The Covenant of Redemption.
I. Consider the character of this covenant, for this is a point of the highest importance as regards our thoughts, and our hopes, and our actions. The character of God's covenant of redemption is love. The will of the Father is to gather the Christian into Christ with an everlasting salvation. All adverse appearances, all interruptions to the consciousness of this, arising from himself or from the world, must not for a moment outweigh the great central truth that God loveth him. In holding this fact in full acknowledgment of his position in Christ, consist his safety and his life. "Thy will be done" is the expression of a soul which knows and feels this. We must be tried: we must be purified; the dethronement of self and the setting up of God in our hearts cannot take place without a struggle, a war, within. This conflict may be fierce and long-continued; it may seem like the rending asunder of soul and spirit; it may bring us down into the depths of dispiritedness, and almost extinguish our hope; but let not any intensity of conflict, or any self-loathing, or any forebodings for the future ever cause us to forget that the mind of God to us is love.
II. Other points to be considered regard the covenant itself. And one is that Holy Scripture uniformly sets it forth to us as a covenant made and ratified before the foundation of the world. Another important thing for us to regard who receive and acknowledge the glory of the Eternal Trinity is the intelligent and clear appreciation in our spiritual life of the parts and offices of the Divine Persons in our redemption. In the purpose of the Father, it had its ground, and has its continuance. It is His will that we should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. In the finished work of the Son on earth and His high-priesthood in heaven, it had, and has, its actuality as it now exists. And God the Holy Spirit begets and carries on in our souls this spiritual life, dwelling in us, purifying our hearts and motives, making us holy and gradually more and more like God. Let this important fact be ever borne in mind: that our recognition of the wonderful love of God in redemption may be no barren acquiescence in an orthodox doctrine, but a quickening reality in our own hearts and lives, full of seeds of love, and peace, and joy, and increase in holiness.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons,vol. iv., p. 290.
References: 2 Corinthians 13:14. Church of England Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 285; R. Maguire, Christian World Pulpit,vol. i., p. 465; J. T. Stannard, Ibid.,vol. xiv., p. 260; E. Hatch, Ibid.,vol. xxxiii., p. 353; J. Hall, Ibid.,vol. xxxiv., p. 56; Preacher's Monthly,vol. v., p. 294; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church,p. 243; T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons,p. 318; T. T. Lynch, Three Months' Ministry,p. 313.