Hebrews 13:20, “…God…brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant….”
What’s always struck me as interesting about this text is the way this “eternal covenant” seems to be instrumental in the resurrection of Christ. What is this “eternal covenant?” I think we can say with confidence that it is the same covenant from Jeremiah 31:31 thatis called the new—or in 32:40 the everlasting—covenant. Jesus is raised from the dead according to the blood of the new/everlasting/eternal covenant.
But why would the inaugurating blood of the New Covenant (NC) cause Jesus to be raised from the dead? What is it about this covenant that entails His resurrection? Well, in Jeremiah 31:31ff and 32:40 (as well as other places we see the NC talked about), there is a strong connection between the inauguration of the NC and the return of God’s people from exile (notice that the author of Hebrews hints at this “return from exile” connection by calling Jesus the “shepherd of the sheep,” an image associated with the eschatological re-gathering of God’s people (Ezekiel 34:11-12, 23, 37:24) and thus, according to John, with Christ’s death and resurrection (10:14-16, 11:51-52) ). But why is it significant that the NC is associated with the return from exile? Because, in the prophets, the exile is likened to the covenant death of God’s people, and the return from exile is, therefore, a type of resurrection (consider the vision of the valley of dry bones coming to life in Ezekiel 37:1-14, which is talking about the true return from exile that YHWH will work for His own). When we consider, then, that the NC is tied closely to the return from exile of God’s people, and that the return from exile is a type of resurrection, then we can see the connection that the author of Hebrews is making.
The NC entails resurrection from death and return from exile, and it was inaugurated by Christ’s own blood (Luke 22:20, Matt.26:27, etc.). So, when the Christ, the Son of David, the True Israelite, the Final Sacrifice—when He shed His blood on the altar of the cross, He was substitutionally joining His people in their exile from God (which is death—physical and spiritual). In doing so, He—the final covenant servant—was bringing the Old Covenant to an end….but He was also simultaneously—by the same blood/death that completed the Old—was putting into force the New Covenant…..the New Covenant, which entails the RETURN from exile and RESURRECTION from the dead for God’s people—of whom Christ is chief and the representative head.
Thus, by the blood that He Himself shed to bring about the New—the Eternal—Covenant, by that blood, He Himself is raised from the dead, according to the promise of the covenant that His blood has inaugurated….He Himself is brought back from the exile of damnation. Christ is the first and foremost beneficiary of the New Covenant promises, and in Him ALL who are exiled and languishing in the death of sin can be RAISED UP, can be REGENERATED, can RETURN from wherever they have been scattered and be gathered under the One Shepherd….a Shepherd who—having saved them from spiritual exile and death—will see them through physical death as well and bring them into the green pastures and still waters of Triune Joy.
