God made a covenant with a nation and a people. Since there was no one greater to swear by,
He swore by Himself. He called heaven
and earth to witness this covenant. They
were to stand as permanent partners with Him in something He initiated that
would unfold over time. He also
appointed them as signposts and examples of His faithfulness and
intention. As long as they remained,
they were the reminders and the “persons in interest”, also standing to inherit
something when the covenant was fulfilled.
At the Passover Supper, Jesus ratified the covenant God made
with Abraham and the prophets of old. He
acknowledged the legitimacy of the covenant; took the general promise and made
it personal. Jesus ratified the covenant, not the law. To ratify a
contract, you approve of it. The party
ratifying the contract does not necessarily have any personal obligation to do
so. It is a voluntary binding of oneself
to the agreement as previously drawn up.
The accepting party takes personal responsibility for fulfilling the terms. In doing so, he accepts the liabilities and
the benefits of the contract in totality, as the agent upon whose fulfillment
those conditions now rest.
Jesus, as the God-man,
willing to be the sacrificial lamb, initiated a New Covenant in His blood. In the shedding of His blood, He gave formal
consent to the covenant, making it officially valid through His life; through
His sacrifice. Jesus died, releasing the
promises of the last will and testament, making the promises readily available.
It took God to give God what he needed,
to release what He promised. As we enter
communion and drink the cup of the New Covenant in His blood we, as
beneficiaries but also participants, have the opportunity to continue the work.
Salvation is not a static event. It is not something that happened to us when
we accepted Jesus. It is an ongoing
process; an organic experience we enter, that joins us to the covenant. It allows us communion with the Father’s
heart through our relationship with His Son by the power of the Holy Spirit.
At the Passover Supper, in this place of communion, Jesus
said, “This is My blood of the New Covenant, which (ratifies the agreement and)
is being poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. His blood was his signature. It was in the forgiveness of sins, that the
possibility of Abraham’s promise of being the father of nations could be
fulfilled. How can Abraham be the Father
of Gentile nations except that they recognize His paternity and the link to the
covenant and allow themselves to be grafted into those promises? The grafted in ones need to allow the life
flow of the promises inherent in the covenant, to bring understanding of the
Jewishness of scripture. We do not
become Jewish, but we become AS them, sharing in inheritance, but only if we
remain vitally linked. We must also personally
choose to ratify the covenant, giving it formal consent, making it officially
valid by our voluntary participation in the ongoing story.
As we are linked, we can ask what our part is in the living
drama. We then have the opportunity to
shape history, just like Jesus did, by making our connection personal. What does AS mean to me and for me? And…what must I do? A salvation experience, apart from recognition of the
covenant and an acceptance of the responsibility that goes along with it, is
incomplete.
Evangelists need to know that there are scriptures that talk
about God beckoning to the Gentile nations and calling them to carry His sons
in the bosom of their garments and their daughters on their shoulders. They need to know the scriptures that Gentile
kings will be their foster fathers and queens their nursing mothers. That is
part of why we evangelize; to bring understanding to a culture, so that we will
be rightly positioned to step into history and take our place in the big
picture.
Teachers need to know the
scriptures about Zion and Jerusalem so that we can bring understanding of what
the Bible has in mind when there are 800 references to Jerusalem.
Pastors need to have some inkling of what the
big picture looks like, so that there is something to connect individual
salvation to for the future. This will
then give meaning for living and something worth dying for.
Prophets need to see where we are going; the
scope of the ultimate intention of God, so they can rightly interpret the times
and seasons.
Apostles need to weave a
true kingdom picture, with a Jewish King, into every work they are called to
establish. This will give the framework
for an end time move of God where the participants have been prepared ahead of
time to recognize where God is going and what He is doing. This will also allow maximum facilitation for
what He wants to do. When we see the big picture we can position ourselves to work with Him in the ongoing drama.
