Abide
In Christ by Andrew Murray
Day
30
As
the Surety of the Covenant
“Jesus
has become a surety of a better covenant.” (Heb. 7:22)
Scripture
speaks of the old covenant as not being faultless, and God complains
that Israel had not continued in it; and so He did not regard them
(Heb. 8: 7-9). It had not secured its apparent object, in uniting
Israel and God: Israel had forsaken Him, and He had not regarded
Israel. Therefore God promised to make a New Covenant, free from the
faults of the first, and effective to achieve its purpose. If it were
to accomplish its end, it would need to secure God's faithfulness to
His people, and His people's faithfulness to God. And the terms of
the New Covenant expressly declare that these two objects will be
attained. "I will put my laws into their mind: " thus God
proposes to secure their unchanging faithfulness to Him. "Their
sins I will remember no more" (see Heb. 8: 10-12): thus He
assures His unchanging faithfulness to them. A pardoning God and an
obedient people: these are the two parties who are to meet and to be
eternally united in the New Covenant.
The
most beautiful provision of this New Covenant is that of the surety
in whom its fulfillment on both parts is guaranteed. Jesus was made
the surety (or guarantee) of the better covenant. To man He became
surety that God would faithfully fulfill His part, so that man could
confidently depend upon God to pardon, and accept, and never more
forsake. And to God He likewise became surety that man would
faithfully fulfill his part, so that God would bestow on him the
blessing of the covenant. And the way in which He fulfills His
suretyship is this: As one with God, and having the fullness of God
dwelling in His human nature, He is personally security to men that
God will do what He has engaged. All that God has is secured to us in
Him as man. And then, as one with us, and having taken us up as
members into His own body, He is security to God that His interests
will be cared for. All that man must be and do is secured in Him. It
is the glory of the New Covenant that it has in the person of the
God-man its living surety, its everlasting security. And it can
easily be understood how, in proportion as we abide in Him as the
surety of the covenant, its objects and its blessings will be
realized in us.
We
can understand this best if we consider it in the light of one of the
promises of the New Covenant. Take the promise in Jer. 32:40: "I
will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn
away from them to do them good; but I will put my fear in their
hearts, so that they will not depart from me."
With
what wonderful condescension the infinite God here bows Himself to
our weakness! He is the Faithful and Unchanging One, whose word is
truth; and yet more abundantly to show to the heirs of the promise
the unchangeableness of His counsel, He binds Himself in the covenant
that He will never change : "I will make an everlasting
covenant...that I will not turn away from them." Blessed is the
man who has thoroughly appropriated this, and finds his rest in the
everlasting covenant of the Faithful One!
But
in a covenant there are two parties. So what if man becomes
unfaithful and breaks the covenant? Provision must be made, if the
covenant is to be well ordered in all things and sure, that this
cannot be, and that man too remain faithful. Man never can undertake
to give such an assurance. And see, here God comes to provide for
this too. He not only undertakes in the covenant that He will never
turn from His people, but also to put His fear in their heart, that
they do not depart from Him. In addition to His own obligations as
one of the covenanting parties, He undertakes for the other party
too: "I will...cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will
keep my judgments and do them" (Ezek. 37:27). Blessed is the man
who understands this half of the covenant too! He sees that his
security is not in the covenant which he makes with his God, and
which he would only continually break again. He finds that a covenant
has been made, in which God stands good, not only for Himself, but
for man too. He grasps the blessed truth that his part in the
covenant is to accept what God has promised to do, and to expect the
sure fulfillment of the Divine engagement to secure the faithfulness
of His people to their God: "I will put my fear in their hearts,
that they will not depart from me."
It
is at this point that the blessed work comes in for the surety of the
covenant, appointed by the Father to see to its maintenance and
perfect fulfillment. To Him the Father has said, "I will give
You as a covenant to the people" (Isa. 42:6). And the Holy
Spirit testifies, "All the promises of God In Him are yes, and
in Him are Amen, to the glory of God by us” (2 Cor. 1:20). The
believer who abides in Him has a Divine assurance for the fulfillment
of every promise the covenant ever gave.
Christ
was made surety of a better testament. It is as our Melchisedec that
Christ is surety (see Heb. 7). Aaron and his sons passed away; it is
witnessed of Christ that He lives. He is priest in the power of an
endless life. Because He continues ever, He has an unchangeable
priesthood. And because He ever lives to make intercession, He can
save to the uttermost, He can save completely. It is because Christ
is the Ever-living One that His suretyship of the covenant is so
effective. He lives always to make intercession, and can therefore
save completely. Every moment the unceasing pleadings that secure to
His people the powers and the blessings of the heavenly life rise up
from His holy presence to the Father. And every moment the mighty
influences of His unceasing intercession, conveying to them
uninterruptedly the power of the heavenly life. go out from Him
downward to His people, As surety with us for the Father's favor, He
never ceases to pray and present us before Him; as surety with the
Father for us, He never ceases to work, and reveal the Father within
us.
The
mystery of the Melchisedec priesthood, which the Hebrews were not
able to receive (Heb. 5:10-14), is the mystery of the resurrection
life. It is in this that the glory of Christ as surety of the
covenant consists: He ever lives. He performs His work in heaven in
the power of a Divine, an omnipotent life. He ever lives to pray.
There is not a moment that as surety His prayers do not rise to God
to secure the Father's fulfillment to us of the covenant. He performs
His work on earth in the power of that same life. There is not a
moment that His answered prayers — the powers of the heavenly world
— do not flow downward to secure for His Father our fulfillment of
the covenant.
In
the eternal life there are no breaks — never a moment's
interruption; each moment has the power of eternity in it. He ever,
every moment, lives to pray. He ever, every moment, lives to bless.
He can save to the uttermost, completely and perfectly, because He
ever lives to pray.
Believer!
Come and see here how the possibility of abiding in Jesus every
moment is secured by the very nature of this ever-living priesthood
of your surety. Moment by moment, as His intercession rises up, its
power descends. And because Jesus stands good for the fulfillment of
the covenant —" I will put my fear in their heart, and they
will not depart from me” (Jer. 32:40) — He cannot afford to leave
you one single moment to yourself. He does not dare do so, or He
would fail in His undertaking. Your unbelief may fail to realize the
blessing; He cannot be unfaithful. If you will only consider Him, and
the power of that endless life after which He was made and is a High
Priest, your faith will rise to believe that an endless,
ever-continuing, unchangeable life of abiding in Jesus, is what is
waiting for you.
It
is as we see what Jesus is, and is to us, that the abiding in Him
will become the natural and spontaneous result of our knowledge of
Him. If His life unceasingly, moment by moment, rises to the Father
for us, and descends to us from the Father, then to abide moment by
moment is easy and simple. Each moment of conscious communion with
Him we simply say, "Jesus, Surety, Keeper, ever-living Savior,
in whose life I dwell, I abide in You." Each moment of need, or
darkness, or fear, we still say, "O You great High Priest, in
the power of an endless, unchangeable life, I abide in You." And
for the moments when direct and distinct communion with Him must give
place to needful occupations, we can trust His suretyship, His
unceasing priesthood, in its Divine power, and the power with which
He saves to the uttermost, still to keep us abiding in Him.
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