THE NEW COVENANT AND RECONCILIATION
[p. 174] THE NEW COVENANT AND RECONCILIATION
2 Corinthians 3: 6 - 18; 2 Corinthians 5: 18 - 21
What is the difference between the ministry of the gospel, and that of the new covenant?
I think the gospel is a wide term; very inclusive. In a certain sense it covers the whole counsel of God.
Might we distinguish between the gospel of the kingdom, and the new covenant?
The kingdom is that in which the gospel touches us. The extent of the gospel you find in Galatians, “When it pleased God ... to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him as glad tidings among the heathen”. That gives you the scope of the gospel.
Does that bring in the counsel of God?
Yes, it is according to His counsel that we are brought into sonship.
What is set forth in the ministry of the new covenant?
The kingdom is the great school of God, the field where fruit is being brought forth for God. The two parables in Mark 4 are striking; the one is the harvest for God, the other the work of man, the mustard tree. The kingdom is a kind of school in which you are learning what is for God, and in that way the ministry of the new covenant and reconciliation come in. The new covenant presents the disposition of God towards us, in reconciliation we see what we are for God. Things must be in that order. You must first learn what God is for us, before you can understand what we are for God.
The object of the new covenant is that we might learn the terms on which God is with us. Reconciliation brings in what God has effected for Himself. You could not learn either, except in the light of the kingdom.
In the gospel we get the setting forth of God; in the [p. 175] new covenant we get the terms on which God is with those who have been affected by the gospel.
Exactly.
What are the terms of the new covenant?
It is in the case of Israel the law written in the heart; with us it is the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit. They have forgiveness of sins; but with us the terms are, the love of God and righteousness.
What is righteousness?
“In whom we have redemption through his blood”. There is no imputation of sin.
Why does the apostle say, “Able ministers, not of letter but of spirit”?
Because we have the covenant in the spirit of it. You have to discern the spirit and principle of the covenant, rather than the literal terms. You can find the terms stated in regard of Israel, but with regard to us “the Lord is that Spirit”.
Is there any connection between the covenant here, and that which God made with Abraham?
Every succeeding covenant embodies the principle of a preceding one. Circumcision was the covenant with Abraham, and the law took up circumcision. Now you get the new covenant, and we have the circumcision of Christ; and the righteous requirement of the law fulfilled in those after the Spirit. Thus you get the spirit of the covenant made with Israel, taken up in the new covenant. You can never go back to the literal terms of any preceding covenant: that is what Christendom has done. They have gone back to Judaistic ordinances.
What is the principle of the new covenant?
The law written in the heart and forgiveness. They will know this by the work of God in them, we do not get the new covenant like that; but we have the teaching of the Spirit of God, in that the love of God is shed abroad in the heart.
Do you connect verse 3 with that?
[p. 176] I do not think you touch the covenant in verse 3. There it is the writing on the fleshy tables of the heart, instead of on tables of stone.
What is the writing?
It is the impression of the Spirit. The ten commandments were the writing of God, but now it is the writing of the Spirit. With Abraham the promises were unconditional, he was accounted righteous, and circumcision comes in as the seal of the righteousness. The covenant that God made with him was that he and his children were to be circumcised.
In the covenant there are two parties.
There are two parties to the covenant, but the terms are on the part of one. The covenant depended, in a sense, on the faithfulness of Abraham. In Galatians the apostle was showing the contrast of promise and covenant. It was promise there in chapter 3. The promise was the engagement on the part of God. The covenant must follow upon righteousness; in the ways of God He could not establish the kingdom otherwise.
The promise was unconditional grace.
Entirely, then comes in righteousness, and afterwards the covenant of circumcision.
What answers to that in our case?
Justification, and the condition is the seal of the Spirit. We find in Colossians, “Putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of the Christ; buried with him in baptism”, etc. This is the power of the Spirit.
Were the Galatians taking the ground of righteousness upon the ground of law and covenant?
They were getting back to the terms of the old covenant, they had been brought into the light of the new covenant, and were going back to the terms of the old.
When the Lord fulfils the new covenant with Israel, will it not be the carrying out of promise?
They will combine. Israel will enjoy the promise under the new covenant. It is the same with us, we enjoy everything under the new covenant.
[p. 177] Is there any condition on our side in the covenant?
What condition will there be on Israel’s side?
None that I know of.
But there is a second party to it. We are as much in the light of the new covenant as they will be. I admit that in the literal application of it the covenant applies to Israel as a people here, but there must be certain conditions made known on which God is with us.
I have thought we have got the blessings of the new covenant without being exactly under it.
Why does it say, in connection with the cup, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood”?
This is what the blood of Christ presents to us.
The blessing of the new covenant would not go very far.
It presents to us all that God is towards us.
But it would not take you to union with Christ?
That refers more to our side. The point in the new covenant is what God is towards us, and we could not have anything greater than the love of God. The thought and principle of the new covenant is the love of God shed abroad in the heart; that is how it is that the new covenant is in the blood of Christ, in which that love was expressed. I have no doubt that the covenant with Israel will also be founded in the blood of Christ.
The blood is the witness of righteousness.
Yes, but in the cup of blessing the blood is the witness of love.
It is all flowing out through righteousness.
We see the conciliation of the two in the death of Christ. The conciliation of God’s love with His righteousness. Love is His nature, righteousness an attribute.
Was the new covenant set forth in the Lord?
The Lord is the Spirit of it. He is, in fact, the Spirit of all Scripture. If you were to ask me what the spirit of Scripture is, I should say the love of God.
[p. 178] All that was expressed in the death of Christ is the real spirit and principle of Scripture. Very many details come out, but the spirit pervading all Scripture, is the love of God.
That could not come out apart from righteousness.
The letter kills, the Spirit gives life.
The realisation of life is in the presence of the love of God. The first sense of it is in having the sense of God’s love.
That will be the last step.
It will be. As part of the worshipping company you are associated with Christ, and so sensible of the love of God that you have part in the praises that He leads in the presence of the Father’s love.
You have the love of God in Romans 5.
Quite so — though there it is individual. There is what is further, that is being brought into the company of the sanctified ones.
What is the glory of the Lord?
It shows that the ministry of the covenant is in the light of the kingdom. The covenant follows the kingdom, and it will be so with Israel.
The law will be written in their hearts when the kingdom is established. If you look at the Psalms for a moment, in Psalm 110 Christ is exalted to the right hand of God: in Psalm 118 He is welcomed in the place where He was rejected, and in Psalm 119 the law is written in the heart.
Christ as Man, was the only competent One to know the love of God.
Having become Man He stands as Man, the centre and Head of the sanctified company. All that is for God, and we learn and enjoy these things consequent on what God is for us. That is where we are perhaps defective.
Must we be brought under the sway of grace before we can get the good of the covenant?
Until you are under the sway of grace you cannot [p. 179] touch righteousness. The kingdom really means, grace and salvation. See the song of Zacharias in Luke 1, you get grace and knowledge of salvation, deliverance from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us. That is what Zacharias said in connection with the birth of the forerunner, and that is what the kingdom means to us. Being under the sway of grace you can touch righteousness, for you cannot otherwise walk in self-judgment.
Is practical righteousness part of the kingdom?
It is the effect of the grace of the kingdom. “The grace of God”, we read in Titus, “teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world”; that is the effect of the kingdom. You get the idea of it in the passage, “As sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord”. (Romans 5: 21.) Being under grace you come into the region of righteousness, and can carry it out in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Is grace connected with the gospel and righteousness with the new covenant?
Righteousness is the character of the kingdom. Once you have accepted righteousness, that is, the obligation of self-judgment — what is suited to the presence of the Spirit — then you learn the lessons of the new covenant: you get divine teaching, in that which is set forth in Christ’s death.
Is verse 18 the effect of entering into the new covenant?
It follows on it. We get the sense of the glory of the Lord; that is individual apprehension; though it says, “We all”, it is every one of us.
What is the ministry of righteousness?
The setting forth of it; that by which souls get the consciousness of righteousness. You have redemption, and there is no possibility of imputation; you become [p. 180] conscious that nothing can be imputed in the presence of the love of God.
“We also joy in God”. Is that being in the good of the new covenant?
I think so.
Must we be in the good of reconciliation to enjoy the new covenant?
It is rather the reverse way.
What is the idea of the liberty here?
One has such a sense of what God is, that you can look at the glory of the Lord without distraction. You then have part in the great supper. You find your pleasure and delight in the glory of the Lord. You are in the celebration.
And must not God come out before we can go in?
No one could touch reconciliation if he did not know what God is for us.
All these things hang together. The new covenant comes in upon the kingdom; the kingdom brings the knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins; you get deliverance from your enemies, and having got that you are put to school to learn in the death of Christ the conditions on which God is pleased to be with us.
Exactly; the death of Christ is our great lesson book of love and righteousness.
Do you include, in what God is for us, the removal of everything in us unsuited to Himself, and the forming in us what is of Christ?
Quite so, you are in accord with God and free to judge that which He has judged, and you are led by the Spirit into the apprehension of God’s love, a holy love; thus you will welcome reconciliation. All things are of God; everything absolutely for God, and man is to have no say at all.
What part of Christianity is not included in the new covenant?
The new covenant is a means to an end. It is the education of saints. It is not the end, but a means to [p. 181] it. You will not have the new covenant in heaven; a covenant never goes beyond earth. It is connected with our training as Christians.
You would not include the truth of the Church?
It is leading on to it.
Is reconciliation experience or a fact?
It is a divine fact if you receive it. God has effected it.
As regards the prodigal in Luke 15, where is reconciliation?
It is difficult to say precisely; it is only a parable.
Is it the result of faith?
There is a point when it is accepted in the soul.
Is Romans 5 in the line of the new covenant, and chapter 8 of reconciliation?
Romans 5 is the new covenant in principle and just brings you to the point of reconciliation. There is one Man in Romans 5, not two. If death came by one man that man was no longer there. The latter part of chapter 5 lays stress on the one Man, Jesus Christ; that follows immediately on the mention of reconciliation. One man has gone in death and Christ abides, the one Man.
Is reconciliation connected with new creation?
As regards us it is.
Why did Paul say to the Corinthians, “Be ye reconciled”?
He is giving the principle and character of his ministry there.
Is “be ye reconciled” the gospel ministry?
What good would it do to unconverted souls?
The point in the gospel is to present what is on the part of God; the testimony of God’s grace.
You would not object to this following the gospel?
It would depend upon the condition of souls.
Is reconciliation the recognition of one Man only?
Yes, everything is reconciled through Him, and all else is to disappear; there is only one Man, Jesus Christ.
[p. 182] The two men are only contrasted in Romans 5.
Quite so, but the Lord Jesus Christ comes upon the scene as second Man, and that means the removal of all that is of the first man, who brought in death.
Is reconciliation the thought of God’s pleasure?
Yes, everything is brought into accord with the pleasure of God. That was the case when Christ was here. The eye of God rested simply upon Him, upon one Man, hence, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good pleasure in men;” this was all in connection with the presence of one Man. He changed everything for God.
And is His eye taken off now?
Things are altered now.
Reconciliation must affect the state of everything produced by sin.
Exactly, everything that has been dominated by sin is to be reconciled by Christ. How could enmity be reconciled in itself?
What about Romans 5, being reconciled when we were enemies?
How was it done? Not by any change in you, but by the death of God’s Son.
What was reconciled?
You. You have been vicariously removed from under the eye of God and the consequence is, you are new created. “And you hath he reconciled, in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy, and unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight”. That is all done through new creation.
We may say that the individuality is maintained, but the man is gone.
Exactly, another Man is under the eye of God. Your reconciliation is a testimony of the cross.
Who are the ambassadors of Christ?
I do not know where there are any now.
What is the ministry of reconciliation?
It is the setting forth of reconciliation in the extent [p. 183] of it. It takes up the presence of Christ here, and what God was then doing. It comes out now in the word of reconciliation.
Is the ministry of reconciliation in exercise now?
You carry the word of it. The ministry of reconciliation is going on, but the means is the word.
Who is entrusted with that word?
I do not know. The word is there.
For those who can take it up.
Yes; the apostle was the special vessel of the gospel, he speaks of ‘my gospel’, and yet we take it up.
What is the difference between atonement and reconciliation?
Reconciliation is based on atonement; righteousness was accomplished in atonement.
Atonement is much used as if it were reconciliation.
The word is not found in the New Testament at all.
I do not think it is.
Is not the thought of atonement in Colossians, “Having made peace by the blood of his cross”, etc.?
The point there is the basis of reconciliation, which was atonement.
Will you say a word on verse 19?
In the Old Testament you have the foreshadowing of many thoughts. You have the idea of blessing, dwelling, and ruling, but the felt want in the Old Testament, is that you have not got the right man, the vessel. In the New Testament and the presence of Christ you have the right Man; you have an answer to all God’s mind and pleasure because the Man is there. God was presenting Himself in a Man, and in that Man there was the expression of all that God is morally. God had in view that Man. The only thing that God had to say to the world was, that He did not impute trespasses. Everything suitable to Him was in Christ. Another thing necessary to reconciliation was the disappearance of all that was of the man that had been here, and that leaves but one Man for God.
[p. 184] The man that had occupied the place has disappeared from the eye of God.
Are there three thoughts in Leviticus 16, propitiation, reconciliation, and substitution?
Atonement was the high priest sprinkling the blood on and before the mercy-seat; reconciliation follows that. Atonement makes reconciliation possible.
In propitiation the body of the victim was borne outside the camp.
That brings out the reality of Christ being made sin.
Sin has been completely removed.
That is the thought in it.
Is there any difference between atonement and propitiation?
I do not know. Atonement has a technical force in the Old Testament. That was that man did not come under the judgment governmentally of his sin, atonement was made for him.
The scapegoat makes atonement, how is that?
The idea in that is, that sins are carried away so that men do not come under the consequence of them. It takes the two goats to make up one Christ. The scapegoat brings in substitution.
How long will reconciliation go on?
Until all things are reconciled.
Will that be fully accomplished before the new heavens and new earth?
I suppose so.
It will not be complete in the millennium?
Everything will be gathered up then in one, in Christ. God will have His pleasure in all. Everything will be agreeable to God because put under Christ. You could not understand reconciliation if you did not see it first in the presence of Christ here on earth. Under the eye of God everything is reconciled through Christ.
Will you exemplify that a little?
I mean this, that it gives you the sense of another Man under the eye of God. Another Man is introduced [p. 185] into the scene and that Man is going to remove from under the eye of God all that is of the man that is obnoxious to God.
Does that make the death of Christ necessary in order to understand reconciliation on our side?
The death of Christ must have come in before we could understand it. If it were not for the death of Christ God could not be gracious to us.
Do you get the moral order of it in Colossians 1?
Exactly, in verses 12, 13, 14, and 15 of chapter 1. Then you get Christ’s death brought in, “And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death”, etc. That is, He has removed you in order to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in His sight, what you never could have been apart from the work of God. The point is, there is really something now for the pleasure of God.
Do you always connect reconciliation with new creation?
So far as we are concerned. It is very wonderful that God can now see that which is for His own pleasure and delight and satisfaction.
Is it right to say that the terms of the new covenant are objective, and reconciliation subjective?
I think so.
When you said it was a great thing for God to look down and see a work of His own here, what did you mean?
The effect of His work here, that which is under His eye; we are to be here unblameable and unreproveable.
Good pleasure in men.
The fact is that Christ is in men, in that sense.
Yes, Christ in you the hope of glory.
Where would this verse come in, “I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live”.?
That is the testimony here. Christ was in the apostle, he was crucified with Christ and what was [p. 186] expressed was Christ in him. Christ living in him was his testimony.
That was practical?
Yes; it was his outward and then you get his inward, “The life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me”. That brings one to see what poor things we are: we may talk about and understand this, but it has been very poorly exemplified in us.
What a comfort if you can see it in your brethren.
I rejoice that my brethren are better than myself. There is many a man who may perhaps not have the same measure of intelligence, but that man is a better Christian than I.
With regard to reconciliation of things which I suppose reconciliation goes on to; would you just say a word about that?
It brings out the truth that things are never put back on the old ground, but are taken up in Christ. God never entrusts anything to man again, but is glorified in Christ. I remember how one enjoyed to hear Mr. Darby going through the Old Testament to show how everything in which man had failed is taken up in Christ, God glorified in all.
“Things in heaven”, what is that?
Everything is put under Christ, and what is hostile to God is cast out. We have in John 1, “The heavens opened and the angels ascending and descending on the Son of man”. Heaven is attendant on Him.
Does it apply to the creature?
I should apply it more to intelligent beings. It is impossible that anything could be entrusted to the first man again; everything must be taken up in Christ. The moment He went to heaven, that meant in principle the casting out of Satan. You have to wait for the Church to be there, but Christ’s going to heaven meant the casting out of heaven everything opposed to God and His purpose.
What is the force of beholding “Satan as lightning fall from heaven”, in Luke 10?
The Lord was speaking there in anticipation. It meant the complete overthrow of all that was of Satan when He went to heaven.
What are the “heavenly things” in Hebrews?
The “heavenly things” in Hebrews are expressive of Christianity, as in John 3. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?”