What thoughts are these! The promise of God sustained by the blood of the Son, and witnessed by the presence of the Spirit! How has God imparted Himself to us in this marvellous act and deed for sinners! The soul can conceive nothing richer. In divine activities we are interested, but such activities as are founded on everlasting counsels, and which make manifest to us and for us the name of God, "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
How should it take us out of ourselves, to stand in sight of this! What a mystery it is; and what have we to do, but with Moses to "turn aside and see this great sight," turn aside from all else! The grander "this great sight" presents itself to our eye, the more commanding will it be. Let us get rich thoughts of this mystery. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him, and He will shew them His covenant." Let us see this great transaction settled ere worlds began, see it calling forth all the energies of divine love and power in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, see it undertaking the most deep and marvellous purposes of grace and glory for the elect, keep the eye on it, like Moses, till, like him, we discover Him who dwells in the midst of it, and whose name explains it all.
"Oh, all ye rich, ye wise, ye just,
Who the blood's doctrine have discussed
And judge it mean and slight--
Grant that I may, the rest's your own,
In shame and poverty sit down
At this one well-spring of delight!"
If it be but a man's covenant, there is both the consideration and the deed, the purchase money and the muniments, the price and the witness of its payment. God treats with our souls in language thus well understood, and tells us thus of the consideration and the deed, or that which sustains and that which witnesses the counsels of His sovereign good pleasure. It is a deed of gift to the elect, but it is nothing less than the blood of the Son which sustains it, and the presence of the Spirit which witnesses it.
What a secret! By nature I am at a great distance from God, an alien and a foreigner. I am also shut up, so that I cannot come forth. But in this great transaction God Himself undertook to travel this unmeasured distance, and assail the house of my strong enemy; and in His incarnation, sorrows, and victory all this mighty doing of love is accomplished, and I am "compassed about with songs of deliverance."
Can it be, as I gaze at such a mystery, that I fear lest the distant one be not brought nigh, or the captive one be not delivered? "Surely in the floods of great waters they shall not come nigh unto me." I may say--"Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance."
"Strong Deliverer!
Be Thou still our strength and shield!"
This may well be our confidence in the faith of such truth. But to these general thoughts on the covenants and their signs, I might add, the token given to Noah has a beautiful significancy. The bow, as it were, rode triumphant on the cloud. It rolled away the stone and sat upon it. Its form and bearing were those of a conqueror. It said to the cloud, "Hitherto shalt thou come and no further, and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." It gave the angel of death his measure, and said to him, "It is enough, stay now thine hand."
And all this lives in the divine remembrance. The earth and the covenant that secures it are there. "The bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth." Accordingly this promise to the earth is remembered, the bow in the cloud is looked at, through every stage and variety of the dispensational actings of the Lord.
It was remembered, of course, all the time the Lord had His seat in Zion, for then the glory made the earth its residence. The Lord then dwelt between the cherubim, in the temple at Jerusalem, in the land of Israel. But when the throne of the Lord leaves that city, and the sanctuary loses the glory, because abominations had grieved and disturbed it, the throne and the glory are accompanied by the rainbow to heaven. Ezek. i. 28. Though the earth then ceased, for a while, to be the dwelling-place of God, still it was before Him in counsel. He would be mindful of it, as the object of His faithful care, according to the promise.[8]