This it is which draws out affection by letting in what we can hardly call affection, but divine love—the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us. Faith in Christ sets agoing the affections of the new man, the Spirit of God giving him power all through his course. Thus you must have your soul settled and established in God's perfect love (1 John 4); for if there were a suspicion whether or not it rested on our souls, would not love be fatally wounded? Now God leaves no room for that because the blood of Christ, according to His word, meets perfectly every lack spoken of. Whether it be approach to God, this is perfect; whether redemption, for securing God's rights also, it is eternal; and now our conscience is brought up to the mark suitably for drawing near to God, and for resting upon this eternal redemption. Consequently here follows the practical effect of it: “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” There you have the religious service of the believer. I do not mean the rendering this or that to a man, which is here entirely excluded by the character of the word used.
Here again is a remarkable instance how the thoughts of men differ from God's word. His thought in giving man such an infinite blessing is not primarily to set him about working for others. In fact, when you do this, you assume a measure of superiority over the person you work upon. As we all know, he who even in a small way is ministering the word, speaks with authority to those who may not know the word. Now this gives the preacher a certain measure of importance in the eyes of others, and, sad to say, sometimes in his own. But here we have another thing: it is serving God; it is not only gospel or church service, to win or to help souls; it is connected with the worship of God. This seems the kind of service, instead of being merely what people call ministry. As you know, scripture has more than one word for service; and this has to be borne here in mind. No doubt ministerial work is excellent in its own place, and of very great importance; but it is of immense moment that we should always recognize God's rights; and were this really before God's children, do you think any person would make it a sort of open matter what they did, where they went, whom they served, and how they worshipped? Certainly not. The blood of Christ is for this express purpose. See what it undertook to do, and does. Of Christ we are told that He “through the eternal Spirit, offered himself up without spot unto God.” It is the only place in scripture where “eternal” is applied to the Holy Ghost; and it is introduced here as the qualifying term of the Spirit-in order to show the absolute way for everlasting issues in which the Offering was then presented to God: a Man, but with this truly divine character of never-waning value. Certainly if there be anything which marks the difference between God and the creature, it is this quality of “eternal.” Here a man on earth presents Himself in this wonderful character.
Again, He “offered” Himself without spot to God. It is not the word for bearing our sins, strictly speaking. There were two parts always in sacrifice: the one is the victim simply, presented as an offering; the other is the sins laid upon the victim. Now this word expresses only the former element, which, by the way, detects the wrong use of that term in Peter, where it is said that “he bore our sins in his own body” —as the margin and some others say-"up to the tree.” Now the usage is strictly limited to the textual sense “on the tree.” If it had been the word here called “offered” there might have been some show of reason for it, because “offered” has reference to the presentation of the victim when the sins were not yet laid on it. The fact is that the phraseology excludes a continuous action and asserts a subsequent and transient fact, contradicting the whole idea; in short, the notion confounds the offering of the victim first, with the laying the sins upon him afterward. Now the passage in Peter speaks expressly of the final moment when the sins were laid upon Christ. Consequently the teaching is as utterly false as it is possible to be. The “offering” is distinct from the bearing of the sins, and each of the two parts has its own moment.
The first thing God looks for in the sacrifice is its perfect acceptability, but if the sins were already laid there, where would be the manifestation of that? It would be merging in one two things wholly distinct for an offering to have already the sins attached to it. In our Lord's case the first was the evidence that He was “without spot.” If He had had all our sins ever on Him, could this have been the case? At the last no doubt they were imputed, and this was essential of course. The second part of Christ's work is His perfect identification with our guilt, without which our sins could not have been taken away. But God's making Him sin for us at the end supposes all His previous life when there was no imputation of sin whatever, and our Lord appeared in all His perfection before God. Thus He, “through the eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God.” This being done, Jehovah “laid upon him the iniquities of us all.” It is certain that the passage in Peter refers only to the closing scene. The fact is that the true sense turns not merely on the word “up to,” or “upon,” but on scriptural usage generally as alone perfectly revealing the truth; and we have seen that the general truth refutes the idea. Undoubtedly one might go a little farther into detail; only this would take us into critical nicety of words, which I do not desire to discuss on such an occasion as this. However, it can be easily shown from the Sept. Vers. of Leviticus and elsewhere, that the word which is rendered “up to” by those who are so anxious so to translate the text, is never used in such a sense in the matter of sacrifice. In such a connection the preposition always means “on,” as here, “on the tree,” and never “up to” it.
Returning, however, we sec here One who acts in entire dependence on God; One who in all the perfectness of a man would not do even this, although He came for the purpose, without the Holy Ghost. This was the perfection of our Lord in presenting Himself. He never acted simply from His own person, but in the power of the Spirit of God, from the time when, to commence His public ministry, He received the Holy Ghost, for scripture is express that our Lord did receive, and was anointed by, the Holy Ghost. It was not only that He was conceived by the Holy Ghost in coming into the world, but He was sealed by the Holy Spirit, as we know, at the time of His baptism. He is thenceforward the dependent Man; whatever He did, all was done in virtue of the Spirit, even this act of His offering Himself up as a spotless victim. The aim and the effect are eternal redemption. Thus is our conscience purged by His blood, “from dead works” which everything must be until redemption is made good for us, “to serve the living God.”
“And for this cause He is the Mediator of a new 'covenant.'“ Whoever heard of such a thing as the mediator of a “testament”? “Testament” means a will, and a mediator is entirely out of place in the matter of such a disposal of goods. Let me just take this opportunity of showing that you do not require to be a scholar in order to be perfectly certain when it ought to be “covenant,” and when the right meaning is “testament.” Each case admits of proof. The men who made the Authorized Version were as learned persons as ever perhaps were found together in this country; yet they only made confusion in the matter. This demands no effort convincingly to show, though I yield to none in respect for themselves and their work. And although there may be none here present as much versed as they were in all of erudition, it seems to me practicable to put the most unenlightened Christian in a position to decide with certainty where they are right and where they are wrong in dealing with this term. How comes this? By the written word; for the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than a two-edged sword. It is so little a question therefore of learning that every Christian man may have the absolute certainty where the word should be rendered “testament,” and where “covenant.” Both words are true according to context. Such is the peculiarity of the term; the same word means either, but it cannot mean both in the same sentence. This would be to blunder, not to communicate the truth.
There are certain landmarks in every sentence which determine which of the two senses is meant. The case occurs where it must mean “testament"; there are other instances where nothing will do but “covenant.” When the different passages in the New Testament are set out, it will help to ground every believer's trust more and more in the perfectness of scripture. Begin with this very verse, “And for this cause he is mediator of a new covenant.” Our translators ought to have seen their error, and that here the word could not possibly mean “testament,” because such a functionary is unknown to testamentary business, instead of being universally recognized. Besides, “new” contrasted with “the first,” cannot point to “testament,” but “covenant.” Now the apostle, for I have no doubt he was the writer of this epistle, writes, using a figure that would be known in every country under heaven, and be perfectly familiar to any intelligent persons such as the Jewish believers were. Indeed, there are few things that even ignorant men know more about than “a testament,” or “a will.” It comes home to men's bosoms and business notoriously. Sons inherit from father or mother, and sometimes they derive from other relatives or friends besides their parents; and as such a thing awakens interest in the dullest, they understand that “a will” only comes into force when the one that devises the property is no more.
That is what the apostle reasons about in vers. 16, 17. He wants to show both the necessity and the importance of death previously (not here, you observe, of “blood,” but of “death”). Hence the figure is so far changed from what preceded. It had been “the blood of Christ” about which he was speaking before in ver. 14. Now, in ver. 15, we have the transition-” for this cause he is mediator of a new covenant, that by means of death,” etc. We can all perfectly understand this. “Death” is a larger thought, and this begins the link, though he still speaks only of covenants. But from the idea of “inheritance” he slides off from the meaning of “covenant” into that of “testament.” The same word is susceptible of either signification, but the context never leaves it a doubtful thing whether the word means the one or the other. The decisive point, which shows that in this verse it must be “covenant,” is not the word “mediator” only, but the contrast of “new” with the “first” covenant which created transgressions. Every one must surely confess that a mediator is most intelligible with, and essential to, the new covenant; but mediator of “a testament” is a relationship that nobody ever heard of at any time, or in any country on the earth. You may find a lawyer, a testator, an executor, and the heirs, which are familiar enough. All these may belong to a testament, but there is no such personage as “mediator” of a testament.
“Mediator of a covenant,” therefore, is alone meant or possible in ver. 15; although he does purposely bring in “death,” and afterward an inheritance, to pave the way for the idea of “a testament,” in vers. 16, 17. As yet, however, in ver. 15, he adheres solely to the notion of “covenant,” because he is speaking of a mediator. “For this cause he is mediator of a new covenant, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first,” etc. First what? “Testament” is said here, but it is clearly wrong. How speak of “the transgressions of the first will"? What legitimately could be made of such an expression? Whenever there is a second will, the first is of course annulled; whereas here it was painfully efficacious, for it produced “transgressions.” A second will renders the first one entirely invalid. You could not therefore have the transgressions of the first. Besides, what have transgressions to do with “a will"? The moment you bring in “first covenant,” all is quite easy, plain, and forcible; because the first covenant was the law, and what the law brought in was transgressions. Therefore the immediate context is decisive; as beyond controversy it is the unfailing criterion where we have to judge of the questioned force, not only of any general teaching of the word, but even of the propriety of a single word; or when, as here, the ambiguity admits of two meanings. So perfect is the context of scripture for giving the believer to decide with certainty which of the meanings is the proper one. Both the “mediator” shows that it can only be a new “covenant,” and the “transgressions” prove that it was the first covenant, and not a will or testament, that preceded. Where is the law ever styled a “testament” in O.T. Scripture?
“That they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” It is this last word, evidently, which furnishes the transition to the notion of a will. The moment we come to an inheritance the suggestion of a will is simple. It is the common way of inheriting; and the Jews knew this as well as others. It was possible, doubtless, to inherit without a will, Jewish property if you can call the land property which was all in the hands of God, being arranged by God to go regularly without any such intervention. Therefore, as far as I recollect, the word for “will” is not once mentioned in the Old Testament, as we all can readily understand. There was God's law, which dispensed with the necessity of a testament, because it was all settled successionally for His people. But the Jews had long been in an abnormal state, and some had houses and land that had nothing whatever to do with the original disposition of things by God; and of these could dispose as they pleased. And so it was perhaps universally with the Gentiles. So that inheriting by “will” was a most familiar idea. [W. K.]
(To be continued)
“And for this reason he is mediator of a new covenant, so that, death having taken place for redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those that are called might receive the promise of the everlasting inheritance.”
(Continued from page 223)