Let us now go on to consider Christ’s person in the new covenant. The new covenant, which the Lord Jesus enacted, is better than the old covenant made through Moses. In the old covenant all things were shadows, whereas in the new covenant everything is reality. Everything in the old covenant has been fulfilled and realized in the new covenant. Hence, the new covenant is a better covenant (Heb. 7:22; 8:6). In the new covenant God gives us forgiveness, life, salvation, and all spiritual, heavenly, and divine blessings.
In the new covenant Christ is the Apostle (Heb. 3:1), the first Apostle in the New Testament. The word “apostle” in Greek means a sent one, one who is sent by a higher authority. Christ was sent by God to carry out God’s new covenant. As the Apostle Christ is the One who was sent to us from God and with God (John 6:46; 8:16). The Lord Jesus said, “He who sent Me is with Me” (John 8:29). Christ, our Apostle, came to us with God to share God with us so that we may partake of His divine nature, life, and fullness.
As the Apostle Christ is typified by Moses, who came from God to serve the house of God. However, whereas Moses was only part of the house, Christ is the Builder of God’s house (Heb. 3:3). He has two natures: humanity, which is good for the material for the building of God’s house, and divinity, which is the element of the Builder. Christ was sent from God to be the Apostle to form, build, and constitute God’s house, the church (1 Tim. 3:15), and then to take care of this house. Christ is now “over His house, whose house we are” (Heb. 3:6). Today in the church we enjoy Him as the Apostle in the new covenant.
Hebrews 3:1 says, “Consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus.” In the new covenant Christ is not only the Apostle but also the High Priest. In the old covenant the high priest was a mortal man, and his ministry was a shadow of the good things to come. But the new covenant has a High Priest who is the eternal Son of God with a more excellent ministry (Heb. 8:1-13). With Him there is no preventing of death. His ministry is the ministry of the kingly and divine priesthood in heaven, ministering, by His intercession, the divine life with all its riches as our daily supply to bring us into His perfection and glorification.
As the High Priest, typified by Aaron, Christ has gone to God from us and with us to present us to God so that we and our case may be fully taken care of by God. As the One who came from the Father, the Sender, Christ is the Apostle, and as the One who went back to the Sender, He is the High Priest. Thus, there is traffic between God and us and between us and God. Now Christ is the High Priest executing God’s New Testament economy.
As our High Priest Christ is merciful and faithful in things pertaining to God (Heb. 2:17), He has passed through the heavens (Heb. 4:14) and is even higher than the heavens (Heb. 7:26), and He is always living to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25). Christ can be a faithful High Priest because He, as the Son of God, is actually the faithful and almighty God Himself. Christ can be a merciful High Priest because, as the Son of Man, He experienced human life with all its sufferings. Through resurrection and ascension our High Priest passed through the heavens and is now not only in heaven (Heb. 9:24) but also higher than the heavens, “far above all the heavens” (Eph. 4:10), to bear us in the presence of God and to care for all our needs. As our High Priest Christ undertakes our case by interceding for us. He appears before God on our behalf, praying for us that we may be brought fully into God’s eternal purpose and into the reality of the new covenant.