BY THE REV. JOHN R. MACKAY, M.A., INVERNESS.
Delivered at the Opening of Dingwall Free Presbyterian Church,
on 24th July, 1907.
(Taken down by a Hearer.)
“And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.”—HEB. ix. 15.
DEAR friends, although these are the opening services in this house, which is set apart for the worship of God, you are not to think that we associate any idea of consecration with them in the sense in which that word is oftentimes used. There are some that entertain the notion that, when a house is consecrated by the proper parties, henceforth worship is more acceptable to the Creator of heaven and earth in such a consecrated place than it would be in any other place. We repudiate notions of that kind. We believe they are not properly associated with New Testament worship, as it is said that “neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem” we should worship the Father, but that true worshippers must worship Him “in spirit and in truth.” And we think it is an idea that is very far astray indeed when people entertain such a fancy as that the mere fact of their worshipping
under a certain roof renders that worship more acceptable to God, who is a Spirit. We, doubtless, are of the opinion that, when, in the providence of God, it is possible for His people to erect and to have a suitable place of worship, it is becoming and appropriate that such a place should be set apart and devoted exclusively to the public worship of God, but we do not on that account associate with such an house any idea of consecration in the sense in which we have just explained; nor do we consider that the services of this day consecrate this house in any other sense than that in which it may be said to be consecrated whenever the Word of God is preached in it. On this account we do not purpose, nor need you expect us, in speaking from this portion of God’s Word, to say anything but what might be said on any ordinary occasion on which it should be our privilege to speak that word.
Dear friends, the gospel is the only instrument for the salvation of lost sinners, and that gospel is presented to us in the Word of God under various aspects. In our text it is presented to us under the aspect of a testament, that is, a will. You know that people possessed of estates as a rule before they die dispose of those estates for the benefit of their friends by means of a written instrument or document, which is signed by the person who thus disposes of his estates, and also by at least two witnesses. Such an instrument or document is, as you know, commonly called among us a last will or testament: and that is the representation given to us of the gospel in the words of our text. That it is so, will be, we think, evident to anyone that carefully considers how the apostle goes on to speak in the verses succeeding our text, for he says, “Where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator. For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.” These are circumstances that are perfectly well understood among ourselves also, and circumstances that make it quite evident that the apostle here represents the gospel as a last will or testament. In meditating, then, upon the gospel as a last will or testament, we shall, as we may be enabled on the present occasion, consider:—
I.—The legatees, or those that benefit by this will;
II.—The will or testament, which is spoken of here as a new testament—”He is the mediator of the new testament”;
III.—The Testator, to whom the estate belonged; and
IV.—How the legatees benefit in virtue of this will or testament.
I.—In endeavouring to understand the mind of the Spirit of God in this portion of His Word, we are called upon to consider the legatees; and inasmuch as there be many that seek to deprive these legatees of what is theirs, we must be careful to indicate who they are exactly, so that those who oppose them may fail in their end.
(i) The legatees are sinners of mankind. We should listen to
what the Spirit declares regarding the provision and arrangement of this testament, that we may ascertain whether we ourselves have any interest in it, and if so, to what extent we have an interest in it. Well, then, it ought to be glad tidings to us that the Testator, to whom the estate of an eternal inheritance belonged, passed by the angels that sinned, but did not pass by the human race, although we deserved to be so passed by. He willed that sinners of our race should be made legatees; and do not think that the Testator will be grieved at you—be you who you may—if you seek an interest in Him as a near kinsman. He is displeased rather at those who seek no interest in Himself as to His person, nor an interest in His estate as a legacy; and we should rejoice to say, “I am a sinner of the human race, and I am glad that I am not excluded at the very first intimation that is made concerning those who are to be legatees.”
(2) Another thing to be noticed is that this “will” differs very much from the ordinary wills of men. For when people possessed of estates think of disposing of them, they generally call to mind those who are their friends; but it was not so with regard to this Testator. It was not of friends that He thought. “God,” it is said, “commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. . . . For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled unto God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” The fact of our being enemies implies that we owe a debt to the justice of God which we are for ever unable to pay. But “He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; he will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.” If we have reason to say that we are not excluded at the first intimation that it was on behalf, not of angels that fell, but of the human race, that the will was made; so also ought we to say that we are not excluded because of its being made on behalf of enemies. And if we have not yet come to regard ourselves as enemies, and as people who, because enemies, owe an infinite debt to the justice of God, it is just owing to the greatest stupidity in the light of God’s Word. We do not think there shall be any who take to heart in time their own true character, and look simply to the grace of Him who could have thought, not of friends, but of enemies, in order to bestow an eternal inheritance upon them—we do not think that any of these shall go without an interest in the benefits of this will. And we proceed on that account, in the second place, to speak something regarding the will itself.
II.—You will observe that this will is spoken of as a new will—that this testament is spoken of as a new testament. This fact implies an older testament going before, and our very text speaks of such an older testament when it indicates that the sufferings of Christ’s death were for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament or first will.
Dear friends, we have thought of the Church of God as a family that fell into very poor circumstances, yea, into worse than poor circumstances—into deep debt, and who, on account of that debt, were in danger either of dying of starvation or of being imprisoned to their shame. Just when they were in such a state as that—ere the worst had come to the worst—news came to them that a friend of theirs had died in a distant land, that he had been wealthy, that before he died he had disposed of his wealth by means of a will, and that in that will they were mentioned as large sharers. So may we say with regard to the Church of God. They were a people who were in danger; they had exposed themselves, on account of the debt they owed to the justice of God, to the liability of being imprisoned in an eternal prison-house, which is the second death; and it was in due time—ere the worst had come to the worst—that intimation was made concerning a Testator who thought upon them in their low estate, and made a will on their behalf, and that, through His dying, it was possible they should now realise the benefits of that will. We should consider this—that there is no other way in which a sinner of the human race can have his debt to the justice of God cancelled, or can be made truly rich, but just by becoming interested in this last will or testament of which our text speaks.
We may say with regard to the Church of God, that they are a people who have been concerned with two or three wills in their history. There is a will that is in a manner still earlier than that which is called here the first testament. We take it that the new testament and the first testament are really two wills that belong to one Person, but there is another will that is still earlier in the sense in which it concerns our race, and it is what may be spoken of as the will of the first Adam. You know there are some estates that fall so deeply into debt that, instead of being a benefit to the heirs, they are only a burden and a loss to them. So may we say with regard to the estate which became ours in virtue of our union with the first Adam. What is the nature of that estate? “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” We come into the world with a corrupt nature. That nature itself, as one has put it, is sin or guilt, and at the same time the punishment of sin, inasmuch as it is because of Adam’s breach of covenant and our union with him in that breach that we inherit this corrupt nature, and it is certain that this corrupt nature binds us over to suffer punishment. It is thus both sin and the punishment of sin, and, it may be added, the cause of much more sin. For out of this evil heart proceed evil thoughts and all things that defile, by which we are bound more and more deeply in our debt to the justice of God. That is the kind of inheritance with which we enter this world, and as if we were not pleased with our deep debt, we go on by actual transgression to accumulate more debt. That, then, is the first will of all!
But when mention is here made of a first testament and again
mention is made of the new testament, we take both to be the testaments of Christ, who alone thought of us in our low estate. Now, we sometimes find that a man possessed of an estate makes a will, and then after writing it out, he is somehow displeased with it, and disannuls it altogether, or adds new clauses to it. As long as he lives he has perfect power over it; but when he dies, according to the law of the land, the last will written and signed, and that in the presence of witnesses, is taken as his irreversible testament. So, although there is no variableness nor shadow of turning with Christ, because He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, yet we think the Spirit of God suggests to us that we may make use of the illustration of which we have been speaking even in regard to Christ Himself: for He made a will first, and then, “finding fault” with it He made a new will, which new and last will He confirmed with His death, and because He did so, it is irreversible in its nature. What, then, was Christ’s first will to His church? It was just the covenant He made with Israel in the day in which He brought them up out of the land of Egypt. That was of the nature of a will, for you find the apostle here speaks of it as a will or testament, for he says in the 18th verse “Neither the first testament was dedicated without blood. For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats with water and scarlet wool and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.” And so Christ, though there is no variableness nor shadow of turning with Him, is here represented to us as being, as it were, dissatisfied with the first will, and consequently as making a new will. With regard to His first will, we may say that there was in it a resuscitation or revival of the covenant of works, and at the same time a shadow of better things to come, or of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ. Now, you see how much better this new will of Christ’s is. In the first will He said as much as that He would write His law upon two tables of stone—that was certainly a great benefit—but now in the new will He says, “I will write my law upon their hearts, and I will put my statutes in their mind, and I will give them of My Spirit that they may walk in my statutes.” I am not just now to enter upon the question of the extent to which the Church under the Old Testament participated in the benefits that truly belong to the New Testament, but we speak of those wills here merely to contrast the one with the other. By the first will He bequeathed this unto them, that on one day in the year, the tenth day of the seventh month, their representative, the high priest, should enter into the holiest of all with the blood of bulls and of goats, and have nearness in that sense unto God. But by the last will the nature of the benefit is that through Jesus Christ all believers should draw near in truth unto God and the Father.
Again, in the first will He gave them the land of Canaan as an inheritance. He promised it by oath to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but now He considers that is not good enough, if we may use such an expression. It was good enough for a shadow, but He says, “I will give them an eternal inheritance”; “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” And this will be their song—
“God is of mine inheritance and cup the portion,
The lot that fallen is to me Thou dost maintain alone.
Unto me happily the lines in pleasant places fell;
Yea, the inheritance I got in beauty doth excel.”
These, dear friends, are only some of the things in which this new will is better than the former will. Certainly the first will was also Christ’s will, and it served an excellent purpose, only time would fail us on the present occasion to enter upon the good purposes it actually did serve. Yet, notwithstanding, He acted as one that had power over it, and could disannul or add to it, and so He made a new will, in which He bequeathed to them such benefits as that He would write His law upon their hearts and put His statutes in their minds: “I will be to them a God, and they shall be to Me a people: they shall all know Me from the least unto the greatest, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more.” Thus, my dear friends, is the great debt which we owed to the justice of God cancelled. It could not be cancelled by means of the blood of bulls and of goats, but it was cancelled by the blood of Him Who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God. That, then, is the nature of the new will, which is rendered of force through the death of the Testator, which death is itself the ransom by which the infinite debt to Divine justice was paid. And that brings us, in the third place, to speak somewhat concerning the Testator.
III.—You know that no testator, in his right mind, would, by a will, dispose of goods of which he was not possessed. This, then, must surely have been a wealthy Testator who was capable, not only of cancelling the infinite debt to the justice of God, but over and above that, of rendering His people eternally rich. He promised this in the testament:—”I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.” He promised to bestow upon them spiritual and eternal riches, when He said that they would all know Him from the least unto the greatest; that He would be to them a God; and that He would write His law upon their hearts. None other than God was adequate to be the Testator in such a case, and yet here you will observe that when the gospel is regarded as a will in contradiction to a covenant, we must consider the gospel as having for its Author the Second Person of the adorable Trinity. When the gospel is regarded as a covenant, we may say that God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Author of it: but when it is
viewed as a testament or will, we must say that the Second Person of the Trinity is the Author of it, because a testament or will is of such a nature that it is of no force while the testator liveth. Now, God, in the Person of the Father, did not die: it was the Son of God Who died: and so we must consider that it is the Son of God Who is here represented to us as the Testator. This will of the Son of God is more ancient than the everlasting hills. It is spoken of as the book of life of the Lamb that was slain. This is the Lamb’s own book of life, in which He wrote out His will before the mountains were brought forth, and if we may venture to use such boldness we may say that He signed it before the foundation of the world, and that He promised He would see to it that the proper legatees should be put in possession of everything promised in this will, for He regarded them as a people that had fallen into infinite debt, and yet as a people upon whom He purposed to bestow an eternal inheritance. And although there was no creature in existence, the will was not on that account without witnesses, because the other Persons of the Godhead were witnesses to this will. This was a wonderful will, because, as we have said, before legatees can benefit by a friend’s will, that friend must die: and so it was in this case. But, ah! that itself was a wonder greater than could have entered the thought of any finite creature, for He had not a nature in which it was possible for Him to die, and in order to His dying it was absolutely necessary that He would have a nature that should be His own nature, and yet a nature in which it would be possible for Him to die.
Again, ordinarily, friends benefit by a will when the testator can no longer help it. He tries, and that rightly, to keep himself alive as long as he can, and when he can no longer help it, his friends benefit by his last will and testament. But it was not so with regard to this Testator, because it was willingly that He died, and if He had not been willing to die, He would never have died; therefore says He, “Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do Thy will, O God.” And this is the will by which “we are sanctified through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” But not only was it a willing death He died, it was a painful and a violent death. So the prophet views it, “It pleased the Lord to bruise Him: for the iniquities of My people was he smitten.” There was no death so painful as His, because it means that He endured the infinite wrath of Jehovah. And yet, notwithstanding all that, He was willing to endure it, because there was no other way by which this will should become of force; no other way in which the debt could be cancelled; and no other way in which it was possible, consistent with the glory of the attributes of Jehovah, that this poor people should ever become interested in what He had, in unmerited love, designed to bestow upon them.
Now, you will observe that our text speaks of Him as the
Mediator of the New Testament. When mention is made of a mediator, it is implied that there has been some disagreement between parties, and that there is a desire on the part of such parties that that disagreement should come to an end. Now, the parties here were God and sinners of mankind, between whom there was a disagreement, and Christ is the Mediator in this sense—that through Him and through His will the benefits of the everlasting covenant are mediated to such sinners in a way that is consistent with the glory of God. Well, we see that the Gospel may be spoken of as a covenant, or it may be spoken of as a testament; and when speaking of it as a covenant, we say that God the Father is the Author of it, and when speaking of it as a testament or will, we say that the Son of God is the Author of it. The way that Infinite Wisdom found out in order that the benefits of the everlasting covenant should reach sinners consistently with the glory of the attributes of Jehovah, was as follows:—The Son of God must take a nature which would be His own as truly as the Divine nature which was His from all eternity, and yet a nature in which it would be possible for Him to die, yea, the nature of the legatees. In this nature He must die the accursed death of the cross, in order that His own will may be rendered of force, and that the promises and benefits of the everlasting covenant, which have their source in the goodwill of God—even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, would be mediated to hell-deserving sinners, and all in such a way as would redound to the glory of every attribute of Jehovah. And now, dear friends, what we are called upon to do in the Gospel is this. Christ is indeed the Son of His bosom, and God wishes us to come to His bosom by leaning upon Him who is the Son of His bosom. It was just through this will that the covenant was mediated. That is to say, it flowed from an infinitely holy, sin-hating God to hell-deserving sinners in a way that was consistent with the glory of all the attributes of Jehovah. In the Mediator all His promises are yea and amen. “I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.” As all things are of the Father, all things are through the Son: so all things are of the covenant, and all things are through the testament. On that account Christ is spoken of as the Mediator, and it is just in the very act of His thus mediating that the covenant passes over into a Testament. So much then with regard to the Testator. A wonderful Testator truly, as John Bunyan puts it, having “two natures in one Person, easy to be distinguished, but impossible to be divided,” by Whose incarnation, humiliation, and obedience unto death the promises of an everlasting covenant, made before the eternal ages, are mediated to hell-deserving sinners in such a way as that there should be in connection therewith, “Glory to God in the Highest, peace upon earth, goodwill towards men.”
IV.—We now come, in the last place, to speak concerning the
way in which the legatees benefit through this will. “By means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” You see the first testament was like a two-sided instrument; on the one side there was the law of God, and that was heavy enough, but on the other side there was only the shadow of good things to come, and the shadow was not of itself adequate to meet the necessities of creatures who, by breaking that law, had come short of the glory of God. But now, in virtue of this new will, which is entirely made up of promises, things are so arranged as the better to meet the condition of those who were “without strength.” You find that mention is here made of them as the “called,” and this call is no doubt a call according to a purpose, and we may speak of it as an irresistible call. Not in the sense that it is not in any degree resisted, but that, notwithstanding the resistance it meets, it finally triumphs, and wins over those that are the objects of it. Being a call according to a purpose, it is more than an outward call—it is an inward call. It is a call that affects the understanding; it is a call that affects the will; it is a call that affects the conscience. But do not think that there is any inconsistency between grace and duty; between the call which we have explained as irresistible—the inward call—and the outward call, which is to everyone whatsoever that hears the word of the truth of the gospel. There is no such opposition. For, what is grace? For my part, since I regard grace as unmerited favour, I cannot think of grace unless I first realise duty, and then impotency in regard to that duty, and finally, strength vouchsafed from without to perform that which I ought but cannot myself perform. And what really is the meaning or result of this inward call? It just means that you and I cease from contradicting God. God charges impenitent, unbelieving sinners with contradicting Him when He says they are sinners, hell-deserving. They, in heart, say “No.” And when He says that this is His beloved Son, and worthy of all acceptance, and that if they come to Him they are welcome, they contradict Him. Now, don’t you think it is the duty of every rational creature to cease from contradicting God? The people here spoken of, in common with the whole human race, or at least so many as heard the word of the truth of the gospel, at one time contradicted God, that is, “made God a liar,” with regard both to His law and to His gospel. But now they have ceased from contradicting Him on these heads, and that they owe to divine grace. They are distinguished from others by the very fact that when God says they are sinners they do not contradict Him, and when God bears such a testimony concerning His well-beloved Son as that He is worthy of all acceptance they do not contradict Him, but rather they fall in heartily with it; and that is just their calling, and Christ, the Testator, becomes precious to them. Ah, dear friends, you should consider this—that it is your bounden
duty to accept of Christ, and, as we said at the beginning, God is not displeased at your claiming kinship with Him. May you not plead that He is your Creator—that you are the work of His hands? May you not say that He has your nature—that He came under the law you broke; and if you thus persist, He will one day come to you—He will intimate to you His love: “Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love, therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee.” You will be brought to apprehend that there are such excellencies in this matchless Testator, who willingly died such a painful death in order that such eternal benefits might, in such a glorious way, accrue to sinners that deserved to eternally perish, that you cannot but cleave to Him as to your kinsman-Redeemer.
This people are said to have a promise of an eternal inheritance. Well, in their Head they had the promise of God, who could not lie, before the foundation of the world, but, as creatures, they were not then in existence. But in the fulness of time, through this very way of which we speak, they became members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones, and the promise of eternal life now flows down to the members. “This is my covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit which is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for ever.” Thus we see God is willing to become their Friend, and to manifest His faithfulness, not only to Christ the Head, but also to every member of His mystical body. And you will find that the well-informed Church of God was wont not only to plead His mercy, but also His faithfulness. “Remember, Lord, Thy gracious word” (remember it Thyself because Thine honour is bound up with my salvation) “which, as a ground of my sure hope, Thou causedst me to take.” “Let thy loving kindness be for my comfort, according to thy word unto thy servant.”
We have already spoken of Christ as the Mediator of the New Testament in the sense that He, consistently with the glory of the attributes of Jehovah, mediates its benefits to hell-deserving sinners. On the other hand, He is the Mediator in this sense, that, as to this people was promised an eternal inheritance, He should so reign over all things in Church and State, in heaven and on earth, on their behalf, as that He should not suffer any of those promises to fail, nor suffer any of His people to fall in the wilderness through unbelief. And so you see in this world they get grace. He gives grace. They are often not rich in this world, but they are spoken of as those to whom all things belong, “As having nothing, and yet possessing all things: As poor, yet making many rich.” And so they have their ups and downs, according to whether they look to their own poverty or to the riches that are in Christ; but they shall receive a competent portion of grace throughout their wilderness journey, and, in the end, an eternal
inheritance. It is a wonderful thing that a people, in themselves finite, should be heirs to an inheritance that is infinite. However large an earthly inheritance may be, it has an end, but although these creatures are finite, there is an eternal inheritance awaiting them, and they shall have an endless eternity to enjoy it.
And now, dear friends, some of you may think our subject is not a very appropriate one for the opening of a new Church, yet if you consider the matter, it is more so than you may imagine. For what is the object of setting up a Church? It is in order that the news of this eternal inheritance may be proclaimed in the ears of perishing sinners of mankind, so that through grace a multitude of heirs to this inheritance may come, in a spiritual sense, into being, and that those thus born heirs to the eternal inheritance may be fed with the hidden manna that is in Jesus Christ when the arrangements and provisions of this new covenant or testament are expounded. We may, indeed, say that one of the main reasons for our having taken up—some fourteen years ago—a distinctive position as a denomination was a wish to adhere to the theology of the covenants, and to the doctrines of the covenants. But as Mr. Macfarlane, after prayer and a psalm, will make a statement in regard to this, and I may perhaps say a few words before concluding, I shall not enter upon that aspect of things just now.
Dear friends, we have been endeavouring to bring before you that by nature there is not one of us but has fallen into infinite debt to the justice of God, and that if we do not get that debt cancelled in time we must eternally die the second death. God will be true and every man a liar, and the only method whatsoever that has been revealed under the heavens of God as to a way of salvation is that we should get our debt cancelled by a will that has been confirmed and made of force through the death of a near kinsman, Who is living, and was dead, and is alive for evermore. Every one who seeks to be rich in this way can and will be rich. If it be yet asked, “Who are the legatees?” Well, we say, everyone willing to be a legatee shall be a legatee: and in the day of judgment it will be found that there is a perfect conformity between those who are willing to take Christ as their kinsman, willing to be rich through His poverty, and those whose names, before the foundations of the world were laid, were written in the Lamb’s book of life. There will be a perfect correspondence between them: and don’t you at all think that Christ will be displeased with you, whosoever you be, for looking upon Him as your kinsman and your Redeemer: and don’t think that by your doing so, you will be out of conformity with what was in the purpose of God before the eternal ages. These two will agree very well together: and rest assured there is absolutely no other way whereby you can be eternally rich but by the death of the Friend of enemies.