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In the book of Hebrews Christ is presented as the surety and the Mediator of a better covenant, the new covenant. According to 7:22, Jesus has “become the surety of a better covenant.” The Greek word translated “surety” means “a guarantee, bondsman, sponsor,” and is from the root word meaning “a hand into which something is placed as a pledge,” implying that the guarantee, the surety, cannot be unbound. Christ is not only the consummator of the new covenant; He is also the surety, the pledge that everything in that covenant will be fulfilled. He is the surety, guaranteeing the effectiveness of this 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.
Christ pledged Himself to the new covenant and to us. There is no possibility for Christ to change His mind. The effectiveness of the new covenant is guaranteed because He pledged Himself to us. This pledge depends completely on His divine priesthood.
Christ’s pledge is unlimited because the Christ who pledged Himself to us is unlimited. He can do everything and will do everything for us. He is the qualified, capable, and able surety. Christ is also the surety, the Guarantor, of the new covenant. He is not only the Guarantor; He is also the guarantee, insuring the new covenant. He is always available and prevailing, fulfilling whatever He has guaranteed.
The new covenant, the covenant enacted on the law of life, can never fail because Christ Himself is the surety of this covenant. Everything included in it will be fulfilled. It is not fulfilled 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.
According to Hebrews 8:6, Christ is also “the Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.” In His heavenly ministry Christ, as the Mediator, is the Executor of the new covenant, the new testament, which He bequeathed to us by His death. This better covenant mentioned in verse 6 not only was enacted upon better promises of a better law, the inner law of life (vv. 10-12), but also was consummated with Christ’s better sacrifices (9:23), which accomplished for us an eternal redemption (v. 12), and the better blood of Christ, which purifies our conscience (v. 14). Even more, the High Priest of this better covenant, the eternal Son of the living God, ministers with a more excellent ministry (8:6) and in the greater and more perfect tabernacle (9:11).
The establishment of the new covenant is based not only on the blood of the Lord Jesus; the Lord Jesus Himself is the Mediator of this covenant. To be a mediator means that one bears the responsibility of both parties; as the Mediator, Christ bears responsibility on God’s side and on man’s side. In other words, as the Mediator, He is the One who executes the covenant to make it a reality. The Lord Jesus established this new covenant in His own blood, and He also executes this covenant through His incorruptible life.
The items of the covenant are things that Christ has already accomplished, and there are no conditions or terms for their completion. By shedding His blood, Christ enacted this deed, the covenant, and through His death He left this title deed to us as a will, a testament. Hebrews 9:16-17 says, “For where there is a testament, the death of him who made the testament must of necessity be established. For a testament is confirmed in the case of the dead, since it never has force when he who made the testament is living.” A covenant is an agreement made by the giver, which is in effect while he is alive, while a testament is a will. When the maker of the covenant dies, the covenant comes into effect as a will. By His death and the shedding of His blood, Christ signed the title deed and left it to us as a will. Because the Maker of the will died, we have the legal and judicial right to claim what is in the will.
With a will there is the need of an executor or arbiter. A will comes into effect when the one who makes it dies, but because some of the parties named in the will may not be proper, there is the need of an executor to execute the will faithfully. After resurrecting and ascending to the heavens, Christ became the Executor of the will in the heavenly court. Christ is not only the Maker of the covenant and the Giver of the will; He is also the Executor of the will. By shedding His blood He enacted the covenant, by dying He gave the will, and in resurrection and ascension He is today the Executor of this will in the heavenly law court.
In verse 15 we have the word covenant, and in verse 16, the word testament. In Greek the same word is used for both covenant and 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 that are bequeathed to the inheritor. The new covenant consummated with the blood of Christ is not merely a covenant but a testament in which all the things that were accomplished by the death of Christ have been bequeathed to us. First, God gave the promise that He would make a new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34). Then Christ shed His blood to enact the covenant (Luke 22:20). Since accomplished facts are promised in this covenant, it is also a testament. This testament, this will, was confirmed and validated by Christ’s death and is being executed by Christ in His ascension.
The New Testament, therefore, is a new will for our inheritance. This new will is for the bequeathing of the divine blessings, including the person of Christ and His all-inclusive redemptive work. The One who enacted this new will is Jesus Christ, who died for its enactment. Now, whatever He enacted has been bequeathed to us and is available to us.
All the promises of God have become accomplished facts in the new covenant through Christ’s redemptive work, and all these accomplished facts have become bequests in the new testament. As the Mediator of the new covenant, Christ in resurrection is now enforcing the new covenant, and as the Executor, He is executing the new testament so that all the bequests of the accomplished facts may become effective for our full enjoyment of them.
Christ enacted the new covenant (which became the new testament — the will) with His blood, according to God’s righteousness through His redeeming death (Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:15). In resurrection Christ became the reality of all the bequests of the new testament and the Mediator, the Executor, to execute the new testament according to God’s righteousness (8:6; 9:15; 12:24). Therefore, Christ is the new covenant as the new testament (cf. Isa. 42:6; 49:8).
Christ, as the embodiment of the riches of the Godhead (Col. 2:9; 1:19) and as the crucified and resurrected One, has become the covenant of God given to His people. He is the reality of all that God is and all that God has given us. God’s salvation, God’s righteousness, God’s justification, God’s forgiveness, God’s redemption, God’s riches, and all that God has and will do have been covenanted to us. As the reality of all the bequests in the new testament, Christ, who is the all-inclusive, life-giving, indwelling, consummated Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45; 2 Cor. 3:17; Rom. 8:9-11), is in our spirit and has become one spirit with us (2 Tim. 4:22; 1 Cor. 6:17). As a covenant, Christ is the surety (Heb. 7:22), and the Spirit is the pledge (2 Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:14), to guarantee that God embodied in Christ is the inheritance to His people (Rom. 8:17a; Acts 26:18).
The new testament is the covenant given to us by God. If there were no Christ, all the bequests in the new testament — the will — would be nothing. When God gave us the Bible as a will, this meant that God gave us Christ. Christ is the centrality and universality as the reality of the new testament. When Christ is given, that means He is the covenant. We have not only the items of the new testament in our mind but also the reality of this covenant, who is Christ, in our spirit. Christ in our spirit is the reality of the new testament. Hence, He is the covenant.
The new testament as a will has many promises. All these promises are the bequests of that will. Christ is everything for that will, and He is every item of that will. Eventually, He is the will. Without Christ, the Bible is empty. Christ is the reality of the Bible. Without Christ, the new covenant, the new testament, is empty. Christ is the reality of the new testament; therefore, Christ is the new testament. It is impossible to separate Christ from the new testament. Now we can understand the logic by which God considers Christ to be a covenant given to us. Hence, Christ has become the new covenant as the new testament according to God’s righteousness to be the base of God’s full salvation, through His death and in His resurrection. The way to receive and enjoy Christ as the covenant given to us is to exercise our spirit, to live according to our spirit, and to remain in our spirit, with which is Christ (2 Tim. 4:22).
Christ is the Mediator of this covenant, the Performer of this covenant, and the Testator of this covenant, the One who gives this covenant as a testament to us. He is the Executor of this testament, this will, and He is also the sacrifice which made it possible. He is such a One with such a covenant, and now we all have been made partakers of Him. The Holy Spirit today is the reality of this wonderful One. To be made partakers of Christ means that we have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, the reality of Christ. Now, day by day we partake of this Spirit, the Spirit of grace (Heb. 10:29).
In Hebrews 7:21, we see that Christ as the Mediator of the new covenant became the living and perpetual High Priest with the taking of an oath. As the only begotten Son and the firstborn Son of God, Christ became the High Priest with the taking of an oath by God (vv. 20-21, 28). Not one of the Levitical priests was ever established by God’s oath. Yet according to Psalm 110:4, God swore to make Christ a Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. In Hebrews 7 the writer quotes that oath from Psalm 110. This is very weighty, proving that Christ’s becoming the divine High Priest was consummated and established by God’s oath.
Hebrews 8:6 says that Christ “has obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as He is also the Mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted upon better promises.” The Old Testament priests had a ministry, and the children of Israel respected their ministry. But the ministry that Christ has obtained in His ascension — His ministry on the throne — is more excellent than that of the Old Testament priests in the tabernacle. This is His heavenly ministry in the Holy of Holies.
As the Minister of the true (heavenly) tabernacle, Christ obtained in His ascension a more excellent ministry to minister heaven, which is not only a place but a condition of life, into us that we may have the heavenly life and power to live a heavenly life on earth, as He did while He was here, to fulfill our heavenly calling (3:1).
Hebrews 8:2 says that Christ is a “Minister of the holy places, even of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” Christ ministers in the true tabernacle in heaven, which is joined to our spirit. As our High Priest in the heavens, Christ brings us into heaven, from the earthly court into the heavenly Holy of Holies, which is joined to our spirit by Him as the heavenly ladder (Gen. 28:12; John 1:51). The priests on earth served the shadow (Heb. 8:5), but this Minister in heaven serves the reality. Whatever was done by the priests on earth in the Old Testament was a shadow of the real things to come. What they did on earth served only as a shadow of the reality, but whatever this Minister ministers in heaven in the New Testament is the reality. His more excellent ministry in heaven serves the reality of the heavenly things in the divine dispensing.
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 testament has a High Priest who is the eternal Son of God with a more excellent ministry (vv. 1-13). 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.
Christ’s more excellent ministry is to intercede for us. Christ’s intercession is like a powerful motor which energizes a machine to operate. Just as the motor runs to transmit power into the machine, the interceding Christ in the heavens is transmitting the heavenly power into us.
Only two verses in the Bible, Hebrews 7:25 and Romans 8:34, tell us that Christ is interceding for us, and these two verses correspond to each other. According to Romans 8, Christ is interceding not merely for poor sinners to be justified but for the believers to be glorified. This corresponds to the interceding in Hebrews 7:25, where we are told that Christ intercedes for us that we may be saved to the uttermost. Being saved to the uttermost is the equivalent of glorification. As we pointed out in one of the previous messages, to be glorified is to have our being completely saturated with Christ’s divine priesthood. When our whole being has been saturated and permeated with His divine priesthood, that will be our glorification, the last step of God’s salvation. At that time we will enjoy full sonship, which will be consummated by the redemption of our body (Rom. 8:23). Glorification does not save us from sins or even from death; it saves us from the by-products of death, from groaning, vanity, corruption, bondage, and decay. These by-products of death require that we be saved to the uttermost, and Christ is able to do this. Without Hebrews 7 we would never realize that the interceding Christ is the kingly, divine High Priest. Without Hebrews 7 we might think, according to Romans 8, that the interceding Christ is only the Savior. But the interceding Christ is more than the Savior — He is the kingly and divine High Priest, the heavenly Minister. The heavenly Minister is our interceding Christ.
In Romans 8 we see Christ’s intercession in heaven as well as the groaning throughout the whole universe. The whole creation is groaning for liberation, groaning to be released from the by-products of death. Today we have the intercession of our Christ in the heavens and the groaning throughout the whole universe. God must find a people on earth to be His “operating machine” to bring in that glorious freedom. We should be people through whom God is operating to bring in glorification.
This glorious freedom must first be brought into our being. This is accomplished through our heavenly Intercessor. Christ’s intercession in the third heaven energizes us on the earth. Whenever we pray, we sense the empowering, the energizing, from the Lord’s intercession. Our Christian work should be accomplished by the energy transmitted into us by the heavenly dynamo. When we pray for the Lord’s interests on the earth, we have the deep sense that the Lord’s intercession is empowering us from within. Christ’s heavenly ministry is not a ministry that takes care of pitiful sinners; it is the more excellent ministry operating God’s economy. As a heavenly Minister with a more excellent ministry, Christ is interceding for us and ministering to us.
