And there will be war between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed:by him will your head be crushed and by you his foot will be wounded. Gen 3:15
In my last installment I talked about all the covenants between God and man. Frankly, with so many covenant seemingly succeeding each other, a question pops up in the mind:
Will this be the last one?
Let me give you a fast and quick answer to that.
In many ways and by many means God spoke in ancient times to our ancestors in the prophets; but at the end of these days he spoke to us in the son. Heb 1:1-2
Well, this seems to be an answer – at the end of days he speaks through his son. But then – what is the end of days? The writer of Hebrews here talks about the end of the days of the old covenant, by which we mean the covenant with Moses. This verse on its own only means that Jesus as son of God succeeded the prophets.
The parable that Jesus uses about the vineyard in Luke 20 tells us that God tried to work through husbandmen and at the end through his son, changing all of rulership after they even killed his son. No other try after sending his son, no other treaty or contract, no other attempt, but a totally different system of dominion.
This has been prophesied right from the get go, as we see in our verse of the day: the seed of the woman will crush the serpents head after the serpent wounded his foot. Abraham was told that his seed would bless the whole world, and Paul tells us that God was not speaking of many seeds, but one: Jesus Christ. The same seed is talked about here. Jesus crushed the enemies head at the cross, in dying after being wounded by the enemy.
There are countless prophecies pointing to Christ. An interesting one I have written about earlier, using the names of the first generations of mankind:
Man is appointed to be mortal and sorrowful. But the merciful Lord will descend, dedicated that His death shall bring the desparing comfort.
Nothing has been prophesied to supersede the death of Christ. As a matter of fact, the bible tells us that no other sacrifice will ever be necessary:
It was right for us to have such a high priest, one who is holy and without evil, doing no wrong, having no part with sinners, and made higher than the heavens: Who has no need to make offerings for sins every day, like those high priests, first for himself, and then for the people; because he did this once and for ever when he made an offering of himself. Heb 7:26-27
Ok then. We learn in the covenant with Abraham, that a sacrifice is necessary to cut such a covenant. It is the sign of acceptance as well as instantiation of the covenant and a witness to both us and God. In all previous covenants that required such a sign, man had to provide the sacrifice, and God consumed it. In the new covenant, God became man to provide the sacrificial lamb himself.
God goes from glory to glory. And Jesus tells us that nobody that puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom. From that we learn the God does not look back and re-instantiate a former glory, a lesser glory. God therefore will not – and forgive the language – regurgitate a former covenant.
What do I mean by that? I told you that all former covenants still hold true, as none of them has been taken back by God, yet on a higher level. We do not have to obey the law any longer, it has become our desire as spirit led people to keep it so the relationship between us and God is not tainted. But never will God go back and make one of the older covenants the most prevalent. Never will he go back and use repeated animal offerings as the means of salvation. Never reuse the insignia and the priestly order of the former.
Thus, no former covenant will overtake the new covenant in significance. But could there still be a new one?
God decided that there is but one way to the Father, and that is Jesus Christ.
Jesus said to him, I am the true and living way:no one comes to the Father but by me. John 14:6
If there were to be yet another covenant, that would render Jesus a liar. Jesus will never be replaced as high priest nor will God go back to the shadows if he can show us the real thing.
No place for a temple with animal sacrifices under a levitical priesthood as God’s plan for salvation then. Just as a side note.
Of course there still could be a covenant that is not about restoration between us and God, nor our way of worship, or even the insignia of the covenant and its priesthood in the order of Melchizedek. What could such a covenant be about?
Abraham’s covenant was about land and people. Adam’s and David’s covenant about dominion. Noah’s about destruction. Just some ideas for such a covenant.
Yet, in Christ we have all authority in heaven and earth. We are heirs together with him – not of part of it, but of it all, as we are now come into the company of firstborns. The inheritance is not divided between the firstborn, getting twice as much, and all the rest. We are all firstborns, thus we all get everything.
And Jesus at the cross exclaimed: it is finished. All is accomplished. Nothing left to do, just waiting to be believed and lived out. The finished work.
So what is left to be promised to us? Nothing.
What is left to be done? Believe in the finished work of Jesus and walk into it. No need for yet another covenant.
Let’s enjoy this covenant fully. Do you?