Scripture Reading: Isa. 42:6; 49:8; 55:1-13; Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12
Ⅰ
In Greek the same word is used for both covenant and testament:
A
A covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a covenant, and when he has died, it is a testament; a testament in today's terms is a will.
B
A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, while a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things that are bequeathed to the inheritor—Heb. 9:16-17; cf. Deut. 11:29; 28:1, 15; Jer. 31:31-32.
Ⅱ
The old covenant, the law, is the testimony of God, the portrait of God, showing us who God is and exposing man, subduing man, and conducting God's chosen ones to Christ—Psa. 78:5; 119:88b; Gen. 1:26; Rom. 3:19-20; Gal. 3:23-25; John 10:9-10.
Ⅲ
The old covenant of the law is the portrait of God, but the new covenant of grace is the person of God—1:16-17:
A
The law makes demands upon man according to what God is; grace supplies man with what God is to meet what God demands—1 Cor. 15:10.
B
When we believe into Christ, the person of this portrait comes into us, and He fulfills in us the righteous requirements of the law as we walk according to the spirit and set our mind on the spirit—Ezek. 36:26-27; Rom. 8:2, 4, 6, 10.
C
In the new covenant God puts Himself into His chosen people as their life, and this life is a law, a spontaneous power and an automatic principle—Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:2.
D
In essence this law is God in Christ as the Spirit, and in function it has the capacity to deify us and to constitute us the members of the Body of Christ with all kinds of func-tions—vv. 10, 6, 11, 28-29.
Ⅳ
Christ Himself is the new covenant, the new testament, of life given to us by God—Isa. 42:6; 49:8; Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:8-12:
A
Through His death Christ fulfilled the demands of God's righteousness according to His law and enacted the new covenant (Rom. 6:23; 3:21; 10:3-4; Luke 22:20; Heb. 9:16-17), and in His resurrection He became the new covenant with all its bequests (1 Cor. 15:45b; Isa. 42:6; Phil. 1:19).
B
In His ascension Christ opened the scroll of the new covenant concerning God's econ-omy, and in His heavenly ministry He is carrying out its contents—Rev. 5:1-5.
C
As the Lion of the tribe of Judah, Christ overcame and defeated Satan; as the redeeming Lamb, Christ took away the sin of fallen man; and as the seven Spirits, Christ infuses us with Himself as the contents of the scroll of the new covenant—vv. 5-6.
D
God's salvation, God's blessings, and all of God's riches have been covenanted to us, and this covenant is Christ:
１
The reality of all the hundreds of bequests in the New Testament is Christ—Gen. 22:18a; Gal. 3:14; 1 Cor. 1:30; 15:45b; Eph. 1:3.
２
Christ is the reality of the new testament, the reality of all that God is and of all that God has given to us; therefore, Christ is the new testament.
３
The bequests are many, but all these many bequests are actually one person—the pneumatic Christ; God has willed Himself in Christ as the Spirit to us—John 20:22; Eph. 3:8.
４
The bequests bequeathed to us by the Lord in the new testament are inexhaustible, and they are for us to experience and enjoy through the Spirit for eternity—Heb. 9:15.
Ⅴ
Our spirit is the "bank account" of all the bequests of the new covenant; by the law of the Spirit of life, all these bequests are dispensed into us and made real to us—Rom. 8:2, 10, 6, 11, 16; Heb. 8:10; John 16:13:
A
In our spirit we have the presence of God, the speaking of God, the meeting with God, and the dispensing of God through His operation as the law of the divine life to impart and inscribe Himself into all our inward parts—Heb. 8:10.
B
The Lord makes His covenant known to those who fear Him, and He dispenses Himself as the unsearchable reality of His covenant into those who love Him—Psa. 25:14; Isa. 11:2-3a; 1 Cor. 2:9.
C
Christ as the new covenant is our portion, our cup of salvation and our cup of blessing; we can drink Him as our salvation and blessing by calling upon His precious name— Luke 22:20; Psa. 16:5; 23:5; 116:13; 1 Cor. 10:16a.
D
Christ is the pneumatic Executor, Mediator, of the new covenant in our spirit; as the Executor, He makes every bequest of His will available and real as we receive the word of His will by means of all prayer—Heb. 8:6; 1 John 5:6.
E
As the surety of the new covenant, Christ is the pledge that everything in the new covenant will be fulfilled; He guarantees and ensures the effectiveness of the new testa-ment—Heb. 7:22.
F
As the divine High Priest, Christ is executing the new covenant by interceding for us, praying that we would be brought into the reality of the new covenant—v. 25; Rom. 8:34, 26.
G
As the Minister of the holy places, Christ is serving us with the bequests, the blessings, of the new testament, making the facts of the new covenant effective in our experience—Heb. 8:2.
H
In order to receive the application of all the blessings in the new covenant, we need to be those who respond to Christ's heavenly ministry by entering into His intercession for the churches and His ministering God into others—Gen. 14:18-20; Heb. 7:25; 8:2; Acts 6:4.
Ⅵ
Isaiah 55 reveals the resurrected Christ as God's sure mercies shown to David—v. 3:
A
In Acts 13:34 Paul interprets the sure mercies as "the holy things of David, the faithful things," and in verses 33 and 35 he indicates that these things are the resurrected Christ Himself as the firstborn Son of God and as the Holy One.
B
This is also confirmed by Isaiah 55:4, which reveals that the sure mercies are Christ Himself as the Witness, Leader, and Commander to the peoples.
C
The resurrected Christ as the seed of David (Rom. 1:3-4) is God's sure mercies shown to David through his descendant Mary, the mother of Christ (Matt. 1:16), for the dispens-ing of Christ into all His believers (1 Cor. 15:45b).
D
He is the mercies and blessings, the holy and faithful things, that God gives to us as a great gift, the eternal covenant with all His unsearchable riches, to be our all-inclusive grace—Isa. 42:6b; 1 Cor. 1:9; cf. Acts 13:34.
Ⅶ
Isaiah 55 reveals the way to enjoy the resurrected Christ as God's sure mercies:
A
"Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters, / And you who have no money; / Come, buy and eat; / Yes, come, buy wine and milk / Without money and without price. / Why do you spend money for what is not bread, / And the result of your labor for what does not satisfy? / Hear Me attentively, and eat what is good, / And let your soul delight itself in fatness. / Incline your ear and come to Me; / Hear, so that your soul may live; / And I will make an eternal covenant with you, / Even the sure mercies shown to David"—vv. 1-3:
１
God's way and God's thought are that we would come to Him, ask Him for, and drink of Him as the living water, the reality of the eternal covenant and the sure mercies shown to David—v. 1; cf. John 4:10, 14; Rev. 22:17.
２
The evil condition of the wicked is that they do not come to the Lord to eat and enjoy the Lord; they do many things, but they do not come to contact the Lord, to take Him, to receive Him, to taste Him, and to enjoy Him; in the sight of God nothing is more evil than this—Jer. 2:13; Isa. 55:7; 57:20.
３
We need to pay the price to be satisfied with Him as the life-giving waters, the sup-plying bread, the vivifying wine, and the purifying milk by giving ourselves to the Lord and allowing Him to open our ears to hear His voice—55:1-3; John 6:57; Matt. 9:17; 1 Pet. 2:2; Rev. 3:16-20.
４
Then our soul will be filled with the compound Spirit as the oil of exultant joy, with the resurrected Christ as the living One—Heb. 1:9; Rev. 1:18; Isa. 55:2.
B
"Indeed, I have given Him as a Witness to the peoples, / A Leader and a Commander to the peoples. / Indeed, you will call a nation that you do not know, / And a nation that does not know you will run to you, / Because of Jehovah your God, even the Holy One of Israel, / For He has glorified you"—vv. 4-5:
１
We need to exalt Him in our inward being as God's faithful Witness and the Head of the Body so that He may head up the fallen universe, the universal "heap of col-lapse"—Rev. 1:5; Acts 1:8; Eph. 1:10, 22-23.
２
We need to ask the Lord to draw us so that we and many others will run after Him as the greatest attraction in the universe—Isa. 55:5; S. S. 1:4; cf. Luke 15:20; Heb. 12:1-2.
C
"Seek Jehovah while He may be found; / Call upon Him while He is near. / Let the wicked forsake his way, / And the evildoer, his thoughts; / And let him return to Jehovah, and He will have compassion on him; / And to our God, for He will pardon abundantly"— Isa. 55:6-7:
１
We need to seek Him and call upon Him—v. 6; Phil. 3:13-14.
２
We need to forsake our way and our thoughts and return to Him so that we can enjoy His compassion and His boundless and multifarious forgiveness—Isa. 55:7; 2 Cor. 3:16; 4:4; Rom. 9:23; 1 John 1:7, 9.
D
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, / And your ways are not My ways, declares Jehovah. / For as the heavens are higher than the earth, / So My ways are higher than your ways, / And My thoughts higher than your thoughts. / For just as the rain comes down / And the snow from heaven, / And does not return there, / Until it waters the earth / And makes it bear and sprout forth, / That it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; / So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; / It will not return to Me vainly, / But it will accomplish what I delight in, / And it will prosper in the matter to which I have sent it"—Isa. 55:8-11:
１
We need to enjoy His word as the rain and the snow in order to be watered and saturated with His heavenly thoughts and ways for our sanctification, transformation, and conformation to His image so that the Body of Christ may be built up to con-summate the New Jerusalem—Eph. 5:26-27.
２
Our being saturated with God's word is so that we may live and grow Christ in order to sow Christ as the propagating seed and minister Christ as the living bread— Mark 4:3, 14; 1 Cor. 3:2a; Matt. 24:45-47.
E
"For you will go out with rejoicing, / And you will be led forth in peace; / The mountains and the hills / Will break forth before you with a ringing shout, / And all the trees of the field will clap their hands. / In place of the thornbush, the fir tree will come up; / In place of the brier, the myrtle will come up; / And it will be to Jehovah as a name, / As an eternal sign that will not be cut off"—Isa. 55:12-13:
１
Our fullest enjoyment of Christ as God's sure mercies will become a name to Jehovah for His universal renown to the praise of the glory of His grace—Ezek. 34:29-31; Rev. 3:12; Eph. 1:6.
２
Our fullest enjoyment of Christ as God's sure mercies will become an eternal sign, an eternal memorial, for His universal exaltation and preeminence—Exo. 13:4-9; 16:33; Matt. 26:13.