Mediator of a Better Covenant

We have been offered a covenant of life forever with God through Jesus Christ. This is not like an oath with men who die and they can no longer guarantee their word, this covenant is based on Gods word and the finished work of Jesus who is a priest and guarantor forever. Since we have an offer, this covenant in Christ, we are encouraged to be in Hebrews 6:12 “imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and patience” and to in Hebrews 6:11 to “demonstrate the same diligence” and tend our lives as if we were expecting to produce fruit for God’s kingdom.

Inherit the Promises Through Faith and Patience

Hebrews 6:7–12
We easily understand the cycle of planting and rain and cultivation that produces the food we eat. We are all blessed by the abundance the earth produces. And the earth will produce whether tended, cultivated or not, but how much more it produces with a little care. We have moved more and more to city living and away from our connection with this agricultural lifestyle, yet I think we still understand that we want good fruit, good produce and not thorns and thistles.

Now, would we expect anything different in the realm of the spirit and in our lives as we live for God? So, we are admonished in Hebrews 6:11 to “demonstrate the same diligence”, that is the same diligence we would if we were tending our ground to produce a good harvest and in

Hebrews 6:12 in order that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who inherit the promises through faith and patience.

Guaranteed With An Oath

Hebrews 6:13–20
When we make a commitment to do something, we may emphasize our intent to follow through by saying, I swear. Our word is our promise but we may not have the authority or the ability to deliver what we have promised. With God, resides all authority and all power. There is nothing that God speaks that He cannot perform so in

Hebrews 6:17 In the same way God, because he wanted to show even more to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his resolve, guaranteed it with an oath

Now, we, in Hebrews 6:18 “have powerful encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us“ and can trust God to deliver. This is confidence then in

Hebrews 6:19–20 which we have like an anchor of the soul, both firm and steadfast, and entering into the inside of the curtain, 20 where Jesus, the forerunner for us, entered, because he became a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

Priest of the Most High God

Hebrews 7:1–10

A Priest According to the Power of an Indestructible Life

Hebrews 7:11–17

The Guarantee of a Better Covenant

Hebrews 7:18–22
We have a promise, an oath, a covenant, established by God. This covenant is not just for Israel. This covenant is not based on our ability to keep it. This covenant is for our good, that we can be established with him. This covenant has been guaranteed by Jesus in his position as priest forever in

Hebrews 7:21–22 but he with an oath by the one who said to him, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever’ ”), 22 by so much more Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

The word guarantee here is “surety (engyos). This word occurs nowhere else in the New Testament”.¹ Jesus as guarantor is “ensuring in His own person the certainty of the covenant to us. This He did by becoming responsible for our guilt, by sealing the covenant with His blood, and by being openly acknowledged as our triumphant Saviour by the Father, who raised Him from the dead. Thus He is at once God’s surety for man, and man’s surety for God, and so Mediator between God and man (Heb 8:6)”.²

He is Able to Save Completely

Hebrews 7:23–28