The New Covenant is founded and ratified in the blood of Christ. “This is my blood of the New Testament” (or covenant), said our Lord to His disciples as He gave to them the passover cup (Matthew 26:28); and we read also in the Hebrews of “the blood of the everlasting covenant.” (Hebrews 13:20) The force of these expressions will be best understood by a reference once again to the old covenant. Moses, when he had sprinkled the blood upon the people, said, “Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words.” (Exodus 24:68; Hebrews 9:18-20) God thus confirmed His covenant with Israel at Sinai by blood—the blood of animals; but He has founded and made the new covenant immutably secure in the blood of Christ. By confirming the new covenant with the blood of Christ, God has declared not only its everlasting and unchangeable character, but also the priceless nature of the blessings which He has thereby secured to His people. How stable a foundation, moreover, God has thus laid for the confidence of His saints! In the olden time He often encouraged them to rest in the certainty of His word and promise; and in writing to the Hebrews the apostle speaks of the two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie—His oath and His promise—which afforded strong consolation to them who had fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before them; but even beyond these certainties He has sealed His truth as it were by the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son.
It is in the fulfillment of this new covenant, so ratified, that Israel’s hopes of future blessing rest. (Hebrews 8:6-13) At Sinai they rashly entered into the engagement of obedience to procure the blessings promised; but having failed and lost everything, God, acting in grace in pursuance of His purposes, and in virtue of the blood of Christ, will yet bring them into the enjoyment of all that He has promised. The new covenant, as such, is made, not with believers now, but with Israel. But all its spiritual blessings are ministered to us through the Spirit. Hence the apostle speaks of himself and his fellow-laborers as being “able ministers of the new covenant.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) As another has said, “This, then, constitutes Paul’s ministry of the new covenant, its present ministration to the Church before it is yet made; viz., that of the Holy Ghost and of divine righteousness in immeasurable and unending glory from a glorified Christ on high; liberty in the presence of the Holy Ghost, and no veil either on our hearts or on the face of Christ, beholding whom we are transformed by that same Spirit practically into His image from glory to glory. In the higher character it has to us, it evidently reaches to the reproduction of a glorified Christ in His saints on the earth; that is to say, not our standing before God in glory, but the direct effect of the glory upon our state here.” We enjoy these blessings now, blessings of a higher character than those promised to Israel, but in a future day God will cause them to enjoy every blessing specified in His word; but both we and they alike will owe everything to the precious blood of Christ.
In this connection, it should be pointed out that THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST HIMSELF, AS THE GREAT SHEPHERD OF THE SHEEP, is through the blood of the everlasting covenant. (Hebrews 12:20) This indeed was God’s public testimony to its value—His declaration that the bloodshed in the death of Christ had made a full, adequate, and everlasting atonement for sin. Therefore He brought again from the dead the Mediator of the “better covenant,” that all the objects thereof might be accomplished. Hence it is that as the Great Shepherd He will seek out and gather together the sheep from every land, in accordance with His own words to the Jews “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one flock (not “fold”), and one Shepherd.” (John 10:16) Thus the covenant, sealed by His blood, has been certified in His resurrection; the value of the blood securing all, and, finally, its entire and complete accomplishment.
There is another effect of the blood of Christ, similar to that of propitiation; but as it is in connection with the reconciliation of all things, it seems more fitting to introduce it here. We read, “And, HAVING MADE PEACE BY THE BLOOD OF HIS CROSS, by Him to reconcile all things unto Himself; by Him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated,” &c. (Colossians 1:20,21) The peace thus made, it must be carefully observed, is not the peace which those who are justified by faith have with God. (Romans 5:1) It is the peace of God’s throne, the satisfaction of the claims of God’s holy government, which has been made by the blood of Christ. Just as on the ground of propitiation God is able righteously to receive everyone that comes to Him trusting in it, so on the foundation of this peace He will bring back into order and harmonious relationships with Himself both things on earth and things in heaven. It is not persons, but things created things which will share in the blessings of reconciliation as well as saints. This reconciliation, as another has observed, “is not yet accomplished. Peace is indeed made, but power has not yet come in to bring back the whole into actual relationship with God according to the value of that blood.” For this we wait; but the blood has been shed, and He who alone knows its value declares that peace has been made. Believers are already reconciled in the body of his flesh through death (the death of Christ); but the reconciliation of all things will not be fully accomplished until the introduction of the new heavens and the new earth. It is doubtless in virtue of the blood of His cross that the Lord Jesus will assume His power, and reign from the river unto the ends of the earth, when creation itself shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God (Romans 8:21); but glorious as His reign will be, and great as will be the blessings which this creation will at that time enjoy, evil will still exist, and, breaking forth under the leadership of Satan, will blight and darken the close of the thousand years. On this account judgments end all God’s ways with this poor weary earth and with man; but thereon arises another scene, as perfect as God Himself can make it, wherein righteousness will forever dwell, “and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4) It is here that we behold all things reconciled, and the full and all-pervading efficacy of the precious blood of Christ; for all things are made new, and God is all in all.
We have thus traced some of the manifold effects of the blood of Christ. Space fails for the enumeration of all the aspects of its efficacy. We, Gentile believers, are made nigh by it. (Ephesians 2:13) The Church is said to have been “purchased with his own blood,” or rather, as it may be translated,” with the blood of His own; i.e. with the blood of Christ. (Acts 20:28) The saints of a later day will wash their robes, and make them white in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14), redemption being then as now through that precious blood. (See Revelation 5:9,10; correct reading) When Satan, moreover, seeks to compass the destruction of the saints of that day by accusing them before God, they are said to overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. (Revelation 12:10,11) All these things, yea, all that God in His grace has made us, all that we shall be when we are forever with the Lord, all the glories of Christ Himself which we shall share with Him as His joint-heirs, as well as the perfectness of the new creation, which will find its outward expression in the new heavens and the new earth, all these blessings and glories will flow from the efficacy of the blood of Christ. God Himself is the eternal source of all; but the blood of Christ was His own appointed way of fulfilling and establishing His own thoughts and purposes of love.
Surely, then, as these things pass before our minds, our hearts will be bowed afresh before God in adoration for the gift of His well-beloved Son. And as the blood of Christ ever awakens our highest praise while we wait for His return, so we find that the “Lamb as it had been slain” will be the object of worship in heaven. And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou vast slain, and hast redeemed to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation; and hast made them unto our God kings and priests: and they shall reign on the earth.
“Of the vast universe of bliss,
The center Thou, and Sun:
The eternal theme of praise is this,
To heaven’s beloved One:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou,
That every knee to Thee should bow.”
And what of you, beloved reader? Are you under the shelter and infinite value of this precious blood? Let there be, we entreat you, no uncertainty on this point. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” (John 6:53) It is only they who “wash their robes” (as it should be read) that “have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city.” (Revelation 22:14)
May God, in His infinite grace, grant that everyone who reads these pages may believe, and rest upon His testimony to the unspeakable efficacy of the precious blood of Christ. Amen.
E. D.
(continued from page 64)