The Pulpit Commentary on Hebrews 9:22

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

The death of Jesus the seal of the new covenant.

In this passage there is allusion to an ancient, cherished custom of making a covenant over a slain animal. In the light of this custom probably we must explain Genesis 15:1-21. There Abram is represented as dividing a heifer, a goat, and a ram, and when darkness came a smoking furnace and a burning lamp passed between the pieces. Then follows the significant statement that in the same day Jehovah made a covenant with Abram. The idea in the English version of a testament and a testator is not so much misleading as meaningless, for there is no reason at all why a testament should be referred to, but every reason why the writer should go on expounding and illustrating the new covenant as compared with the old. To us, of course, the custom here mentioned is hardly intelligible, but the mention of it would throw a great deal of light on the subject at the time the reference was made. The custom may even have been still in vogue, and human customs have ever been subordinated to Divine ends. Hence we have here a special aspect of the death of Christ. It is presented as—

THE SEAL OF A SOLEMN COVENANT BETWEEN GOD AND MAN, The very existence of Christ is a covenant between the Divine and the human. The glorious things that were in Christ because of the Divine Spirit dwelling in him are promised to us by their very presence in Christ. All the good things coming to Christ because of his humanity are equally offered to us because of our humanity; and all that Christ did in his humanity makes us responsible for doing the same. The promises of God are yea and amen in Christ Jesus. We may also add that the obligations of man are defined and settled in Christ Jesus. Thus there is a covenant, and we may well look on the death of Christ as giving that covenant shape in a formal transaction. For there God gave his well-beloved Son to death, the pledge of all that he is willing to give. And Jesus surrendered himself to death, giving the greatest proof of obedience and devotion which a human being can give. Christ's death becomes our death, the pledge of an individual covenant on our part, if only we choose to enter into it. The death of Christ points out a solemn duty and a large expectation. And if the death of Christ is a seal of the covenant, how much is the significance of that seal added to by the resurrection and the ascension into glory!—Y.

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