THE COVENANT IN THE SUPPER

E.E.Hoyte

Genesis 9: 12-17; Isaiah 42: 6-8; Hebrews 13: 20,21

I want to say a little on the word 'covenant' and on what a covenant is. We make covenants in the business world and have to stand by them; they cannot be broken, you cannot give them up. I wondered if we understood that the Supper to which we committed our hands to-day involves that, on my part and on yours. You put forth your hands to the emblems as committed to what the Supper speaks of. The covenant is an agreement and you have to be true to it. So from the youngest to the oldest we want to ask ourselves whether we are true to our committal, true to what we have committed our hands to. Hands are what we use for doing things.

You cannot think of anything more sacred than the Supper because it brings before us not simply the person of Jesus but His death, the death of One who is spotless, who is holy. When you put your hand to it you should know what is involved. Why was His death necessary? Why did our Lord Jesus have to die? He was holy: "the holy thing also which shall be born shall be called Son of God" (Luke 1: 35) and that holy Person never sinned, He was perfect. As you take the emblems in your hand, whether it be the loaf or the cup, what you have in your hand is a suggestion of perfection, not in yourself - certainly not - but the perfection of a Man who did the will of God. Have you ever thought of it? If you have not, think of it now, that when you commit yourself to the Supper you are committing yourself to something very great, the death of Jesus. That is what you are saying to the world: I am committed to that, the sacrifice, the holy sacrifice, of a Man who is perfect in every iota. But He had to die, He had to die for me and for you, in order that we should live.

So you get the idea of life out of death. That is God's great thought. Adam was created and on account of his failure death came in. God said "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat", Gen 2: 17. The enemy came in as deceiver suggesting that God was not true. God is always true to His promise and His word. He said, You have everything here, Adam, everything here for your use; you can take of all, eat everything, but you are not to eat that. And, you know, people are very bold. They might say, Why did God have to forbid him, why did He put that tree there and forbid him to eat of it? That is the boldness of man's mind. They cannot be any bolder than when they say "There is no God" (Ps 14: 1) but they might say even that.

God has rights, God is sovereign. We have to think of that, and if He says, No I am setting you up here and I want you to have the full run of it, I want you to be in blessing, but you have to observe My word, He has His rights. People do not think of God having rights over them, sovereign rights creatorially. The potter has rights over the clay. God has rights over us, so He can tell us what He wants us to do. Our part is to obey. Adam failed and death came in, but God had in mind life out of death, that was the life God had in mind.

God was not disappointed, He was not baffled. He had made a promise, the promise of life in Christ Jesus. That was before Adam was created; God saw there would be the need for it and He made the promise, the promise of life in Christ Jesus (see 2 Tim 1: 1). Have you ever thought of that? How wonderful that is! It was made before the foundation of the world (see Eph 1: 4) and He has life in mind, and the kind of life God had in mind is life out of death. So we speak of the death of Jesus; it involved that promise of life in Christ Jesus. How has it come about? By the death of Jesus. He had to die and bring in life, life according to God, and incorruptibility - think of that: incorruptibility through the glad tidings.

Well, we have the glad tidings to-night but we are coming to this matter of your committal to the emblems. As I say, it is an agreement; it is not an empty thing. You may put your hand to a piece of paper and perhaps you are signing away your life, so you have to be very careful what you do and commit yourself to: a piece of paper may sign away your fortune. It is no mean thing but you have to stand by it. What the covenant demands you must stand by, you cannot depart from it. I am just bringing that forward, dear brethren, to help us, especially the young ones, as to this matter of committal. You cannot turn back you have made it: it is an agreement and you have to stand by it.

Now I want to show you how God stands by everything He says. But, you say, I would expect that. But do you know in the first scripture I read there is a covenant that God made with the whole earth? Have you ever noticed the rainbow? Do you see the rainbow much here? Good! In the United States you hardly see it, but it is there. Have you ever thought that God made this covenant with the earth? And He gave the sign of it that he would not destroy the earth again by a flood. You see a great downpour and you say, What a swimming we have to do here to get through this. But you say to yourself it does not matter how much it rains, that rainbow is a sign that the earth is not going to be destroyed by flood again. That is what God said to Noah. On what basis has He made that promise, that covenant to Noah? I will tell you what it is. Noah had just come out of the ark. The ark had just gone through the flood. The flood had destroyed everything on the earth and Noah came out, himself and his family and all in the ark, they were brought through in the ark. And as Noah comes out of the ark what does he do? He offers to God of every clean animal and fowl as a sacrifice. But what it says is that God smelled an odour of rest. It says, "Jehovah smelled the sweet odour" (the note says 'an odour of rest') Gen 8: 21. Noah was reclaiming the earth for God. God had just cleansed it; it was so bad, so corrupt, that He says, I cannot go on: "My Spirit shall not always plead with Man", chap 6: 3. Now we have the same conditions, but God is not changing that word, His covenant. See down the ages, He is not changing it; He stands to His word. And so God now found rest in the new world in type, and Noah said if there is to be something for God in this one it must be on the principle of death, of sacrifice. So it says that he "took of every clean animal, and of all clean fowl", chap 8: 20. He did not say, We have to live, we have to exist. But he took of every one "and offered up burnt offerings" - not a burnt offering - but "burnt offerings on the altar", and God was pleased; He smelled an odour of rest that He did not get before. He says, Now Noah, I am going to make a covenant with you and I am not going to break it. He says "that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living soul of all flesh that is upon the earth". How sweeping that is!

Well, you say, why am I labouring to tell you about this flood? It is a very important thing, because what I want to come on to next is the death of Jesus. What I want to come on to savours of that. What is it? It is to show me God's disposition towards me. I am a sinner and what I learn from it is that God has given Jesus to be a covenant; notice that, He is the covenant, that is what it says in the scripture in Isaiah. What kind of person must God give for that? If you read the beginning of the chapter you see who He is speaking about and what He is going to accomplish, He is going to do everything for God. It does not say that here, but he is going to bring in a world for God, for His pleasure and delight. What kind of Man He is? So God begins from that point to describe the person whom He is giving as a covenant. Notice what He says at the beginning of the chapter. He is calling our attention, He says "Behold". That is something we want to observe. "Behold my servant whom I uphold". He is speaking about a Man, He is speaking about Jesus - that Person whom we remember the first day of every week. He is speaking about that Man and this sweeping character of the death of Jesus. So He says "Behold my servant". Do you want to see His Servant, dear brethren? Do you want to get to a servant? It is this Person. God has spoken of others in that capacity - "my servant Moses" (Num 12: 7) - but there is not one like this One, not persons who are "to open the blind eyes, to bring forth the prisoner from the prison, them that sit in darkness out of the house of restraint" and so on. None of the others did that. It involves a sweeping thing - the deliverance that man needs for his soul. You may say that Moses brought them out of Egypt. Good, so he did, but this is soul deliverance, soul salvation, eternal salvation for souls. No one can redeem the soul or can give God a ransom for it (see Ps 49: 8). It requires such a death as this, as I said just now, a perfect one, and so God presents Him to us. Why does He present this to us? He wants us to appreciate this blessed Person whom He is bringing before us.

'Of all the gifts Thy love bestows,

Thou Giver of all good!

E'en heav'n itself no richer knows

Than the Redeemer's blood'.

(Hymn No 1)

See how rich it is! But He speaks of the perfect servant: "Behold my servant whom I uphold". There has not been a man anywhere like Jesus. You say, But there are the saints. I admit that. He has brought us into that position of saints, but if we are to be called saints it is on the basis of this that I am talking about. So "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!". God finds delight for His soul. That is how the scripture puts it. God has not a soul like we have, but that is how it puts it. Why does He put it that way? Because we are human beings He puts it in language that we can understand. That is what He is saying - One who delights His soul. Is the Lord Jesus the delight of your soul? You say, I have been breaking bread for twenty, thirty, forty years. Very good! But have you reached that point where Christ has this place in your heart? "Behold my servant": God is calling attention to Him. That is the Person whom you remember, or assumedly remember, every first day of the week. The fact that you do that is your committal, putting of your hand out to the emblems. The point is are you true to that? You have committed yourself to it. It is an agreement. The point is to keep it, keep it inviolate. Whatever you do must be consistent with those emblems - the Holy One. So it involves holiness, dear brethren.

So He says "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth! I will put my Spirit upon him; he shall bring forth judgment to the nations". See this Person! "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment according to truth". Oh these statements! I have not time to go into them but the bruised reed and so on speaks of the meekness of Jesus. "He shall not cry": think of the meekness of Jesus! So you think of the lamb, think of the sheep: Led before His shearers is dumb so He opened not His mouth. That is Jehovah's servant. That is what Isaiah brings forth: "Who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been revealed? For he shall grow up before him", Isa 53: 1,2. Who is the He? The scripture is calling attention to Christ without mentioning His Name. "He shall grow up before him as a tender sapling". Do you ever ponder over the life of Jesus, dear brethren? Do you ever meditate upon it? You say, I like to think of His death and what it has effected for me. Thank God! But go over it and learn something about the life of Jesus. That is the thing to look into, the life of Jesus. Paul says "that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh", 2 Cor 4: 11. That is what we are here for, to be an expression of the life of Jesus. You go over it to see what kind of Man He was.

Now He comes ready to face death. He does not open His mouth. Remember that He said not a word. And they are going to kill Him: that is what they are going to do. It is the Lamb, dumb before its shearers, He opened not His mouth. "He was led as a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb in presence of him that shears him, thus he opens not his mouth", Acts 8: 32. He said not a word. He is the One who is bruised: "bruised for our iniquities". Do you recognise your iniquities, dear brethren? He has been bruised for them. You say I have had to do with Him about my sins. Well; but maybe we have some transgressions that we have to think about. Let us think about them. He had to be bruised for them. Our iniquities were put upon Him and by HIs stripes we are healed. That is the Servant; that is this Person.

Well, God has given Him as a covenant for us. Notice that word 'covenant'. God says, There you are, that is My disposition towards you - nothing but blessing. I am going to show you that, I am going to give Him up as a covenant - to death. So as you take the cup you remember that it is "the new covenant in my blood”, 1 Cor 11: 25. I just want to leave with you that Christ has been given as a covenant; it is a Person. The rainbow is just a sign, it is in the creation, but God has man, ourselves, in mind, and He gives a Man as a sign of the covenant, gives Him as a covenant indeed. He is not drawing Him back, He could not. So the Lord had to go through. The Lord came to a point with His Father: "if it be possible let this cup pass from me", Matt 26: 39. Think of that! He was not answered: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", Matt 27: 46. It is Christ on the cross. Have you pondered over these things, pondered over the life of Jesus here? It is a study for us. It is the oblation, the life of Jesus here. So look into it, dear brethren. The oblation! What it was! Life that sprung up, was cut down and baked, to be sent to God, an oblation, the fruit, the product of the earth. The type refers to Christ in Manhood growing up for the pleasure of God and being cut down and submitted to the fire of divine judgment in order to carry out that covenant. He says: "(in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will", Heb 10: 7. That is something the Lord pledged Himself to before the foundation of the world - "(in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God thy will". And as pondering over the cross He says "not my will", Luke 22: 42. He had come to do it. And He had to be held there; He could not get out of it. Peter says, Lord save Yourself, this would not happen to You (see Matt 16: 22). Ah! He could not get out of it. It is the covenant: see what is involved in it. It is fixity. And so the Lord goes through to the end.

But more! His blood - a very touching thing: the blood of the eternal covenant". In other words He sealed the covenant. You seal a covenant, you put your signature to it and you put a seal to it. It means you cannot deviate from it, you have to stand by it. How does the Lord seal it? By His blood, "the blood of the eternal covenant". How precious that is! So you see how great the emblems are. You put your hands to the loaf which speaks of the Person who was devoted to the will of God in perfection. And then His blood; His blood means His life. His life had to be given for us. He died that we might live "that they who live should no longer live to themselves, but to him who died for them and has been raised", 2 Cor 5: 15.

So that blessed Man has been raised and there He is now. The covenant cannot fail! It is ratified in His blood. The evidence of it is in Exodus 24, where Moses had to use the form of sacrifices. It is the volume of it "the blood of the covenant" (v 8). You see therefore, brethren, how great is our committal to the Supper. It is not an ordinary thing; so we have to keep it, we have to be true. That is the word - 'true' - to the covenant, true to your agreement. God is true to His. Christ has paid the penalty in His blood, precious blood. No wonder Peter says that: "precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish': 1 Pet 1: 19. That is what He was! There was not a flaw in Jesus. Can you find it? You will not. You will find it in me; you will find it in any other man. So do not expect to find any man without a flaw, you will not find him, not in this world anyway. There is only one such Man - that is Jesus. May the Lord help us to take account of this covenant. It is something that we go over the first day of every week. We are committed to it. Let us be true dear brethren, young and old, to that covenant. Stand by it! Christ has stood by it. When you take those emblems you have a sense that you are true to what you are doing. "The holy, the true" (Rev 3: 7) go together, the Holy and the True. It means that I have to exercise holiness. Holiness becometh God's house (see Ps 93: 5), "whose house are we" Heb. 3: 6.

May God bless the word.

 

GRIMSBY

19 September, 1971

(Revised, but not by Mr.Hoyte)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE CHILDREN'S HANDFULS AND HANDS FULL

Harvests are not now gathered by hand but in the years of plenty in Egypt in the days of Joseph the land "brought forth corn by handfuls". The impression given by the Scripture is that the hands of everyone available, young and old, were employed in gathering up God's bounty which was "as sand of the sea exceeding much". The lesson for us is surely that we should apply ourselves as reapers and gleaners to gathering up the blessings which are for us in God's purpose - "every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ". In Egypt all was under the hand of Joseph to whom everyone had to go to meet their needs. He was a wonderful type of the Lord Jesus Christ as exalted.

In the well-known story of Ruth in the fields of Bethlehem we read that, besides what dropped by chance, some ears of barley out of the handfuls cut by the reapers were allowed to fall especially for her to glean. In one day's gleaning she gathered and beat out a whole ephah of barleycorns. This measure was large and enough and to spare for herself and Naomi. For Ruth however it was a greater favour still to know the wealthy man Boaz also a type of Christ. She belonged to him by right of redemption just as the Christian belongs to the Lord Jesus.

Children growing up amongst the Israelites and learning about Jehovah their holy God must have often wondered about the matter of sins and failings in their families. The answer to the hard question was the day of atonement, a divine provision. Once a year blood was shed as a covering for the sins of the nation, type of the precious blood of Christ which atones for all the sins of those who trust in Him. The first thing that the High Priest had to do in the yearly service was to go into the holiest part of the tabernacle with both his hands full of fragrant incense. This he burned in a censer so that a sweet smelling cloud filled the holy dwelling-place. It was a figure for us that the choice perfections of Jesus are ever before God and the sins of believers are covered by the blood of One so acceptable personally to Him. Although we can do no work of atonement ourselves we can come before God in prayer, thanksgiving and communion with both hands filled, as it were, with the perfections of Jesus. Do you do so?

 

J.C.Evershed