In Hebrews 7-10 Jesus Christ is identified as the high priest of the New Covenant, a priest in the order of Melchizedek. The author explains how the New Covenant came to be and its significance for the eternal salvation of repentant believers. I recommend this Scripture to you to obtain a much fuller understanding of the New Covenant given to mankind by the love and grace of God the Father through the atoning sin sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, raised to life by the Spirit as our eternal priest. I have made reference to these verses in my second book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story.
My next blogs will address the New Covenant in Hebrews by which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has been restored to repentant believers, making a personal communion between the Holy Spirit and the human spirit and soul the reality desired by our Creator God since His creation of Man.
I introduce this series of blogs with a quotation from the third chapter of my book, Section 3:3 Restoration of Communion by God’s Grace:
“We look to Athanasius to confirm the reality of salvation offered to fallen mankind through Jesus Christ. Athanasius is regarded as the Father of Christian Orthodoxy, and he championed the ‘view that the Spirit of God is a fully divine person like the Father and the Son.’ Athanasius ‘focused on how the identity of Christ in the incarnation made it possible for him to accomplish salvation. Being both God and man he could represent both parties and reconcile them through redemption . . . . the logic of New Testament doctrine on salvation assumed a divine-human Christ.’ His biblical argument was that only God can save people from their sin. Jesus Christ saves people from their sin. Therefore, Jesus Christ is God incarnate. No human creature can save another creature; thus it was vital to salvation that Jesus Christ was the God-Man. God’s only begotten Son is our Savior and our redeemer by the shedding of his blood.”
I cite Article 20, Belgic Confession: The Justice and Mercy of God in Christ:
We believe that God - who is perfectly merciful and also very just - sent the Son to assume the nature in which the disobedience had been committed, in order to bear it in the punishment of sin by his most bitter passion and death. So God made known his justice by his Son, who was charged with our sin, and he poured out his goodness and mercy on us, who are guilty and worthy of damnation, giving to us his Son to die, by a most perfect love, and raising him to life for our justification, in order that by him we might have immortality and eternal life.
“Oh, how boundless is our Father’s love for us!”