THE SON—THE BETTER COVENANT
"He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises."—HEBREWS 8:6b
We now reach the point where the writer of this letter commences to show the superiority of relationships resulting from the superiority of the Person of the Son. In dealing with this subject it will be found that these relationships are described as better; a better hope, better covenant, better promises, better sacrifices; and indeed the word runs on in harmony with its first occurrence, when the writer spoke of the Son as "better than the angels," and occurs in the letter altogether thirteen times. Whereas the old economy, though divinely appointed, was now superseded by a new economy, it was every way better than the old.
Our present article has to do with the better covenant enacted upon better promises. All God's speech to the Hebrew people in the past had been based upon the covenant He made with them, when He brought them unto Himself. Whether He had spoken through Moses, Joshua, the priesthood, prophets, seers, or psalmists, everything had been the carrying out of the covenant made between Him and His people.
The writer, therefore, now proceeded to show that the speech of God to man in its finality through the Son is also conditioned by a covenant, but it is a new covenant and a better one. Necessarily this does not for a moment make any reflection on the old covenant on the Godward side, as to its grace, or on the man-ward side as to its demand.
As we have proceeded in these articles we have kept in mind throughout the history of the Hebrew people, for the letter was written to Hebrews. At this point, then, the writer turned back and quoted from the prophecy of Jeremiah. God had spoken through angels, Moses, Joshua, Aaron, and the prophets. The reference to Jeremiah is to a day in the history of the people when everything seemed to have failed. There was the glory of the beginning when angels talked with men, from God; when Moses was the Divine spokesman. Now a quotation is made with length and fullness from a period of history, of the most disastrous failure. Jeremiah was in many ways the most tragic and heroic of all the prophets. He was the spokesman of God to the nation for forty years, during which, still uttering the Divine Word, there were no immediate moral or spiritual results achieved. In the work of prophesying for God there are moments in the case of all His messengers when it does seem as though nothing was being accomplished. In all the long line of the messengers of God to men, it is doubtful whether we have the record of any who knew that experience more constantly and overwhelmingly than Jeremiah. For forty years he spoke, and the only result he received was rude satire and persecution, and persistence in the ways of iniquity. Israel had already gone into captivity, and Jeremiah conducted his ministry during the last forty years in the history of Judah. At the beginning he shrank from the work to which he was called, and so heroically carried out.
It was during that dark period that he looked on through the gloom and saw the dawning of a day, and he spoke of it as of a day when God would make a new covenant with men. Now the writer of this letter to the Hebrews, long centuries after Jeremiah had uttered his prophecy, declares that its fulfillment is found through the Son.
The value of the argument is discovered in a consideration of the contrast between the covenants. Looking back to the old covenant, on the basis of which God had spoken, the writer quotes from the prophet, predicting a new covenant, this was to be better than the old.
As we have seen in a previous article, the covenant was based upon promises God made on oath. The promises referred to were first the word spoken to Abraham, as the father and founder of a race, "I will bless thee"; and secondly, the resulting words, "All nations shall be blessed in thee." In these words we have a revelation of God's side of the covenant. Necessarily to a covenant there are two sides, and the fulfillment on either side must be contingent upon fulfillment by the other side. When it is affirmed that God must keep His covenant with the Hebrew people this is often forgotten. If one of the parties to a covenant fail to fulfill their obligation, the covenant is thereby disannulled. On the part of God, therefore, we see that the covenant was made upon the basis of the promise that He would bless the nation in the interest of all the nations. If we return to the account in Exodus of the making of that covenant, we find these words:
"If ye will obey My voice indeed, and keep My covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto Me from among all peoples: for all the earth is Mine."
Thus the human responsibility in the covenant was that of hearing and obeying the voice of God. The law was given to them, inclusively in the Decalogue, and in interpretative applications in the whole Mosaic economy. The history proves how completely they had broken down. It is one of persistent failure. This is discovered in the records. God has forever had His elect remnant of loyal souls, but from the standpoint of the nation as a whole, with which the covenant was made, they had failed from first to last. First they clamored for a king, and God gave them what they clamored for, that they might learn their foolish thinking. The final fact in their failure was, of course, the appalling one that they killed the Son of God. But let it be carefully remembered that before they did so, He with full authority had excommunicated them from the position to which they had been appointed. He did so in the words:
"The Kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."
Thus we have a covenant made, a covenant broken on the human side. The writer of this letter declares plainly that had that covenant not broken down, there would have been no new covenant. Jeremiah from the distance, with prophetic vision, saw that even then God could not fail, and that, therefore, there must be, and would be, a new covenant, a better one, which would produce ultimately the fulfillment of the Divine intention. Let us hear the prophetic word concerning this new covenant, in its fullness.
"This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel . . .
I will put My laws into their minds,
And on their heart also will I write them; And I will be to them a God,
And they shall be to me a people;
And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen,
And every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord;
For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their iniquities,
And their sins will I remember no more."
In the closing part of that quotation we have a revelation of the basis upon which the promises are made. The final words reveal the deepest fact:
"For I will be merciful to their iniquities, And their sins will I remember no more."
Those immediately preceding, show the immediate result:
"For all shall know Me,
From the least to the greatest of them."
All the promises preceded these closing statements, and result from the facts declared in them; that is to say that the new covenant begins with the moral cleansing of those who enter into it in fellowship with God.
That, of course, is the central fact of Christianity. All the New Testament teaches it. The voice of Jesus attested it as being the very purpose of His coming. In the annunciation to Joseph the angel had declared it:
"Thou shalt call His name JESUS: for it is He that shall save His people from their sins."
There was nothing of that nature found in the old covenant. Now relationship with God on the part of man is made possible by this cleansing of the nature from sin. The result of this cleansing is the knowledge of God, which is infinitely more than knowledge concerning Him.
The result of all this is found in the contrast between the issues of the new covenant, and the experience of the old. In this new covenant the law of God is to be inward and spiritual. As to the old it was external. Its moral requirement is in no sense an abrogation of that included in the covenant of old. The Ten Commandments stand for ever as a revelation of law; but now these requirements are to be written on the heart, the seat of the affections, and on the mind, the center of intellectual apprehension. To repeat, the law is now inward and spiritual, resulting from the Mediatorial work of the Son, Who cleanses the moral nature, and brings us into such relationship with God that His will is made known to us directly and individually.
This is still further emphasized in the declaration that under the new covenant:
"They shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen."
In fellowship with God, every man will know the will of God. The truth was emphasized by John in his first letter:
"And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth with you, and ye need not that anyone teach you" (2:27).
Thus the new covenant means that in the last analysis we need seek guidance from none other than the indwelling Spirit, Who, abiding within us as the result of the cleansing of the nature, makes known the will of God.
The whole difference, then, between the old covenant which is also Divine, and the new which is Divine and final, is the difference between the letter and the spirit. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, referring to this matter said:
"A new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life" (2 Cor. 3:6).
It is a remarkable fact that the "letter" appeals to humanity in a strange way. Men love rules and regulations. They feel it is easy to obey rules. Now the whole history of man proves that it is not so. The law as it was given by Moses was the law of the leper, and the difficulty of obedience was revealed in all the traditional explanations that had been contrived by men in the passing centuries. It is a most arresting fact that our Lord in His teaching poured contempt upon these traditions, and constantly showed their failure, saying indeed that men had substituted them for the commandments of God. Therefore, the covenant of the letter is neither easy nor safe.
On the other hand, the law of the "spirit" seems insecure and difficult. As a matter of ultimate experience, it is the only law that is at once easy and safe. When the life of man is brought into personal, living, first-hand relationship with God, it is not difficult either to discover
the will of God, or to obey it. Of course these things are impossible until there is the complete surrender to the Son, which results in the cleansing of the life. In the cultivation of our fellowship with God, through the One to Whom we are thus submitted, and by Whom we are cleansed, we are enabled to fulfill our obligation in the covenant.
When we consider this matter seriously and carefully, we are necessarily conscious of our own oft-times breakdown and failure; but we also know that such failure is due to disobedience on our part at some point. If we would know all the fullness of the blessing brought to us within this covenant, we must see to it that we give all diligence to seek that immediate guidance of the Spirit, which is possible to us; and as we find it, to yield immediate obedience thereto.
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