The New Testament

          A theologian by the name of J. I. Packer made the following comment about the First Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. “The [Christian] message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity - hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory - because at the Father's will Jesus became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross.” We get the picture. Some have referred to the life of the Lord Jesus Christ while here on earth as being from the cradle to the cross. It makes a nice mental picture for us in order to see the purpose for which He came. Hebrews 9:16-17 says, “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.”

         Before we went to Spain, we needed to fill out a last “will and testament” as it was advisable to have one. The document is often called the last will and testament of the one who wrote it. The Book of Hebrews has mentioned a few simple facts about a “testament' in the above verses. A “new” testament does not become effective until the “testator” dies. As it says, if you have a testament, then you will also need to have a testator for it to become effective. In looking back, the believer realizes that the promises of the inheritance have been guaranteed by the death of the testator which has put the new testament in force. It all had to begin with the nativity which we have just celebrated in recent days. You just can't skip that step if you are going to have a “new testament” that has been put into force by the death of the testator. So, Jesus was indeed headed for the cross even from that first moment in the manger. This sequence of events has profound meaning for us today because of the inheritance in which we will be involved. When you couple this passage with the first three chapters of Ephesians you see the inheritance that we will receive as a result of what took place during those first 33 years or so of the Lord Jesus Christ after the incarnation. When the Lord Jesus Christ uttered those words, “It is finished,” the testament was activated and now because of our personal relationship with the Son of God, we become joint heirs with Him. Wow! What an inheritance. This inheritance become more real when we see that we have an “earnest” of that inheritance which has been guaranteed by the Holy Spirit. There may be times in our lives when we feel that we don't have all that we need or want to have. Material things cannot even begin to compare to that which is eternal and which we now possess through the death of the Testator. The inheritance is a sure thing. We need to stop for a moment and focus our attention on just what the Savior did for us. Praise God today for the fact that God the Father sent His only begotten Son to this earth so many years ago. May we all be encourage today and in the days to come.