A Sermon by John Kennedy
Isaiah 42:6. I the Lord have called Thee in righteousness, and will hold Thine hand, and will keep Thee, and give Thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles.
There can be no doubt as to the Person to whom God here speaks. It is to Christ He says, “I will give Thee for a covenant of the people”. It is the same Person of whom He speaks in the opening verses of this chapter; and the character which is ascribed to the Person there referred to is expressly applied to Christ in the gospel history (Matt 12:17-21). It is evident that it is the same Person who is here addressed as is described in the previous verses. The calling here referred to indicates the Person called “My Servant” in the first verse; the words, “I will hold Thine hand”, correspond with the words, “whom I uphold”; and the work here assigned to Christ corresponds with that which is often ascribed to Christ in other passages. He who is here addressed is called to be “a light of the Gentiles”, and surely He is Jesus the Messiah, who is declared to be “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). And as to the rest of the description of His work, it corresponds exactly with the beginning of the sixty-first chapter of this prophecy, which is applied in the New Testament by Jesus Christ to Himself (Luke 4:17-21). It is therefore absolutely certain that it is Christ to whom Jehovah says in the text: “I will give Thee for a covenant of the people”.
Before entering into the meaning of the text we must consider who the speaker is, and what He says regarding Christ, before declaring that He gives Him for a covenant of the people.
The speaker is God. He introduces Himself in His glorious greatness, authority, power and sovereignty to us in the fifth verse. We must not shut our eyes to His glory or our ears to His voice. If the light of this manifestation of Himself shines into our minds, how vile and guilty shall we appear to ourselves! This will shut us up to His grace, and in the same light we shall then see how good the warrant of hope is which is furnished to us in His word of grace.
(1.) “I, God,” especially the Father, representing the Godhead and acting with the authority of the Godhead. I, with whom all have to do, by whose will all must be regulated, and from whose fulness comes all good.
(2.) “I, Jehovah,” the infinite, eternal and unchangeable. I vow to make
1Preached in his own pulpit on 4 February 1866 and taken, with slight editing, from Dr John Kennedy of Dingwall – Sermon Notes 1866-74, recently published by the James Begg Society (hardback, 332 pp, £15.00, available from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom). These are Kennedy’s own notes and are printed here by kind permission of the Society.
Myself known as the “I Am”, and on My Jehovahship as its foundation, I am to exercise My sovereignty in the gift of My Son. Who dare challenge what is done by Him? Jehovah must be God and King, and as such may do according to His pleasure.
(3.) The Great Creator who has proved His almightiness. But glorious as was the display of His power in creating the heaven and laying the foundation of the earth, here is a still-more-glorious display of His omnipotence. To Him there can be nothing too hard.
(4.) He upholds all men upon the earth. They are in His power. He can dispose of them as it pleases Him. They are creatures and they are sinners. It is thus He is to exercise His sovereignty over them.
What He says regarding Christ:
(1.) “I have called Thee in righteousness.” I have chosen, designated, anointed and sent Thee to do My will in order to the execution of My purpose of grace. I have done so in a rightful exercise of My sovereignty, and I have done so in order to secure the interests of My righteousness – in order to the honour of My law and the satisfaction of My justice.
(2.) And when Thou shalt have come in the flesh to do the work to which I called, “I will hold Thine hand”, upholding Thee. For as Thy work is Mine as the representative of the Godhead, Thou as My Servant wilt do it at the expense of the Godhead – denying Thyself the independent exercise of Thine own divine power, and living by the Father who hath sent Thee.
(3.) And when the work is finished, “I will keep Thee”. I will treasure Thee. I will raise Thee to the very midst of the throne. A purchased possession and a purchased redemption shall be treasured up in Thee at the right hand of God.
(4.) And then “I will give Thee for a covenant of the people”. This undoubtedly refers to the exhibition and offer of Christ in the gospel, and the declared design of that exhibition of Christ. By “people” here are not meant the Jews as distinguished from the Gentiles. Sometimes the people and the Gentiles are distinguished. Here however it is not so. An examination of the original makes this evident. By the people here are just meant the children of men as they are in any nation visited by the gospel. Then He is given as a light to the Gentiles, as He was to send the gospel unto them also as those who were sitting in darkness. And then among Jews and Gentiles this was to be the work of Christ, “to open the blind eyes . . . ”.
The form of expression here is peculiar. How can it be said that Christ is given for a covenant? It is also said that He is given for a light. This may seem less strange, because light represents the source as well as its emanation. But “covenant” represents a compact between two parties, and it is not at first sight clear how one can be said to be a covenant. But if we follow the
analogy of the other expression, we will reach the force of this. The effect of the everlasting covenant is Christ incarnate, crucified, exalted; and by the arrangement of the covenant, the people can obtain – in Him and by Him as the Head – an interest in all the blessings of the covenant of grace. It is in order to this He is given. All the provision of the covenant is in Him, and in and by Him the people can attain an interest in it. If He is given as a covenant unto the people, then He is so given that the whole provision of that covenant is given, and He can secure an interest in it. In order to apprehend this, let us consider what the giving of Christ involves:
1. He is given as Emmanuel, the covenant Head. The divine Person is given in His two distinct natures. As such He is all that personally the covenant Head requires to be. In order to be a suitable Mediator, He is required to have two distinct natures in one divine Person.
He must be God in order to apprehend the counsels of God, in order to be sufficiently zealous for the interests of God, and in order to have such love as Jehovah alone can have for the people who were to be saved. To a divine mind alone could Jehovah communicate all His counsels; under the care of divine zeal and resources alone could He entrust the honour of His name and government; and only to such love as His own would He entrust His elect.
He must have human nature so that He may be the Kinsman of His people. They must recognise as a Brother Him who is the Mediator between them and God. They could not otherwise venture near to the covenant God. The divine majesty would otherwise overwhelm them. He must have human nature in order to act for them as Surety. He can act as Surety only if He is a Kinsman. He must take their place under the law, and it is in their nature alone He can do so. He must have human nature in order that He may acquire in it, through suffering, a power of sympathy with them. He must have a power of fellow feeling as well as a relation of brotherhood.
And that human nature must submit in His divine Person. No otherwise could it be sustained under the sufferings through which it must pass. No otherwise could there be merit in His obedience of suffering, for all the obedience and suffering must be that of a divine Person. And no otherwise could that human nature have a place in the midst of the throne of God; for it is as subsisting in the Person of the Son of God, and as partaking of His Sonship alone that it could find a place on the throne of God. No otherwise could the throne of God be also the throne of the Lamb. And it must have been so in order that the sympathy of Christ might avail. It is when the sympathising human nature is seen subsisting in the Person of Jehovah the Son that I see it associated with power which avails to make such a throb of sympathy in the heart of Jesus pulse its succour to the tempted on the earth. Through the
divine omnipresence of the sympathising Person, each throb of sympathy with His suffering people can be conveyed in succour to them in every trial.
No wonder it is written: “His name shall be called Wonderful” (Is 9:6). How wonderful a combination in one Person! How mysterious the union of the two natures! How mysterious the subsistence of human nature in the Person of the eternal Son of God! How complete His personal fitness for purchasing redemption and for dispensing the blessings of the sealed covenant! How perfect His adaptation for the place and part of a Daysman between God and His people! He and only He can lay His hand on both.
This is the Person whom “God the Lord” called, designated and sealed as covenant Head, with whom He transacted and who transacted with Him.
2. He is given with the merit of His finished work. In the finishing of that work He fulfilled all the conditions of the everlasting covenant. That covenant is sealed by His blood; and in and with Himself all the merit of that blood is given by God unto the people.
All the conditions on which the blessings of the covenant would be bestowed on His people were undertaken and were fulfilled by Christ. He was alone in this undertaking. This work was all His cross. Of the people there was none with Him. And He finished the work given Him to do.
This finished work He has presented unto God the Lord, and He has accepted it. The blood by which the covenant was sealed was to Him a sacrifice of a sweet smelling savour. For He sees in it not merely a completed fulfilment of His will as presented to the covenant Head, but an expression of the perfect willingness of Him who presents His blood before Him. He sees with His omniscient eye a perfect satisfaction to His justice for all the sins of all His people. His eye rests on the deep sufferings and on the high majesty of His Son at once, and has infinite delight in the blood of God His Son Jehovah, in His infinite love of righteousness. He sees His law magnified, and to His zeal for the honour of His law this is infinitely delightful. He sees reflected from that finished work the glory of all His moral attributes. This is the most delightful sight to God apart from Himself. He sees no sight like this but when He looks within upon Himself.
On the ground of this finished work it is that God bestows the blessings of the covenant. Here He rests in His love to His people. Here He delights in the manifestation of His own glory. Here He waits to be gracious unto sinners. It would be well to understand that there is no unfulfilled condition of the covenant of grace. Christ did all alone. The people are called to come to Christ, to find in Him the only and the all-sufficient ground of acceptance. Taking Himself, they may come in as sinners on the ground of His merit and claim, in His right, all the blessings of His purchase.
3. He is given with the fulness of covenant provision dwelling in Him. All that the Father had in His provision for His people, Christ has as the Head (John 16:14,15). In Him it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell (Col 1:19). Look in the light of all the exceeding great and precious promises to the grace pertaining to God’s people – to what He has provided – and the fulness, the stock of all, is in Christ. There is an infinite fulness to meet each need, and it is all grace.
(1.) There is an infinite fulness of justifying grace in Christ given unto the people. It must be infinite, for the merit is divine which is the ground, and the love is infinite which bestows. There is therefore enough for each, enough for all. There is no straitening here. There is room for the chief of sinners here.
(2.) There is an infinite fulness of adopting grace here. There is no straitening of infinite love here. There is an opportunity for its acting according to its own infiniteness. In such a Head as Christ, to what height of dignity and to what intimacy of relation may love not bring the sinner? This grace is nigh in Christ. “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:26). “As many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God” (John 1:12, cf Jer 3:4).
(3.) There is an infinite fulness of sanctifying grace in Christ, and given with Him. In cleansing His people, God expresses His love and holiness. It is due to Christ that this should be done. The Holy Ghost is the agent in this work. The love of the Triune God in Christ is engaged to sanctify. O come, you vile ones. Infinite, sanctifying grace dwells in Christ.
(4.) There is a fulness of training grace. All Thy children shall be taught. By the Spirit, all covenant people are taught. In this teaching, infinite love is expressed and infinite power employed. He uses the rod as well as the Word; there must be discipline as well as instruction.
(5.) There is a fulness of preserving grace. Their life is preserved (John 10:29) from deceit and violence, so that all shall work for their good. They are preserved in death, so it shall be a passage for the soul to glory. They are preserved from the grave, so that it cannot be a prison but a bed – so that they shall be raised incorruptible out of it. They are preserved unto the kingdom, so that they shall be glorified there for ever.
4. In Him, God gives Himself as the God of the Covenant. There are two aspects in which the covenant God is to be viewed.
(1.) He is to be viewed as the God who provides all covenant blessings. As such He is the God of all grace. All is from Him. “All things are of God who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Cor 5:18). He is the God of grace, of peace, of consolation to His people. In short, He is all to them that is required to prepare them for the enjoyment of Himself.
(2.) He is to be viewed as the Portion to be eternally enjoyed by them. As such He is the destined source of all their blessedness, and the sole object of all their worship for ever. Here on earth, in a state of grace, they shall have foretastes of this enjoyment in communion with Him.
Their right to this portion is on the ground of Christ’s righteousness. They have opportunity of enjoyment in their state as sons, in their nearness in fellowship with Christ here and hereafter. They shall have perfect ability to enjoy Him in the attainment of that perfect holiness.
5. Christ is given in all His ability to introduce sinners within the bounds of the covenant, and to dispense efficiently and suitably the blessings of the covenant.
(1.) He, as alive for evermore, has power with God to secure the bestowal of new-covenant blessings. Not that this exercise of power is required to induce God the Father to bestow, but it is a divine arrangement that all is given on the intercession of Christ.
(2.) He has an acknowledged right as King to do all that is required in order to His being satisfied with the fruit of the travail of His soul.
(3.) He has “the seven spirits of God” – the One Spirit in all His fulness in order to the conversion of the redeemed and to the application to His people of all the blessings of the Covenant.
(4.) He has a power of sympathy. Joseph knew the disposition and trials of his brethren when they came to him for the corn in Egypt.
[1.] He is a light to the Gentiles. Thus He has reached us with the light of the glorious gospel.
[2.] He can open the blind eyes. Prejudice, delusion and death blind them, but He can open them.
[3.] He can bring the prisoners from the prison. He can come in His own merit to do so with consent of law and justice.
[4.] He can bring them that sit in darkness out of the prison house – who sit easy or hopeless in the darkness of death and hopelessness.
[5.] He can accomplish all His pleasure.
Application: (1.) How much you are to the Lord, who have laid hold of His Covenant! Think of the glorious provision; think of the free offer; think of the free grace of His Spirit’s work.
(2.) How precious the gift here presented! This is the unspeakable gift. O who will accept of it this night?
(3.) Consider how excuseless the rejection of this gift is. No blindness, no bondage can excuse it. Do not think that it is necessary to conceal anything of the sinner’s state in order to preach to him a word of hope. Not so did Christ in John 3, or in John 6. And Christ can meet all.