3.1 A Legal Covenant
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
In a later session, sometime around the Door into the Outer Court, I want to write a representation of the full document that is our binding agreement with God. In this session, I am searching for an outline of that agreement by looking at the Covenant in four different ways. This outline or structure of our Covenant with God is intended to provide the framework into which we can place the things God shows us as we journey with Him out through the Tabernacle.
The first thing we must understand about the Covenant is that it is a legal agreement, an agreement that is binding on both parties to the throne of judgment.
Desperate Words
Consider these binding and almost “desperate” words. That you might be filled with all the fulness of God. We know from our previous study that these English words adequately represent the Greek words that Paul wrote.
I say, “desperate” because, God, in uttering such a statement, is binding Himself before all the judgment of the universe to commit ALL of Himself, every particle that He is, from inside to outside, from top to bottom, to us to be our own possession. By this Covenant, God, all of God, is our own personal property. By this Covenant, I possess full property title to every element that is found in “all of God.” I can assure you, God does not pass out such titles of deed in a flippant or casual manner.
A Legal Declaration. Let’s bring in the full passage by which God binds Himself to us through the Tabernacle and extract the critical points from this legal declaration (Hebrews 6:13-20).
For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute.
1. God transfers the promise He made to Abraham directly to us who believe in Jesus.
2. In transferring that same promise to us, God also transfers the manner in which He binds Himself to that promise.
Oath Swearing
3. The manner in which God binds Himself is first by His Word and then by His Oath.
4. This oath swearing is likened, then, to the human practice that is found in the bonding of a blood covenant.
The critical part of this passage for us is verses 17-18. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
The Greek words in these lines are legal terms such as would be used in a court of law or in the signing of an important agreement.
Strong Consolation
5. God finds it necessary to His own integrity to act in a manner in this oath swearing, this binding of Himself to us as our possession, as to directly eliminate any claim or accusation that He “might have lied.”
6. This oath God swore, then, is against Himself. If He were to “violate” His oath, He would cease to be God.
7. God did this to convince us of the Covenant.
“Strong consolation” is actually to possess the court evidence of the agreement. More than that, these terms, “fled for refuge” and “hope set before us,” can be understood in two ways, either something yet ahead, or, more certainly, something in which we already live.
In the Holiest. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest INSIDE THIS AGE according to the order of Melchizedek.
8. In the beginning of our Christian walk, this Covenant, then, is set before us as a HOPE.
9. Yet the place of this Hope set for us is inside the Holy of Holies.
10. We enter into the full meaning towards which the Hope points us, that is, into the full experience of Covenant, as we ourselves enter the Holiest inside the workings and being of Jesus as our High Priest.
Hidden from View. There is far more in this passage than I ever imagined. It would take more than one session to lay out all the depths of meaning in these words. Indeed, we must return to this passage and investigate more deeply its parts as we explore the Holy of Holies in which we presently live.
One thing we see is how God establishes the immutability of His Covenant with us, while at the same time, hiding it from view to everyone except those determined to press through the darkness by which God surrounds Himself. God does not give Himself to those who are not ready to give themselves to the same extent to Him. He prevents them, not by hiding His word, but by not allowing them to see it.
Casting Ourselves upon the Oath. In a sense, we could say that God hides the Covenant in plain sight; dishonest hearts are oblivious to its meaning. Two things are required before we will see and enter in. First is the absolute conviction that we are and will be forever TOTAL FAILURES at pleasing or obeying God. And second is our absolute determination to live inside of Jesus regardless.
All who are “trying to enter” the Holiest are, by their very action, refusing to enter. God keeps them out because they imagine themselves to be capable of “connecting with God.” We imagine no such thing. Rather, we cast ourselves entirely upon the oath of God, that God through Christ connects Himself to us.
The Purpose of Jeremiah. In our study of a Legal Covenant, we must now turn to the statement of the Covenant.
My last reading through the Bible came to a halt about fifteen years ago in Jeremiah. I always got bogged down through Jeremiah. Recently, I determined with full excitement to return to my practice of reading through the Bible, thus I returned to Jeremiah and read the book in its entirety. My entire understanding of Jeremiah has done a complete flip. I now know God’s critical purpose through Jeremiah. You see, the book is awful. Through Jeremiah, God expressed His full emotional dislike for the Old Covenant.
Fleeing for Refuge. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Good one day, evil the next. Evil one day, good the next. The one who “chooses” to obey, by that very act, holds in his contract with God the right to “choose” to disobey. The most godly kings of Judah were the fathers of the most ungodly. We fleeeeeeeeee for refuge into a totally different way of living – our union with Christ.
We will speak of Jeremiah more as we proceed through these sessions, but here is the telling line. And at that day the slain of the Lord shall be from one end of the earth even to the other end of the earth (Jeremiah 25:38a). – the Day of Slaughter (Jesus called it Gehenna).
The Day of Slaughter. For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again (2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
The greatest slaughter in the history of the universe – a total massacre and annihilation – occurred upon the cross of Christ. For there – all died.
The cross was an absolute massacre, the sword of the Lord eliminating all found in the old creation, in heaven as well as earth. And it is in this setting of judgment, then, that God speaks the New Covenant.
The New Covenant
Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more (Hebrews 8:8-12 – from Jeremiah).
Only One Survived. Again, this “New Covenant” is a legal document, and thus we must pay close attention to the terms of this Covenant, that is – with whom is God entering into Covenant? WITH the House of Israel and WITH the House of Judah.
If One died for all, then all died. The slaughter of God upon the cross is complete. No one of the House of Israel or, more specifically, of the House of Judah remains alive. This is not a covenant “with the Jews,” for they are all dead.
Yet ONE person did rise from this Day of Slaughter, out from the carnage, one who did die, but whom God resurrected, one who is of the House of Judah and the House of Israel.
The New Creation. When we speak of the outflow of God in the New Creation or the ordering of things in the New Creation, we use the term, the Kingdom of God. But when we speak of the Covenant, we are using the term “the New Creation.”
The cross means that God entered into this Covenant with the only Person who survived the total massacre of the cross, who survived, not by escaping death, but by being raised from the dead. All Jews died upon the cross of Christ; there are no Jews in Christ. All Gentiles died upon the cross of Christ; there are no Gentiles in Christ. So as to create in Himself one new man from the two (Ephesians 2:15)
The Door. You can see all through Jeremiah the agony of God over the inability of “hear and obey” to bring forth life. Therefore God put all things to death. And then God entered into a Covenant with the One who alone arose out from that slaughter, alive unto God. You and I are inside this legally binding Covenant with God only as we live inside of Jesus and He inside of us. And thus we place Galatians 2:20 as our DOOR into the Covenant.
I AM crucified with Christ; nonetheless I live, but no longer I; it is Christ who lives in me – even more, the life I NOW live in the flesh exists only inside the faith of the Son of God, this One who loves me, this One who trades Himself for me.
Covenant Hearts. The prophesy of the New Covenant that God spoke through Jeremiah, however, requires that we place one more line into this legal view of the Covenant.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). – Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart (1 Corinthians 3:3).
Christ in us, written upon our hearts, is the Covenant.
Giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance (Colossians 1:12).