If we are going to speak of 'covenant' in our day and age, we must be certain that it be rightly framed through the lens of covenant between Father and Son. You see, the Father does not have a covenant with you, rather, He has a covenant with His Son.
This covenant between Father and Son is most accurately rendered by the gospel writers in the following statements spoken over the Son by the audible voice of the Father;
- "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (spoken before any miracles, ministry, or murder). - "This is my beloved Son, hear Him" (spoken in response to a question of raising multiple tabernacles, or erecting a monument to dual covenants).
The Son is the bearer of the covenant, not you or I, and to create a "new" covenant is to erect a new tabernacle. Jesus was/is the once-and-for-all summation of Israel, and the consummation of all human history in one being. That meaning; everything in the old led forward to Him, everything in His present was all about Him, and everything in the new points backward to Him. If it’s not all Him, it’s not Him at all.
This is where we find grace in both the old and the new. If grace is rightly defined as the merciful kindness by which the Father turns souls towards Christ, strengthens them, and keeps them there, then we can rightly see that just as the new contains the grace that turns us towards Christ, the old contained grace as well, it all led forward to Him. It pointed at Him, contained Him, and moved souls towards Him.
There is only covenant between Father and Son, and that covenant is everlasting, never to be broken, never to be discarded, and never to be remade. We are not waiting for a better time to come, we are supposed to make the time in which we live better now.
The incarnation signaled the end of covenantal language between God and man, because God became man, thereby ending the need for covenant all together. It did not however, signify that suddenly "grace" was something new that the Father hadn't thought of before!
There is something more that we must understand about covenant.
Covenant requires judgment. Whenever one of the parties doesn't fulfill their part in the covenant, a judgment must be made to correct the situation. We see this frequently throughout the Old Testament writings. Israel is a picture of what it looks like for flesh and blood to have covenant with divine perfection, and whenever it was broken, a judgment was necessary to correct the situation.
(As a side note, you'll see if looking through the scriptures that every judgment the Father handed down was always a restorative one, meant to cause relationship rather than end it).
This is why it is so important to see the covenant between the Father and His Son as the only covenant. We are living in the inheritance provided through the Son, at His generous giving, not our own request or fulfillment of anything. This is how Jesus could say; "the Father judges no one" and actually live that out on the earth.
The most common command in the entirety of the gospel is what?
"Fear not"
How can we have no fear unless the issue of judgment due to breaking the covenant is once-and-for-all rendered complete? The Father committed all judgment to the Son, and the Son rendered His judgment conclusively and concisely in the powerful phrase "Father forgive them, they don't know..." The covenant is sealed between Father and Son, and you and I have nothing to fear as a result of covenantal judgment.
Comments