Thomas Manton · 44 of 57

The Tenth Verse. · Part 3

[3.] Here is comfort against the sense of our unworthiness: you are vile wretches, you can expect nothing; but consider, Christ is not unworthy: God made the promises to him; he hath the oversight of the covenant of grace: God hath a bond, a covenant with him; and though you have given him occasion to break with you, yet he will not break with his own Son. Jesus Christ did not fail in his undertaking with God, but fulfilled the will of his heavenly Father, even to a tittle. Therefore God will make good his word to Jesus Christ for you, though humble and vile in yourselves. No matter though you be base in your own eyes; consider the truth of God plighted to his Son, who was not unfaithful.

[4.] Against fears of apostasy. Oh, you shall not keep faithful with God! Why, consider God doth not deal first with you as with particular persons, but with Jesus Christ. The covenant is not committed to the indeterminate freedom of your wills, and the wanderings of your hearts, but to the care of Jesus Christ; and there is no breach likely to be on Christ’s part. It is a dishonour to God to think we are out of favour upon every offence. In the state of innocency we had perfect peace, but it was such an estate as was capable of enmity, because the covenant was made with ourselves; but now it is made with Christ, that is a firm foundation. If we were still left to our own free will, it were not certain that any should be saved.

2. The matter of the covenant; this yields ground of comfort also. Do but consider what Christ was bound to, or what God promised Christ. Do you struggle with unbelief, and you cannot tell how to settle upon any comfort? If you belong to Christ, God hath given him a charge to look after your souls, you shall not perish; Christ is bound to apply the virtue of his sufferings, as well as to merit by them. Are you feeble? God hath provided a place for you in Christ’s bosom. Christ’s shoulders are for lambs that cannot go of their own feet. Do you want knowledge? It is one of the things given Christ in charge: He shall be ‘a light to the Gentiles.’ Do you want freedom and liberty towards God? Christ is to preach freedom to the captives. Still study the covenant between God and Christ, and you shall see the Lord Jesus received a charge to supply your wants. Is a nation stubborn and averse from Christ? Is it not said, ‘He shall set judgment in the earth, that the isles shall wait for his law’? Is there opposition against Christ, his glory, and servants? Is it not said, ‘He shall not fail, nor be broken in judgment’? Alas! these adversaries can do nothing; like angry bees, they may sting, but they leave their life behind them. God will still uphold the hand and head of Christ. This is the first part to meditate on.

2. If there were a covenant made with Christ, oh, then, get an interest in him, and be united to him, that so you may come within the compass of his care and commission. Everything belongeth to you according to your interest in Christ: 2 Cor. i. 20, ‘The promises are in him yea, and in him amen.’ Still a man’s hope is in the covenant of grace: and you shall see Christ hath all to do in the covenant of grace.

[1.] In this covenant between God and Christ he is only federate; he hath taken the whole business upon himself, to discharge you out of the covenant of works, to destroy the powers of hell, to bring you into favour with God. We cannot do it with our prayers and tears: Hosea xiii. 14, ‘I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction.’ Christ undertook this when God the Father and Christ entered into a formal, solemn compact, for so the apostle explaineth it, 1 Cor. xv. 55.

[2.] In the covenant of grace made with believers, Christ is every way concerned in it: he taketh several relations upon himself, which seem otherwise to be contradistinct.

(1.) He is called the testator or author of the covenant: Heb. ix. 16, ‘For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.’ It was built upon his purchase, confirmed by his death. He undertook to make up all controversies that might fall out between God and us; and so the whole is ascribed to him; therefore he is said to be ‘the author and finisher of our faith,’ Heb. xii. 2. Our faith is built upon that covenant, and peace with Christ is surely ordained for us. We are said to be his people: Mat. i. 21, ‘And he shall save his people from their sins.’ And therefore there are many promises in scripture that pass in the name of Christ. Some what he will do to us, which shows him to be joint-author together with God in the covenant; he, being heir with his father, is heir to the promises. So that you see there is no likelihood of right to the covenant but by union with Jesus Christ. It is his covenant as well as the Father’s.

(2.) He is called the Mediator of the covenant: Heb. xii. 24, ‘And to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant.’ He is the middle person that goeth betwixt God and us, to make up all breaches that may be on our default; he mediates with the Father when he is provoked by our sin, and mediates with us by his Spirit, to bring us upon our knees before God. The old covenant needed no mediator, for God and man were not fallen out; but now they are so, and therefore Christ is the fittest person to mediate; for partaking of the nature of both parties, he is the fittest person to come between them.

(3.) He is called the surety of the covenant: Heb. vii. 22, ‘By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.’ One that is to see it performed on both sides, so as God will challenge Christ for our part, and you may challenge God for Christ’s part. He is to see all wrought in us which God hath required; to see that the Spirit writes the law in our hearts, and inclines us to obedience; and then to see that we yield up that obedience, and that God be satisfied. He is to do all our works for us, and all our works in us; so that God calleth upon Christ, and we call upon Christ. All is done in him, and therefore God calleth him his witness, Isa. lv. 4, ‘Ye are my witnesses, and my servant whom I have chosen.’ Isa. xliii. 10. He is my chief witness, that I am faithful, and true, and able. Christ will undertake for him, and he will undertake for you, for you need a surety most.

(4.) In the covenant of grace Christ is the prime federate; the promises are mainly pitched upon him, and he receiveth them for all his brethren. He is mainly intended: Gen. iii. 15, ‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.’ Mark, the covenant is made to all in general, but so as it reflects upon Christ especially. There is an enmity between all the holy seed and the serpent’s, all the spawn of Satan, though chiefly Christ be concerned in it, as if the whole seed were Christ’s. And in the covenant renewed with Abraham, the promises are mainly pitched upon Christ, or else the expressions would not agree; for he it is that stands as the prime federate, to receive the promises for all his brethren: Gen. xii. 3, ‘In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’ The covenant of works was made with Adam and all mankind, and Adam received it for all his race: so does Christ. Well, then, you see the necessity and benefit of union with Christ, that you may be entitled to his care as he is the only federate, that you may receive his bequests and legacies as testator and ordainer of the covenant, that he may mediate for you, and go to God for you; and as he is Mediator, he may undertake for you; and as a surety he may bestow blessings upon you, as your head, as the chiefest of the body that is called Christ.

3. To love God. You have the greatest experience of the love of the Godhead that possibly you could have, that there should be a covenant between the persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that they would mutually engage one another for your good. It is the highest endearment you could have from them, that God should ordain you his Son to carry on the work of your salvation; therefore engage and give up yourselves to God again: seeing the Lord should devise such a way, and Christ effect it, give up your selves by covenant to God.

But I come now to the matter, or to handle the words absolutely, and not considered under that conditional and federate form: ‘When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin,’ or, as it is in the Hebrew, ‘When he shall make his soul sin (ascham), the sin or the trespass-offering. His soul, that is, himself: ‘What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ Mat. xvi. 26; that is, himself, body and soul. So his soul, that is himself, shall he make an offering for sin. His whole man was offered up. He could not sacrifice his divinity. The apostle Peter saith, ‘He suffered in the flesh.’

Doct. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ was the only true satisfactory and expiatory sacrifice for sin.

1. Because it was of God’s own ordaining. God will be pleased with nothing but what he appoints. Foolish man would fain give laws to heaven, and think to please God with what liketh himself best either in worship or in sacrifices; as if God would be enticed by their own lure. Christ is the only ascham: God requireth not ten thou sand rivers of oil; and all things else are nothing to God’s will. Christ was of his own appointment, and therefore expiatory: Rom. iii. 25, ‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation;’ 1 John iv. 10, ‘God hath sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.’ It is not expiatory, if God, the party offended, did not accept of Christ: Eph. v. 2, ‘He gave himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour;’ that is, for an acceptable sacrifice: all other sacrifices were an abomination to this.

2. Other sacrifices were but types of this, they could not make the comers to them perfect, as the apostle proveth, Heb. ix. 9. There was expiation, but not real, except Christ was eyed in them. They could not make him that did the service perfect, as appertaining to the conscience: that is, they could not satisfy the conscience. The sin was not forgiven through their worthiness, they could not have any solid ground that justice was satisfied; this is a thing that naturally troubleth a man, how to satisfy justice, and to appease the revengeful deity. Naturally there is such a sense in guilty man, and that was the reason why they would have somewhat above sacrifices, because still there was something that stuck with them, that this was not enough. And therefore they in Micah added their first-born, Micah vi.; 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6, ‘And he caused his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom.’ There was somewhat that caused parents to be so unnatural besides the example of the heathens. And truly it was because their consciences were not perfect. They had not the good answer that Peter speaketh of, they could not be persuaded God was appeased by the killing of a beast.

3. No other thing could be satisfactory and expiatory besides the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The prophet Isaiah bringeth in God as saying, ‘He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor, therefore his arm brought salvation.’ Man could have had no other person to interpose for him. Therefore Christ, who is the arm of the Lord, he brought salvation to him. All the angels in heaven were not able to lay down a valuable consideration; there was no intercessor, no intervener, none that could come between man and wrath. No creature can stand before infinite wrath to countermand it; man was not able, nor all his tears available. The law taketh no notice of sorrow for sin. It is true, the creature was easily inclined to think of merit in that which is dolorous and costly; but it is but a vain thought, the law is satisfied only through full and complete obedience. Your prayers would not do. Christ doth not barely pray to God, but offer himself also. His entreaties alone would not have been sufficient: Heb. ix. 22, ‘Without shedding of blood there is no remission.’

4. Christ sacrificing of himself complied with God’s design, which is double:—

[1.] To discover the glory of the Trinity, his love to the souls of men, and the Spirit’s efficacy. These things would not have been drawn out for the creatures’ benefit, had it not been for this design. The Father is glorified in being the contriver, the Son in being the Mediator, the Spirit as the applier and settler of comfort in the hearts of Christians. This was a high honour to Christ, next to that personal glory that he had with the Father before all worlds. When Christ was about to die, he saith, John xiii. 31, ‘Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him.’ The Son especially; and not him alone, but the whole Godhead; the Spirit is glorified in your sense and experience of him.

[2.] To magnify his justice and displeasure against sin: Rom. iii. 25, ‘God set out Christ to declare his righteousness in the remission of sin.’ God would have us be reconciled, not only by way of entreaties, but satisfaction. You can as well stand before the seat of judgment as the throne of grace, if God forgives sinners. God’s justice is more glorified in punishing sin in Christ, than if all the world had been lost for sin. This appears by the impartialness of it, that God should not spare his own Son; but the merit of it is full, here is room for acceptation through the worth of his person that did all. If men had been damned, God would be glorifying his justice, but never be said to be glorified. It is more to the creditor to have his debt paid at once, than always a-paying. Ten thousand pounds is a long time a-paying by a poor man in shillings, but a rich man layeth it down in a little time, and pays all.

Use 1. Then disclaim other satisfactions, your tears, your duties, your repentance; do not think to please God with these. Alas! you will never know when the work is done fully. Men make their way to God easy through these. Naturally we trust in our works and duties; these are rather fruits than causes. Look higher than your prayers and tears, to Jesus Christ.

I^now come to the third reason why the death and sufferings of Christ are not ignominious to him; and it is drawn from the fruits of his sufferings, which are three:—

The first is a propagation of his spiritual seed: ‘He shall see his seed.’ By seed, usually the scripture meaneth posterity; he shall see his holy posterity; that is, those that are begotten to Christ by the word. Observe here two things:—

1. That believers are the seed of Christ.

2. That Christ shall live to see his seed.

Doct. That believers are Christ’s seed.

By purchase and covenant he hath obtained it of the Father, that you should be his generation and his posterity. The whole world in some sense is God’s offspring, Acts xvii. 28. The apostle quoteth it out of a poet—τοῦ γαρ καὶ γένος ἐσμὲν; but the special seed, the spiritual seed, that is appointed to God the Son. Eph. iii. 15, it is said of the Lord Jesus, ‘Of whom the whole family of heaven and earth is named.’ Saints militant and triumphant are named from him. As the parents give the name to their posterity—as Jacob to Joseph’s sons, and Zacharias to John the Baptist—so Christ to believers. It is just here as it was with Abraham: Gen. xxi. 12, ‘In Isaac shall thy seed be called.’ Abraham had another son, but that should not be counted his race; not in Ishmael, but in Isaac. So here; every son of Adam is the son of God, Luke iii. 38, but in Christ shall thy seed be called. Men cannot be God’s sons, but by being Christ’s seed. You have no spiritual right to God’s fatherhood out of him.

Object. But you will say, How are believers Christ’s seed, since it is said everywhere that we are born of God, and especially it is said, 1 John iii. 1, ‘Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God’? And in other places it seemeth we are the Spirit’s seed: John iii. 5, ‘Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.’ And we are said to be ‘born of the Spirit;’ 1 Cor. iv. 15, ‘Yet have ye not many fathers, for in Christ Jesus have I begotten you through the gospel.’ My answer shall be in these reasons:—

1. By reason of the gift of the Father, who made over all dispensations and all relations to the Son: John v. 22, ‘He hath committed all judgment to the Son.’ So ‘All things are delivered to me of my Father,’ Mat. xi. 25. So that quickening, life, and all cometh from the Son; and God the Father worketh nothing in us but in reference to the Lord Christ; and he hath given over all his interest and relations to Christ: John xvii. 6, ‘Thine they were, and thou gavest them me.’ They were God’s sons, but he made them over to Christ, so that all the relation that we have to God the Father is through the Son; he is our Father, as he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; and we come to have interest in the love of the Father by the love of the Son: for it is said, John i. 12, ‘As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.’ It is Christ gave us that power and prerogative. So Gal. iv. 5, ‘That we that were under the law might receive the adoption of sons.’ So that you see, through the gift of the Father, we are Christ’s seed. He worketh nothing in us, and doth own us no further than we belong to the Son: for, as he is Christ’s Father, so he is our Father; and as his seed, we are God’s sons born to him.

2. Because the Lord Christ did so much to purchase them and gain us for his seed.

[1.] He died for them. Christ, like Rachel, dieth, that he may bring forth. Perit dum parit—he perisheth that he may bring forth. You are Benonis, the children of his sorrows: John xii. 24, ‘Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit,’ not else. Isaac had not a promise of increase and a numerous issue till he was ready to be offered. When in this chapter the prophet had spoken of the sufferings of Christ, he comes to say, Isa. liv. 1, ‘Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear; break forth into singing, and cry aloud, thou that didst not travail with child: for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.’ Christ liveth to make you fruitful: Heb. ii. 10, ‘To bring many sons to glory, the captain of their salvation was made perfect through sufferings.’ God would not have his birth exempt from the fate and lot of all bearings; even Christ did bring forth in sorrows.

[2.] Because he sendeth forth power and efficacy to beget them.

(1.) He provideth the word, and blesseth it with power and efficacy; as you may see, 1 Peter i. 23, ‘Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God that liveth and abideth for ever;’ and in the 25th verse you see what word, to wit, ‘The word which by the gospel is preached unto you,’ the word preached in Christ’s name, this word begets us. Therefore ministers are said to be instruments in the hand of Christ, as he is pleased to bless their endeavours. It is said in Ps. cx. 3, ‘From the womb of the morning thou hast the dew of thy youth.’ The meaning is, that believers should be born to Christ like dewdrops in the morning of the first dawning of heavenly light: 1 Cor. iv. 15, ‘For in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.’ Others were but schoolmasters; he was their father in Christ. God provideth nurses and subordinate parents, to whom he conveyeth his own honour. It is by Christ’s blessing upon their care and ministry.

(2.) By his Spirit. It is Christ’s Spirit that bringeth you to be new creatures. He worketh so as he may glorify Christ. The efficiency of the Spirit is the seed of Christ. Therefore it is said of one that is born of God, 1 John iii. 9, that ‘his seed remaineth in him.’ The power of the Spirit is a seed by which we are made new creatures, Titus iii. 6, ‘The renewing of the Holy Ghost is shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour.’ The true virtue is from the Spirit shed on us through Christ Jesus. All that are new creatures are begotten by his word, actuated and quickened by his Spirit, and therefore they are called his seed.

3. The next reason is, because all that is done to believers is to form the image of Christ upon them: Gal. iv. 19, ‘My little children, of whom I travail in birth again till Christ be formed in you.’ The work of conversion is but the stamping and drawing out the lineaments of Christ upon the soul. So it is said, Rom. viii. 29, συμμόρφους τῆς εἰκόνος, ‘Whom he did foreknow, he also predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son.’ God intended us to be his seed, because the new creature is most like him. The acts of Christianity are expressed by our being ‘planted into the likeness of his death and resurrection,’ Rom. vi. 5. The acts that pass forth into the soul for the subduing of sin, for quickening of grace; it is a planting and forming Christ’s image and likeness: and the whole carriage that passeth from us, it is through the Spirit, it is but a discovery of Christ’s life. Therefore, the seed, likeness, form, and features are an argument of parentage: children are but the parents multiplied, and new set forth to the world.

To apply it.

Use 1. Is a word to the careless world. Look to it whose seed you are.

There are divers seeds in the world.

1. There are some that are only the offspring of God in a large sense, have no other claim but by the first Adam. Ignorant men look upon themselves under no other notion than that of God’s creatures. Oh! consider your happiness lieth in your relation unto God through Christ. You shall see the main encouragement to prayer, or any address to him, is when you can come and call him Father. God is sweet to you when you can call upon him as sons and daughters. But, alas! what a sad thing is it when men have no other title to God but their creation! Isa. xxvii. 11, ‘He that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will show them no favour.’ Ignorant people say, God that made them shall save them. No; such an interest and claim to God will not avail you; he that made them will not save them; God will reckon his seed in Isaac, that is, in Christ. There is no privilege in claiming by Ishmael.

2. There are some that are yet worse, by the virulence and bitterness, and rage of heart against the ways of God; they are possessed with an opposite seed—the seed of the serpent: Gen. iii. 15, ‘I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed.’ There is a seed that is full of envy and enmity against the people and ways of God: Mat. iii. 7, ‘O generation of vipers!’ the very spawn and seed of vipers.

3. There is the holy seed, against whom all the powers of darkness are armed: Rev. xii. 17, ‘And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to war with the remnant of her seed, which kept the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.’ The generation of men that worshipped God in Jesus Christ, those are they that are hated by the world, and yet they are the pillars of the earth, Isa. vi. 13. Therefore, look to yourselves whose seed you are. If the Spirit of Christ hath not been shed out upon you, to new form you through the word; if you are not formed more and more into the image of the Lord Jesus, you are none of his seed. Consider who is your root; your fall lieth in this. God doth not deal with single men, but with the common root and author of the whole seed. Adam was a miscarrying root, but Christ is not.

Use 2. Here is a word to the seed of Jesus Christ, to believers. You may say indeed, Ps. c. 4, ‘It is he that made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.’ You are of the Lord’s making, and therefore of the Lord’s keeping. The seed of Jesus Christ are preserved in him. The whole work of Christ is the workmanship of God in Christ Jesus, Eph. ii. 10. Therefore, look up to him. Children’s dependence is upon the parents, and yours is upon the supplies of Christ, for your heavenly Father knoweth what he hath made. Here is—

1. Direction to you to whom to look for increase of grace. It is the rule of nature, all things are nourished by those things by which they are begotten. God maketh the next causes to be the conveyances of support to his creatures. God begetteth you by his Spirit, actuating and quickening the word, and so he keepeth you: 1 Peter ii. 2, ‘As new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.’

2. Exhortation to press you to conform to Jesus Christ. You are his seed, and therefore it is an engagement to likeness: children are to bear and show forth the image and likeness of their parents. Christ makes imitation an argument of parentage: John viii. 37, ‘I know that ye are Abraham’s seed, but ye seek to kill me.’ A degenerate offspring are a shame to their ancestors. They were children of God, that came of an ancient royal family, but yet were unworthy of their extraction, I Chron. iv. 22, ‘Who had dominion in Moab and Jashubilehem: and these are ancient things.’ Base powers came of them that preferred sordid drudgery work to the king of Babylon before working in the temple. What doth it avail to speak of the ancient honour of our family when we are degenerated from it? Oh, take heed you be not a stain to Jesus Christ. You came of a noble seed, the whole family of God is named of him. Ishmael came of Abraham; but ‘cast out the bondwoman and her son.’ God will have no bond slaves to inherit this honour. To be enslaved to sin, and to pretend sonship by Christ, will provoke to a casting out. Children, unless degenerate, will hold out the honour of their parents, and walk in the high steps of their ancestors; and so must you show from whose loins and life you came by a worthy walking before God.

Use 3. Here is a word of consolation. A great deal of comfort it is to be of the seed of Christ; as—

1. Consider what an honour is done you. By this you have a title and claim to the whole Godhead: ‘He gave you power to become the sons of God.’ You belong to his care, being the seed of Christ. As some living fathers among the emperors did make their children co partners with them in their dignity, so are you sharers with Christ in all his privileges: Rom. viii. 17, ‘And if children, then heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.’ Our Saviour saith, John xx. 17, ‘I ascend to my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.’ As if you were in the same rank with Christ. And therefore it is said, Heb. ii. 11, ‘He is not ashamed to call them brethren.’ Christ doth not think it a disgrace to him that they should be invested in his honours and privileges.