Making Covenant With Christ

When I was saved the Lord and I made covenant. Though I do not hear this preached about very much these days, yet a gospel song I heard as a young Christian sings about it. The song "I Made A Covenant With My Lord" sings of this scriptural idea (sung by the Kingsmen here and by the Chuck Wagon Gang here). 

I recall when on my knees in a Southern Baptist church near Oxford, Ohio, during the time of the singing of the invitation hymn "I Can Hear My Savior Calling," how that hymn gripped me. I was hearing him calling, desiring that I would, as the Puritans and our Old Baptist forefathers would say, "close with Christ," i.e. "close the deal (covenant) with Christ." I had been struggling to find assurance of salvation. I knew I wanted to be saved. I knew salvation was only in Christ. I believed, but had I believed enough? I felt no bodily sensation as yet, no Eureka moment, no supernatural occurrence, so how do I know if I was saved and born again? Well, that night I found my assurance and I have been singing as I go ever since. Praise the Lord! Thank you Jesus! 

While I heard my Savior calling I was made to focus upon "and go with him all the way." I almost cry now writing about it, with tears of joy. I heard him assure me that he would go with me all the way if I would but promise to go with him all the way. I promised to follow him and he promised to save me. That was our deal, our covenant, and as my former professor used to say (God bless his departed soul) "The Lord is going to make sure you keep your side of the bargain." Amen. His love in the heart will "constrain" his newborn child, his new servant. 

The words to that precious hymn are as follows:

I can hear my Savior calling, 

I can hear my Savior calling, 

I can hear my Savior calling, 

"Take thy cross and follow, follow Me." 

Refrain: 

Where He leads me I will follow, 

Where He leads me I will follow, 

Where He leads me I will follow, 

I'll go with Him, with Him all the way. 

I'll go with Him through the garden, 

I'll go with Him through the garden, 

I'll go with Him through the garden, 

I'll go with Him, with Him all the way. [Refrain] 

I'll go with Him through the judgment, 

I'll go with Him through the judgment, 

I'll go with Him through the judgment, 

I'll go with Him, with Him all the way. [Refrain] 

He will give me grace and glory, 

He will give me grace and glory, 

He will give me grace and glory, 

And go with me, with me all the way. [Refrain]

We made our deal based upon the new covenant, not on the old covenant. All I needed for the guarantee of salvation was sincerity and honesty in the deal, true faith and confession.

The text at the heading of this article speaks of the "saints" as being the same as they "who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice." This was true of the corporate national covenant that God made with the nation Israel on Mt. Sinai. But, those Jews who existed in the time of the Psalmist were not present on Mt. Sinai. It was their forefathers who entered into that covenant by sacrifice. However, in the above text, saints in the time of the Psalmist themselves "made covenant by sacrifice" when they themselves made sacrifice for themselves. The individual sinner, by faith, placed his hand upon the sacrifice and by that act makes covenant with God so that reconciliation and forgiveness may ensue. 

Commented Spurgeon in his commentary on the Psalms:

"Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice; this is the grand test, and yet some have dared to imitate it. The covenant was ratified by the slaying of victims, the cutting and dividing of offerings; this the righteous have done by accepting with true faith the great propitiatory sacrifice, and this the pretenders have done in merely outward form. Let them be gathered before the throne for trial and testing, and as many as have really ratified the covenant by faith in the Lord Jesus shall be attested before all worlds as the objects of distinguishing grace, while formalists shall learn that outward sacrifices are all in vain. Oh, solemn assize, how does my soul bow in awe at the prospect thereof!"

The Covenant Partners

The new covenant, like the old covenant, is a covenant between God and sinners. This simple fact is often overlooked by commentators and expounders of the word. 

"Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. 31: 31-34; And Heb. 8: 7-13)

The covenant is "made with" both "the house of Israel" and "the house of Judah." It is an agreement. In the case of the old covenant, God kept his side of the bargain ('although I was a faithful husband'), but the people did not. They broke his covenant although they had entered into it freely.

It seems to me that the Hyper Calvinist and the born again before faith advocates fail to realize that the covenants made with men imply a mutual compact, an agreement, an act of the will, a choice, fealty and trust in the promises made in the covenant. This is certainly the case in Romans seven where Paul speaks of becoming married to Christ. In marriage there is a covenant made. Without entering into this covenant with the Lord, without becoming joined to him as in a marriage, there is no covenant, and where there is no covenant there is no salvation.

There is a covenant that was made between the members of the Trinity, especially between the Father and the Son respecting the salvation of sinners, especially of his elect. In this covenant the Son of God represented his elect, represented sinners. But, this representative union by itself saves not. Only by an actual union of the sinner (or the elect) and Christ is the covenant salvation realized. The text about the new covenant says that the covenant is made with those who shall be benefited by the covenant. The new covenant was made with me personally when the Lord and I said "I do." Said the apostle:

"For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins.” (Rom. 11: 27)

Covenant with whom? With the people whose sins he proposed to take away. In order for sins to be forgiven one must enter into covenant with the Lord, and this covenant must be the new covenant, a covenant of grace, not a legal covenant or covenant of works. 

When God and the people of Israel entered into covenant we have these words in regard to it:

"You stand this day all of you before the LORD your God; your captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the men of Israel, Your little ones, your wives, and your stranger that is in your camp, from the hewer of your wood unto the drawer of your water: That you should enter into covenant with the LORD your God, and into his oath, which the LORD your God make with you this day: That he may establish you to day for a people unto himself, and that he may be unto you a God, as he has said unto you, and as he has sworn unto you fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." (Deut. 29: 10-13)

Entering into covenant with God by the old covenant and its animal sacrifices, was not able to save anyone, as the new testament teaches. Only by entering into covenant with God by the new covenant saves anyone. 

Said Spurgeon (See here):

"Yet once more, let me remind you that the ensign of this Covenant is faith. Under the old Covenant it was and always would have been, works. But, under the new Covenant, it is faith. Do you believe? Then you are in Christ and all the blessings of the Covenant of Grace are yours. Do you accept Christ to stand as your Substitute? Do you lay hold on this Covenant and claim an interest in it for your own soul? Do you cast yourself wholly upon Him who kept that Covenant for you? Then it is yours and God speaks to you, my believing Hearer, as though there were no other person in the whole universe–and He says to you–“I will sprinkle clean water upon you and you shall be clean; I will put My Law in your mind, and write it on your heart; and I will give you a new heart and a right spirit. From all your uncleanness will I cleanse you, and you shall be My child, and I will be your Father and your God.” What a Covenant of Grace this is! I have given you only a bare outline of its provisions, but I hope that outline will make many of you want to know how you can lay hold upon it for yourselves!"

It is true that believers, God's elect, have made covenant with God for salvation representatively through Christ's representation, but to make that covenant personally applicable, faith is required. Christ entered into that covenant for me, but it is still necessary that I enter into it by faith via the new covenant.

In repentance there is a promise made to God to turn away from sin and self. God also makes promises to the penitent believer. He promises to do for the believer what he cannot do for himself and this covenant promise is what guarantees the believer's allegiance and perseverance. 

Have you made your covenant vows to the Lord? Have you made covenant with him? Confession, as all know, literally means to agree, to have the mouth agree with what is in the heart. But, it includes agreeing with God.