Covenant Faithfulness

Dr. John Clayton's sermon on Luke 1:57-80 from our service on May 5, 2024, the fifth in his sermon series The Gospel of Luke.

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

And his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying,

            “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

                        for he has visited and redeemed his people

            and has raised up a horn of salvation for us

                        in the house of his servant David,

            as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,

            that we should be saved from our enemies

                        and from the hand of all who hate us;

            to show the mercy promised to our fathers

                        and to remember his holy covenant,

            the oath that he swore to our father Abraham, to grant us

                        that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies,

            might serve him without fear,

                        in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

            And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;

                        for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

            to give knowledge of salvation to his people

                        in the forgiveness of their sins,

            because of the tender mercy of our God,

                        whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high

            to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

                        to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

And the child grew and became strong in spirit, and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. (Luke 1:57–80).[1]

When Zechariah the priest was serving in the temple, he encountered an angel who told him that, in answer to his prayer, his barren wife, Elizabeth, would conceive and bear a child in her old age, to be named John. The angel told him he would have joy, and many would rejoice at the birth of the child, who would be set apart by vow and filled with the Holy Spirit, even in his mother’s womb. The child would be a prophet of God, “in the spirit and power of Elijah,” sent to turn many in Israel to the Lord their God, and “to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:14-17). It was a supernatural encounter with none other than the archangel Gabriel, carrying God’s special revelation to Zechariah. But Zechariah did not believe the Word of the Lord, requesting a sign. And so the archangel, who stands in the presence of God, who was sent personally to deliver this good news, gave Zechariah a sign, saying, “behold, you will be silent and unable to speak until the day that these things take place, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time” (Luke 1:20). As the angel said, so it was: Zechariah was mute, from that day and throughout Elizabeth’s pregnancy.

For nine long months, Zechariah waited, until the day of his son’s birth, and then … nothing changed but the diapers. But on the eighth day, family and friends gathered for the circumcision of Zechariah’s son, a day on which the child would receive the sign and seal of God’s covenant with Israel, and so bear the symbol of a people set apart to the Lord. It is a worshipful day of covenant significance, and it is not a coincidence that on that day the covenant community witnesses the miraculous and hears the Lord’s prophetic proclamation of his covenant faithfulness. But before we consider what Zechariah said, I want to consider to whom he said it, because it too is telling.

Covenant Community

God established his covenant with Abraham and promised to bless him and his offspring “throughout their generations,” to be their God. O. Palmer Robertson defines a biblical covenant as “a bond in blood sovereignly administered.”[2] A biblical covenant is initiated and established by God, by sacrifice, and made for his people. And as God made a covenant with Abraham, he confirmed it with a sign and seal, the sacrament of circumcision.

We see in our passage the community gathering to celebrate this sacrament as the covenant children of God. This is God’s covenant people whom he brought “out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). This is God’s covenant people to whom he gave his oracles and ordinances through Moses. This is God’s covenant people who became a mighty nation under a king chosen by God to build a royal dynasty and establish an eternal throne. This is God’s covenant people who disobeyed God and were disciplined with exile away from the land of God’s promise. And this is God’s covenant people who repopulated the land, establishing synagogues throughout the land to encourage faithful worship of the Lord their God.  

So, when Luke records that Elizabeth’s “neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her,” we hear of the sanctified solidarity of the old covenant church rejoicing with those who rejoice. They know she was barren. They know she is too old to bear a child. They know the Lord God has shown miraculous mercy to her. And they rightly rejoice!

This depiction, though of the miraculous, is not merely biblical history but Christian reality. For, we too are the children of Abraham by faith in the one who fulfilled the covenant (Rom. 5:16, 24-25). We too have been brought out of a land of “the prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2), redeemed out of the house of slavery by the righteousness of faith, and promised a land where God abides and where death shall be no more, nor mourning or crying, or pain, nor any remnants of the Fall (Rev. 21:4). We too have been given God’s oracles and ordinances in a full and complete canon of Scripture. We too have a king, the heir of David’s throne, who subdues us to himself, rules and defends us, and restrains and conquers all his and our enemies.[3] We too are disciplined for our good by our heavenly Father, “that we may share his holiness,” bearing the peaceful fruit of righteousness (Heb. 12:10-11). We too have been brought into the kingdom of God and established here in Christ’s church, where we assemble to worship our Covenant-keeping God. For, as God established his covenant with Abraham promising that he would be “the father of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:5), so we are the fulfillment of that promise, God’s covenant people from every tribe, tongue, and nation, the children of Abraham by faith (Rom. 5:16-17), grafted into true Israel (Rom. 11:17).

As God has been faithful to his covenant, redeeming us by his grace, we are to be faithful in living out our faith as the covenant community of Christ. The book of Acts says the newly assembled church in Jerusalem was faithful in the ordinary means of grace ministry of Word, sacrament, and prayer, united in fellowship. The church is not a replacement for the God-ordained institutions of government and family, which play their vital roles in our lives, but the visible church is the local covenant community of God, living out the reality of the gospel in our assembled worship and daily lives.

And so, we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep (Rom. 12:15), rather than souring at our sister’s success, or bristling at our brother’s blessings. We engage in each other’s lives with the same love and forgiveness we have received in Christ, not harboring resentment but loving forgiveness and showing grace. We are faithful to pray with and for one another. We rejoice in what God is doing in the lives of each other, such as the birth of a child. We are faithful to gather every Lord’s Day to worship together, in song and prayer, to hear the Word of God read, sung, and preached, and as we see in our passage, we are to be faithful to assemble to celebrate the Lord’s sacraments.   

Covenant Faithfulness

The covenant community did not gather at Zechariah and Elizabeth’s home on the day of their baby’s birth (Thank God!) but assembled to celebrate the Old Testament sacrament of circumcision, eight days later. Luke tells us that Zechariah and Elizabeth “were both righteous before God, walking blamelessly in all the commandments and statutes of the Lord” (Luke 1:6), and so it should not surprise us that according to God’s law (Lev. 12:3) their son was to receive the sign and seal of God’s covenant with Abraham (Gen. 17:2-4). As believing parents, they are presenting their child to the Lord, revealing not only their faith and faithfulness but also God’s grace upon their child, set apart unto the Lord (1 Cor. 7:14). And the covenant community gathers to witness, to remember, to indeed celebrate God’s covenant faithfulness.

Likewise, as God’s covenant people we gather for the New Testament sign and seal of God’s covenant of grace, “the circumcision of Christ,” the sacrament of baptism (Col. 2:11-12). As a covenant community, we rejoice in God’s covenant faithfulness to deliver us out of the estate of sin and misery and bring us into an estate of  salvation by our Redeemer.[4] Like Elizabeth’s relatives and neighbors, we should never miss a baptism. Why? Because at a baptism, especially of a covenant child, we are witnessing the symbol of God’s covenant promise fulfilled in Christ given for us and our children, as Peter preached at Pentecost (Acts 2:39). What better picture is there of God’s sovereign grace than the baptism of an infant who can contribute nothing to his salvation, a picture of complete dependence on the mercy of God. When the baptismal waters are sprinkled upon the head of a child, we should be rejoicing in our hearts that no one is saved but by God’s grace and set apart as his own. The sign and seal of God’s covenant upon the child then serves as a sacramental testimony to the covenant community of God’s covenant faithfulness.

Curiously, on the day of his circumcision, the son of Zechariah and Elizabeth had yet to be named. Perhaps according to custom, the covenant community presumes that he will be named after his father, Zechariah. But Elizabeth shocks them all, saying, “he shall be called John” (60). You can almost hear the incredulity, “None of your relatives is called by this name” (1:62). But Elizabeth is not a rebel or a trendsetter but is faithful to the Word of God, and as God said, so he obeys. But does Zechariah concur, who at this point is not only mute but apparently deaf too? Sign language must be used to ask the question, but he who asked for a sign will not make the same mistake twice. Upon a tablet, he writes, “His name is John” (1:63), and instantly, the crowd who wondered at his choice is stunned to hear his voice. The priest who had been speechless for nine months, is filled with the Holy Spirit and breaks forth in prophetic proclamation, telling the covenant community of the Lord’s covenant faithfulness in his covenant fulfillment.

Covenant Fulfillment

Classically referred to as the Benedictus, after the first word in the Latin translation, “Blessed,” Zechariah’s song is the second hymn or psalm in Luke’s Gospel. Rightly titled, it is a song that begins with blessing, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel” (68). The Greek adjective translated “Blessed be” connotes exaltation, here to the Lord God alone who is praiseworthy. He who is worthy to be praised is so named, using the revealed name to his covenant people, Yahweh in Hebrew, kyrios in Greek, “the Lord” in English, followed by his deific description, “God.” He is not the god of the pagans but the “one only, the living and true God,”[5] the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, who “has visited and redeemed his people” (68).

Like some of the Old Testament prophets, Zechariah speaks in past tense of future events, perhaps to remind us that in God’s eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his will, he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass.[6] Before the foundation of the world, he foreordained the raising up of “a horn of salvation” to save his people. “The horn of an animal,” as one commentator describes it, “is its weapon for defence and vengeance, its ornament and beauty too. … By this image the exceeding greatness of the Redeemer’s strength, and the never-ceasing exertion of it in behalf of his church are signified.”[7] And this “horn” is “in the house of his servant David” (69), a reference to God’s covenant with David, that David’s house, kingdom, and throne would be established forever (2 Sam. 7:16). Through this horn of salvation and heir of David, God will save his covenant people from their enemies (71), according to his Word (70). Zechariah is praising God for his presence, power, progeny, and prophecy.  

But Zechariah is not talking about his circumcised and newly named son but of another one to come. And the One to come is the Lord himself, personally visiting and redeeming his people, saving them from their enemies. Contrary to the thoughts and expectations of the day, not unlike our own, Jesus did not come to save his people from political oppression but to save us from the far greater enemies of the world, the flesh, and the devil but also save us from the due penalty of our sin, the wrath of God. Christ did not come to save us by the sword but by “his once offering up of himself a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice,”[8] delivering us from the wages of our sin (Rom. 6:23) and to eternal life (John 3:16).

Zechariah sings of covenant fulfillment through which all who believe will be saved. Just as we look back to the cross of Christ by faith, the Old Testament believers looked toward it, hoping in what was not yet fulfilled but promised by God. For example, God promised Abraham that through him the world would be blessed (Gen. 12:3). What does this blessing look like? Zechariah describes it as worship-enabling deliverance, through which we stand “in holiness and righteousness before him all our days” (74-75). In other words, the Abrahamic Covenant like the other covenants points ultimately to the Covenant of Grace, through which sinners like Zechariah, and you and me, are freely offered salvation in Jesus Christ, and by his grace given faith to believe on him, through his Holy Spirit.[9] The world is blessed according to the sovereign grace, mercy, and love of God the Father through faith in God the Son by the transforming power of God the Holy Spirit.

And then, Zechariah sings of his son, not as a proud Papa or a Levitical priest, but of prophetic fulfillment. John will be the greatest of the prophets, preparing the way of the Lord, going before him, heralding the gospel of the kingdom of God. Into a world darkened by the depravity of sin, God’s herald will go, shedding the light of God’s mercy like the sunrise upon “those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,” pointing all given the grace of eyes to see the light of the world.

The Gospel of John says that John “came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him” (John 1:7). His message was bold but simple, calling for a baptism of repentance, because God is faithful and just to cleanse every sinner from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). But John’s ministry was preparatory, pointing to the one through whom we are forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness, Jesus Christ the righteous. Similarly, we too, as the church, herald the good news of Jesus Christ, calling sinners to repentance, and forgiveness of sin and eternal life through Jesus Christ, preparing the way of his coming again. 

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[1] Unless referenced otherwise, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (Wheaton: Crossway Bibles, 2001).

[2] O. Palmer Roberson, The Christ of the Covenants (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1980), 4.

[3] The Shorter Catechism” Q. 4, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 372.

[4] Ibid. Q. 20, 367-368.

[5] Ibid. Q. 5, 360.

[6] Ibid. Q. 7, 361.

[7] Henry Venn quoted in J.C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on Luke, Vol. 1 (Edinburgh: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 37.

[8] The Shorter Catechism” Q. 25, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 371.

[9] “The Confession of Faith” 7.3, The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (Lawrenceville: PCA Christian Education and Publications, 2007), 30-31.