Message Eight

Christ as the Covenant and
as the Light to Be God’s Full Salvation

Scripture Reading: Isa. 42:5-7; 49:6, 8b-9a;
55:1-4; Acts 13:34-35

1. God’s full salvation is based on His righteousness and consummated in His life—Rom. 10:3; 3:21-28; 5:10, 17-18, 21; 1:16-17:
   1. The righteousness of God is what God is with respect to justice and righteousness—10:3; 3:21-23:
      1. Because we are fallen, God must deal with us according to His righteousness.
      2. As the righteous God, He cannot forgive sinful people without meeting the demands of His righteousness—1 John 1:9.
   2. Justification is God’s action in approving us according to His standard of righteousness—Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:28.
   3. The proof of God’s justification is the resurrection of Christ—4:22-25:
      1. The redeeming death of Christ as the ground for God to justify us has been fully accepted by God, and Christ has been resurrected as a proof of this.
      2. The resurrected Christ who sits at the right hand of God is the evidence that God is satisfied with Christ’s death on our behalf and that we have been justified—1 John 2:1.
      3. Now that Christ has died and has been raised from the dead, it is impossible for God to change His mind about forgiving us; He is bound by His righteousness to forgive us—1:9.
   4. God has given Christ to us as the righteousness of God—1 Cor. 1:30.
   5. Our experience of Christ rests upon the foundation of God’s righteousness—Psa. 89:14.
   6. Whereas God’s righteousness justifies us through the death of Christ, God’s life germinates us by Christ as the life-giving Spirit—Rom. 10:3; Gal. 2:16, 21; Rom. 5:10, 18; Eph. 2:5; 1 Cor. 15:45b.
2. Christ has been called by Jehovah to be a covenant for the people—Isa. 42:6b; 49:8b; Heb. 7:22:
   1. The covenant is the legal agreement between God and His people (cf. Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12); through the death of Christ, the covenant became a testament, a will (9:16-17).
   2. A covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a covenant, and when he has died, it is a testament; a testament in today’s terms is a will.
   3. A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, while a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things that are bequeathed to the inheritor—vv. 16-17; cf. Deut. 11:29; 28:1, 15; Jer. 31:31-32.
   4. Christ enacted the new covenant (which became the new testament—the will) with His blood according to God’s righteousness through His redeeming death—Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:15.
   5. In resurrection, Christ became the reality of all the bequests of the new testament, and in ascension in His heavenly ministry, He is the Mediator, the Executor, to execute the new testament according to God’s righteousness—8:6; 9:15; 12:24.
   6. Therefore, Christ is the new covenant as the new testament; as the embodiment of the riches of the Godhead (Col. 2:9; 1:19) and as the crucified and resurrected One, He has become the covenant of God given to His people.
   7. Christ as God’s sure mercies is the reality of all that God is and of all that God has given us; God’s salvation, God’s righteousness, God’s justification, God’s forgiveness, God’s redemption, God’s riches, and all God has and will do have been covenanted to us—Isa. 55:1-4; Acts 13:34-35.
   8. As the reality of all the bequests in the new testament, Christ, who is the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, consummated Spirit, is in our spirit and has become one spirit with us—1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:9-11; 2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17.
   9. As a covenant Christ is the surety (Heb. 7:22), and the Spirit is the pledge (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14), to guarantee that God embodied in Christ is the inheritance to His people (Rom. 8:17a; Acts 26:18).
3. Christ has been called by Jehovah to be a light for the nations—Isa. 42:6b-7; Matt. 4:13-16:
   1. Christ is the light of life, the true light, that shines over the world and enlightens every man to enliven man for regeneration—John 1:4, 9, 12-13.
   2. He is the divine, marvelous light to open the eyes of the blind (Isa. 42:7a; Luke 4:18; John 9:14) and to deliver God’s chosen people out of the darkness of death, the death-realm, the authority of Satan, into God’s life-realm of light (Isa. 42:7b; 1 Pet. 2:9b; Acts 26:18a; Col. 1:12-13).
   3. Christ as the covenant is for God’s people to gain God with His riches as their inheritance, whereas Christ as the light is for God’s people to receive God as life:
      1. The condemnation of God is dissolved by Christ as the covenant, and the death that comes from Satan is annulled by Christ as the light that issues in life—John 8:12.
      2. Christ as God’s life germinates us to regenerate, sanctify, renew, transform, conform, and glorify us, organically saving us unto our full sonship for His complete expression—Rom. 5:10.
4. Christ as the Servant of Jehovah serves God’s people by being a covenant and a light to God’s chosen people that He may be the full salvation of God extending to the ends of the earth—Isa. 49:6, 8b-9a; 42:5-7:
   1. Righteousness in God’s justice and life through God’s light are the two basic factors of God’s salvation—vv. 1, 4; Rom. 1:16-17; 5:18b; Titus 3:7:
      1. God’s salvation in its two aspects is composed of Christ as the covenant for justification and Christ as the light for life—Rom. 5:10.
      2. Through His death Christ as the covenant satisfies God’s righteousness for justification as the base of God’s full salvation, and in His resurrection Christ as the light imparts life as the consummation of God’s full salvation.
      3. Through His death and in His resurrection Christ has become the new covenant as the new testament according to God’s righteousness to be the base of God’s full salvation—Heb. 8:10-12; 9:15-17.
   2. God gave Christ as a light to the nations that He might be God’s salvation to all the world—Matt. 4:16; Luke 2:30-32:
      1. The life of this light (John 1:4; 8:12), as the indestructible life (Heb. 7:16b), the incorruptible life (2 Tim. 1:10b), and the real and eternal life that we should lay hold on (1 Tim. 6:19, 12), becomes God’s salvation to us in His righteousness (Rom. 5:10, 17).
      2. This life also ensures us, guarantees us, the heirs of God in His life, the right to inherit God with all His riches as our eternal inheritance—Acts 26:18.
      3. Such a life of light grows in us continually, issuing in our church life today (Eph. 5:8) and consummating in the New Jerusalem in eternity (Rev. 21:2-3, 9b-11, 18-23; 22:1-5).
5. The New Jerusalem is the embodiment of God’s full salvation, and God’s full salvation is a composition of God’s righteousness as the base and God’s life as the consummation:
   1. The totality of what the Bible reveals to us is the New Jerusalem; the New Jerusalem is the total composition of the entire revelation of the Bible.
   2. Ultimately, the complete salvation of God is embodied in the New Jerusalem, which is a matter of life built on the foundation of righteousness—Rev. 22:1-2; 21:2, 10, 14, 19-20, 23:
      1. The foundation of the New Jerusalem is the righteousness of God with God’s faithfulness—vv. 19-20.
      2. The content of the New Jerusalem is life, which issues from light—v. 23.
      3. Life is the consummation of righteousness, and righteousness is the base, the foundation, of life.
6. For His chosen people to receive Christ as a covenant and as light, God, as the Creator of the heavens and the earth and as the One who gives breath to men, gives also spirit to them that they may be able to enjoy Him, the Triune God, who is Spirit, as their inheritance and life—Isa. 42:5; Gen. 2:7; Zech. 12:1; John 4:24a.
7. The way to receive and enjoy the full salvation of God is to exercise our spirit, live according to our spirit, and remain in our spirit, with which is Christ, by calling on the Lord’s name—Rom. 8:4; 10:12-13; Psa. 116:13; 2 Tim. 4:22.
8. God’s full salvation is full of springs, and we need to learn to draw water out of these springs by calling on the Lord’s name—Isa. 12:2-6; 55:1-4, 6.