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In this message we shall cover Christ’s person in the Father’s husbandry, in the new covenant, and in the apostles’ preaching.
In the Father’s husbandry Christ is the vine. John 15:1 says, “I am the true vine, and My Father is the husbandman.” This true vine, which is Christ the Son, with its branches, which are the believers in the Son, is the organism of the Triune God in God’s economy, the divine dispensing, to grow with His riches and express His divine life. As the organism of the Triune God, this vine is corporate and universal.
In John 15 God the Father is revealed as the Husbandman who is related to a husbandry, a plantation. A husbandman is the source, the originator, the founder, and the planter of a husbandry. As such, he engages in an enterprise. The universe is the enterprise of the Father. The Father has a divine plan, an eternal purpose, and He wants to fulfill the intention behind His purpose. This is what is meant by the Father’s being the Husbandman. He is the Husbandman of the vineyard who plans to carry out a certain purpose. He is the source, the founder, the first one to accomplish certain things according to His mind and purpose.
It is the Father’s pleasure that all that He is and has become the riches of Christ as the vine. All that the Father is, all that the Father has, all the riches of the Father’s life, and all the fullness of the Godhead are in the vine, which is the embodiment of them all. The Father as the Husbandman is the source, the author, the planner, the planter, the life, the substance, the soil, the water, the air, the sunshine, and everything to the vine. Therefore, the Son as the vine is the center of God’s economy and the embodiment of all the riches of the Father. The Father, by cultivating the Son, works Himself with all of His riches into this vine, and eventually the vine expresses the Father through its branches in a corporate way. This is the Father’s economy in the universe.
In the Old Testament the children of Israel were a vine in the sight of God (Psa. 80:8; cf. Isa. 5:2; Jer. 2:21; Ezek. 19:10; 15:2). But Israel failed God as the vine because they did not give Him the opportunity to express Himself through them. Eventually, the Lord Jesus came as the true vine that can fully express God. This true vine is the very embodiment of God and the full manifestation of God. What God is and what God has are embodied in this true vine and are fully expressed through this vine.
Christ as the true vine is the center of God’s economy, the center of God’s husbandry, of God’s universal enterprise. In the Bible the universe is pictured as a vineyard, and centered in this universe is the vine, Christ. Everything that God the Father is and has is for the vine as the center, is embodied in the center, and is expressed through the center. God the Father is expressed, manifested, and glorified through the vine.
The vine in John 15 is the focus of the Bible. We may think of John 15 merely as a parable used by the Lord. But this chapter is not merely a parable; it is a reality that reveals the focus of God’s intention. God is life, and life needs an organism in which to grow and express itself. God desires to grow within an organism and to have Himself expressed by means of this organism. This organism is the vine with the branches, Christ with the believers. This organism glorifies the Father by releasing and expressing His intent, content, life, and riches. In particular, the vine expresses the riches of the divine life. When the vine bears clusters of grapes, the riches of life are expressed. This expression is the glorification of the Father because the Father is the divine life. The Father is the source and substance of the vine. But without the fruit, the essence, substance, and life of the vine would be hidden and confined. The riches of the inner life of the vine are expressed in the clusters of fruit. To express the inner life of the vine in this way is to release the divine substance from within the vine. This is the glorification of the Father through Christ as the vine in the Father’s husbandry.
Let us now go on to consider Christ’s person in the new covenant. The new covenant, which the Lord Jesus enacted, is better than the old covenant made through Moses. In the old covenant all things were shadows, whereas in the new covenant everything is reality. Everything in the old covenant has been fulfilled and realized in the new covenant. Hence, the new covenant is a better covenant (Heb. 7:22; 8:6). In the new covenant God gives us forgiveness, life, salvation, and all spiritual, heavenly, and divine blessings.
In the new covenant Christ is the Apostle (Heb. 3:1), the first Apostle in the New Testament. The word “apostle” in Greek means a sent one, one who is sent by a higher authority. Christ was sent by God to carry out God’s new covenant. As the Apostle Christ is the One who was sent to us from God and with God (John 6:46; 8:16). The Lord Jesus said, “He who sent Me is with Me” (John 8:29). Christ, our Apostle, came to us with God to share God with us so that we may partake of His divine nature, life, and fullness.
As the Apostle Christ is typified by Moses, who came from God to serve the house of God. However, whereas Moses was only part of the house, Christ is the Builder of God’s house (Heb. 3:3). He has two natures: humanity, which is good for the material for the building of God’s house, and divinity, which is the element of the Builder. Christ was sent from God to be the Apostle to form, build, and constitute God’s house, the church (1 Tim. 3:15), and then to take care of this house. Christ is now “over His house, whose house we are” (Heb. 3:6). Today in the church we enjoy Him as the Apostle in the new covenant.
Hebrews 3:1 says, “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus.” In the new covenant Christ is not only the Apostle but also the High Priest. In the old covenant the high priest was a mortal man, and his ministry was a shadow of the good things to come. But the new covenant has a High Priest who is the eternal Son of God with a more excellent ministry (Heb. 8:1-13). With Him there is no preventing of death. His ministry is the ministry of the kingly and divine priesthood in heaven, ministering, by His intercession, the divine life with all its riches as our daily supply to bring us into His perfection and glorification.
As the High Priest, typified by Aaron, Christ has gone to God from us and with us to present us to God so that we and our case may be fully taken care of by God. As the One who came from the Father, the Sender, Christ is the Apostle, and as the One who went back to the Sender, He is the High Priest. Thus, there is traffic between God and us and between us and God. Now Christ is the High Priest executing God’s New Testament economy.
As our High Priest Christ is merciful and faithful in things pertaining to God (Heb. 2:17), He has passed through the heavens (Heb. 4:14) and is even higher than the heavens (Heb. 7:26), and He is always living to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25). Christ can be a faithful High Priest because He, as the Son of God, is actually the faithful and almighty God Himself. Christ can be a merciful High Priest because, as the Son of Man, He experienced human life with all its sufferings. Through resurrection and ascension our High Priest passed through the heavens and is now not only in heaven (Heb. 9:24) but also higher than the heavens, “far above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10), to bear us in the presence of God and to care for all our needs. As our High Priest Christ undertakes our case by interceding for us. He appears before God on our behalf, praying for us that we may be brought fully into God’s eternal purpose and into the reality of the new covenant.
Christ is the Shedder of the better blood to enact the new covenant. The new covenant required the shedding of the blood of the God-man, the shedding of the blood of Jesus, the Son of God (1 John 1:7). The efficacy of this blood is eternal, and its application has no limit either in space or in time. This is the better blood by which the new covenant was made.
Hebrews 9:22 says, “Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Without forgiveness of sin there is no way to fulfill the requirement of God’s righteousness that by it the covenant may be enacted. But Christ’s blood has been shed for the forgiveness of sin, and the covenant has been enacted with His blood (Matt. 26:28). We are told in Hebrews 12:24 that Christ’s blood “speaks better than that of Abel.” This precious blood speaks to God for us that by it the new covenant may be enacted. Hence, it is called “the blood of an eternal covenant” (Heb. 13:20).
Hebrews 9:12 says, “Nor through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, entered once for all into the Holy of Holies, having found an eternal redemption.” In the old covenant the blood of goats and calves only made atonement for the people’s sins (Lev. 16:15-18); it did not accomplish redemption for their sins, “for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:4). In Hebrew the root of the word for atonement means cover. Thus, atonement means to cover, not to take away sins. Because Christ as the Lamb of God took away the sin of the world (John 1:29) by offering Himself on the cross as the sacrifice for our sins once for all (Heb. 10:12), His blood, which He sprinkled in the heavenly tabernacle, has accomplished an eternal redemption for us, even the redemption of the transgressions under the first, the old, covenant (Heb. 9:15), which transgressions were only covered by animal blood. Hence, we have been redeemed with the precious blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:18-19).
Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” The blood of Christ purifies our conscience to serve the living God. To serve the living God requires a blood-purified conscience. The living God, whom we desire to serve, always comes to our spirit (John 4:24) by touching our conscience, the leading part of our spirit. God is righteous, holy, and living. Our defiled conscience needs to be purified so that we may serve Him in a living way. In order to contact this living God we need to exercise our spirit and have a blood-purified conscience. The blood of Christ was shed for the forgiveness of sins (Matt. 26:28), and the new covenant was consummated with it (Heb. 10:29; Luke 22:20). It has accomplished eternal redemption for us (Eph. 1:7) and has purchased the church for God (Acts 20:28). It washes us from our sins (Rev. 1:5; 1 John 1:7), purifies our conscience, sanctifies us (Heb. 13:12), and speaks better things for us (Heb. 12:24). By this blood we enter the Holy of Holies (Heb. 10:19) and overcome Satan the accuser (Rev. 12:10-11). Therefore, it is precious and better than the blood of goats and bulls (Heb. 9:12-14a). We must highly value it and should not regard it common as animal blood.
Hebrews 12:24 says that “the blood of sprinkling… speaks better than that of Abel.” This is the blood of the eternal covenant (Heb. 13:20), with which the new and better covenant was enacted. By this blood Christ cleansed the heavens and all things in the heavens (Heb. 9:22-24). The blood of Christ not only redeems, sanctifies, and purifies; it also speaks. It is the speaking blood, speaking better than the blood of Abel. Abel’s blood speaks to God for accusation and vengeance (Gen. 4:10, 15), whereas Christ’s blood speaks to God for forgiveness, justification, reconciliation, and redemption. Moreover, this precious blood speaks to God for us saying that by it, as unveiled in the book of Hebrews, the new covenant, which is eternal, has been enacted, and that in this new covenant God must give Himself and all His blessings to the believers in Christ who receive this covenant by faith.
Hebrews 13:20 says, “The God of peace who brought up from among the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of an eternal covenant.” This verse indicates that it was by the blood of the eternal covenant that God raised Christ from the dead. All that God has ordained has been covenanted to be our portion. This portion is actually God Himself with His nature, life, and attributes. The blood of Christ, therefore, brings us into God to enjoy Him as our portion.
The blood of the covenant is not mainly for forgiveness; it is primarily for God to be our portion. God has ordained and predestinated us to enjoy Him. This enjoyment has been covenanted to us through the new covenant enacted by the blood of Jesus Christ, the blood that brings us into all the divine blessings. Yes, the blood cleanses us from our sins. But even more important than this, the better blood of the new covenant brings us into the very God who is our portion for us to enjoy.
In the new covenant Christ is also the Mediator. Hebrews 8:6 says, “He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.” As the Mediator Christ goes between us and God, and in resurrection He executes the new covenant, which He bequeathed to us by His death. This better covenant was not only enacted upon better promises of a better law, the inner law of life (Heb. 8:10-12), but also was consummated with Christ’s better sacrifices (Heb. 9:23), which have accomplished for us eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). In the new covenant we have the forgiveness of sins and the law of life. Christ is the Mediator of this better covenant.
Hebrews 9:15 says, “He is Mediator of a new covenant, so that, death having taken place for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those who have been called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.” By His death Christ consummated the new covenant. In His death He left this new covenant with us, and now in His resurrection He, as the Mediator of the new covenant, is executing what has been accomplished in the new covenant. All the promises of God have become accomplished facts in the new covenant to Christ’s redemptive work. As the Mediator of the new covenant, Christ today in resurrection is enforcing this covenant.
Hebrews 12:24 also speaks of Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant. Here the Greek word for “new,” neos, means fresh, youthful in respect to age, whereas the word for new in Hebrews 8:8 and 9:15, kainos, means new, fresh in respect to quality. In such a new covenant Christ is our Mediator.
Hebrews 7:22 says, “Jesus has become the surety of a better covenant.” That Christ has become the Surety of a better covenant is based on the fact that He is the living and perpetual High Priest. The root of the Greek word translated “surety” means a limb, a member of the body. The meaning here is that a member of the body pledges itself to the body. This pledge is a guarantee. The word surety in Hebrews 7:22 means that Christ has pledged Himself to the new covenant and to all of us. He is the bondsman, the guarantee that He will do everything necessary for the fulfillment of the new covenant.
Regarding the new covenant, a bond has been signed by Christ. Christ signed this bond by pledging Himself to the new covenant and to all of us who are under the new covenant. Because Christ has pledged Himself in this way, there is no possibility for Him to change His mind. He must do everything for us. Thus, He is the Surety of the new covenant. This pledge, which is unlimited, depends completely on His divine priesthood. The very Christ who has pledged Himself to us is unlimited. He is the qualified, capable, and able Surety. He is always available and prevailing to fulfill whatever He has guaranteed. Therefore, the new covenant, the better covenant, cannot fail because Christ is the Surety of this covenant. Everything included in it will be fulfilled not by us but by our Surety. Christ is not only the Consummator of the new covenant; He is also the Surety, the pledge that everything in it will be fulfilled.
Christ is the Maker and the Executor of the new testament (Heb. 9:16-17). In Greek the same word is used for both covenant and testament. Whether it is translated covenant or testament depends on whether the person who consummated the covenant is living or dead. If the consummator is still living, that covenant remains a covenant. But if the consummator has died, the covenant immediately becomes a testament. A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, while a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things bequeathed to the inheritor. The new covenant consummated with the blood of Christ is not merely a covenant, but a testament with all the things which have been accomplished by the death of Christ bequeathed to us. The term testament is the equivalent of the modern term will. Many parents, when they know that they soon will die, make a will in which they leave various things to their children. A will only becomes effective after the death of the maker of the will. In a simple word a covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a covenant, and when he has died, it is a testament, a will.
God’s covenant is enacted upon God’s promise (Heb. 8:6), which is the word He speaks. A promise is a common, ordinary word without confirmation. In the Bible, after God made His promise, He sealed it with an oath, swearing by His Godhead that His promise was confirmed. After His promise was confirmed by an oath, it immediately became the covenant sealed by God. That the promises have become a covenant means that they cannot be altered; there is no possibility of repentance or change.
After God made His promises in the Old Testament, confirming them by His oath (Gen. 22:16-18; Psa. 110:4), the Lord Jesus came and accomplished all that God had promised. By the Lord’s work on earth every item of God’s promise has become an accomplished fact. For example, in Jeremiah 31:34 God promised to forgive our sins. The Lord Jesus did this, making propitiation for our sins on the cross as the fulfillment of God’s promise. Hence, forgiveness of sins is no longer a promise but an accomplished fact. God’s promised covenant was consummated as the new covenant by the Lord’s death with His blood (Heb. 9:18-23; Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20).
After His death and resurrection, the Lord Jesus ascended into the heavens, leaving with us the covenant that He had accomplished by His death. When He left this covenant with us, it immediately became a testament, a new testament bequeathed to us. In this testament the accomplished facts are no longer merely facts; they have become bequests. First, we had the promises; second, the promises became the facts; and third, the facts have become bequests. Through the Lord’s death and resurrection all the promises were fulfilled and became accomplished facts. Now these facts are bequests. As our High Priest in the heavens, the Lord is now the Executor of the new testament, executing what He has bequeathed.
The Lord’s new testament is executed by the resurrected Christ as the Mediator, the Executor, in the heavens. Today the resurrected Christ is executing this will by interceding for us. The new testament, the will, has been validated by Christ’s death and is being executed and enforced by Christ in His resurrection. The promise of God’s covenant is insured by God’s faithfulness, God’s covenant is guaranteed by God’s righteousness, and the new testament is enforced by Christ’s resurrection power. As the ascended One sitting on the throne in the heavens, Christ is now executing what He has bequeathed, interceding for us to realize all the bequests contained in the new testament.
The new covenant was consummated with better sacrifices and with the blood that speaks better things. Christ offered Himself as one sacrifice (Heb. 9:14; 10:12). This one sacrifice, viewed from its various aspects, may be considered many sacrifices. As Christ is the eternal Son of the living God incarnated to be the Son of Man who offered Himself to God through the eternal Spirit, so His sacrifices are better than those of animals. The animal sacrifices were shadows which could never take away sins (Heb. 10:11), but His sacrifices are real and have put away sin once for all (Heb. 9:26).
None of the sacrifices offered by the Levitical priests could put away sin. Even the Old Testament predicted in Isaiah 53:10 and 12 that Christ would come to be the sacrifice for sin, that is, to replace and terminate the Levitical sacrifices. Christ, the unique sacrifice, has done this. Therefore, the book of Hebrews tells us many times that Christ has dealt with sins once for all (1:3; 2:17; 7:27; 9:26; 10:12).
All the sacrifices offered according to the law were a shadow of Christ. At the fullness of time, Christ came with a body of blood and flesh to replace those sacrifices of the law. In the flesh He offered Himself to God once for all to take away sins. Hebrews 10:7, 9, and 10 say that it is the will of God to take away the first, the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament, so that the second, the sacrifice of Christ of the New Testament, might be established to replace the sacrifices of the Old Testament. Therefore, in the new covenant Christ, the unique sacrifice, is the reality of all the offerings. According to the divine principle, God’s covenant required both the blood and the offerings. Christ is both the Shedder of the better blood and also the offerings for the enacting of the new covenant and to make this covenant a will full of divine bequests.
Having considered Christ’s person in the new covenant, we see that in the new covenant Christ is everything. He is the Apostle, the High Priest, the Shedder of the better blood, the Mediator, the Surety, the Maker and Executor of the new testament, and all the offerings. Through Him, the all-inclusive One, the new covenant has become a new testament with many bequests for us to enjoy and experience through the Spirit.
In the apostles’ preaching Christ is the triumphant Victor. This is described in 2 Corinthians 2:14: “Thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in the Christ, and manifests through us the savor of the knowledge of Him in every place.” Here Paul uses the metaphor of a procession held in honor of the victory of a Roman general. Concerning this verse Conybeare has this to say: “The verb here used means to lead a man as a captive in a triumphal procession; the full phrase means, to lead captive in a triumph over the enemies of Christ.…God is celebrating His triumph over His enemies; Paul (who had been so great an opponent of the gospel) is a captive following in the train of the triumphal procession, yet (at the same time, by a characteristic change of metaphor) an incense-bearer, scattering incense (which was always done on these occasions) as the procession moves on.” God always leads the apostles in such a triumphant way in their ministry. The word “us” refers to the conquered captives in the train of Christ’s triumph, celebrating and participating in His triumph. The apostles are such captives; their move as captives of Christ in their ministry for Him is God’s celebration of Christ’s victory over His enemies. Their move and their ministry for Christ is like a triumphal procession from one place to another under God’s leading. Paul and his co-workers were Christ’s captives, bearing the fragrant incense of Christ for His triumphant glory. They had been conquered by Christ and had become His captives in the train of His triumph, scattering the fragrance of Christ from place to place.
Paul once fought against Christ, the heavenly General, but eventually he was defeated, subdued, and captured, and thereby became a captive of Christ. Saul of Tarsus fought against Christ, against God’s economy, and against the churches. But while he was fighting, he was defeated and subdued by Christ on the way to Damascus. After Saul was captured, he was placed in Christ’s triumphal procession as one of the captives in a train of defeated foes. This indicates that the proper ministry of the New Testament is a triumphal procession celebrating Christ’s victory. The ministry of the New Testament is to testify of Christ as the triumphant Victor.
