#DailyDevotion Jesus Is The Mediator Of The New Covenant
Hebrews 9:15 15And He is the Mediator of a new testament (covenant]. By dying He paid the ransom to free people from the sins under the first covenant, and those who are called are to receive the everlasting inheritance promised them.
Jesus is the mediator of a new testament. The old covenant was the one the LORD made with Israel on Mt. Sinai. The old covenant had the ten commandments, other moral laws, civil laws, dietary laws, ritual laws and the like. Jesus in the shedding of his blood paid the ransom to free people from the sins under the first covenant. There is no forgiveness without the shedding of blood. The blood of bulls and goats could not truly atone for the sins of the people because they were not equal to people. Man’s blood had to be shed. But if Jesus were only man, even perfect man, his blood could only atone for maybe one other person’s sins. Jesus being the only-begotten son of the Father adds the weight of his divinity to his sacrifice so the sins of all people, of all times and places, has been atoned for.
In the shedding of his blood Jesus institutes a new covenant/testament. The old is abrogated, set aside. It has been fulfilled by Christ Jesus. Jesus in instituting the LORD’s Supper tells us, “This is the blood of the new covenant, shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.” In calling it a new covenant Jesus invokes the promise of the prophet Jeremiah in chapter 31, 31“The time will come when I will make a new covenant with Israel and Judah. 32It will not be like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by their hand to lead them out of Egypt — My covenant that they broke although I was their Husband.. But this is the covenant I will make with Israel after those days. I will put My law within them and write it on their hearts, and so I will be their God, and they will be My people. 34 And no more will anyone have to teach his neighbor or his brother, and say, Know the LORD,’ because they will all know Me, from the least to the greatest of them says the LORD, because I will forgive the wrong they did and not remember their sins anymore.”
In this new covenant which fulfills and supplants the old covenant we know the LORD. We know the LORD because we are given faith to believe he has forgiven our sins and remembers them no more. When we are baptized into Christ and he gives us his Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit writes his Torah(instructions) on our hearts. When we are baptized into Jesus’ name we become God’s Israel as Israel become God’s Israel as they passed through the waters of the Red Sea. Here God claims us as his own people and makes himself our God. Here is this covenant Jesus makes with us we receive the everlasting promise he made with us, forgiveness of sins, eternal life, a new heavens and a new earth, the resurrection of our bodies and the inheritance of the kingdom of God.
So rejoice in this new covenant/testament Christ Jesus has made with his blood. Don’t allow yourselves to be enslaved again under the old covenant. You do not belong or are subject to it any longer. The eternal one has shed his blood and made a new covenant with you, to forgive your sins, to be your God, to give you the Holy Spirit and give you everlasting life in his name.
Merciful God and Father, give us faith to believe by the shedding of his blood, your son Jesus Christ instituted a new covenant in which you have forgiven us our sins, made us your people, and given us your Holy Spirit so we may please to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.