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 testament has a High Priest who is the eternal Son of God with a more excellent ministry (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.
God’s promise is God’s word which He speaks. God speaks many different kinds of words. He may command us to do a particular thing. That command is God’s word, but it is not God’s promise. When God speaks in such a way that He promises to give, do, or be something to us, that is a promise. As we have seen, God’s promise of the new covenant is in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and includes four major things. The word of God’s promise is insured by His faithfulness (Heb. 10:23; 11:11). God’s faithfulness is the guarantee of what He speaks as a promise.
God’s covenant is enacted upon God’s promise (8:6). A promise is a common, ordinary word without confirmation. In the Bible, after God made His promise, He sealed it with an oath. He swore by His Godhead that His promise was confirmed. Once His promise was confirmed by an oath, it immediately became the covenant sealed by God. Hebrews 6:16 says that in all disputes an oath is final for confirmation. If you read the Old Testament carefully, you will see that God’s promises were all sealed by His oath. That the promises have become a covenant means that they cannot possibly be altered. Once the promises have been confirmed by God’s oath, having been made unalterable, there is no possibility of repentance or change. The promise has been sealed; it is no longer a promise but a covenant confirmed by God’s oath.
After God made His promises in the Old Testament, confirming them by His oath (Gen. 22:16-18; Psa. 110:4), the Lord Jesus came and accomplished all that God had promised. By the Lord’s work on earth, every item of God’s promise has become an accomplished fact. For example, in Jeremiah 31 God promised to forgive our sins. The Lord Jesus did this, making propitiation for our sins on the cross as the fulfillment of God’s promise. Before the Lord Jesus died on the cross, it was a promise. After He died on the cross, that promised item became an accomplished fact. Hence, forgiveness of sins is no longer a promise but an accomplished fact of history. God’s promised covenant was consummated as the new covenant by the Lord’s death with His blood (9:18-23; Matt. 26:28; Luke 22:20). By His death, all the promises have become accomplished facts.
After His death and resurrection, the Lord ascended into the heavens, leaving with us the covenant which He had accomplished by His death. When He left this covenant with us, it immediately became a testament, a new testament bequeathed to us (9:16-17). In this testament the accomplished facts are no longer merely facts; they have all become bequests. Firstly, we had the promises; secondly, the promises became the facts; and thirdly, the facts have become the bequests. Through the Lord’s death and resurrection, all the promises were fulfilled and became accomplished facts. After the Lord had left this new covenant with us, it immediately became a testament, a will, containing all the accomplished facts as our bequests. Since the Lord had accomplished everything, He went to the heavenly throne where He is now restfully sitting. As our High Priest in the heavens, the Lord is the Surety of this better covenant (7:21-22).
Four stages were needed for the consummation of the new testament: firstly, God’s word; secondly, God’s promise; thirdly, the new covenant; and lastly, the new testament. No longer do we just have God’s word, God’s promise, and the new covenant; we also have the new testament, the will. The Bible is a will in which everything has not only been mentioned, promised, and accomplished but also bequeathed. Furthermore, the Lord in resurrection is executing what He has bequeathed. We simply need to thank Him for all the bequests. If we would do this, opening wide to Him that He may execute all that He desires to execute, there will be a mass reproduction of the standard model, the Firstborn Son, for God’s corporate expression. This is the heavenly vision that we all must see.