COVENANT RELATIONSHIP
[p. 422] COVENANT RELATIONSHIP
2 Corinthians 3: 1 - 18; John 17: 26
We might be helped by considering the Lord’s service in making the love of God known, that is the new covenant, and in making the Father’s name known. There is a distinction between the love of God made known in the death of Christ and “the love wherewith thou hast loved me” in John 17: 26. The one has to do with covenant relationship and the other with family relationship.
The glory referred to in 2 Corinthians is the ministry of Christ bringing in what “excelleth”, the love of God made known in our hearts; and His service makes it effective. “The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God”. The covenant has come in on account of sin, “A people” is a provisional thought, since sin came in God called out a people. The national thought is not primary, but the family thought is. The covenant is in regard of “a people”, a people brought out of Egypt (Exodus 19), and then He makes known to them what a place they had in His heart.
Those marked off by baptism and the gift of the Spirit form a people in direct relation to God. There was a distinct difference between such and the world at the outset, but it is beclouded now by the condition of Christendom. 2 Corinthians deals with the love of God, and Christ’s administration in making it known. In verse 18 to behold, to look on, is to ponder the way Christ took to make the love of God known, and the result of pondering on it will bring about correspondence. We become vessels of the love of God and so are changed. A [p. 423] vessel takes colour from what it contains. We are glorious in the measure in which we are expressive of love.
The glory of the Lord is that He has made the love of God effective in the believer’s heart. The Lord makes known covenant relationships, the Son makes known family relationships, and the latter abide. The covenant belongs to time down here, and we are to take account of His service in making the love known, and so we shall be transformed, a very strong word which means metamorphosed, changed to correspondence. Romans 5: 5 is when we touch the covenant, but we have to look on it — behold it, and so be transformed to the same image.
The love of God shed abroad in our hearts, the hearts of those that love God, is the answer to the covenant. Christ had in mind in giving the Spirit that the love of God should fill all hearts; the gift of the Spirit is part of His administration. “By the Lord the Spirit”. The question is, Are we beholding and being changed? The correspondence here is not the same as the conformity referred to in Romans 8: 29. This in 2 Corinthians is down here, love expressed on the line of administration, of the spirit of giving and the absence of selfishness. As the Lord gets His place with us in the supper, we come into the good of His administration, the supper brings Christ before us. “Drink of one Spirit” has reference to the cup of the new covenant. The supper is on the line of the covenant, what God is to us, the ‘coming down’ line; the assembly or family line is the ‘up-line’. The tribes go up, “Go to my brethren and say ... I ascend”. The supper brings the love of Christ and the love of God to us, and thus brings about an atmosphere that will lead us to the up-line. Psalm 122 begins, “Let us go into the house of the Lord”, and then develops the way there, “Whither the tribes go up” (verse 4). David is made king in Hebron. And then he and all Israel go up to Jerusalem.