“Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.” – Hebrews 9:15 (ESV).

Hebrews 11 has sometimes been called “The Roll Call of Faith” by Bible scholars. In that chapter the writer of Hebrews lists many Old Testament examples of those who held a strong faith in God under the “Old” or First Covenent, made to Abraham and subsequent persons whose accounts are given in the Old Testament. Those believers were faithful to hold to the promises passed by word of mouth generation to generation and recorded in the law and the prophets, the Psalms and Proverbs.

In the New Testament we learn of the New Covenant mediated by Jesus Christ the Lord. A mediator is one who helps two parties arrive at an important agreement. The first covenant, given to the Israelites, became ineffective, not through flaws in God’s beneficence in giving it, but in the people’s inability to keep the terms of the covenant. Jesus came and established a New Covenant between Himself and God and for believers.

Jeremiah and others of the prophets wrote of and anticipated the New Covenant. “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant…not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord…I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:31-33). Jesus was the mediator—the executor of the New Covenant. And since, for remission of sins, there must be shedding of blood, Jesus Himself was the perfect sacrifice. He willingly offered Himself as the guarantor—the blood sacrifice—to seal the terms of the New Covenant and pay the price for mankind’s sins and separation from God.

The author of Hebrews states that “all who are called” will receive the promise of the eternal inheritance”—another way of stating “eternal life.” An amazing fact is that Jesus’ death for the propitiation (offering, sacrifice) for mankind’s sins is retroactive. Therefore, the “roll call” of the faithful in Hebrews 11 gives us an insight of Old Testament heroes whom we can expect to meet in Heaven because of their calling-out and faith held by those who lived before the coming of Christ to earth for the sacrifice of sins.

Jesus’ sacrifice is also “once for all” for any (of any era) who hear(d) and heed(ed) His call, believe in Him, and accept His sacrifice for sin. Dr. John Macarthur states in his commentary on Hebrews: “In a deeper sense, the sacrifice had already been made in God’s mind long before it was made in human history, because Christ’s works were finished from the foundation of the world” (see John Macarthur, New Testament Commentary. “Hebrews.” Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2005, p. 235). Jesus Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer, has done His work for the faithful of all ages: “It is finished!” was His triumphant cry from the cross before He died. To accept or reject is personal choice. Let us “be about our Father’s business” and declare to our unsaved family members and friends that any individual has but to believe, accept, confess and follow Jesus, and then look forward to an eternity with Him and with saints like the called-out among whom were Moses, Abraham, David and so many more. And, too, all who believe in this life will be reunited with ancestors and loved ones who have gone on before us. How can we not want to receive “the promise of the eternal inheritance” as declared in Hebrews 9:15? - Ethelene Dyer Jones 06.18.2017