THE COVENANT OF GRACE

If you were asked to say in one or two sentences what the Bible is all about, what would you say? Let me give it a try. The Bible is all about a God whose love and grace leads Him to choose unworthy people and enter into covenant with them. He did it with Abraham and Israel in what we call the Old Covenant, and he did it again finally, once for all, through Jesus Christ in the New Covenant. At the heart of it all is our covenant relationship with a graceful God.

It should be understood that a covenant, in the biblical sense, is similar to but not the same as our modern contract. There are similarities. For instance, both involve two or more parties agreeing on something. Also, both involve promises and conditions.

But the covenant described in the Bible is not like our modern contracts in at least one important aspect. We do not negotiate or bargain with God to get a better deal. There are always promises and conditions in both contracts and covenants, but even if we did bargain we could not get any better promises than what God offers to begin with. He offers us everything of value that we could possibly want. What more could we ask for than the forgiveness of our sins, the assurance of life eternal, and the promise that God will be our God and we will be his people, forever? We might want to bargain for easier conditions, for something less than complete trust and obedience, but that is what God expects, and these terms are non negotiable.

The sovereign God offers to us his covenant of grace. Will we accept? When Jesus offered the cup to his disciples and said, "This is my blood of the new covenant" he, in effect, changed a Passover meal into a covenant meal. For the disciples his words were a call to commitment. The broken bread and the cup represented his commitment, his sacrifice, his total submission to the will of God. To accept the cup and drink from it meant they entered into that commitment with him.

Can it mean anything less to us? The Lord's Supper is indeed a memorial, but it means much more than that. In a sense, it renews our initial commitment of faith made in our baptism. After Jesus predicted his death he said, "If anyone would come after me, let him pick up his cross, and follow me." That invitation to join him in his sacrificial commitment has echoed through the ages in the call to communion and comes to us today as we gather around His table.