Mark 14:24 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 14:24

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Matthew has the words, ‘This is the blood of the covenant [the new covenant] shed for the remission of sins.’ Here in Mark it is put more briefly: ‘the blood of the new testament.’ That is an interesting term. Why does Christ call it ‘a new testament’, a new covenant? Because it’s new in this sense: now it is fully exposed to view, fully manifested. It's new in the sense that the old covenant, the Old Testament worship – that covenant made with the Jewish people – has ended, and now in plain, glorious sunlight, the new covenant of Christ is on full display. Actually, it isn't really very new. In fact the new covenant is even older than the old covenant. All along, the new covenant has been the only covenant that savesRight from the very beginning it was disclosed in the Book of Genesis, in the Garden of Eden, that a Redeemer, a great descendant, would one day come and bruise the serpent’s head, and suffer the bruising of his heel. He would pay a price to crush the serpent, and to conquer sin. It is the new covenant, first being announced. Anybody who truly was converted in Old Testament times, was converted under this covenant of grace, because they believed in the worship of the Old Testament, that the sacrifices and the temple worship pointed forward to something that God would one day do to take away the burden of sin. If they truly trusted in the mercy of God and yielded their hearts to him, they were saved under the covenant of grace. What is the covenant of grace? It isn’t a covenant made between God and man, because any covenant made between God and man will fail because of the weakness of man. If God says, ‘Obey me, and you will have everlasting life’, such a covenant will fail because man will sin. The covenant of grace wasn't made between God and man; it was made between God and God. It was made between the members of the Godhead. We portray it in this manner: it is as though in eternity past God the Father said to the God the Son, ‘If you will go and die for a fallen people in the future history of the world and bear away the punishment of sin on behalf of millions of people who will be redeemed, I will give them to you, and they will be your possession for all eternity and they will ‘people’ the everlasting glory, the new heavens and the new earth. And the Holy Spirit, for his part, undertook to come and work in hearts, and show us our need, and reveal Christ to us. The covenant of grace was something mysterious between the three persons of the Trinity, the Godhead. But an agreement made within the Godhead, between the members of the Godhead, cannot fail because they are infallible. Everyone who was ever saved and converted in Old Testament times was actually converted under the covenant of grace. Christ would undertake for them; their sin would be borne away on Calvary when he came. But it was a new covenant when Christ came in that it was newly revealed to the whole world, and made plain. In the Bible, from the very beginning, a divine covenant, was ratified, sealed, with the shedding of blood. As with the old covenant, so with the new covenant. If I am to be a beneficiary of this new covenant, what must I do? I must repent of my sins and put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and in the atonement he made on Calvary, and be united to him by faith. I am then in the covenant because I am ‘in Christ’.

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Questions

If Christ ratified the new covenant, what is the old covenant? It is a covenant of works. There in the Garden of Eden, God made a covenant of works. The covenant was between God and man. A covenant isn’t mentioned there in connection with the Garden of Eden, but that is what it was: an arrangement between God and our first parents. The arrangement, the covenant, ran along these lines: if Adam, our representative head, would obey God in that perfect, wonderful environment, then mankind would have eternal blessing and God would be their God for ever. There was one condition for obedience, only one: that they would not take of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But our first parents disobeyed God and they wanted to know things that God was not permitting them to know. They felt they were being deprived and they disobeyed him and they fell from his wonderful promises of protection, and the whole human race fell with them. Although this covenant was broken in Eden and afterwards could only bring condemnation, it was still in force. The covenant made with Israel on Sinai was a re-iteration of the covenant of works, designed to show people the standard and to warn them that there was no alternative to grace. So the Law, the Ten Commandments, was given with grace strapped alongside it. The law brings fallen mankind under condemnation, and the grace and mercy of God expressed in the symbolism of the ceremonial law showed what Christ would do to save. The covenant of grace began to operate as soon as our first parents fell. Even in the period of the law, it was still there operating alongside the law, and offering the only viable alternative for salvation.

‘This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many,’ but not for everyone. How do you know if it is shed for you? You know, because you've received him. There's been a work in your heart of the Holy Spirit regenerating you, opening your eyes to see your need, and to see the meaning of the death of Christ, and with your whole heart you've received him and depended upon him, and so now you are one of the many – ‘which is shed for many.’

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Mark 14:24 Commentary and Bible Study