A Surety for Benjamin

    "And Judah said unto Israel his father, Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go; that we may live, and not die, both we, and thou, and also our little ones. I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him: if I bring him not unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame for ever:"

    God the Holy Spirit is anxious for every believer to enjoy the comforting assurance of salvation in Christ. He is our Comforter. That is the work he was sent to perform. His method of comfort is to take the things of Christ and show them to us (John 16:7, 13, 14). He knows that the more fully we know Christ, and the more clearly we see him, the more we shall enjoy the comfort and assurance of our salvation in him.

    Therefore, the Spirit of God always points us to Christ, especially in the inspired volume of Holy Scripture. He not only tells us who Christ is, what he has done, and what he is doing for us, he also uses metaphor after metaphor to show us pictures of our great Savior, pictures designed to assure God’s believing people that all is well between us and our God.

    We have seen this repeatedly throughout the Book of Genesis. When Adam and Eve were naked, God provided them with the skins of an innocent victim, and clothed them (3:21) portraying Christ as our Righteousness, Redemption, and Salvation. When the flood came, God saved Noah by an ark (7:15-16), portraying Christ as our Ark of refuge from the wrath of God, and our salvation by his Substitutionary sacrifice. As the ark bore all the wrath of God so that Noah and his family bore none, so Christ bore all the wrath of God for his people and we bear none (Rom. 8:1). As Noah and his family suffered all the wrath of God in the ark, so God’s elect have suffered all the wrath of God in Christ (Gal. 3:13). When Isaac was bound to the altar on Mt. Moriah, God provided himself a lamb for a burnt offering (Gen. 22:8, 13), typifying Christ as our Substitute (John 1:29; 2 Cor. 5:21). When Jacob was alone, helpless, and afraid, God showed him a ladder by which he could ascend to God (28:12-13), picturing the Lord Jesus Christ as our Mediator.

    Here (Gen. 43:8-9), the Spirit of God gives us another beautiful and instructive picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and of the grace of God in him. As Judah became surety for Benjamin, assuming all responsibility for Him, so the Lord Jesus Christ, who sprang from the tribe of Judah, became Surety for God’s elect before the worlds were made, in the covenant of grace, assuming total, absolute responsibility for the salvation of his people (Heb. 7:22). In this study, I will try to set forth what a surety is and how the Lord Jesus Christ performs the work of a surety on our behalf.

    A surety, is one who binds himself to stand good for another. A surety is one who approaches one person on behalf of another person. He is a representative man who lays himself under obligation to another person for the one he represents. In this sense, Christ is our Surety. He drew near to God the Father on our behalf, before the world began, and laid himself under obligation to God for us (Psa. 40:7-8; John 10:16-18).

    A surety is one who strikes hands with another in solemn agreement. Suretyship, to a man of honor, is a voluntary bondage (Pro. 6:1-2). When Christ became our Surety, he voluntarily placed himself in bondage to his Father until his service was performed (Isa. 50:5-7; John 10:16-18; Heb. 10:5-14).

    This is what the Lord Jesus Christ did as the Surety for God’s elect, in the everlasting covenant of grace, before the world began. He drew near to God the Father on behalf of his elect (Pro. 8:30-31). Because justice must be maintained, even in the exercise of mercy, (Pro. 17:15), our great Surety promised to faithfully perform all that God required for the salvation of his people. Our Savior pledged himself, according to the will of God, to bring in an everlasting righteousness for us, satisfy all God’s law and justice on our behalf, to put away our sins by the sacrifice of himself, to give the chosen a new, holy nature in the new birth, to raise them up in glorification and perfection, and at last present them to the Father in the perfection of holiness to the praise of the glory of his grace.

    Upon this pledge of suretyship, our Savior, the Son of God, struck hands with his Father in solemn agreement. Ephesians 1:3-14; Romans 8:28-30, and 2 Timothy 1:9-10 simply cannot be understood except in the light of this fact. God the Father trusted his Son to fulfill his suretyship engagements (Eph. 1:12). He entrusted his elect into the hands of his dear Son as their Surety, as a man entrusts sheep to the care of a shepherd (John 10:14-18). As Israel said to Judah, so God the Father said to our Surety, “Take them, and go! Bring them again to me in the perfection of holiness” (John 6:39). The matter of our salvation was then and there settled forever (2 Tim. 1:9). The experience of salvation is the reception of the promise of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised and gave his elect in Christ before the world began (2 Tim. 1:10; Heb. 9:14-17). All the blessings of grace come to chosen, redeemed sinners in the form of a testament, or a will; but they were promised as the reward of Christ’s obedience as our covenant Surety.

    With men a surety is a mere guarantor, a co-signer, one who is jointly responsible with the principle debtor for the payment of a debt. This is not the kind of surety Christ is. He did not merely agree to meet our obligations to God’s law if we, by some circumstance or condition, became incapable of meeting our own obligations. Christ, as our Surety, took upon himself all responsibility for the totality of our obligation to God’s holy law and justice.

    With men, a man may be legally forced into suretyship. A father is legally responsible for the debts and liabilities of his minor children. A husband is legally responsible for the debts and liabilities of his wife. But Christ willingly, voluntarily, cheerfully placed himself in servitude to God the Father, to obey his will and fulfill his law, as the Surety of his elect. And at the moment he became our Surety, he became servant to God his Father (Isa. 42:1; 49:3; John 10:17-18). Our Savior’s subordination to the Father as our Surety does not imply any lack of equality between the Father and the Son in the Godhead. It is a voluntary subordination. The Lord Jesus Christ is an absolute Surety by voluntary consent.

    When Christ became our Surety, he took the whole of our debt upon himself. He became responsible for our obligations to God. As soon as he was accepted as our Surety, we were released from all our debts and obligations to God’s holy law. As soon as God the Father accepted his Son as our Surety, he set us free. He ceased looking to us for satisfaction. He freed us from all the curse, penalty, and obligation we would incur by reason of sin, and looked to his Son alone for the satisfaction of our debts (Job 33:24). This is beautifully illustrated for us in the case of the apostle Paul and Onesimus (Phile. 8).

    When Christ became Surety for us, all the sins of God’s elect were imputed to him in the mind and purpose of God. By divine imputation, our sins were placed to his account. He became responsible for them. Christ was made to be sin for us when he hung upon the cursed tree; but he became responsible and accountable to God for our sins when he became our Surety. They were laid to his account from eternity (Isa. 53:6; Psa. 40:12; 69:5; 2 Cor. 5:19).

    When Christ became our Surety, we were redeemed, justified, pardoned, and made righteous in the sight of God. God’s forbearance, patience, and longsuffering with this world is due to the suretyship engagements of Christ. God’s eye has always been upon the blood. It is the blood of Christ, our Surety, that held back the hand of God’s judgment when Adam sinned. The Old Testament saints were pardoned and justified upon the basis of Christ’s obedience as our Surety, though he had not yet actually rendered that obedience (Isa. 43:25; 45:22-25; Rom. 3:24-26). Those men and women had knowledge of and faith in Christ as their Surety (Job 19:25-27; Psa. 32:1-4; 119:122; Isa. 38:14).

    The Lord Jesus Christ became our Surety by his own voluntary will. He was accepted as our Surety in the covenant of grace before the world began. And we were accepted of God in him (Eph. 1:6).

    When Christ became our Surety, he made certain promises to God the Father in the name of his covenant people which he is honor bound to perform. The promises were voluntarily made, without any constraint or force, except the constraint of his love and the force of his grace. But now, having made the promises, he is bound, bound by his own honor, to perform them. What are those promises? What did Christ agree to do as our Surety? Basically, our eternal Surety agreed and promised to do two things.

    First, he agreed to fulfill all our responsibilities to God. Standing as our Surety, in an absolute sense, Christ did not simply assume part of our responsibility in a given area, leaving us to make up the balance. He willingly became absolutely responsible for his people in all things.

    He agreed to render that perfect obedience to the law of God, which we were obliged to do, establishing perfect righteousness for us. He worked out and brought in an everlasting, perfect, legal righteousness for his people (Rom. 5:19; Jer. 23:6; John 17:4). Our Savior also agreed to satisfy the penalty of the law as our Substitute (Gal. 3:13; John 19:30). By his perfect obedience, in life and in death, the Lord Jesus Christ magnified the law and made it honorable in the redemption of God’s elect (Heb. 10:5-14).

    Second, Christ our Surety agreed to bring all his elect safe to glory (John 10:16-18). This is the Father’s will which he came to perform (John 6:39-40). Yes, the Lord Jesus Christ became responsible to bring God’s Benjamins safely home. “If I bring them not to thee, and set them before thee,” he said, “then let me bear the blame forever.” It is because of his suretyship engagements for his elect that the Son of God says, “Them also I must bring.” What our Surety has sworn to do he must do (Heb. 2:13).

    He reconciled us to God by his sin-atoning death. He entered into heaven as our Covenant-Head, and claimed our eternal inheritance in our name as our Surety. He will, in the last day, present all of his elect faultless before the throne of his Father’s glory with exceeding, great joy (Eph. 5; Jude 1; Heb. 2:13). In that day, He will appear without sin; and we (all for whom he is Surety) shall appear with him without sin. God the Father will say to Christ our Surety and to all his people, “Well done!”

    Child of God, the suretyship engagements of Christ ought to cause your heart to leap with joy. The whole of our acceptance with God is in Christ, our Surety. Our relationship with the eternal God does, in great measure, determine what we do; but what we do does not, in any measure whatsoever, determine our relationship or acceptance with the eternal God, our heavenly Father. The whole of our assurance is Christ, our Surety.

    With His spotless garments on, I am as holy as God’s own Son!

    The whole of our security is Christ, our Surety. -- His covenant engagements, -- His redemptive work, finished at Calvary, -- His gospel promise (“They shall never perish!”), -- and his glory as our Surety and Mediator upon the throne of universal monarchy, -- These are the things, the only things, which give believing hearts peace before God.