The following communion meditation
was delivered on Sunday evening, December 3rd, 1995, at the Trinity
Baptist Church of Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow
with me please as I read two familiar portions of the Word
of God as the basis of our communion meditation, though our focus
in the unfolding of what is here in germ form will take us to
a third passage, but the first of the two passages is found
in Luke's Gospel, chapter 22, the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22,
and I begin the reading at verse 14 and read through to verse
20. Luke 22 and verse 14. Luke, recording the activity
of our Lord Jesus with his disciples on the eve of his betrayal and
crucifixion, writes, And when the hour was come, he sat down,
and the apostles with him. And he said unto them, With desire
have I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For
I say unto you, I shall not eat it until it be fulfilled in the
kingdom of God. And he received a cup, and when
he had given thanks, he said, Take this, and divide it among
yourselves. For I say unto you, I shall not
drink from henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom
of God shall come. And he took bread, And when he
had given thanks, he broke it, and gave to them, saying, This
is my body which is given for you. This do in remembrance of
me. And the cup, in the like manner
after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood,
even that which is poured out for you. This cup is the new
covenant in my blood and then the familiar words of institution
in first Corinthians chapter 11 where the Apostle records
for the Corinthians that which was delivered to him from the
Lord himself and I read just verse 25 in like
manner also the cup after supper saying This cup is the new covenant
in my blood. This do as often as you drink
it in remembrance of me. Now surely if we confess that
our coming to the table as we shall do in approximately 35
to 40 minutes from now has its tap roots in the words
recorded in Luke chapter 22 and in the directives of the apostle
in 1st Corinthians chapter 11. Then our coming to the table
and engaging in the breaking and eating of the bread upon
the table and drinking the substance of the cup upon the table is
in some way or another connected with what Jesus designates as
the new covenant. Now, you don't need to know a
word of Greek, you don't need to be a theologian, you don't
even need to be a Christian to make that connection. For our
Lord makes it abundantly clear in the record in Luke's Gospel
when he says, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. And the words are repeated here
in 1 Corinthians 11, 25, This cup is the new covenant in my
blood. So the question is, to what is
our Lord referring when He says, the new covenant in my blood? And here I ask you to turn with
me to Hebrews chapter 8, For here in Hebrews chapter 8, we
have the most succinct, condensed, accurate answer to that question
to be found in the New Testament. In this particular chapter in
which the writer to the Hebrews is setting forth another aspect
of the better things that have come to God's people in the person
and work of the Lord Jesus, particularly in this setting, the better priesthood
of Christ, superseding and exceeding the Levitical order of the priesthood. We read in that setting, verse
6 of Hebrews 8, But now hath he obtained a ministry the more
excellent, by so much as he, that is, the Lord Jesus, is also
the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better
promises. For if that first covenant had
been faultless, then would no place have been sought for a
second. For finding fault with them,
he said, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make
a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house
of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their
fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them
forth out of the land of Egypt, for they continued not in my
covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind,
and on their heart also will I write them. And I will be to
them a God, and they shall be to me a people. And they shall
not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother,
saying, Know the Lord. For all shall know me, from the
least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their
iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more." Now obviously,
the doctrine of the covenants being in many ways a very intricate
and complex doctrine in the fullness of biblical revelation, I must
attempt in this brief communion meditation to just fill in the
broad strokes of the teaching of the Word of God. And what
is clear in the passage that I have read in your hearing in
answering the question, what does Jesus mean when he says,
this cup is the new covenant in my blood? In what sense and
with reference to what is it a new covenant? Well, from this
passage in Hebrews, which quotes extensively from Jeremiah chapter
31, verses 31 and following, it is obvious that it is a new
covenant in contrast to the covenant that God made with his ancient
people Israel after he had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
In the providence of God, in our consecutive reading through
the Old Testament, we are reading right now in that very section
in which God enters in to a covenantal relationship with the nation
of Israel. Subsequent to the Exodus, God
then, in the language that Pastor Lamar read in our hearings, says
that He will take this bunch of slaves and constitute them
in covenantal grace and mercy as a nation, a people for his
own possession. And that covenant made with his
ancient people Israel after the Exodus is contrasted with this
new covenant that is made with spiritual Israel and is rooted
in the work of Jesus Christ, the mediator of that covenant. Now let me say at the outset
that any notion we may have that the old covenant was anything
other than a gracious covenant must be driven from our minds. The old covenant was a gracious
covenant. God could say to his ancient
people, I chose you, not for what you were or for what you
would become, but because I loved you and chose to set my affection
upon you. It was a gracious covenant that
he would have singled out that nation. Furthermore, the God
who gave His law by His own mouth from Sinai made in conjunction
with that law a whole system of sacrifices and a priesthood
that the people might know that though they broke that law that
God spoke with His own mouth from Sinai, there was not to
be the hopelessness of despair. And in every bleating and bleeding
lamb, in every carcass burnt upon her altars, God was declaring
through the Levitical system that He was a gracious God. he
had given promises in conjunction with the stipulations of how
they were to order their lives individually in families and
as a nation and he promised and committed himself to do gracious
things on their behalf if they would keep his laws and his statutes
He promised to protect them from their enemies, to dispossess
the land of promise and to settle them in it. It was a gracious
covenant. but it was only a preparatory
covenant, and it is called in this passage, Hebrews 8, 7, if
the first covenant had been faultless, then would no place have been
sought for a second. So though the old covenant was
a gracious covenant, in God's sovereign love being set upon
His people, in giving to them a summary of their moral duty
that is called holy and just and good and spiritual, and giving
them laws for their corporate national life that were equitable,
giving them a system of sacrifice that they might know there was
mercy and pardon and forgiveness with God, It was a covenant that
did not secure the loyalty of those with whom God entered into
covenantal arrangement and commitments. And the characteristic of that
old covenant community was that they were stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart. And again and again, particularly
in the book of Deuteronomy, and you find Stephen picking up that
thread and summarizing it when he looks into the faces of those
who are opposing him in Acts 7 and verse 51, he says, You
stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you do always resist
the Holy Ghost as your fathers do, so do you also. And we had
a glaring example of that in the reading in our consecutive
reading tonight. just a matter of a few days after
God himself had spoken in his own voice amidst all of that
unusual phenomena there on Sinai to think that they could do what
they did was an indication that though they had pledged all that
the Lord says we will do that there was no real heart commitment
to the obedience to Jehovah And now God says to the prophet Jeremiah
that in the coming age he would make a covenant that was so radically
different in the commitments that God makes to the covenant
community that God himself calls it a new covenant. God himself says not like unto
the covenant that I made with their fathers. So this contrast
in calling the new covenantal arrangement new, and saying it
will be found in great disparity with the old, is not something
imposed upon the Scriptures, it is something warranted by
the Scriptures themselves. And when we ask the question,
what are the distinctive blessings of this new covenant? blessings
procured and secured for the covenant community by nothing
less than Jesus Christ giving up himself in the violent death
on the cross himself the priest and the sacrifice, his body broken,
his body given up a sacrifice to God, his blood poured forth
in the violent death of the cross, all to secure the benefits and
blessings of the new covenant. This cup is, it stands for, it
represents, it sets forth my commitment to secure the blessings
of the new covenant. It is the new covenant in my
blood. Well, looking with me at the
Hebrews 8 passage, quoting from Jeremiah, note with me, very
simply, the four specific features of the New Covenant, a declaration
of God's commitment to effect these four things in every member
of that covenant community. Verse 10, For this is the covenant
that I will make with the house of Israel after those days saith
the Lord." Now notice these are declarations of what God is committed
to do in the new covenant. First, I will put my laws into
their mind, and in their heart also will I write them. Here, first of all, in the new
covenant is a commitment to secure the obedience of the members
of the covenant community by an internal renewing of the heart
and of the mind. Do you see that in the passage?
I will put my laws into their mind, and on their heart also
will I write them. And obviously there are overtones
from what God did when He originally gave the summary of the moral
law in the ten words. He wrote them with His own finger
upon stone, that which has no light, that which could not respond
to what was written The stone had no ability to perceive, to
respond to the finger of God, but he says in the New Covenant,
I will put my laws into their minds, and on their hearts will
I write them. I will secure the obedience of
every member of the New Covenant community. I will not merely
call them to obedience and set forth the standard for their
obedience. I myself will so work in them
as to secure that obedience. Secondly, there is a commitment
to mutual, personal, covenantal engagement. I struggle with the
words. If you can come up with something
more simple that states it, I would welcome your help. But this is
the best I can do. A commitment to mutual, personal,
covenantal engagement. The great blessing of God's covenant
promises throughout the Old Testament, culminating in the promise of
the New Covenant is, and I will be to them a God, and they shall
be to me a people." Everything it means for the creature to
have God as his God, the object of his supreme devotion, love,
admiration, the sole object of religious worship, Having God
as one's chiefest joy, having the glory of God as one's chief
end, everything that it means for the creature to have the
God that is as his own personal God. God says, I'm going to secure
that in every member of the New Covenant community. I shall be to them a God and
they shall be to me a people. Everything it means for God to
take sinners who by nature and practice deserve nothing but
the wrath of God. Sinners in whom God could be
glorified by their eternal damnation, yet He will take them to Himself
and so identify Himself with them that He will unashamedly
call them His own possession. And I call that, for lack of
better words, God's commitment to mutual, personal, covenantal
engagement. This is what he promises to do
in the new covenant. And then thirdly, he expresses
his commitment to impart a saving knowledge of himself to all the
members of the covenant community. And here's an additional blessing. They shall not teach every man
his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know
the Lord. For all shall know me from the
least to the greatest of them. Now this is not speaking in absolute
terminology that within the New Covenant community everyone is
so directly taught of God that there need be no exhortation,
no instruction, no office of the ministry, no pastor, teachers,
no. God is using a figure of speech.
And you could find many passages where God uses the absolute for
the relative. God says, when I called you to
myself, I didn't talk to you about sacrifices and offerings.
I talked to you about giving me your hearts. Well, he did
talk to them about sacrifices and offerings. It's a figure
of speech. And what God is saying is in the New Covenant community,
there will not be this necessity for people within the community
to come to a personal saving knowledge of God, but rather,
It is that very saving knowledge of God, imparted by God in His
grace, that warrants their incorporation into the New Covenant community. You're not in the Covenant community
to learn of Him. You are taught of Him with saving
knowledge and brought into the community of those who know Him. Remember the words of Jesus in
John 17? And this is life eternal that they may know thee the only
true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. And then the
fourth blessing of the new covenant is this, a commitment to the
full and irreversible putting away of the sins of the covenant
community for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their
sins will I remember no more. God's commitment to the full
and irreversible putting away of the sins of the covenant community. I will be merciful to their iniquities
and their sins will I remember no more, unlike the passing over
of sin in the old covenant. But the writer to Hebrews says
there is a remembrance of sin made every year in the day of
annual atonement. In the new covenant community,
God says, I am committed to the full irreversible putting away
of the sins of every member of that covenant community. Now
while the most frequent focus is on this fourth blessing, as
the very foundational blessing of the New Covenant, and it's
right that our focus should be there. Matthew 26, 28, if you
turn there for a moment, less unsensitive soul, feel well. Have I been dishonoring the Lord
by focusing primarily on this fourth and foundational blessing? No. For in Acts 26, 28 we read,
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many,
and what blessing of the new covenant is highlighted? Unto
remission of sins. So the Lord Jesus himself in
Matthew 26 and verse 28 According to the words of institution
given to us by Matthew, the Lord Jesus himself when speaking of
the cup signifying, representing, standing as a symbol of this
covenant, this new covenant, he highlights that fourth and
foundational blessing, the forgiveness of sin. This is my blood of the
covenant which is poured out for many. He doesn't say unto
a saving knowledge of God. or unto having the law written
upon the heart and in the mind, or unto mutual covenantal personal
engagement, but that which he highlights is remission of sins. For that is indeed the foundational
blessing And in the way in which God deals with sinners to bring
them into the possession of the benefits of the new covenant,
ordinarily God does it in terms of first of all making men desperately
and deeply aware of and hungry for that fourth and foundational
blessing, namely the forgiveness of sin, the turning away of the
wrath of God, the obtaining of a right standing with God, And
ordinarily that is God's way of drawing people into the possession
of the blessings of the new covenant. Hence, as we have been studying
together in our introductory studies on the law, by the law
comes the knowledge of sin. Sin by the commandment becomes
exceedingly sinful. Why do men need the law applied
to the conscience? Until they smart under the sense
of their sinfulness and feel so deeply and keenly their sinful
state that they are driven out of themselves to look to Christ
alone for forgiveness. Christ crucified is the last
place a sinner goes. And it's the only place where
true relief can be found. So ordinarily as God is bringing
us into the covenant community, He does so by awakening in us
a consciousness of guilt and pollution and punishment and
hell-deservingness. And Christ is set before us as
the mediator of the new covenant, particularly as the sin-bearer. So Paul can say, this is the
gospel I preached unto you, 1 Corinthians 15, the gospel by which you are
saved if you hold these things fast, how that Christ died for
our sins according to the Scriptures. So it is right that this fourth
and what I'm calling foundational blessing of the new covenant
should receive a disproportionate emphasis in the way God deals
with us in bringing us into the covenant community and in our
thinking when we come to the table as a part of that new covenant
community to partake of this simple new covenant supper of
remembrance. However, however, while it is
right that forgiveness of sin should be foundational and central
in God's dealings with us, in our remembrance of Him at the
table, we must never forget that as surely as God's commitment
to that fourth and foundational blessing in the New Covenant
is always imparted to every member of the New Covenant community,
He never imparts that fourth and foundational blessing without
imparting the other three as well. Never. He never, never says,
I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember
no more, without also fulfilling these I wills. I will put my
laws into their mind, and in their heart will I write them.
I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people,
And they shall all know me from the least to the greatest of
them. Now why is this so? For the simple reason that when
by the operation of the Spirit through the Word, any sinner
is brought to come to Christ, He comes to Christ in His capacity. I'm not saying He thinks this.
He may have never even heard the words, but in reality, the
Spirit who is dealing with Him by the Word brings Him to Christ
in what capacity? Turn over to Hebrews 12. And
I hope you'll see the thing coming together as we draw this to a
conclusion. A passage we looked at several
Lord's days ago in the evening. contrasting what they came to
in the context of the deliverance of the old covenant. what we
now come to under the privileges of the new covenant. Verse 22
of Hebrews 12. You are come under the new covenant. You are come unto Mount Zion. And he mentions all the things
to which we come. And look at verse 24. And to
Jesus. You are come to Jesus, the mediator
of the fourth promised blessing of the new covenant? No. The
mediator of a new covenant. All of God's commitments in that
covenant, Jesus, the mediator of the covenant, confers to everyone
who comes into the orbit of the blessings of that covenant. Therefore,
if you sit here tonight and say, Oh, yes, I have pardon. I have
forgiveness through the blood of Christ. I have absolute confidence. My sins will never be brought
up and paraded before me. Now in the day of judgment, I'm
confident that my sins and iniquities have been put behind the back
of God. If so, then let me ask you a
very simple question. has God's law been written upon
your mind and in your heart, so that you can say in spite
of all of the contrary pull of a vicious world, a cunning devil,
and remaining sin, I delight to do thy will, O my God, yea,
thy law is within