Systematic Theology – Covenant

The Covenant and the Mediator

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Systematic Theology

Lesson: 20-22

Genre: Speech

Track: 20 of 22

Dictation Name: 20 The Covenant And The Mediator

Location/Venue:

Year:

Our subject in this session is The Covenant and the Mediator. Let us turn to Hosea 2:18. The Covenant and the Mediator.

“And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely.”

As we have seen in previous sessions the kind of covenant which we see in scripture is a covenant of grace. It is also as are all covenants a covenant of law because in every covenant which is a treaty the superior partner lays down the law for the lesser. His relationship with the people with whom he makes a covenant is an act of grace and they are to be governed by the royal law. Now, in a covenant of grace because there are differences between the two parties involved there must be a judge, a ruler, an umpire, an arbitrator, a mediator between the two parties. In fact one of the New Testament words for mediator means go between, another word which is used in the New Testament for mediator is umpire, and it is related to the word for rule. A mediator is basic to a covenant of grace because in a covenant of grace the one party is so above and beyond the other that all connections between the two being of grace must be mediated and a party is chosen to be the mediator. We see mediators throughout the Old Testament, typical men types who are forerunners of Jesus Christ, who are stand ins for the one who is to come.

Moses is one such man and Joshua another. In 1 Kings 11:13-20 we see Jehodah [???] the priest acting as both mediator and judge and as such he had Athela [??] murdered, executed. Priests are mediators because priests are also judges in the Old Testament. One of the Old Testament words for a judge as in Exodus 21:22 is related to a word which means to intercede or to pray. Judgment in a court of law is an act of mediation, mediating the law of a king or a ruler or in terms of scripture the law of God to man. Judges today are still mediators but what they mediate is not the law of God but the law of humanism. Judgeship is inescapably in scripture a form of mediation and so it is a sin for us to have courts of law that are anti-God, that are humanistic in nature. Now, to understand the full meaning of mediation in scripture we must recognize that not only is Jesus Christ set forth as the mediator between God and man so that no man cometh to the Father except by Him. But God also says that since this world is His, He made it, and since we are His, He made us, we cannot approach anything including ourselves except through Him. He is the mediator. Now the verse we read in Hosea 2:18 is very revealing in this regard. There are many such verses in scripture but what God is saying here through Hosea is that because of His judgment upon the people for their sins He says in verse 11:

“I will also cause all her mirth to cease, her feast days, her new moons, and her sabbaths, and all her solemn feasts. And I will destroy her vines and her fig trees, whereof she hath said, These are my rewards that my lovers have given me: and I will make them a forest, and the beasts of the field shall eat them.”

And in verse eighteen He says:

What is God saying here? We all know the meaning of Christ as mediator sometime back we had quite a few weeks that we spent on the doctrine of Christ and His work as mediator among other things but God is telling us here and elsewhere in scripture that there is no approach to anything in this world except through Him. That if we turn from Him He as mediator makes the vines and the beasts of the field and the weather above become a curse to us. But if we turn again to Him and are faithful to His covenant He makes a covenant He renews the covenant with the beasts of the field. With the ground beneath our feet and the weather above us. Now of course Deuteronomy 28 gives us a dramatic picture of that, how when we are faithful to God’s covenant and the law of the covenant we are blessed in our going in and our going out and we cannot escape His blessings, they pursue us and overtake us but when we are faithless His curses pursue us and overtake us. At every point God says I stand between you and the whole world, I am the mediator. And so because Adam broke the covenant the ground was cursed for His sake. For the whole of creation which had been a blessed and a joyful place now worked against Adam. All nature was at war with man. Man was at war with His own self, with God and with others as well as with nature. But when man makes peace with God through Christ and is faithful and law abiding God makes faith covenant of peace with man and animals, between men and the weather, between men and the ground beneath our feet. The bible is full of verses that tell us about this, let me read just a few brief verses, there are whole chapters that could be read.

Job 5:23: “For thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field: and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.”

And Leviticus 26:6: “And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land.”

In Psalm 46:9: “He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire.”

In Isaiah 2:4: “And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

And in Isaiah 11:6-9: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.

7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den.

9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

Again in Isaiah 64:25:

“The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.”

In Ezekiel 34:25: “And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.”

Again in Zachariah 9:10: “And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen: and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth.”

And finally one more, Romans 8:19-21:

“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.

20 For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,

21 Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

This is what it means when God says I will make a covenant for you in that day with the beasts of the field, with the fowls of the heaven, with all things. You see, because God created the earth and all things therein we can have no unmediated relationship with anything or with anyone. A husband and a wife cannot have a unmediated relationship one with another, it has to be and through Christ. We cannot have an unmediated relationship with our fellow men, it has to be always in terms of Christ and His covenant law. Our relationship to the earth, to the beasts of the field, to the weather, all these things are mediated to us by God and our relationship to God determines how all these things are related to us. Why we are told in Romans 8:19 following that the whole of creation waits for our renewal because they too then will enjoy the fullness of that new creation. So God as mediator calls upon the animal world and the weather to destroy Israel’s crop and the crops of all peoples when they are faithless to Him. And foreign powers are called in to judge God’s covenant people when they are faithless to Him. The covenant man and a covenant people can never have an unmediated relationship to anything in the universe.

God and His covenant law stand between us and all things. Because that is the fact we always meet God as a mediator, whatever we do, wherever we are and remember, a mediator is also a judge. So that God either judges us or blesses us in terms of our faithfulness to His covenant. Thus we are never permitted at any point in all of creation to feel that we have an unmediated relationship to anything. Christ is our mediator with God but also with one another and all things under the son. This is why when God speaks concerning such a simple everyday fact as sexual sins He says as in Leviticus 18:24-25:

“Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things:”

All the sexual offenses that are listed there in that chapter.

“… for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you:

25 And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants.”

To defile what belongs to the covenant Lord is to strike at Him and so the mediator as judge because He regards it as a serious and capitol offense to defile what God calls my land spews us out of its mouth, out of the land, out of the covenant. Again and again scripture declares when we are faithless to God the land will spew us out or the land will vomit us out because the land itself keeps God’s covenant and God as the mediator in Jesus Christ has the land and the weather and the ground beneath our feet judge us when we defile and violate the covenant.

In brief, because God is the Lord and because He is the maker of heaven and earth we have no neutral unmediated relationship with anything under the sun. All things are made by Him and without Him was not anything made. All things are the Lords and therefore they serve His purpose. He stands between us and our very use of our own bodies and our dealings one with another. He is the mediator. Are there any questions now? Yes?

[Question] When scripture speaks of the lion eating straw how do we take that, literally or figuratively or…

[Rushdoony] Yes when scripture speaks of beasts of prey eating straw and lying down with the lamb and being safe for a child some do take it symbolically of marvelous things that are to happen in the future but the more you try to imagine what it means symbolically the more one has to say its meaning has to be the literal sense, in some way or another. That there is going to be change. Not only is the life span of man to be dramatically altered but the nature of man and the nature of the world around us. Now we know before the flood things were dramatically different, bible tells us this is to be the case again. The climate, the nature of the whole earth and all of the animals therein will be radically different. We’re told by science that all things are running down which they are since the fall. But we are told is that when men are faithful to God’s covenant there is going to be a reversal and all things then will return to their original blessed state before the end comes.

And then all things are made totally new. Any questions about any of this? Yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes but you see that interpretation and I am familiar with it rests upon the premise that the lion always represents Satan and that’s not true, you see. He does typify Satan in one verse but he also typifies Christ in another, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, so the lion is also a symbol of Christ. In either case he is a symbol of power, you see, but one power is to be destroyed and the other is to prevail. So I think we have to take it in its very literal sense.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] That’s true. Any other questions or comments?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, what it very plainly tells us is that when the glorious triumph of Christ’s people and kingdom comes about man shall be so much at peace with the world around Him because he is at peace with the Lord that even a child will be able to lead what now is a dangerous animal. There will be peace with God and therefore peace between men and peace with nature.

The basic peace is with God, when we have that peace all other kinds of peace then follow, we are at peace with ourselves, peace with our fellow men, at peace with the natural world. But when we are at war with God we are at war with ourselves, with others and with the natural world. Any other questions or comments?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] When God the Father looks at us through the mediator God the Son He sees us as justified. To see as justified means to see us as declared legally righteous, legally guiltless. Now this does not mean we are actually perfect or totally righteous or innocent or anything but that we are legally so and it’s an act of law and that Christ is at the same time regenerated us and is sanctifying us so that step by step he is bringing us up to that point of righteousness. So that what God sees us is justified, legally innocent. What Christ does with us then is to bring us into holiness so that we might be righteous and just before God in our persons as well as legally. And of course if there is no growth in sanctification there is evidence that we are not justified- [someone interrupts]

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Well, the essence is not, that’s vague, it’s a lovely thought but it’s vague. Very practically what we have to do is look at the word of God and the word of God says this is the way, walk ye in it and that’s how we grow. So we grow by keeping all the commandments of God. Day by day, walking closer to him and that means being faithful. So we cannot very well grow in grace if we’re violating three commandments pretty consistently, we have to keep God’s word, that is the sign of holiness. So we grow therein and Paul says of the converts listing all the sins that are denounced in scripture and saying such were you before your conversion but now this is what you are, this is what you’re called to be, this is what you are to manifest. The righteousness of God. So we have to grow in grace which means that we keep God’s word. We cannot say we love our wife if we commit adultery, you see. If you love me keep my commandments.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Justification is an act, a legal act, which is attended also by a vital act regeneration, so that we are born again. But we are not perfectly sanctified by any means so that there is a necessity for growth in holiness. If we had to look for people who are without sins we’d empty the church, we’d find none who meet that requirement. So we’re born as babes, we have to grow. Paul deals with very serious sins in the Church in Corinth as well as elsewhere, he doesn’t say you’re not Christians because you’re so weak and feeble in your faith and in your obedience to God, so it is a matter of growth.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, there is a steady growth all the days of our life.

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, I think that’s very true, I think also we have to, and this is I think where a great many Christians go astray, they are too intent on their own state, spiritually and that isn’t the focus. The focus has to be on the Lord and faithfulness to Him, you see. It’s on loving the Lord, not do I look all right, is my tie spiritually so to speak on straight and have I got my hair combed just right and slicked just right, so I look like the right kind of Christian, you see there is too often an absorption in many Christians who are trying to grow on their own condition. Too little an absorption on faithfulness to the Lord. For example, I know all over the country churches that are very strong on stressing their own inner sanctification who never stop to consider what scripture says that we are to be members one of another. Members one of another. And our Lord tells us what it means to be members, He said to church members who were coming before Him in the parable of judgment saying Lord I really worked for my sanctification boy I spent so many hours…I’m tirpulating,[sp??] but this is the essence of it: they were sure they were alright, I spent so much time in prayers, in spiritual exercises, well I was sick and you didn’t visit me, in prison, naked, thirsty, and I never saw you. Lord when saw we thee in such a condition, in as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brother, or you have not done it unto them you have not done it unto me.

Now, I have encountered congregations that are free of all the conspicuous sins and yet you find that there are elderly shut-ins and nobody visits them except for the pastor. And people are sick and very often nobody calls on them except the pastor. As though one person had an obligation to fulfill our Lord’s requirements in the parable of judgment, as though we are not members one of another, you see. And yet all those people are busy going to prayer meeting and having their family devotions and they figure I’m getting right with the Lord, you see. That doesn’t work, the Lord says are you members one of another and in as much as you have not done it unto the least of these you have not done it unto me. I think high point of this kind of thing occurred about a year or two ago when a young man in his twenties complained to me that the pastor hadn’t called on him although he had been a member of the church two years. During those two years the pastor had been in and out of surgery, had not been able to preach a number of Sundays and had been up in the pulpit in great pain when he was there and here was a healthy able bodied young man whining that he hadn’t been called on although it had been two years since he joined the church. I think there is a room in hell for people like that, I really do, and you see, that young man and I know this because I talked to him more than once, spends a certain amount of time every day praying, is very concerned with his spiritual estate, feels he’s really doing marvelously well but he is not because he is a member of no one and he goes to church and expects to be fed, expects to be waited on by the pastor and anybody else.

Not too long ago and it really angered me greatly, there was a whole page of letters of complaint in Moody Monthly about ministers by church members, I’ve been a member of this church for eighteen months or three years and nobody has called on me. Well why didn’t you call on somebody? They all sit there and expect the minister and everybody din the church to do things for them, nobody has ever asked me into their home for dinner, have you asked anybody into your home for dinner? You see what I mean? And all those people I’m sure because I can cite cases by the dozens are striving to be more spiritual all the time. There is too much spirituality in the church and too little obedience, too little faith and faithfulness. So I think it’s very dangerous to concentrate upon our own inner state rather than faithfulness to the Lord, He has to be the focus. So that’s how we grow, by making Him the focus and being members one of another. Well one more question perhaps before it is time to adjourn, yes?

[Question Unintelligible]

[Rushdoony] Yes, yes. Colossians is very powerful on that, we do need to see Christ’s mediation in everything, I once encountered and with this I’ll close, but a very prominent minister who was about as poor a husband as you can imagine, not that he ever committed adultery but after about forty years of married life he had never once done one thoughtful thing for his wife and he actually made the statement when finally, I won’t go into the situation and the crisis and her breakdown, he said it’s nobody’s business but my own how I deal with my wife. Can you imagine anyone saying that, it’s God’s business. How we deal with ourselves and how we deal our wife and our children, our bodies, whatever God gives us in a way of a home, or blessings, or a job, its God’s business. He’s the mediator between us and all things. Well, let us bow our heads now in prayer as we conclude our session.

Our Lord and our God it has been good for us to be here, Thy word is truth and Thou art the Lord. We thank thee that Thou hast given us a mediator, even Jesus Christ our Lord. We thank Thee that through His atoning death we are a new creation and we have such glorious promises concerning ourselves, our bodies, our eternal life. The ground beneath our feet and the world around us, time itself. Make us ever joyful oh Lord and confident that as we face all the vicissitudes and problems of this life we may be more than conquerors through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant that we ever lift up our eyes and see that indeed Thy rainbow over arches us. That we are in Thy covenant of peace and that Christ is our peace. Now dismiss us with Thy blessing, give us all traveling mercies on our homeward way, a blessed night’s rest and continuing joy in Thee and in Thy calling all the days of our lives. In Jesus’ name, Amen.