Additional Note: Covenant And Mediation
VII. CONCLUSION
There does not seem to be any necessary connection between covenant and substitution, unless the death of the victim, which formed a necessary part of the covenant-making process, is regarded as the symbolical death of the partners. This is possible, and, as we have seen, is adopted, for example, by Westcott. But we accept as more probable the idea that the death of the victim is a symbolic calling down of a curse on the one who breaks the covenant. Regarded in this way a covenant is a very solemn agreement between two partners which involves obligations and blessings, though in the case of any given covenant these may be one-sided. But there is no reason for associating substitution with such a covenant any more than with any other form of compact.
But though, in general, covenant may not be held to involve a process of substitution, it is quite possible that any given covenant may include a substitutionary aspect. Thus a number of commentators think there is a process of substitution involved in the incident related in Exodus 24, either from the point of view of the victim being thought of as a substitute for the partners in the blood-brotherhood, or as an atoning sacrifice substituting for the sinners.
In the New Testament there is a necessary connection between the death of Christ and the establishing of the covenant. Into his discussion of the new covenant the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews inserts, ‘for where a διαθήχη) is, there must of necessity be the death of him that made it’, and this agrees with the general line of New Testament teaching on the subject. Although it does not often come to the surface, yet it seems to be understood by all that there was a necessity in the death of Christ. Had He not died there would have been, there could have been, no new covenant. This is expressed at least in part by the use of διαθήχη to denote the new covenant for, as we have seen, the word was in general use for a will, and it would normally conjure up thoughts of death in men’s minds. Even when it is the thought of covenant rather than will that is in mind the other meaning of the word must have been present to give the expression an unusual flavour. ‘A Hellenist like the auctor ad Hebraeos, or even a Jew like Paul, with Greek language in the very fibre of his thought, could never have used δ. for covenant without the slightest consciousness of its ordinary and invariable contemporary meaning.‘201
This is implied, too, in the passages which associate forgiveness with the covenant. As we have seen, this is a common New Testament conception, and it is also common in the New Testament that the death of Christ is associated with our forgiveness. It will not be seriously disputed that the New Testament writers conceived of the death of Christ as necessary to the forgiveness of sin, so that where they speak of this forgiveness as an essential element in the new covenant they clearly make the death of the Lord integral to the process, and not merely something incidental.
The same thing follows from the fact that the new covenant is modelled on that of Exodus 24. Whatever may be said about covenants in general it cannot be denied that the blood of the victim was necessary in that rite. If the new covenant is derived from the old, it may well be argued that the death of Christ is a necessary part of the process accordingly. The same, too, would follow from the repeated references to ‘the blood of the covenant’, for, as we shall see in the next chapter, blood in the Scripture must be understood of the infliction of death. The fact that the blood of the covenant is met with on several occasions shows that it was not regarded as a non-essential but as a very important part of the process.
If we hold to the view that the essence of sacrifice was seen in vicarious punishment in New Testament times,202 then such considerations as these will impel us to believe that the establishment of the new covenant required the death of Him that established it as a substitute for the death of sinners. But this aspect is not stressed in the covenant terminology, for there the dominant idea is the new relationship between God and those who become the people of God.
Thus we may say that the use of the term covenant to describe the work of Christ reminds us that because of His death there has come into being the people of God, bound to Him by especially close ties. Looking backward this emphasizes forgiveness, for only those who are cleansed from sin may fittingly be termed God’s people, and this explains the stress laid on forgiveness in connection with covenant. Looking forward it emphasizes newness of living, for God’s people must be God’s people.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: COVENANT AND MEDIATION
It will be convenient to add here a few words about the subject of mediation, since Jesus is said to have been ‘the mediator’ of a new or better covenant three times, and ‘the surety’ for it once.203
If we may begin with this latter term, the Greek word used is ἒγγυος, which seems to be derived from an old word for ‘hand’ and thus signifies ‘in the hand’. It conveys the idea of guarantee, for what is in the hand is assured. The word according to MM is common in legal documents in the sense of surety, guarantor. When we read, then, that Jesus has become ‘the surety of a better covenant’ (Heb. 7: 22) the idea is that Jesus guarantees the new relationship. He has brought it about by His own action, and now nothing less than His Person assures us that the new relationship is valid.
The other term, μεσίτης, signifies etymologically ‘one who stands in the midst’, and it is used of an arbitrator or of a peace-maker. A. Oepke distinguishes three senses: ‘I. The neutral, or trusted person (arbitrator or peace-negotiator), 2. The mediator in a general spatial sense, 3. The reconciler, negotiator in the sense of the restoration of a relationship which otherwise would >not be in existence’.204 He finds the first of these meanings in the Epistle to the Hebrews and the third in other parts of the New Testament, while the second is lacking in these writings. MM similarly find the word used often in the papyri for arbiter, also for intermediary and for surety.
Of the New Testament occurrences of the term, those in Galatians 3 : 19f. are of importance, although they do not refer to the new covenant, because they show what was understood by the term. Paul says the law ‘was ordained through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator is not of one; but God is one’. The first mediator is clearly Moses, and the sort of activity engaged in by this patriarch at the time of the establishing of the first covenant is mediatorship. Then comes the principle, ‘a mediator is not of one’, which is to say that the very presence of a mediator implies the existence of two parties; there could be no mediator if only one party were concerned. In Westcott’s words: ‘A covenant generally, and obviously a covenant between God and man, requires a mediator, one who standing between the contracting parties shall bring them duly into fellowship.‘205
In the Epistle to the Hebrews there are three passages which fall to be considered: ‘But now hath he obtained a ministry the more excellent, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which hath been enacted upon better promises’ (Heb. 8: 6); ‘And for this cause he is the mediator of a new covenant, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first covenant, they that have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance’ (Heb. 9: 15) ; (ye are come) ‘to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaketh better than Abel’ (Heb. 12: 24). All three passages speak of the blessings that accrue to those in the new covenant, and the latter two explicitly mention the death of the Lord, by which the covenant was brought about. The mediatorial activity seems to consist in that death which established the covenant and thus brought God and man together. Moffatt thinks that μεσίτης in these passages ‘is practically ... a synonym for ἒγγυος’,206 but this hardly seems warranted. It is better (with Westcott) to regard each word as retaining its own meaning, the establishing of the covenant being in mind in these passages and the guaranteeing of it in Hebrews 7: 22.
The idea of mediation, then, brings us the two thoughts that the new covenant is expressly guaranteed by Christ Himself, and that it is His activity which establishes the covenant. Both thoughts drive us back to the characteristic biblical position that our salvation is all of God, for it is all of Christ.
‘For there is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all’ (I Tim. 2: 5f.).