Word of Salvation – Vol. 30 No. 05 – February 1985

 

Your Maker Is Your Husband

 

Sermon by Rev. J. W. Deenick on Isaiah 54:5a.

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 54: 1-10; Romans 11: 13-27

Suggested hymns: 210:1,2,3,10. 222:1,3,5,6. 419. BoW.H 805:1,2,7,

 

Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,

The text this morning/evening is interesting.  It touches upon the very heart of our relationship with God.  It says that our Creator is also our life's companion.  In Reformed circles we often refer to that relationship as a covenant.

The word covenant is a very biblical expression, of course.  The fact that God has a covenant with His people is explained in the Bible many times.  Still, not everywhere among Christians is the concept of that covenant considered to be of great importance.  It is rather strange, really, but the very use of the word covenant and the emphasis on the importance and the reality of the covenant seems to be confined largely to Reformed theology and preaching.

Not so long ago a Lutheran pastor, speaking to a company of Lutheran and Reformed ministers, said: "I have not heard a Lutheran theologian or a Lutheran pastor speak or preach about the covenant even once.  In Lutheran theology and preaching the covenant of grace is hardly ever mentioned.”  It is difficult to say why this is so; but it is typical that he said it.  Moreover, this does not apply to the Lutherans only.  We know that already from the Christian hymn book.  There are very few hymns that praise God for the covenant that He has made with us sinners.  In the hymn section of our own Psalter Hymnal there are only five hymns that speak of it and one of these is a rhymed version of the song of Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.

Yet, in Reformed circles we have always been much preoccupied with the covenant.  We speak of the history of the covenant and the dispensations of the covenant, the Old Covenant and the New; we speak about covenant promises and covenant faithfulness; about covenant sanctions and covenant breakers; about the covenant of works and the covenant of grace; about the sacraments as signs and seals of the covenant and about the children of the church as covenant children.

The word covenant means a solemn bond or agreement.  It means the coming together of two parties for the making of an important contract.  The Bible tells us of several covenants that people made among themselves.  Jacob and Laban, his father-in-law, made a covenant.  David and Jonathan made a covenant.  But in the Word of God all attention is focussed on that one covenant upon which God has entered with His people.

God made a covenant already with Adam in Paradise, and later with Adam and Eve after they had fallen into sin.  Even though the word covenant is not used in the first three chapters of Genesis, the substance of it is certainly there.  Then later we read that God made a covenant with Noah after the flood and with Abram in Canaan; also with Jacob at Peniel and with the nation of Israel at Mount Sinai.  Again later we find that God made a covenant with David when he was king at Jerusalem.  In the book of the prophet Jeremiah we read of a new covenant that God promises to make with His people later, when the time is ripe for it; and at the Last Supper the Lord Jesus said that "the cup of blessing" is "the cup of the new covenant in his blood".

In the text for this sermon we hear about the covenant too.  Again, the word is not used but the substance is there.  We see that in the verses 9 and 10.  There the word covenant is used: "My love will not be shaken and My covenant of peace will not be removed.”

Now, what Isaiah refers to here in this text is THE PECULIAR NATURE OF THAT COVENANT; and we find...

            (1) that although the parties are totally incompatible and unequal

            (2) yet God in Christ bridges that gap;

            (3) and makes us real covenant partners.

I.  Why did Isaiah put it this way: "Your Maker is your husband"?  Well, let us remember under which circumstances he said it.  He spoke to the Jewish people in Babylon.  They had been taken there into captivity.  In verse 1 he refers to them as a barren nation; a barren woman.  A very apt description.  As a nation they were like a woman from whom no future generations would issue.  As a nation they were going to die out.  They were at the brink of total extinction.  Precisely as the Philistines, Moabites and the Amorites they were to be wiped off the map as a distinct people.  Through assimilation and integration they were going to disappear among the tribes and peoples of the region without a trace.  They were like a spouse who could never hope to have any offspring.

But how does he encourage them now in the verses 1 to 4?  He says: "Sing, oh barren woman; you will have heaps of children.  Your tents will be too small.  You will spread out to the right and to the left.  Don't be afraid.  Remember, Who is your husband!  The LORD God Almighty, your Maker, is your husband!"

By the way, it has often been said: "How is this possible; how could Isaiah have addressed the Jews in captivity?  He lived 150 years before they went into captivity.  "This objection should not detain us too long.  What of it?  Isaiah was a prophet.  So many years before they went into captivity he knew about it and prophetically he spoke about it.  We hear about it in the first forty chapters of his book.  Could he not, as a prophet, have given them a message also for the time they would be in Babylon?  Or else, if it is suggested (as it has been so often) that another prophet, a second Isaiah, spoke to them while they were at Babylon and that his message was later added to this Bible book.  What difference does it make?  God spoke to His people through the prophets, many different men at different times and places.  Here He says: "Remember the LORD, your God, while you are in this desperate situation.  It only seems to be desperate.  Is not your Maker your covenant partner?”

That was a peculiar situation indeed.  If ever there was a covenant relationship, a marriage, in which the parties were unequal, it was in this sacred bond between God and Israel.

In human relations we don't like it when the two parties are incompatible.  We say: "An agreement is more stable when the two parties are more or less equal, more or less of the same background and vigour.”  When the one party is much weaker than the other, we don't like it.  We think it is dangerous.  When a multinational company makes a contract with a small businessman we are afraid that sooner or later he will be swallowed up.  When the Soviet Union signs a treaty with one of its smaller neighbours we doubt whether it really is a treaty.  We fear that the one party has simply dictated the terms of the agreement one-sidedly.

Well, doesn't that apply also to the covenant between God and Israel?  And isn't this true about our relationship with the LORD as well?  Are we not totally incompatible partners?  For one thing, are we not for one hundred percent dependent on our covenant partner for whatever we do?  Is He not our Creator, not only in the sense that in Adam He once created us, but also in the sense that even now from moment to moment we depend on Him?  As Paul said at Athens: "in Him we live and move and have our being" Acts 17.  Without Him we cannot even exist.  Without Him working in us through His Spirit we cannot even respond to Him or love Him.

And that is not the only problem.  God is holy and just and good, while we are unclean and foolish and wicked.  He lives in the light while we love to move in diabolical darkness.  How then can there be a normal relationship between God and us?  The Scottish preacher, Ralph Erskine, once said: if an angel proposed marriage to a worm it would not be as great a miracle as when God proposed a covenant to Israel.

WE cannot be God's companions!  What do we still have in common with Him?  At one time we lived in the image of God, but we do so no longer.  We are rebels.  We live in the darkness where Satan rules; and we love it.

These two parties are radically and totally incompatible.  There can never be a proper covenant between the two.

II.  And yet, the LORD God has established such a covenant!  That is our second point.  In Christ God has turned  to us in love.  Yes, it was His initiative entirely.  In its origin the covenant was one-sided.  It was God who came to Adam and Eve, not the other way round.  It was God who came to Abram and Israel.  Not just once or twice; all the way from Sinai to Bethlehem, at the birth of Jesus, the LORD God had to be the first to act.  The initiative was His and the continuation was His.

We cannot understand that, unless we see it in the light of God's miraculous love and grace; unless we see it in the light of the Father sending His Son into the world to be the mediator of the covenant.  Christ Jesus came to stand in for us.  As the Son of God to be born in the flesh He stood in for the Jewish nation in Babylon already.  Therefore the prophet could say to them: "Remember Him Who stands in for you; Who is your companion!  Your Maker is your husband.  He made you in the first place and He re-made you and restored you in forgiving, justifying love.  And now He reckons you to be an acceptable partner.”

In the light of the N.T. this becomes very clear.  It is in Christ that we are ‘acceptable partners' – not equal but compatible in the sense that God accepts us as His companions in a lifelong, eternal, partnership.  And so, as Enoch, we may walk with God.  Right through life and through the valley of the shadow of death, we may walk with God as our companion.  And as Enoch we may walk with God into eternal life.

As you can see it is essential that we know this; that we are sure that we HAVE this covenant relationship with God; a relationship in which we are totally dependent upon our Partner but in which we are yet in Christ acceptable companions to the eternal God.

You see, all this about the covenant is not merely an interesting Reformed doctrine about which we could have an entertaining and constructive discussion.  All this about the covenant is REALITY.  There IS this covenant.  God HAS this relationship, this companionship with you and me.  Our baptism assures us of it.  Our baptism is the sign and seal of the covenant that we have with God and that He has with us.  God said to you and to me in our baptism: "Be My friend; be My companion.  Let us go through life together, you and I.  Have your sins washed away and share with Me that true and eternal life".

III.  That leads us to our last point.  God says to me: "Be my friend.”  But by saying that He also challenges me to be a real covenant partner.  He challenges me to BE what I AM.  In my baptism too He calls me to be a real covenant partner, and to be active in my partnership.

This point of our baptism is important.  In Reformed circles we tend to make a strange mistake.  We sometimes seem to believe that the baptism of their children is first of all meant to be a great comfort and re-assurance for the parents involved.  But that is not what infant baptism is about, certainly not in the first place.  The CHILD is baptised and the baptism is meant for the CHILD.  It means to reassure and to challenge the CHILD.  My baptism was not for my parents; it was for me.  Precisely as the Lord's Supper is for me.  But these two covenant symbols, after they have reassured me, now also challenge me; call me to an active partnership.  In all covenants there are not only two parties but also two parts.  There are promises, but there are also obligations.  And God takes us seriously as partners who are to make their contribution to the partnership.

Sure, here we have to be careful.  We already listened to one Lutheran pastor; here we may remember what another Lutheran theologian once said during a frank discussion.  He said: "When you, Reformed people, start talking about the covenant I suspect heresy.  I think, now they are going to talk about the sinner's own contribution to the deal that we have with God.  In each covenant there are two parts: God's part and the sinner's part.  Between the two of them they work out the sinner's eternal redemption."

Yes, the covenant could be misunderstood in that way.  In fact it has often been misinterpreted in that manner.  But if we take the Word of God seriously here in this text that cannot really happen.  OUR MAKER is our covenant partner.  Even when God takes us seriously as covenant partners and when He challenges us to be what we are, He is still our Maker upon whom we wholly depend for all that we are and do.  Whatever contribution we make, it will always be a contribution that we have first received from Him.

But we HAVE to make it.  We HAVE to respond in faith.  God's love has to be responded to.  God's promises have to be believed.  Our baptismal privileges and obligations have to be accepted in faith.

God's commandments have to be listened to and have to be done in obedience.  God takes us seriously as real partners.

Apart from faith the Jews had no right to think of themselves as the people of God.  Apart from faith they could have no living relationship to the tree; and as Paul says in Romans 11 many of them were cut off because of their unbelief.  The Lord Jesus himself says that we cannot be branches on the vine unless we abide in Him believingly (John 15).  There is no covenant relationship apart from faith.  If we refuse to respond in faith we are covenant breakers.  Unbelief severs the bond and invalidates baptism.

Most curious indeed is the folly of unbelief.  The fool says in his heart: "There is no God", but he cannot even say it without God keeping him up and sustaining him in his being; though not in his unbelief.

Astounding then is the grace of God.  He says: "Here I am, God Almighty, your Maker and Redeemer.  Come let us reason together; let us be partners together.  Be my friend; my companion forever.  It is safe for you; and My heart rejoices in it too.”

No wonder then that the angels in heaven never stop being amazed about it.  God, who has compassion upon sinners, has said:

"Though the mountains be shaken,
and the hills be removed;
yet My unfailing love for you
will not be shaken,
nor My covenant of peace
be removed"  (Is.54:10)

Amen.