His Coming Confirms The Covenant

His Coming Confirms the Covenant

The writer of Hebrews, looking back through the Old Testament, wrote that God “bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind” (6:17). He saw that again and again God promised to confirm his covenant: “I will confirm my covenant with you,” God said to Noah (Genesis 6:18). “I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation,” he said to Abraham (Genesis 17:7).

How would this happen? God confirmed his covenant with tangible signs: “My covenant will be confirmed with Isaac, who will be born to you and Sarah,” he told Abraham (Genesis 17:21). “Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people, declaring, ‘Look, this blood confirms the covenant the LORD has made with you’” (Exodus 24:8). “David realized that the LORD had confirmed him as king over Israel and had greatly blessed his kingdom for the sake of his people Israel” (1 Chronicles 14:2).

God used numerous signs to confirm that he would fulfill his covenants with Noah and Abraham and Israel and David, and each of them served to point toward his most significant sign—the sending of his Son.

When the angel told Mary that the Son of the Most High would be born to her, she recognized that it was a confirmation of God’s covenant with Abraham. “He made this promise to our ancestors, to Abraham and his children forever,” she sang (Luke 1:55). Zechariah understood the angel’s message to him the same way: “He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago. . . . He has been merciful to our ancestors by remembering his sacred covenant—the covenant he swore with an oath to our ancestor Abraham” (Luke 1:69-70, 72-73).

But the most tangible confirmation of God’s covenant through Christ came not by Christ’s birth but by his death. “This is my blood, which confirms the covenant between God and his people,” Jesus said the night before he was crucified (Mark 14:24). Jesus was the personal confirmation that God will live up to all he promised Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and all their descendants.

Jesus, you are the guarantee that God will do everything he has promised. And since he did not spare even you, his own Son, but gave you up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else?