Part 2 (1/2)
All this was but type and shadow of what was one day to become a mysterious reality. What no thought of man or angel could have conceived, what even now pa.s.seth all understanding, the Eternal Son of G.o.d took flesh and blood, and then shed that blood as the blood of the New Covenant, not merely to ratify it, but to open the way for it and to make it possible. Yea, more, to be, in time and eternity, the living power by which entrance into the Covenant was to be obtained, and all life in it be secured. Until we learn to form our expectation of a life in the New Covenant, according to the inconceivable worth and power of the blood of G.o.d's Son, we never can have even an insight into the entirely supernatural and heavenly life that a child of G.o.d may live.
Let us think for a moment on the threefold light in which Scripture teaches us to regard it.
In the pa.s.sage from Hebrews ix. 15 we read ”For this cause Christ is the Mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” The sins of the ages, of the First Covenant, which had only figuratively been atoned for, had gathered up before G.o.d. A death was needed for the redemption of these: In that death and blood-shedding of the Lamb of G.o.d not only were these atoned for, but the power of all sin was for ever broken.
The blood of the New Covenant is redemption blood, a purchase price and ransom from the power of Sin and the Law. In any purchase made on earth the transference of property from the old owner to the new is complete.
Its worth may be ever so great and the hold on it ever so strong, if the price be paid, it is gone for ever from him who owned it. The hold sin had on us was terrible. No thought can realise its legitimate claim on us under G.o.d's law, its awful tyrant power in enslaving us. But the blood of G.o.d's Son has been paid. ”Ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things as silver and gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without spot, even the blood of Christ.” We have been rescued, ransomed, redeemed out of our old natural life under the power of sin, utterly and eternally. Sin has not the slightest claim on us, nor the slightest power over us, except as our ignorance or unbelief or half-heartedness allows it to have dominion. Our New Covenant birthright is to stand in the freedom with which Christ has made us free. Until the soul sees, and desires and accepts, and claims the redemption and the liberty which has the blood of the Son of G.o.d for its purchase price, and its measure, and its security, it never can fully live the New Covenant life.
As wonderful as the blood-shedding for our redemption is the blood-sprinkling for our cleansing. Here is indeed another of the spiritual mysteries of the New Covenant, which lose their power when understood in human wisdom, without the ministration of the Spirit of life. When Scripture speaks of ”having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience,” of ”the blood of Christ cleansing our conscience,” of our singing here on earth (Rev. i. 5), ”To Him that washed us from our sins in His blood,” it brings this mighty, quickening blood of the Lamb into direct contact with our hearts. It gives the a.s.surance that that blood, in its infinite worth, in its Divine sin-cleansing power, can keep us clean in our walk in the sight and the light of G.o.d. It is as this blood of the New Covenant is known, and trusted, and waited for, and received from G.o.d, in the Spirit's mighty operation in the heart, that we shall begin to believe that the blessed promise of a New Covenant life and walk can be fulfilled.
There is one more thing Scripture teaches concerning this blood of the New Covenant. When the Jews contrasted Moses with our Lord Jesus, He spake: ”Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him.” As if the redeeming, and sprinkling, and was.h.i.+ng, and sanctifying does not sufficiently express the intense inwardness of its action and its power to permeate our whole being, the drinking of this precious blood is declared to be indispensable to having life. If we would enter deep into the Spirit and power of the New Covenant, let us, by the Holy Spirit, drink deep of this cupa”the cup of the New Covenant in His blood.
On account of sin there could be no covenant between man and G.o.d without blood. And no New Covenant without the blood of the Son of G.o.d.
As the cleansing away of sins was the first condition in making a covenant, so it is equally the first condition of an entrance into it.
It has ever been found that a deeper appropriation of the blessings of the Covenant must be preceded by a new and deeper cleansing from sin.
We know how in Ezekiel the words about G.o.d's causing us to walk in His statutes are preceded by ”From all your filthiness will I cleanse you.”
And then later we read (x.x.xvii. 23, 25), ”Neither shall they defile themselves any more with any of their transgressions; I will cleanse them: so shall they be My people, and I will be their G.o.d. Moreover, I will make a Covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting Covenant with them.” The confession and casting away, and the cleansing away of sin in the blood, are the indispensable, but all-sufficient, preparation for a life in everlasting Covenant with G.o.d.
Many feel that they do not understand or realise this wonderful power of the blood. Much thought does not help them; even prayer does not appear to bring the light they seek. The blood of Christ is a Divine mystery that pa.s.ses all thought. Like every spiritual and heavenly blessing, this too, but this especially, needs to be imparted to us by the Holy Spirit. It was ”through the Eternal Spirit” that Christ offered the sacrifice in which the blood was shed. The blood had the life of Christ, the life of the Spirit, in it. The outpouring of the blood for us was to prepare the way for the outpouring of the Spirit on us. It is the Holy Spirit, and He alone, who can minister the blood of the everlasting Covenant in power. Just as He leads the soul to the initial faith in the pardon that blood has purchased, and the peace it gives, He leads further to the knowledge and experience of its cleansing power. Here again, too, by faitha”a faith in a heavenly power, of which it does not fully understand, and cannot define, the action, but of which it knows that it is an operation of G.o.d's mighty power, and effects a cleansing that does give a clean heart. A clean heart, first known and accepted by the same faith, apart from signs or feelings, apart from sense or reason, and then experienced in the joy and the fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d it brings. Oh! let us believe in the blood of the everlasting Covenant, and the cleansing the Holy Spirit ministers. Let us believe in the ministration of the Holy Spirit, until our whole life in the New Covenant becomes entirely His work, to the glory of the Father and of Christ.
The blood of the Covenant, O mystery of mysteries! O grace above all grace! O mighty power of G.o.d, opening the way, into the holiest, and into our hearts, and into the New Covenant, where the Holy One and our heart meet! Let us ask G.o.d much, by His Holy Spirit, to make us know what it is and works. The transition from the death of the Old Covenant to the life of the New was, in Christ, ”through the blood of the Everlasting Covenant.” No otherwise will it be with us.
CHAPTER X.
Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant ”I give thee for a covenant of the people.”a”ISA. xlii. 6, xlix. 8.
”The Lord shall suddenly come to His temple, even the Messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in.”a”MAL. iii. 1.
”Jesus was made Surety of a better covenant.”a”HEB. vii. 22.
”The Mediator of the Better Covenant, established upon better promises a The Mediator of the New Covenanta Ye are come to Jesus, the Mediator of the New Covenant.”a”HEB. viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24.
WE have here four t.i.tles given to our Lord Jesus in connection with the New Covenant. He is Himself called a Covenant. The union between G.o.d and man, which the Covenant aims at, was wrought out in Him personally; in Him the reconciliation between the human and Divine was perfectly effected; in Him His people find the Covenant with all its blessings; He is all that G.o.d has to give, and is the a.s.surance that it is given.
. . He is called the Messenger of the Covenant, because He came to establish and to proclaim ita He is the Surety of the Covenant, not only because He paid our debt, but as He is Surety to us for G.o.d, that G.o.d will fulfil His part; and Surety for us with G.o.d, that we will fulfil our parta And He is Mediator of the Covenant, because as the Covenant was established in His atoning blood, is administered and applied by Him, is entered upon alone by faith in Him, so it is experimentally known only through the power of His resurrection life, and His never-ceasing intercession. All these names point to the one truth, that in the New Covenant Christ is all in all.
The subject is so large that it would be impossible to enter upon all the various aspects of this precious truth. Christ's work in atonement and intercession, in His bestowal of pardon and the Holy Spirit, in His daily communication of grace and strength, are truths which lie at the very foundation of the faith of Christians. We need not speak of them here. What specially needs to be made clear to many is how, by faith in Christ as the Mediator of the New Covenant, we actually have access to and enter into the enjoyment of all its promised blessings. We have already seen, in studying the New Covenant, how all these blessings culminate in the one thinga”that the heart of man is to be put right, as the only possible way of his living in the favour of G.o.d, and G.o.d's love finding its satisfaction in him. That he is to receive a heart to fear G.o.d, to love G.o.d with all his strength, to obey G.o.d, and to keep all His statutes. All that Christ did and does has this for its aim; all the higher blessings of peace and fellows.h.i.+p flow from this. In this G.o.d's saving power and love find the highest proof of their triumph over sin. Nothing so reveals the grace of G.o.d, the power of Jesus Christ, the reality of salvation, the blessedness of the New Covenant, as the heart of a believer, where sin once abounded, with grace now abounding more exceedingly within it.
I do not know how I can better set forth the glory of our Blessed Lord Jesus as He accomplishes this, the real object of His redeeming work, and as He takes entire possession of the heart He has bought and won and cleansed as a dwelling for His Father, than by pointing out the place He takes, and the work He does, in the case of a soul who is being led out of the Old Covenant bondage with its failure, into the real experience of the promise and power of the New Covenant. [6] In thus studying the work of the Mediator in an individual, we may get a truer conception of the real glory and greatness of the work He actually accomplishes, than when we only think of the work He has done for all. It is in the application of the redemption here in the life of earth, where sin abounded, that its power is seen. Let us see how the entrance into the New Covenant blessing is attained.
The first step towards it, in one who has been truly converted and a.s.sured of his acceptance with G.o.d, is the sense of sin. He sees that the New Covenant promises are not made true in his experience. There is not only indwelling sin, but he finds that he gives way to temper, and self-will, and worldliness, and other known transgressions of G.o.d's law. The obedience to which G.o.d calls and will fit him, the life of abiding in Christ's love which is his privilege, the power for a holy walk, well-pleasing to G.o.d,a”in all this his conscience condemns him.
It is in this conviction of sin that any thought or desire of the full New Covenant blessing must have its rise. Where the thought that obedience is an impossibility, and that nothing but a life of failure and self-condemnation is to be looked for, has wrought a secret despair of deliverance, or contentment with our present state, it is vain to speak of G.o.d's promise or power. The heart does not respond: it knows well enough, it is sure, the liberty spoken of is a dream. But where the dissatisfaction with our state has wrought a longing for something better, the heart is open to receive the message.
The New Covenant is meant to be the deliverance from the power of sin; a keen longing for this is the indispensable preparation for entering fully into the Covenant.
Now comes the second step. As the mind is directed to the literal meaning of the terms of the New Covenant, in its promises of cleansing from sin, and a heart filled with G.o.d's fear and G.o.d's law, and a power to keep G.o.d's commands and never to depart from Him; as the eye is fixed on Jesus the Surety of the Covenant, who will Himself make it all true; and as the voice is heard of witnesses who can declare how, after years of bondage, all this has been fulfilled in thema”the longing begins to grow into a hope, and the inquiry is made, as to what is needed to enter this blessed life.
Then follows another step. The heart-searching question comes whether we are willing to give up every evil habit, all our own self-will, all that is of the spirit of the world, and surrender ourselves to be wholly and exclusively for Jesus. G.o.d cannot take so complete possession of a man, and bless him so wonderfully, and work in him so mightily, unless He has him very completely, yea, wholly for Himself.
Happy the man who is ready for any sacrifice.
Now comes the last, the simplest, and yet often the most difficult step. And here it is we need to know Jesus as Mediator of the Covenant.
As we hear of the life of holiness, and obedience, and victory over sin, which the Covenant promises, and hear that it will be to us according to our faith, so that if we claim it in faith it will surely be ours, the heart often fails for fear. I am willing, but have I the power to make, and what is more, to maintain this full surrender? Have I the power, the strong faith, so to grasp and hold this offered blessing, that it shall indeed be and continue mine? How such questions perplex the soul until it finds the answer to them in the one word: Jesus! It is He who will bestow the power to make the surrender and to believe. This is as surely and as exclusively His work, as atonement and intercession are His alone. As sure as it was His to win and ascend the throne, it is His to prove His dominion in the individual soul. It is He, the Living One, who is in Divine power to work and maintain the life of communion and victory within us. He is the Mediator and Surety of the Covenanta”He, the G.o.d-man, who has undertaken not only for all that G.o.d requires, but for all that we need too.
When this is seen, the believer learns that here, just as at conversion, it is all of faith. The one thing needed now is, with the eye definitely fixed on some promise of the New Covenant, to turn from self and anything it could or need do, to let go self, and fall into the arms of Jesus. He is the Mediator of the New Covenant: it is His to lead us into it. In the a.s.surance that Jesus, and every New Covenant blessing, is already ours in virtue of our being G.o.d's children; with the desire now to appropriate and enjoy what we have hitherto allowed to lie unused; in the faith that Jesus now gives us the needed strength in faith to claim and accept our heritage as a present possession; the will dares boldly to do the deed, and to take the heavenly gifta”a life in Christ according to the better promises. By faith in Jesus you have seen and received Him as to you, in full truth, the Mediator of the New Covenant, both in heaven arid in your heart. He is the Mediator who makes it true between G.o.d and you, as your experience.
The fear has sometimes been expressed that, if we press so urgently the work that Christ through the Spirit does in the heart, we may be drawn off from trusting in what He has done and ever is doing, to what we are experiencing of its working. The answer is simple. It is with the heart alone that Christ can be truly known or honoured. It is in the heart the work of grace is to be done, and the saving power of Christ to be displayed. It is in the heart alone the Holy Spirit has His sphere of work; there He is to work Christ's likeness; it is there alone He can glorify Christ. The Spirit can only glorify Christ by revealing His saving power in us. If we were to speak of what we are to do in cleansing our heart and keeping it right, the fear would be well-grounded. But the New Covenant calls us to the very opposite. What it tells us of the Atonement, and the Righteousness of G.o.d it has won for us, will be our only glory even amid the highest holiness of heaven: Christ's work of holiness here in the heart can only deepen the consciousness of that Righteousness as our only plea. The sanctification of the Spirit, as the fulfilment of the New Covenant promises, is all a taking of the things of Christ and revealing and imparting them to us. The deeper our entrance into and our possession of the New Covenant gift of a new heart, the fuller will be our knowledge and our love of Him who is its Mediator; the more we shall glory in Him alone. The Covenant deals with the heart, just that Christ may be found there, may dwell there by faith. As we look at the heart, not in the light of feeling or experience, but in the light of the faith of G.o.d's Covenant, we shall learn to think and speak of it as G.o.d does, and begin to know what it is, that there Christ manifests Himself and there He and the Fatlier come to make their abode.
[6] For a practical ill.u.s.tration in the life of Canon Battersby, see Note D.
CHAPTER XI.
Jesus, the Surety of a Better Covenant ”And inasmuch as it is not without the taking of an oath: by so much also hath Jesus become the Surety of a better covenant. Wherefore also He is able to save completely them that draw near unto G.o.d through Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.”-HEB. vii. 20, 22, 25.
A SURETY is one who stands good for another, that a certain engagement will be faithfully performed. Jesus is the Surety of the New Covenant.
He stands surety with us for G.o.da”, that G.o.d's part in the Covenant will faithfully be performed. And He stands surety with G.o.d for us, that our part will be faithfully performed too. If we are to live in covenant with G.o.d, everything depends upon our knowing aright what Jesus secures to us. The more we know and trust Him, the more a.s.sured will our faith be that its every promise and every demand will be fulfilled, that a life of faithful keeping of G.o.d's Covenant is indeed possible, because Jesus is the Surety of the Covenant. He makes G.o.d's faithfulness and ours equally sure.
We read that it was because His priesthood was confirmed by the oath of G.o.d, that He became the Surety of a so much better Covenant. The oath of G.o.d gives us the security that His suretys.h.i.+p will secure all the better promises. The meaning and infinite value of G.o.d's oath had been explained in the previous chapter. ”In every dispute the oath is final for confirmation. Wherein G.o.d, being minded to show more abundantly unto the heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, interposed with an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for G.o.d to lie, we may have a strong encouragement.” We thus have not only a Covenant, with certain definite promises; we have not only Jesus, the Surety of the Covenant; but at the back of that again, we have the living G.o.d, with a view to our having perfect confidence in the unchangeableness of His counsel and promise, coming in between with an oath. Do we not begin to see that the one thing G.o.d aims at in this Covenant, and asks with regard to it, is an absolute confidence that He is going to do all He has promised, however difficult or wonderful it may appear? His oath is an end of all fear or doubt. Let no one think of understanding the Covenant, of judging or saying what may be expected from it, much less of experiencing its blessings, until he meets G.o.d with an Abrahamlike faith, that gives Him the glory, and is fully a.s.sured that what He has promised He is able to perform. The Covenant is a sealed mystery, except to the soul who is going without reserve to trust G.o.d, and abandon itself to His word and work.
Of the work of Christ, as the Surety of the better Covenant, our pa.s.sage tells us that, because of this priesthood confirmed by oath, He is able to save completely those who draw near to G.o.d through Him. And this, because ”He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” As Surety of the Covenant, He is ceaselessly engaged in watching their needs, and presenting them to the Father, in receiving His answer, and imparting its blessing. It is because of this never-ceasing mediation, receiving and transmitting from G.o.d to us the gifts and powers of the heavenly world, that He is able to save completelya”to work and maintain in us a salvation as complete as G.o.d is willing it should be, as complete as the Better Covenant has a.s.sured us it shall be, in the better promises upon which it was established. These promises are expounded (ch. viii.
7-13) as being none other than those of the New Covenant of Jeremiah, with the law written in the heart by the Spirit of G.o.d as our experience of the power of that salvation.
Jesus, the Surety of a better Covenant, Jesus is to be our a.s.surance that everything connected with the Covenant is unchangeably and eternally sure. In Jesus the keynote is given of all our intercourse with G.o.d, of all our prayers and desires, of all our life and walk, that with full a.s.surance of faith and hope we may look for every word of the Covenant to be made fully true to us by G.o.d's own power. Let us look at some of these things of which we are to be fully a.s.sured, if we are to breathe the spirit of children of the New Covenant. There is the love of G.o.d. The very thought of a Covenant is an alliance of friends.h.i.+p. And it is as a means of a.s.suring us of His love, of drawing us close to His heart of love, of getting our hearts under the power of His love, and filled with ita”it is because G.o.d loves us with an infinite love, and wants us to know it, and to give it complete liberty to bestow itself on us, and bless us, that the New Covenant has been made, and G.o.d's own Son been made its Surety. This love of G.o.d is an infinite Divine energy, doing its utmost to fill the soul with itself and its blessedness. Of this love G.o.d's Son is the Messenger; of the Covenant in which G.o.d reveals it to us He is the Surety; let us learn that the chief need in studying the Covenant and keeping it, in seeking and claiming its blessings, is the exercise of a strong and confident a.s.surance in G.o.d's love.