It's All of Grace

I have been preaching through Mark and recently spent two weeks on the institution of the Lord's Table. Among other things, it is Jesus entering into covenant with those gathered, complete with bloody sacrifice and ratification ceremony (Cf. for example Genesis 15, Exodus 24). As in all the covenants (in truth, they all add up to one) God makes with humans, it is something he thinks up, sets the terms for, and then carries out and upholds despite all the failings of his “partners” in the agreement.

This consistent dynamic is played out in the upper room on that Passover night. Jesus enters into covenant with those gathered, promising them protection from God's wrath (typified and foreshadowed in the Passover). Yet, within hours they had all abandoned him, even denying they ever knew him. Despite the disciples' unfaithfulness, does Jesus withhold his mercy? Does he not carry through on his promise? Does he not pour out the Holy Spirit on these same faithless men so that they, these fallen, wretched sinners, could be his witnesses? The only exception is the one who had been ordained from the beginning to betray him (Acts 1:16; 2:23).

What did they bring to that covenant ceremony that Passover night? They brought nothing but their depravity and its attendant frailty.

When Martin Luther teaches on justification by faith in his famous Treatise on Christian Liberty (or Freedom of a Christian), he utilizes the concept of covenant, expressed in marriage, to demonstrate just how impoverished in righteousness are we and how rich in mercy is God. The “partnership” is all one sided:

“The . . . grace of faith is this: that it unites the soul to Christ, as the wife to the husband, by which mystery, as the Apostle teaches, Christ and the soul are made one flesh. Now if they are one flesh, and if a true marriage--nay, by far the most perfect of all marriages--is accomplished between them (for human marriages are but feeble types of this one great marriage), then it follows that all they have becomes theirs in common, as well good things as evil things; so that whatsoever Christ possesses, that the believing soul may take to itself and boast of as its own, and whatever belongs to the soul, that Christ claims as His.

“If we compare these possessions, we shall see how inestimable is the gain. Christ is full of grace, life, and salvation; the soul is full of sin, death, and condemnation. Let faith step in, and then sin, death, and hell will belong to Christ, and grace, life, and salvation to the soul. For, if He is a Husband, He must needs take to Himself that which is His wife's, and at the same time, impart to His wife that which is His. For, in giving her His own body and Himself, how can He but give her all that is His? And, in taking to Himself the body of His wife, how can He but take to Himself all that is hers?”

Each time we celebrate the Supper we reiterate our faith in a covenant making and covenant keeping God. We express our gratitude that we are saved “by grace . . . through faith. And this is not [of our] own doing; it is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8).