THE NEW COVENANT : NEW LIFE!
I have quoted Isaiah 42:6 previously to draw attention to the fact of our Lord Jesus being revealed by Isaiah as the covenant person.
E. J. Young, commenting on that same passage says this:
“The language is striking, for the servant is actually identified as a covenant. A covenant, however, in this instance is not a pact or agreement between two equal parties. From the parallel word light (i.e. salvation), we learn that it is actually a divine bestowal of Grace. God sovereignly bestows to man His blessings of salvation and it is this sovereign dispensation that is called a covenant.
That the servant is identified with the covenant of course involves the idea of his being the one through whom the covenant is mediated, but the expression implies more. In form it is similar to our Lord’s “I am the resurrection and the life,” or the phrase in 49:6, “to be my salvation.””
These next words are vitally important for us to understand:
“To say that the servant is a covenant is to say that all the blessings of the covenant have their root and origin in, and are dispensed by him. … “
We know that Moses was the mediator of a covenant between God and Israel, but the prophet Isaiah is telling us that the servant (Jesus Christ) is the covenant, the New Covenant promised in Isaiah 49:6,8; 31:31ff.
As Young says,
“In New Testament terms, this means that they to whom God sovereignly bestows the grace of salvation receive the servant Himself.”
Whilst, I dare say, a majority of those claiming to be Christians, are filling their lives and their time with the busy-ness of the demands of traditional ideas of church, trying, but failing miserably at keeping the commandments ( don't you dare tell fibs and claim you don't break at least one every day), attending meetings,putting money in the plate,doing all the rote things expected of them and expressed by pulpits all over the world, which according to a couple we spoke with, “pleases God”, some, at least, are resting in what God has done in His precious Son completed on Calvary, and in whom His pleasure is absolute!
That's the context of what Paul is saying to the Colossian Christians:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This is what the New Covenant is all about! Paul knew from his own experience of law based attempts at living a righteous, works oriented life, that failure to please God was the only way for normal human beings. The nation Israel had the same experience, because“the mystery hidden for ages and generations” was a still a mystery until God fulfilled the promise made in Isaiah 42:6:
“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you;I will give you as a covenant for the people,a light for the nations,to open the eyes that are blind,to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,from the prison those who sit in darkness.”
It was not until the New Covenant was inaugurated by the finished work of Christ on Calvary that the latter part of that promise was fulfilled. That's why Jesus could exclaim, “It is finished”!
If you and I had to depend on how well we carried out the duties which have been traditionally demanded from the pulpits of traditionalism since Constantine's day, not one human being would see Christ on His throne, because traditionalism relegates Christ to the level of an entrance ticket to heaven, after a lifetime of the hard yards of rule keeping.
In reality His finished work as the New Covenant Person means that He is the absolute, and only means of new life; He IS the New Covenant complete in all of the majesty of a God who put aside His own glory to become the man, Jesus Christ, our Covenant Person.
No wonder Paul told those who had believed the truth of the Gospel in repentance and faith, have had revealed to them “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
E. J. Young, commenting on that same passage says this:
“The language is striking, for the servant is actually identified as a covenant. A covenant, however, in this instance is not a pact or agreement between two equal parties. From the parallel word light (i.e. salvation), we learn that it is actually a divine bestowal of Grace. God sovereignly bestows to man His blessings of salvation and it is this sovereign dispensation that is called a covenant.
That the servant is identified with the covenant of course involves the idea of his being the one through whom the covenant is mediated, but the expression implies more. In form it is similar to our Lord’s “I am the resurrection and the life,” or the phrase in 49:6, “to be my salvation.””
These next words are vitally important for us to understand:
“To say that the servant is a covenant is to say that all the blessings of the covenant have their root and origin in, and are dispensed by him. … “
We know that Moses was the mediator of a covenant between God and Israel, but the prophet Isaiah is telling us that the servant (Jesus Christ) is the covenant, the New Covenant promised in Isaiah 49:6,8; 31:31ff.
As Young says,
“In New Testament terms, this means that they to whom God sovereignly bestows the grace of salvation receive the servant Himself.”
Whilst, I dare say, a majority of those claiming to be Christians, are filling their lives and their time with the busy-ness of the demands of traditional ideas of church, trying, but failing miserably at keeping the commandments ( don't you dare tell fibs and claim you don't break at least one every day), attending meetings,putting money in the plate,doing all the rote things expected of them and expressed by pulpits all over the world, which according to a couple we spoke with, “pleases God”, some, at least, are resting in what God has done in His precious Son completed on Calvary, and in whom His pleasure is absolute!
That's the context of what Paul is saying to the Colossian Christians:
Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints.
To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
This is what the New Covenant is all about! Paul knew from his own experience of law based attempts at living a righteous, works oriented life, that failure to please God was the only way for normal human beings. The nation Israel had the same experience, because“the mystery hidden for ages and generations” was a still a mystery until God fulfilled the promise made in Isaiah 42:6:
“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you;I will give you as a covenant for the people,a light for the nations,to open the eyes that are blind,to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon,from the prison those who sit in darkness.”
It was not until the New Covenant was inaugurated by the finished work of Christ on Calvary that the latter part of that promise was fulfilled. That's why Jesus could exclaim, “It is finished”!
If you and I had to depend on how well we carried out the duties which have been traditionally demanded from the pulpits of traditionalism since Constantine's day, not one human being would see Christ on His throne, because traditionalism relegates Christ to the level of an entrance ticket to heaven, after a lifetime of the hard yards of rule keeping.
In reality His finished work as the New Covenant Person means that He is the absolute, and only means of new life; He IS the New Covenant complete in all of the majesty of a God who put aside His own glory to become the man, Jesus Christ, our Covenant Person.
No wonder Paul told those who had believed the truth of the Gospel in repentance and faith, have had revealed to them “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
