Covenant Broken, Covenant Fulfilled

Covenant Broken, Covenant Fulfilled
Ezekiel 17: 1-24

The everlasting covenant of God is the covenant God the Father and God the Son made with each other before the world began. It was the terms of his covenant oath to which Christ referred on the cross when he said, “It is finished!” When God writes his word of grace on the hearts of his people, the Spirit of God declares that all that is required of his people to make us eternally accepted with God has been accomplished by Christ Jesus. This is the promise whereby God makes his children to rest in Christ with the assurance that God is our God and we his children.

Man Broke Covenant with God in Adam (Ezekiel 17: 1-21) In this chapter, the Lord shows a broken covenant between the king of Babylon and the king of Judah, declaring the offense of the covenant man broke against God in the garden in Adam.

God set Adam in a well-watered garden to serve God, as a humble willow. God made a covenant with Adam. Yet, Adam turned from God as did Zedekiah, and died even as God promised, and so death passed upon all men. Again with the nation of Israel, God set them in a well-watered garden, made a covenant with Israel which Israel vowed to obey. But just like Zedekiah, Israel looked away from God back to Egypt. Now, one last time in our text, having turned Israel over to Babylon, the LORD God illustrates the offense of breaking his covenant. God said, Shall he prosper? shall he escape that doeth such things? or shall he break the covenant, and be delivered? (Ezekiel 17: 18-21). God shows us over and over the offense of that broken covenant in the garden. He teaches his true spiritual children that we need Christ to fulfill all the promises of God to justify us from the covenant which we have broken. God’s promise of salvation is accomplished by the faithfulness of Christ himself, given to us through the faithful operation of God, through God-given faith whereby we receive this finished word of promise (Galatians 3: 21-22). If any looks away from him to our will or our works, we are yet turning from God’s well-watered provision to the king of Egypt and all who do so shall perish.

Christ is the Goodly Cedar (Ezekiel 17: 22-24)

God the Father took Christ Jesus his Son from the high cedar, from God’s own presence before the world began, to build his temple and reign as his King Priest (Zechariah 6: 12-13). Christ came as promised from the highest branch, the house of David, the tribe of Judah, the royal family, the “tender one” (Isaiah 53:2). But unlike Adam, unlike the nation Israel, and unlike Zedekiah, Christ did not turn his roots to another, but kept the covenant of grace, serving God the Father with all his holy heart and soul. The description of these trees is what God did in Christ. Christ is the righteous high tree who came low, the low tree exalted by God, the green tree dried up in place of his people (“I thirst” on the cross) and the tree that is now risen and made to flourish! Christ fulfilled the law and the prophets, laid down his life to justice, all because Christ promised God to save his people from their sins. So Christ fulfilled the covenant and the testimony as promised and God will keep mercy for Christ forevermore (Psalm 89: 28).

Those he has made righteous by his covenant-keeping are born of him and are his branches (Isaiah 60: 21; 61: 3; Jeremiah 17: 7-8; Psalm 92: 12-15). All his elect from every nation come as the fowls seeking shade in the branches (Ezekiel 17: 23-24), resting by faith in his everlasting covenant of grace (Jeremiah 31: 31-34; 2 Corinthians 1:20).

Protection under the Canopy of Grace

I began looking at this passage because recently it rained heavily while I was mowing my front yard but under the large cedars, not one drop of rain fell on me.

Dear believer, if you can rest in Christ under his grace it is because God has made you a high tree brought low, a low tree exalted, a green tree dried up so that you flourish in Christ alone. Every believer rests with David under this canopy of grace, saying, “he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure:” (2 Samuel 23: 5.) Therefore, as God promises, not one drop of wrath shall ever fall upon us.

Clay Curtis.

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