Meditations on the Cross
The efficiency of the atonement rests on the eternal covenant of God, who foreordains whatsoever comes to pass. Nothing is done haphazardly by God. He works by an eternal decree, wherein all things come to pass according to His eternal counsel.
On the night of the Passover when the Lord instituted the Lord’s Supper, He called it a covenant in His blood. He put into motion the work which the Father gave Him to do. He knew every step in His arrest, His torment, His condemnation under Pilate and His crucifixion. He prayed on that night of his betrayal, “Not my will but thine”. The Lord exposed Judas’ evil plot to betray Him. As Judas took the sop and went out into the night the Lord knew he and the Sanhedrin would settle on a scheme to secure His death and soon the Jewish mob would be on the march to arrest him.
When Judas arrived at the garden to give the Lord that wretched kiss in a despicable plot of murder, the Lord demonstrated His resolve to fall into the hands of His enemies. Jesus did not set about to save His own life. Rather He gave Himself over to suffer and die according to the eternal plan of God, as a sacrifice for sin.
All the way to Calvary our Lord presented Himself as a lamb to the slaughter. There was no protest, no hesitancy and no turning back. He was set to lay down His own life freely and deliberately to fulfil the covenant plan of redemption.
He said, “No man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father” (John 10:18).
There was no pause in the mind and will of the Saviour as He got closer and closer to His death. Rather, He set himself to go to the cross in full obedience to fulfil the covenant plan He had entered into with His Father. He knew this was God’s way to redeem His people.
God had provided Him as the sacrifice to save His chosen people from their sins. After all, His name was to be Jesus who would save His people from their sins.
The Son was as determined as His Father to lay down His life as a sacrifice in the stead of His people — all whom the Father gave to Him in the eternal covenant of redemption. So, all the way to the cross and even unto death this covenant between the Father and the Son was His driving force.
Soon He would cry out, “It is finished.” Soon His suffering would be over; complete and total salvation for sinners would be secured. Soon Jesus would sit with His Father in the glory as, “The author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
With full accord the Father accepted Jesus’ sacrifice for sin and raised Him up to glory. So, we have a gospel based on a covenant plan which gives us a covenant hope. Let the apostle Paul have the final word on this gospel based on God’s eternal covenant of mercy.
“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant (Hebrews 13:20).
You may be asking, What difference does it make?
Well, Jesus’ death was not in vain. His blood will never lose its power. His people shall never be in hell. All who rest their soul’s salvation on the sacrifice of Christ at Calvary are saved and have eternal security in their Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus’ death for sinners cannot fail. Only believe that Jesus’ covenant death is enough for God, enough for all sinners who come to God through the Son and enough for you, and thou shalt be saved.
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