Jesus: The Greater Mediator

The Old Covenant

The writer of Hebrews has been walking through the very foundational moments of the Hebrews faith and systematically pointing to Christ as the greater fulfillment or the greater reason for each aspect of their faith. He has shown that the regulations and rituals that were given to the Israelites to serve as reminders were reminders that foretold of Jesus.

In this systematic journey through the very inception of the nation, the writer comes to the Old Covenant and Moses ratifying this covenant with the people of God.

Exodus 24:3–8 NIV

When Moses went and told the people all the Lord’s words and laws, they responded with one voice, “Everything the Lord has said we will do.” Moses then wrote down everything the Lord had said. He got up early the next morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain and set up twelve stone pillars representing the twelve tribes of Israel. Then he sent young Israelite men, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as fellowship offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in bowls, and the other half he splashed against the altar. Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it to the people. They responded, “We will do everything the Lord has said; we will obey.” Moses then took the blood, sprinkled it on the people and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words.”

In , Moses, led by the instruction of the Lord, ascends Mount Sinai and is up on the top of the mountain for 40 days and nights speaking with the Lord. He is up there receiving the Law and the instructions for the people. So Moses reads this law () to the people in its entirety and the people sit and they make a covenant between themselves and God. Moses serves as the mediator of this covenant.

In preparation for the sealing of this covenant, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings were made and the blood of these offerings was gathered. Then after Moses had read the Book of the Covenant, the people responded with an oath of obedience to the keep the commands. Then Moses sealed the covenant between God and His people by splashing half of the blood on the altar and the other half, he sprinkled on the people. In the sealing of the covenant in this blood, the oath was made that if either party was unfaithful to their end of the covenant, may their fate be that of the sacrificed animals.

We know that the rest of Israel’s history is a chronicling of their failure to keep this covenant, one generation after the next. The futility of it all is that there was no hope of keeping man’s end of the agreement under man’s own strength. It was a load greater than our strength could overcome on our own.

Even Moses himself could not keep the law in its fullest. His life becomes a picture of what our lives are destined to, to be on the outside looking in. To see the beauty of God’s promise but to never truly sit in it, to experience it.

Jesus the Greater Mediator

Hebrews 9:15–17 NIV

For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. In the case of a will, it is necessary to prove the death of the one who made it, because a will is in force only when somebody has died; it never takes effect while the one who made it is living.

With the backdrop of the Old Covenant and Moses as the mediator of the people between them and the Lord, the writer of Hebrews comes to Jesus and states that He is the mediator of a new covenant. Jesus comes with a covenant that has already been completed. While the Old Covenant was sealed by the blood of animals to covenant between God and man that if either were to fail to uphold their end that they would end up in the same fate, the New Covenant is sealed in Christ’s blood which has already paid the price.

The writer points to this new covenant to be more like a will, an inheritance that is received as a result of the death of another. We are inheritors of the will and Jesus is both the testator and executor of the will. Jesus is the testator because it required his death to enact the inheritance, but he is also the executor for it is through his risen self that the inheritance has worth and value.

You see the old covenant was a covenant between man and God sealed by the death of animals. The new covenant is between God and Christ sealed in Jesus’ blood. Moses mediated between the people and God on a ground of obedience. Jesus mediates between man and God upon the grounds of his obedience, death and resurrection. Our deeds, both the triumphs and failures, are not even taken into account.

Sealed in Blood

Hebrews

Hebrews 9:18–21 NIV

This is why even the first covenant was not put into effect without blood. When Moses had proclaimed every command of the law to all the people, he took the blood of calves, together with water, scarlet wool and branches of hyssop, and sprinkled the scroll and all the people. He said, “This is the blood of the covenant, which God has commanded you to keep.” In the same way, he sprinkled with the blood both the tabernacle and everything used in its ceremonies.

The sealing of blood of the old covenant was a weight or burden that the Israelites bore. They now were bound to a covenant by the blood of sealing.

Their lives would be defined by their fruitless pursuit of upholding this law. They truly became slaves.

I believe that the Lord ushered in the old covenant for two reasons: First to show the nation of Israel who He was through His faithfulness to love them and show them mercy in spite of their inability to keep the covenant. Secondly to show their hearts that there is a far worse slavery than that of physical slavery.

Being a slave to sin and our shortcomings is an eternal slavery.

Forgiven

Hebrews 9:22 NIV

In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

With the understanding of our eternal slavery to sin, this verse holds with it life giving, life altering impact and power. We have a savior who has shed his blood for us. There can truly be the forgiveness of sin because our savior has shed his blood.

The reason for the shedding though goes back to verse 14.

Hebrews 9:14 NIV

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

We have been set free to serve the living God, to make much of his name.

He has set us free to worship him and trust him in the midst of fear and panic. He has set us free to serve him and meet the needs of those around us. He has set us free to point others toward him and the promise, the inheritance that he has given to us.