Christ has become an everlasting Covenant for His people

The paper I presented at last year's NCT think tank in Hunt, NY has been posted @ a new blogsite meant to highlight the rhythm of promise/picture and fulfillment in the New Covenant. Here's a portion of it:

There are several observations to be made about this Suffering Servant who will be made a covenant for the people. There has also been a lot of discussion about whether or not this is a covenant personified and what “for the people” actually means. Again, while some commentators are ambivalent about what it means for a person to be made a covenant, many others, some of whom will be quoted here are convinced (rightly so) that this is nothing other than a covenant that takes on flesh. So the first thing we can say about this covenant is that...

• The covenant promised here is a person, none other than the Suffering Servant of verse 1 in this passage. The Suffering Servant is going to embody a covenant.


• The Servant-Covenant will be given. There are echoes here of an earlier prophecy, “unto us a Son is given”. This is a covenant that will come from outside of the people… an example of a unilateral action on the part of YAHWEH.


• The Servant-Covenant will be commissioned by YAHWEH. Not only is he having an effect on the people, He is divinely ordained for this specific purpose.


• This Servant-Covenant brings justice. Justice is mentioned three times in the first four verses. Here in this passage the divine commissioning is itself characterized by righteousness. Justice is inseparable from the nature of this covenant and its effects.


• This Servant-Covenant will be a light. In fact, these two phrase “covenant for the people” and “light for the nations” are so connected that one could say that this Suffering Servant will be a covenant light. IOW, this is a covenant from which light proceeds.


• This Servant-Covenant acts on behalf of the people. “For the people” suggests not only recipients, but those who are the beneficiaries of the giving of this new covenant. There is a cause and effect relationship between the covenant and the people.

This then is the profile of the Suffering Servant who is to be a covenant for the people. Isaiah is saying that there is coming a day in Israel in which a Suffering Servant will be embody the covenant for His people. This Servant-Covenant will be a light to those whom he is given. As this covenant shines forth he brings justice to His people, a people that is broader than mere Israel. -- crb, "Christ, Our Everlasting Covenant"

This is precisely what happened when the Suffering Servant raised the cup in the upper room hundreds of years later. The Suffering Servant stood before those He had chosen to be His messengers to the rest of the world and declared, "this cup that is poured out *for you* (emph. mine) is the new covenant in my blood". In just a few short hours, the new covenant would be ratified even as the Suffering Servant became a Covenant for His people. As had been foreshadowed in the torch and the firepot, God not only covenanted with His people, He became that cut berith himself, subjecting himself to the curse of a broken covenant so that He could lavish on His people all of the spectacular blessings of an everlasting covenant. In the end, Christ provided Himself to His people in establishing Himself as their everlasting Covenant. -- crb