The Gospel of Isaiah: Ch. 54:10, The Covenant of Shalom
The Gospel of Isaiah: Ch. 54:10, The Covenant of Shalom.
“The mountains may be shaken, and the hills may be removed, but My mercy will never depart from you, and My covenant promise of shalom will not ever be broken, says the LORD Yahweh, who has compassion on you.” (54:10).
Hesed = the Hebrew word for mercy, and is often translated as lovingkindness, indicating a steadfast love, covenant faithfulness, unfailing loyalty, love-in-action. Hesed has so many dimensions that it is much easier to describe than define. Hesed may be the most important word in the Hebrew Bible, because it is considered a summary word for all of God’s character traits, the driving force behind all He does. There is no one translation of hesed that is perfect or says it all. Hesed is used 26 times in the classic Psalm 136 in order to focus on God’s continued and unwavering mercy and patience due to His eternally faithful lovingkindness. Hesed is a covenant word, a relationship word, and celebrates God’s commitment to remaining true to his merciful promises out of sheer love. “Hesed” is used over 120 times in the book of Psalms alone, and a grand total of 250 times in the Hebrew Bible.
“It is better to limit belief in God’s power than to dampen faith in God’s mercy. Between mercy and power, mercy takes precedence. And to the mercy of heaven there is no limit… Beyond all mystery is the mercy of God. It is a love that transcends the world. To live by such a love, to reflect it, however numbly, is the test of religious existence.” (Abraham Joshua Heschel).
Descriptions of Mercy: Eager love-in-action; steadfast kindness; loyal compassion; faithful favor; generous grace; the ardent desire to do good to someone; a completely undeserved lovingkindness; an affectionate love that goes beyond what is expected, above and beyond, free of charge, no strings attached; the generous love reserved for someone in an intimate relationship, and if there is no prior relationship, the strong desire to treat someone as if that relationship existed.
Mercy is the Centerpiece of God’s Self-Identity. When at the base of Mt. Sinai, Moses asked God if he could see God’s glory. (Exodus 33:19). The Lord Yahweh responded by saying that He would pass before Moses, but he would not be allowed to see His “face,” only His backside. The Glory is too overwhelming for humans who are not equipped to experience a consuming fire quite yet. Yahweh told Moses that He will cause all His “goodness” to pass before Moses, and that in Moses’ presence He will pronounce His holy Name. Goodness is usually a synonym for mercy, because God’s goodness is revealed through His mercy. So Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to meet God at the top, and Yahweh descended in a cloud and stood there with Moses. Only God can accurately name Himself, and here we see the Lord pronouncing His sacred Name… “God passed before Moses and proclaimed, “I AM Yahweh! I AM Yahweh! A God who is compassionate and gracious, longsuffering and slow to anger, abounding in mercy (hesed) and truth, preserving mercy (hesed) for thousands of generations, forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin, but by no means clearing the guilty or allowing sin to go unpunished.” (Exodus 34:6-7). What a singular moment! The Almighty God, the Great I AM, describes His Name, His identity. He is revealing to Moses how He sees Himself in His Essence. What a turning point in history! The Lord of the universe chooses to reveal Himself in utter transparency to a human being! ‘You want to know what I am made of, Moses, the Lord is saying, then this is how I describe my character, these are my core attributes. Yes, I am the great LORD, and this is Me in a nutshell… rich in mercy, compassion, grace, forgiveness. That is truly who I am, Moses!’ At the very end of this historical self-description, God reminds Moses (and all of us) that He is Lord of a moral universe, that there is such a thing as right and wrong, and He has established an ultimate system of justice. God’s statement about justice and moral accountability, interestingly enough, seems to have been made in the context of mercy and forgiveness, of compassion and grace. So it appears that if God’s will springs out of God’s core character, His will must be mercy.
“The day is coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah. This covenant will not be like the one I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand and brought them out of the land of Egypt. They broke that covenant, though I loved them as a husband loves his wife, says the Lord. But this is the new covenant I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my instructions deep within them, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. And they will not need to teach their neighbors, nor will they need to teach their relatives, saying, ‘You should know the Lord.’ For everyone, from the least to the greatest, will know me already, says the Lord. And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins.” (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
“Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will follow my instructions and be careful to obey my regulations.” (Ezekiel 36:28-30).
When Jesus declared the New Covenant at His Last Supper, He was boldly claiming that the New Covenant as predicted by Jeremiah and hinted at in Ezekiel was now being ratified, inaugurated, put into place. By remembering the New Covenant like He did with His disciples, Jesus is preparing to make good on God’s age-old promises of redemption. Jesus declared that He will now fulfill those prophecies from the Hebrew Bible. Even Moses anticipated the New Covenant in Deuteronomy 29:4, when he told the gathered Israelites, “Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a mind to understand, or eyes to see, or hears to hear.” Moses knew that there would come a day when his observation would come true with the people of Israel. Jesus confirmed that day has indeed arrived, the Passover’s Cup of Redemption is now fulfilled in the Person of Jesus Messiah.
When Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me,” He wasn’t limiting remembrance to merely a mental activity. Jesus was referring to the biblical understanding of remembrance, that remembering involved personal experience. Remembering something always brought with it the purpose of bringing the past into the present, of having the person doing the remembering participate in the memory. Jesus wants the New Covenant to be brought into the current reality whenever we remember His body and blood. Jesus intended the Communion act to have an impact on the person who is doing the remembering. He wants the body and blood of the past sacrifice to remain real and effectual, taking effect now as surely as it did during Christ’s Passion. The elements of Communion, through faith in Jesus and the work of the Spirit, are intended to become a part of our spiritual digestive system, a vital part of who we are in our current spiritual walk with God. The body and the blood of the past is intended to become present to us now in its original power and fullness, real spiritual food, enabling us to grow in the Lord.
Various thoughts regarding the New Covenant:
(1.) The Hebrew word for “new” in the New Covenant means “renewal” or “new edition.” So the New Covenant should be more accurately called the Renewed Covenant. The writer of Hebrews in the NT seems to be saying this when he writers of the “better covenant” of Christ (Heb. 7:22 and 8:6). “What the Torah cannot do because of man’s evil inclinations, God will do by sending His Son the Messiah to accomplish it.” (Dr. David Stern)
(2.) The shedding of Jesus’ blood on the Cross is the basis of the New Covenant. The fulfillment of the earlier covenants had to wait until the fullness of time according to God’s plan of redemption.
(3.) The New Covenant as prophesied by Jeremiah and ratified by Jesus was originally given to the nation of Israel, not to the world. The Gentiles were brought into the New Covenant, it was not made with them. They were included, they were grafted onto the vine, not a part of the original plant. (Romans 11). Nowhere in Scripture does one read that God had made a covenant with the Gentiles.
(4.) The earlier covenants depended on the actions of the faithful as they obeyed the Law and all the “You shall nots”. The renewed covenant depends entirely on the gracious actions of God, who said, “I will” six times in the Jeremiah passage. (an idea from Hebrew scholar Dr. David Stern)
(5.) The New Covenant guarantees that Israel will experience, through the Messiah, a complete deliverance, a full restoration. The New Covenant speaks of redemption of the Chosen People, when the sins of Israel will be forgotten, and the Lord will not remember their former transgressions.
(6.) The New Covenant completes and fulfills the earlier covenants through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Messiah. The Noahide, Abrahamic, Sinai and Davidic covenants were all Scriptural promises by God, and now in Jesus we realize that all earlier covenants point directly to Christ. The New Covenant fulfills the earlier covenants, but it does not replace them. They are still in effect, for as Jesus in Matthew 5:17, not one word of Torah, not even the smallest letter in the Law, will pass away until all is fulfilled.
(7.) The New Covenant promises a new relationship between God and believers. As stated in the Jeremiah passage, each person shall “know” the Lord, from the least of us to the greatest of us. The Hebrew understanding of “know” is profoundly more than a mental exercise. Knowing is experiential. It is an intimate understanding of someone or something. To know a person is to participate in a deep union with that person, a vital relationship in which the knowledge of someone changes the knower. All of this is implied when God invites us to “know” Him.
(8.) St. Paul calls the New Covenant the “ministry of the Spirit” in 2 Corinthians 3:8. The Spirit is the One who will make possible the New Covenant’s promise of writing the instructions of the Lord on each heart and mind. And the Spirit, known as the Eternal Teacher in the early church, is the One who will teach each person about God. The Spirit is the One who will enable each person to know God intimately, first-hand, not indirectly through someone else. It is the Spirit who will take our heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh, the Spirit who will enable us to walk in the ways of the Lord. The New Covenant is indeed a ministry of the Holy Spirit.
(9.) The Christian Church does not in any way replace the Nation of Israel. Nonetheless, like Israel at Mt. Sinai, the followers of Jesus also become a “chosen people, the Kings’ priests, a holy nation, a people for God to possess.” (1 Peter 2:9-10).
SHALOM = The ancient Hebrew word translated as peace: completeness or wholeness, as in the joining together of opposites; integrity, as in the effective holding together of separate pieces; to give/restore harmony; fulfillment; health; security; abundant well-being; the state of having the vitality needed to thrive and flourish; tranquility; freedom from disquiet and disorder; reconciliation; resolution of conflict/war; healing of division; prosperity. The Greek word for peace in the New Testament is “Eirene,” and means the same thing as “Shalom” in the Hebrew Bible. Shalom ranks the highest of all values in the Hebrew Bible, according to Jewish scholars. Shalom is the most important goal in all of life. “Rabbinic teaching describes it as the only vessel through which God’s blessings can flow into this world.” (Rabbi Arthur Green, These are the words: A Vocabulary of Jewish Spiritual Life).
Make your peace with God and be reconciled to Him! Become friends with God; He is already a friend with you.”(2 Corinthians 5:20, NIV and MSG).
Charity Gayle – Emmanuel (ft. Ryan Kennedy) – Official Music Video – YouTube
“Reconciled”: The heart of the good news, the Gospel of Jesus, is reconciliation. The nuanced meanings of the word include: (1.) To cause to be friendly and to restore to friendship; to bring to agreement; to reunite and bring into harmony; to settle matters in a way that results in full communion; (2.) The Greek term was used in diplomacy for a peace treaty brought to the table by a mediator in a political or personal dispute. Paul transformed this term to refer to God (the offended party) graciously sending the Mediator (Jesus) who then pays whatever penalties were due to the offended party. In other words, God wants so badly to reconcile with the wrongdoers in the dispute that He not only sends His Son as His special Mediator, but He has this Mediator atone for the broken relationship and pay the costs of the peace treaty; (3.) to restore what was broken, bringing back together what was once in one piece; (4.) to mutually change in a decisive way down to an exact point, such as agreeing to change from enemies to friends; (5.) a term used for the exchange of coins and broadened to mean to exchange commitments of peace with another party, or to exchange our sins for Christ’s righteousness, our guilt for a clean slate, or our certain spiritual death for God’s eternal life. . The Cross of Christ is the centerpiece of reconciliation… the vertical reconciliation with God in heaven and the horizontal reconciliation between His people on earth. “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God.” (Romans 5:10)
Mercy. Womb is one of the root words for mercy in the Hebrew Bible. The word “rachem” is translated in Scripture as mercy, compassion, and womb. In the Hebrew mind, the womb is much more than the sacred place in a woman that enables the unborn baby to safely develop till birth. Womb also became a metaphor for mercy because of its linguistic roots. The Hebrew word rachem is intended to mean mercy-womb. God formed each of us with rachem when we were mere unborns, and we were conceived and nourished within His rachem, the mother’s mercy-womb. The baby within the woman is the ideal time to extend God’s compassion to that human being inside of her. The developing baby utterly depends on a mercy-womb. And God wants Himself to be experienced as our womb-sanctuary, our safe place in Him, our refuge and shelter. God Himself yearns to be experienced as a womb of mercy for each of us, a refuge and shelter and safe haven. The purpose of our lives is to live in God’s rachem, God’s womb of love. Passages with “rachem” include Isaiah 14:1, 30:18, 49:15 and 60:10; Jeremiah 12:15 and 3:20; and Lamentations 3:32; Ps. 106:46.