SO MUCH THE MORE
ALSO JESUS HAS BECOME THE GUARANTEE OF A BETTER COVENANT: kata tosouto kai kreittonos diathekes
gegonen (3SRAI) egguos Iesous: (Genesis 43:9;
44:32;
Proverbs 6:1;
20:16)
(Heb
8:6-12;
9:15-23;
12:24;
13:20;
Daniel 9:27;
Matthew 26:28;
Mark 14:24;
Luke 22:20;
1 Corinthians
11:25
)
Guarantee (1450)
(egguos from eggúe = pledge, bail, security) describes one who
gives security, who guarantees the reality of something. It was used of one
who guarantees someone else's overdraft at a bank, thus becoming surety that
the money will be paid. Someone who goes bail for a prisoner; he guarantees
the prisoner will appear at trial. It also refers to a bond, bail, collateral or some kind of
guarantee that a promise will be fulfilled. In Greek secular writings egguos
referred to in legal and promissory
documents as "a guarantor" or "one who stands security."
The idea of surety of one person for another was not new. Judah promised
surety for Benjamin (Ge 43:9, 44:33); Paul promised to be surety for Onesimus (Phile
1:18,19).
Jesus Himself = our
Guarantor, our Security that there will be no annulment of the Better
covenant. Only here.
Our Lord Jesus does more than mediate the New Covenant. He also guarantees
it. He has become surety for it. All of God’s promises in the New Covenant
are guaranteed to us by Jesus Himself. He guarantees to pay all the debts
that our sins have incurred, or ever will incur, against us. Hallelujah.
Amen.
Better - Stronger, more useful, more
profitable covenant
Better than what? Old Covenant, Mosaic.
Why is it "better"? The covenant that God made through Jesus is better than
the old one because the old one was temporary and the new one is eternal. A
better Priest guarantees a better covenant. God did not make the new because
the old was bad, but because it was imperfect and temporary. The New
Covenant is better simply because the Old was incomplete. The Old was good;
the New is better.
Covenant
(1242)
(diatheke from dia =
two + tithemi = to place pictures that which is placed between two
Thus, a covenant is something placed between two, an arrangement between two
parties.) was a commonly used in the Greco-Roman world to define a legal
transaction in settling an inheritance. Diatheke denotes an
irrevocable decision, which cannot be cancelled by anyone. A prerequisite of
its effectiveness before the law is the death of the disposer and thus
diatheke was like a "final will and testament". In reference to the
divine covenants, such as the Abrahamic covenant, diatheke is not a covenant
in the sense that God came to agreement or compromise with fallen man as if
signing a contract. Rather, it involves declaration of God’s unconditional
promise to make Abraham and his seed the recipients of certain blessings.
The thought of covenant is introduced for 1st time, and foreshadows
Heb 8:6-13. It adds to the thought of the inferiority of the Levitical
priesthood that of the inferiority of the Old Covenant which it represented.
><>><>><>
As The
Surety of the Covenant
Andrew Murray has the following comments regarding
Hebrews 7:22...
OF THE old Covenant, Scripture speaks as
not being faultless, and God complains that Israel had not continued in it;
and so He regarded them not (Hebrews 8:7-9). It had not secured its apparent
object, in uniting Israel and God: Israel had forsaken Him, and He had not
regarded Israel. Therefore God promises to make a New Covenant, free from
the faults of the first, and effectual to realize its purpose. If it were to
accomplish its end, it would need to secure God's faithfulness to His
people, and His people's faithfulness to God. And the terms of the New
Covenant expressly declare that these two objects shall be attained. "I will
put my laws into their mind": thus God proposes to secure their unchanging
faithfulness to Him. "Their sins I will remember no more" (see Hebrews 8:10-12):
thus He assures His unchanging faithfulness to them. A pardoning God and an
obedient people: these are the two parties who are to meet and to be
eternally united in the New Covenant.
The most beautiful provision of this New
Covenant is that of the surety in whom its fulfilment on both parts is
guaranteed. Jesus was made the surety of the better covenant. To man He
became surety that God would faithfully fulfil His part, so that man could
confidently depend upon God to pardon, and accept, and never more forsake.
And to God He likewise became surety that man would faithfully fulfil his
part, so that God could bestow on him the blessing of the covenant. And the
way in which He fulfils His suretyship is this: As one with God, and having
the fulness of God dwelling in His human nature, He is personally security
to men that God will do what He has engaged. All that God has is secured to
us in Him as man. And then, as one with us, and having taken us up as
members into His own body, He is security to God that His interests shall be
cared for. All that man must be and do is secured in Him. It is the glory of
the New Covenant that it has in the Person of the God-man its living surety,
its everlasting security. And it can easily be understood how, in proportion
as we abide in Him as the surety of the covenant, its objects and its
blessings will be realized in us.
We shall understand this best if we
consider it in the light of one of the promises of the New Covenant. Take
that in Jer 32:40
I will make an everlasting covenant with
them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put
my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
With what wonderful condescension the
infinite God here bows Himself to our weakness! He is the Faithful and
Unchanging One, whose word is truth; and yet more abundantly to show to the
heirs of the promise the immutability of His counsel, He binds Himself in
the covenant that He will never change: "I will make an everlasting
covenant, that I will not turn away from them." Blessed the man who has
thoroughly appropriated this, and finds his rest in the everlasting covenant
of the Faithful One!
But in a covenant there are two parties.
And what if man becomes unfaithful and breaks the covenant? Provision must
be made, if the covenant is to be well ordered in all things and sure, that
this cannot be, and that man too remain faithful. Man never can undertake to
give such an assurance. And see, here God comes to provide for this too. He
not only undertakes in the covenant that He will never turn from His people,
but also to put His fear in their heart, that they do not depart from Him.
In addition to His own obligations as one of the covenanting parties, He
undertakes for the other party too:
I WILL CAUSE you to walk in my statutes,
and ye shall keep my judgments and do them (Ezekiel 36:27)
Blessed the man who understands this half
of the covenant too! He sees that his security is not in the covenant which
he makes with His God, and which he would but continually break again. He
finds that a covenant has been made, in which God stands good, not only for
Himself, but for man too. He grasps the blessed truth that his part in the
covenant is to accept what God has promised to do, and to expect the sure
fulfilment of the divine engagement to secure the faithfulness of His people
to their God:
I will put my fear in their hearts, that
they shall not depart from me.
It is just here that the blessed work
comes in of the surety of the covenant, appointed of the Father to see to
its maintenance and perfect fulfilment. To Him the Father hath said, "I have
given thee for a covenant of the people." And the Holy Spirit testifies,
"All the promises of God IN Him are yea, and in Him are Amen, to the glory
of God by us." The believer who abides in Him hath a divine assurance for
the fulfilment of every promise the covenant ever gave.
Christ was made surety of a better
testament. It is as our Melchizedek that Christ is surety (see Hebrews 7). Aaron
and his sons passed away; of Christ it is witnessed that He liveth. He is
priest in the power of an endless life. Because He continueth ever, He hath
an unchangeable priesthood. And because He ever liveth to make intercession,
He can save to the uttermost, He can save completely. It is because Christ
is the Ever-living One that His suretyship of the covenant is so effectual.
He liveth ever to make intercession, and can therefore save completely.
Every moment there rise up from His holy presence to the Father, the
unceasing pleadings which secure to His people the powers and the blessings
of the heavenly life. And every moment there go out from Him downward to His
people, the mighty influences of His unceasing intercession, conveying to
them uninterruptedly the power of the heavenly life. As surety with us for
the Father's favour, He never ceases to pray and present us before Him; as
surety with the Father for us, He never ceases to work, and reveal the
Father within us.
The mystery of the Melchizedek
priesthood, which the Hebrews were not able to receive (Heb 5:10-14), is the
mystery of the resurrection life. It is in this that the glory of Christ as
surety of the covenant consists: He ever liveth. He performs His work in
heaven in the power of a divine, an omnipotent life. He ever liveth to pray;
not a moment that as surety His prayers do not rise Godward to secure the
Father's fulfilment to us of the covenant. He performs His work on earth in
the power of that same life; not a moment that His answered prayers--the
powers of the heavenly world--do not flow downward to secure for His Father
our fulfilment of the covenant. In the eternal life there are no
breaks--never a moment's interruption; each moment has the power of eternity
in it. He ever, every moment, liveth to pray. He ever, every moment, liveth
to bless. He can save to the uttermost, completely and perfectly, because He
ever liveth to pray.
Believer! come and see here how the
possibility of abiding in Jesus every moment is secured by the very nature
of this ever-living priesthood of your surety. Moment by moment, as His
intercession rises up, its efficacy descends. And because Jesus stands good
for the fulfilment of the covenant--"I will put my fear in their heart, and
they shall not depart from me"--He cannot afford to leave you one single
moment to yourself. He dare not do so, or He fails of His undertaking. Your
unbelief may fail of realizing the blessing; He cannot be unfaithful. If you
will but consider Him, and the power of that endless life after which He was
made and is a High Priest, your faith will rise to believe that an endless,
ever-continuing, unchangeable life of abiding in Jesus, is nothing less than
what is waiting you.
It is as we see (Who) Jesus is, and is to
us, that the abiding in Him will become the natural and spontaneous result
of our knowledge of Him. (From Andrew Murray's book Abide in Christ)
