Jesus Our Covenant

IF THE most honest man in the neighborhood one never known to break a promise, whom banks trusted without question were to promise to do a certain thing that was well within his power to do, and were this man voluntarily to sign to that undertaking in the presence of a judge and put up all his possessions as surety, we would certainly understand that he intended to keep his promise. We would also know that he considered the matter extremely important.

That is an illustration, albeit a crude one, of what Cod has done for us. We commonly think of Jesus as our Saviour, our High Priest, even as our Friend. It would help us to think of Him also in terms of His covenant relationship with us.

One day the Lord told Abram, "Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them. ... So shall thy seed be" (Gen. 15:5). Although Abram was childless and nearly 100 years old, the Bible says he believed the Lord. But the Lord continued: "I am the Lord that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it" (verse 7). Perhaps this was too much for Abram. To have many children was one thing; to own all the land he was roaming about on was something else. So he did a completely human thing he asked God for a sign that He was telling the truth.

Who can doubt God's word, which is powerful enough to call worlds into existence? But sin has weakened faith. Too often our hopes in each other are crushed, our confidences broken. But we should remember that God does not do as man does.

God did not upbraid Abram be cause he asked for a sign. The promise being made was indeed a far-reaching one. It was not just a promise of children for Abram. God was not promising Canaan only to Abram's posterity. His promise reached beyond the dominion of sin to an earth full of saints, Abram's "faith children," enjoying a world of righteousness.

Promise Undergirds Confidence

In this twentieth century of jet planes and rocket travel there are those who are tempted to feel God has disengaged Himself from humanity. He hasn't come as He said He would, they say; perhaps He will never come. Let us restudy that promise made to Abram and see how it undergirds our confidence in God today.

Because so much was involved, God wanted to leave no doubt. Instead of giving just a passing sign, therefore, He entered into a solemn covenant, a binding com pact, with Abram. The Maker of the universe entered into a one-to-one relationship with a human being.

The term "covenant" was a vital concept to the people of Abram's time and place. It was the legal basis for their society (as it is even today among the Kurds and nomadic Arabs). Warfare was their natural state; roaming bands fell on each other or ran at sight. Not to go to war presupposed the existence of a covenant. There were no neutrals.

There were several ways of making a covenant, depending on the purpose and the seriousness of the occasion. One type of covenant involved the gift of salt, a precious commodity to people of the desert. Another type was the sacramental meal. When one par took of food under another's roof, and especially if one took food from the hand of another, he was thenceforth considered a special friend, practically a member of the family. (This brings to mind the actions of Judas, who accepted a morsel of food from Jesus' hand just before going out to sell his Master.)

More serious covenants involved blood. In one type, the parties to the covenant slashed their palms and then gripped each other's hand. This may have been the forerunner of the custom of shaking hands. The significance, of course, was that their blood mingled and thus they became "blood brothers." The literal translation of the Hebrew verb for making a covenant was to cut a covenant.

In another type of blood covenant, an animal was slain and quartered. The parts of the animal were piled in two heaps, then the covenanters passed between the parts. The idea was that if one did not abide by the terms of the covenant he would be slain and quartered as was the animal. Some times a covenant or pledge involved drinking blood, as when relatives of a murder victim pledged their revenge.

Special Relationship Involved

Obviously, so basic a concept as this would play an important role in the Bible account. While the word "covenant" is used 33 times in describing human relations, it is used 250 times of the God-and-man situation, trying to get across the idea of a special relationship. A righteous person, for instance, is literally one who keeps a covenant (see Ps. 89:34), and conversely one of the worst sinners is one who breaks a covenant (see Rom. 1:31; Isa. 24:5).

God's covenant with Abram involved taking a heifer, a goat, a ram, a dove, and a pigeon---not one covenant animal but five--- and cutting each into two parts, making two heaps. Abram did as he was directed, and kept scavengers from desecrating the covenant heaps until sunset. Then Abram fell into a deep sleep. The Lord appeared to him and in the form of fire passed between the heaps of sacrifice. As He did so, the Lord solemnly repeated His promise to Abram.

God's promise alone was sufficient (Heb. 6:13-18), but He took an oath and then confirmed the oath with a covenant. Notice that Abram did not pass between the heaps. God was the one making the pledge. It was His covenant.

In the process of time Isaac was born, the child of the covenant. But when Isaac was a young man God directed Abram, now called Abraham, to offer Isaac in sacrifice. With a heavy heart but resolute faith the aged father prepared to do so. Just before the knife fell on his son angels stayed his hand. Abraham found a ram in a nearby thicket and offered it in Isaac's stead.

Abraham perceived the command to offer his son as a threat to the divine covenant, but God told him He had not forgotten. He re minded him right then and there, "By myself have I sworn." The patriarch did not fail to see the point: when God made a covenant a life was forfeited. The life of the sacrificial animal pledged the life of the covenanter. In pledging man's redemption God was putting His own existence at stake!

Memory of the Covenant

The pledge made to Abraham was perpetuated to His people. In the tabernacle system the animals used were, at various times, a young cow, a sheep, a goat, a dove, a pigeon the very items Abram had been directed to use. And they were consumed by divine fire. So the tabernacle was called the tabernacle of witness (Num. 17:7, 8) and the ark was called the ark of the covenant (chap. 10:33). The entire sanctuary system was to keep alive the memory of the covenant God made with Abram that He would establish His people in righteousness.

The Hebrew system of sacrifices ended when Christ was crucified, but the covenant did not end. Was it not called an "everlasting covenant"? In the Revelation John sees in heaven the temple of God, and what is there but the "ark of his covenant" (Rev. 11:19, N.E.B. *)!

Christ—Pledge of God's Purpose

The covenant made with Abram and continued with His people, the covenant witnessed in the blood of animals, was but a mere shadow of a much more drastic pledge on God's part. He was, in reality, putting up His own Son as a pledge of His purpose. In Isaiah 42:6, a passage recognized as Messianic, God the Lord says, "I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations" (R.S.V.).

God gave Jesus to the world of human beings, gave Him as a covenant, as a promise of salvation. Willingly and completely God gave His only begotten Son to humanity for all time. The incarnation and death of Jesus was a pledge that God will complete His great plan of redemption. He will finish what He began. God has not disengaged Himself. Jesus will come again, and the saints will be given this earth, made new, for an eternal inheritance.

As with the animals Abram prepared, Jesus our Covenant was slain and divided not physically, of course, but with two allegiances to serve both God and man. He is both the Son of God and the Son of man. With His blood He bridges earth and heaven.

Here is an insight into what Jesus meant when He said, the night before His death, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Cor. 11:25, R.S.V.). The wine of the Lord's Supper is more than a simple reminder of His death. It is more than a token of a theological concept. By partaking of it the disciples and we are joined to Jesus and to each other in a blood covenant. We drink, not to revenge His death, but in a deep pledge of fellowship.

Notice, however, that the Greeks had two words for covenant one was used when both sides had responsibilities and another for a one-sided agreement, as in a will. The word Jesus used was that of a one-sided agreement. He was in effect saying, I am putting up my life as surety please accept it. Like Abraham, we have nothing with which to match God's pledge. God makes the of fer of salvation. We have only to accept it.

Finally, Jesus on Calvary sealed the covenant. By His death on the cross He put the covenant into effect. Before then, salvation was a promise; now it was a fact. The body of Jesus, with the nail prints in His hands, was at once both evidence and basis of the fact.

But wait! The blood on His hands! Here again we find the symbol of covenant. He "made peace through the blood of his cross" (Col. 1:20), reconciling all things, in earth and in heaven. Through the blood of His hands, as it were, He knitted the life of God and the life of man forever.

We Are to Be a Covenant

In a sense we, too, are in turn to be a covenant, to the world. That is why Jesus said, "Ye are the salt of the earth" and "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." As we grasp the blood-stained hand of Jesus with one arm, our other is to be stretched out to a suffering world.

He cannot heal who has not suffered much,

For only Sorrow sorrow understands;

They will not come for healing at our touch

Who have not seen the scars upon our hands.

--Edwin McNeill Poteat

As in total submission we take the hand of Christ, we become blood brothers with Him, heirs of the kingdom. We drink of the cup of the covenant, in pledge that His death shall not have been in vain. We accept the provisions of the compact God made with Abram, and with his faith we look for a city whose builder and maker is God.

Jesus is our Covenant, given to the human race. He is the One who signed the covenant, ratifying it with His life-strearn. He is the surety of the covenant, pledging the throne of God to His promise. Jesus is the mediator of the covenant, the One who inscribes its principles upon our hearts, our emotions, our will.