His death and resurrection; He is the peace of His people; but He has left us His own peace that we might be undismayed and untroubled in heart no matter what the circumstances in which we are found.
Coming out of death, the first words the Lord Jesus uttered to His assembled disciples were, “Peace to you” (John 20:19). His peace was ever to be known in the circle of His own whatever the conditions without might be. And just as He was about to send them forth in His service He again said to them, “Peace to you” (verse 21). His peace was to be theirs in their service for Him as also in the gatherings of His disciples. Again, in verse 26, when the doors were shut, Jesus came into the midst of His own with the same words upon His lips, “Peace to you.” This surely emphasises that the presence of the Lord in the midst of His own brings with it His own peace. This is the peace to which God has called His own, and that we are to enjoy as realising the truth of the one body (Col. 3:15).
“My joy”
At the beginning of John 15 the Lord instructs His own regarding fruit-bearing through which the Father is glorified (verses 1–8). Then He tells them of His great love for them, and exhorts them to continue in His love (verse 9), the secret of this being obedience in that which He has commanded them. After speaking these things Jesus said, “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full” (verse 11).
How very different was the joy of the Son of God to that of the men of this world. His joy was not found in the things of nature, or in the pursuits and pleasures of this poor old world. So far as this world was concerned He was “a Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, but He had joy of which this world knew nothing. When His disciples were joyful because the demons were subject to them through His Name, He told them rather to rejoice because their names were written in heaven (Luke 10:17–20). His joy was in heaven, for we read in the next verse, “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit…”
Jesus rejoiced in the Father and in the knowledge of His ways and counsels. He rejoiced because it was the Father’s good pleasure to reveal to His disciples the wonderful things connected with the Father’s Name, and that His own were privileged to see the works of the Father, and to hear the things He had come to make known to them. All the Son’s joy was connected with the things of the Father, the heavenly and eternal things He knew so well, and had come to communicate to His disciples. This is the joy that the Lord has left to His own. Our joy is to be found in Him and in the things of His Father, and in communion with the Father and the Son, as the same Apostle writes in his first epistle (1 John 1:1–4).
His Glory
If we are to enjoy the peace of Christ and Christ’s own joy, at the present time, there is also that which He has given us to share with Him in the coming day. Of this we learn when He is speaking to His Father, where He says, “And the glory which Thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22). The Son had not yet entered into His glory, but He speaks to the Father as already beyond the cross, and all that this would mean for Him. He can view the work as already fully accomplished, and the glory as already given. This glory, acquired by the work of the cross, He is delighted to share with those that the Father has given Him.
One [?] in the divine glory in which the Son of God is displayed in His own, there will be shown to the world the fruit of the work of the cross, for every one in that favoured company will be there because of the great work accomplished by Jesus in His death. As sharing the glory that the Father gave to the Son, the saints of God will be seen as sharing the Son’s place in the affections of the Father. So that not only will the grace of the Son be displayed, but also the love and grace of the Father. Men will see in that glory as they could not see when the Son was on earth, what the Son is and what the Father is.
These are but a few of the wonderful things brought to the saints of God through the death of Christ. The One who was rich, became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich. Although poor on earth, He left a wonderful legacy of divine riches to His own that He left behind in this world, and when He comes again He will bring them into all the wonderful treasures of the inheritance that is His as the Heir of all things. Through divine grace the saints are “joint-heirs with Christ,” and they shall share with Him all that He shall take up in His kingdom, and all that is His as Firstborn in the Father’s house.
R. 13.1.68