COVENANT (in the NEW TESTAMENT) (διαθήκη, G1347, testament). A legal disposition, esp. of God for man’s redemption.

Outline

I. Terminology.

A. Incidence. The Gr. noun διαθήκη, G1347, occurs thirty-three times in the NT, with over half of these in Hebrews; G. Vos designated this book as “The Epistle of the Diatheke,” PTR 13 (1915), 587. In the KJV the noun is tr. thirteen times as “testament” and twenty times as “covenant,” though six times with “testament” in the mg. The general RSV rendering is “covenant,” though on three occasions (see below, II) it renders διαθήκη, G1347, as “will,” “testament”. At two points the KJV also utilizes the verb “to covenant” and on one other occasion the adjective “covenant breaker.”

B. Signification. Of these last three instances, one (Matt 26:15) consists of an unusual rendering of the verb ἵστημι, G2705, more frequently represented by such verbs as “to set” or “to appoint.” But the other two (Luke 22:5; Rom 1:31) stem from the root συντίθημι, G5338, meaning “to put together,” and hence “to agree” (as in John 9:22; Acts 23:20), “to assent” (Acts 24:9). The cognate noun (which does not happen to occur in the NT) is συνθήκη, the normal Gr. term for “contract” or “covenant,” i.e., a legal agreement that has been “put together” by the mutual consent of the parties concerned.

On the other hand, the noun which the NT does render as “covenant,” διαθήκη, G1347, comes from the root διατίθημι, G1416, meaning “to put through,” and hence to “appoint” (Luke 22:29). In contrast to the idea of mutual agreement, associated with a dipleuric (two-sided) compact or covenant, διατίθημι, G1416, signifies a monopleuric disposition, which may indeed involve reciprocally binding conditions or promises, but which exists essentially as “put through” or imposed by one party upon another. In pre-NT classical usage, διαθήκη, G1347, thus comes to connote that most completely monopleuric type of legal arrangement, the “disposition of property by will, testament” (LSJ, p. 394; cf. TWNT, II:127). The NT accordingly employs the participle διαθέμενος, for the “testator” of a last will (Heb 9:16, 17); and Philo (De nom. mut., 6) goes so far as to associate this concept with Jehovah Himself, “God will leave to the sinless and blameless an inheritance κατὰ̀ διαθήκης, by the terms of a will” (ibid., 52, 58; cf. Leg., II, 16, Som., II, 224).

At the same time, there existed in classical Gr., from the time of Aristophanes (427 b.c.; Birds, 440ff.) a secondary and limited usage by which διαθήκη, G1347, also signified an ordinance or even a dipleuric, treaty-like “convention or arrangement between two parties, a covenant,” to which definition the 8th ed. of Liddell and Scott added, “and so in later writers” (p. 346; cf. TWNT, II:127, 128). More recent lexicographers have, however, insisted that by Hel. times the term’s signification was “exclusively last will and testament” (AG, p. 182), which was the “ordinary and invariable contemporary [1st Christian cent.] meaning,” employed with “absolute unanimity” in the papyri and inscrs. (MM, pp. 148, 149).

In the pre-NT usage of the LXX, which so strongly conditioned the phraseology of the apostolic authors, both the monopleuric and the dipleuric connotations of διαθήκη, G1347, may be observed, though the former predominate. Of primary influence was the decision of the LXX trs. to represent the Heb. noun בְּרִית, H1382, which identifies God’s redemptive arrangement for His people, by the term διαθήκη, G1347. The only exceptions are Deuteronomy 9:15 and 1 Kings 11:11, seemingly due to textual variation. Their thinking was apparently determined by the suzerainty and testamentary nature of the covenant in the OT (q.v.); cf. the even earlier Hitt. situation. Noteworthy in this regard are the OT characteristics of: divine monergism, redemption being initiated and executed by God alone (Exod 14:13; 2 Chron 20:17); its symbolism of shed blood (Exod 24:8; Lev 17:11), redemption being effectuated through the laying down of a God-given life; and its purpose of bestowing a gift, redemption being defined as a gracious inheritance of life in God’s presence (Exod 15:17; Jer 31:33). For none of these situations would the general term συνθήκη, “covenant,” with all its connotations of mutual formulation have been satisfactory. Deissmann thus speaks of the testamentary concept as “very frequent” in the LXX (St. Paul, a Study in Social and Religious History; 2nd ed, p. 175). Yet the LXX went on to employ διαθήκη, G1347, “testament,” to render בְּרִית, H1382, not simply in passages concerning God’s grant of redemption (e.g., Gen 6:18; 15:18), but also throughout the remainder of the OT, including passages where בְּרִית, H1382, signifies ordinary human treaties or covenants (e. g., 21:27; 26:28). In the LXX of Isaiah 28:15 διαθήκη, G1347, thus appears in synonymous parallelism with συνθήκη. At eight other points it renders still other words, including אַחֲוָ֔ה, (Zech 11:14), “brotherhood,” which clearly connotes covenant and not testament. The force, therefore, of the term διαθήκη, G1347, in the NT, while influenced by, still cannot be determined by etymology or by prior usage, whether in the classics or in the LXX, but must be decided in each case by specific contextual evidence.

The thirty-three NT occurrences of diathēkē break down into three general groupings, determined by the subject or initiator of the “covenant” concerned: whether the subject be man, variously involved (three times); Christ, acting on the behalf of His Church (fourteen times); or Jehovah, accomplishing redemption for Israel (sixteen times, including Gal 4:24 which makes reference to the Church as well). The last mentioned group consists primarily of quotations from the OT.

II. Covenants between men. Standing in contrast with the OT’s frequent descriptions of human agreements and treaties, the NT does not deal with man-made covenants as specific historical phenomena. Three times, however, it does allude to a diathēkē between men, for the purpose of illustrating Christ’s redemptive activity for His own, namely in Galatians 3:15; Hebrews 9:16, and 17. The first adduces the subject of “a man’s will,” for the sake of emphasizing its feature that “no one annuls...or adds to it, once it has been ratified” (Gal 3:15 RSV). The KJV rendering at this point of diathēkē as “covenant” appears unwise (cf. J. Murray, The Covenant of Grace, p. 30), not simply because of the term’s normal testamentary connotations and because of the contextual stress upon an “inheritance” (v. 18), but primarily because covenants are not, under most circumstances, incapable of modifications. Bequests, on the other hand, remain fixed, particularly after the death of the testator, and even prior to this point. While the latter characteristic may not have been rigidly established in Rom. law, the provisions of a last will in Syro-Grecian law (which applied in Galatia) were not permitted to become subject to modification, once they had received public sanction and had led to such adoption proceedings as may have been involved (cf. W. M. Ramsay, EXP [1899], 57ff.; G. Vos, Biblical Theology, p. 34). The other two vv. speak to the necessary dependence of a diathēkē upon the death of the party who has set it up: “Where a will is involved, the death of the one who made it must be established”; and, “A will takes effect only at death” (Heb 9:16, 17 RSV). Clearly, in its diathēkēs between men, the NT signifies what one means by “testament.”

III. Christ’s covenant with God the Father.

A. Frequency. Almost two-thirds of the NT’s references to the covenant of Jesus Christ (nine times out of fourteen) are found in the Epistle to the Hebrews 7:22, about Jesus’ being “the surety of a better [testament] covenant, RSV”; 8:6, “the mediator of a better covenant”; and 9:15 and 12:24, “the mediator of a new covenant”; 8:8, about God’s making “a new covenant”; and 8:10 and 10:16, “the covenant that I will make”; and 10:29, about “the Son of God, and the blood of the [sanctifying] covenant”; and 13:20, “our Lord Jesus...brought again from the dead by the blood of an eternal covenant.” There remain only five other passages in the NT: Christ’s words at the institution of the Lord’s Supper—“This is my blood of the covenant” (Matt 26:28; Mark 14:24; fn., the adjective “new” does not appear at this point in the older MSS) and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:20; 1 Cor 11:25)—and Paul’s further Corinthian reference to the apostles as “ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor 3:6). One other citation (which is described below, under IV) likewise concerns Paul, in which he explains how “we are children of promise” by comparing the Church with God’s former covenant on Mount Sinai, for these “are two covenants” (Gal 4:24).

The problem of such relatively slight utilization of the covenant concept, outside of Hebrews, to describe the work of Jesus Christ, esp. when one compares the dominant position that it occupies in the OT, has led to no small discussion. Because of an assumed deterioration within the covenant idea during later OT days, G. E. Mendenhall proposes that “the covenant patterns were not really useful as a means of communication” (IDB, I:723). His assertion appears to be based upon negative critical assumptions about the externalized character of the Pentateuchal law and about its initial identification with the covenant only in the time of Ezra. This then leads to his disparaging conclusion that “the NT experience of Christ was one which could not be contained within the framework of a quasi-legal terminology or pattern of thought and action” (ibid.). This same writer later states, with greater plausibility, that it was an overemphasis upon law among the intertestamental Qumran sectarians and the NT Pharisees that worked in combination with the imperial government’s opposition to covenanting (anti-Rom.) secret societies, so as to “make it nearly impossible for early Christianity to use the term meaningfully” (ibid., I:722).

G. Vos, on the other hand, refuses to disparage OT thought in the former way and suggests rather that the NT’s emphasis upon the Person of Jesus Christ caused it to turn primarily to those portions of the OT that were descriptive of the coming Messiah, but which were so often separated from God’s revelations of His covenant (PTR, 13 [1915], 588). Vos proceeds to note that the additional and fresh emphases of Christ and the apostles upon concepts such as “the kingdom of God” or “the church” tended to restrict their use of covenant terminology to those passages that consciously sought to compare the older and the newer Testaments, as, for example, at the Lord’s Supper or in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where almost the whole of God’s redemptive plan is summed up in the doctrine of the two covenants (ibid., pp. 587-590). At these points the newer Christian development may then be compared either with valid Mosaic truths (as in 2 Cor 3) or with the perversions that are attributable to NT Pharisaism (as in Gal 4) and which hardly deserve the designation “covenant” in the first place. Early patristic writers exhibited no hesitancy in employing covenant terminology and concepts, e.g., Epistle of Barnabas, 13, 14, or Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III, 11, 8. Even Mendenhall grants that “for a time at least, the early Christians did regard themselves as a community bound together by covenant” (op. cit., I:722), though he confuses the covenant as a human, organizational compact with its basic character as a divinely redemptive testament (see below, [http://biblegateway/wiki/C. Testamentarianism. IV-C]; and [http://biblegateway/wiki/II. Covenants between men. COVENANT, THE NEW, II])

B. Character. The NT describes the saving relationship of Jesus Christ with God the Father as an “eternal covenant,” made effective by the Lord’s triumphant resurrection from the dead (Heb 13:20). Christ thus exercises an eternal priesthood: for “he always lives to make intercession” for His own (7:25), “securing an eternal redemption” (9:12), and has “offered himself without blemish to God, through the eternal Spirit” (9:14). Yet His covenant is, at the same time, thoroughly historical, effectuated at a single time and place “else must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (9:26 ASV). While the redemption wrought by Jesus is specifically pinpointed to Jerusalem, in a.d. 30, it constitutes also the end point or climax of all previous history, achieved, as Paul said, “in the fulness of time” (Gal 4:4). Its applicability is retroactive, “a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first [testament] covenant,” RSV; hence its historicity is combined with an eternal efficacy (Heb 9:15; 10:16). Indeed, God’s former relationship possesses a corresponding prospective applicability; for God will “remember his holy covenant [with Abraham]” (Luke 1:72) insures blessings upon NT Israel, His “covenant...with your fathers” (Acts 3:25) is fulfilled by His Servant Jesus, and the covenanted “seed of Abraham” (Gal 3:18) is Christ (cf. J. Murray’s appreciation of the Exodus as a “prototype” of NT salvation, The Covenant of Grace, p. 25).

As suggested by the above quotations, Christ’s diathēkē is, moreover, definitely testamentary in character. The implications of the Lord’s words, “This is my blood of the diathēkē, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matt 26:28), have been analyzed by A. R. Fausset as follows: “These requisites of a testament occur—1. A testator; 2. heir; 3. goods; 4. the testator’s death; 5. the fact of the death brought forward; 6. witnesses; 7. a seal, the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, the sign of His blood....The heir is ordinarily the successor of him who dies and so ceases to have possession. But Christ comes to life again, and is Himself (including all that He had), in the power of His now endless life, His people’s inheritance” (A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Practical on the Old and New Testaments, VI: 556). Shortly thereafter the Lord affirms, “I διατίθεμαι, G1415, bequeath unto you a kingdom” (Luke 22:29), though this literal meaning cannot always be insisted upon since His next words require a broader, non-testamentary usage: “as my Father appointed, διέθετο, unto me” (cf. Vos, PTR, 13 [1915], 608). Vos notes a trend, “moving away from the rendering ‘covenant’ to the other tr.” (ibid., p. 593); and, as he later states, “There are passages...for instance, those recording the institution of the Lord’s Supper, where a further return to ‘testament’ may seem advisable” (Biblical Theology, p. 35). The emphasis of the communion supper upon Christ’s sacrificial death, not simply upon a mealtime fellowship, with other characteristics of Christ’s diathēkē, are developed further under The New Covenant (q.v.); but this much does appear, that, just as in the case of the diathēkēs betw een men, so in the case of Christ’s diathēkē with God the Father, “covenant” in the NT warrants more precise definition as one’s last will and testament.

IV. God’s covenant with Israel.

A. History. The NT could upon occasion subsume God’s earlier redemptive revelations under His Sinaitic diathēkē, designated as “the old testament [covenant, RSV]” (2 Cor 3:14, cf. v. 15; Heb 9:18, cf. v. 19); yet it also recognizes a historical progressiveness, as it refers to various, successive covenants (pl.) of God with Israel (Rom 9:4; Eph 2:12; see below, Covenant, in the OT). While refraining from explicit comment upon God’s primeval diathēkēs with Adam and Noah, the NT commences its historical summarization with the aforementioned reference to Abraham, the father of the Hebrews: in Luke 1:72, 73 (which is itself a quote from Ps 105:8, 9; cf. 106:45), “His holy covenant” stands in parallelism with “the oath which he swore unto Abraham”; cf. Acts 3:25, “the covenant which God gave to your fathers, saying to Abraham...” and 7:8, how “[God] gave him [Abraham] the covenant of circumcision.” Galatians 3:16, 17, however, suggests a development; for not only does it speak of God’s promises to Abraham, it also comments on “a covenant confirmed...by God,” some 430 years before the giving of the law on Sinai. Accepting the latter’s date to be 1446 b.c., one arrives at 1876 for the former, when Jacob and his family, “the sons of Israel,” arrived first in Canaan from Haran (Exod 12:40 LXX; cf. Chronology of the OT, III-B, IV-A) and when God saw fit to renew His patriarchal covenant to Jacob, the grandson of Abraham (Gen 35:12; cf. other confirmations in 28:15 and 26:3, 24).

Eleven out of the NT’s sixteen references to God’s covenant with Israel concern His redemptive revelations to the Heb. nation during their forty years in the wilderness, 1446-1406 b.c. They begin with the Sinaitic diathēkē (Exod 19:4-6) and terminate with the Levitical (Num 25:12, 13), when Israel had reached the Jordan, across from Jericho (22:1). The earlier and more fundamental revelation is specified at eight points: Galatians 4:24, the covenant “from Mount Sinai”; Hebrews 8:9, God’s covenant with the nation’s “fathers” when He led “them forth out of the land of Egypt,” which is subsequently identified as “my covenant” (8:9) or “the first testament [covenant, RSV]” (9:15; cf. vv. 18 and 19, which cite Exod 24:6); Hebrews 9:4, “the ark of the covenant,” 9:4 again, “the tables of the covenant,” and 9:20, “the blood of the covenant” (quoted from Exod 24:8); and Revelation 11:19, “the ark of his testament,” all four of which latter references describe concrete items relating to the events at Mount Sinai. The remaining passages seem to include both the Sinaitic and the Levitical testaments: 2 Corinthians 3:14 speaks of “the reading of the old testament,” which suggests, if not the entire OT, at least those 15th cent. records that are involved “whenever Moses is read” (v. 15); while the pl. forms in Romans 9:4 and Ephesians 2:12, e.g. the latter’s “covenants of promise” given to the commonwealth of Israel might even include the Davidic testament (2 Sam 7:12-16; 23:5), though in the former it seems significant that, within the covenants that pertain to Israel, those factors that receive the greatest contextual emphasis are, specifically, “the adoption” and “the giving of the law,” both of which are distinctly Mosaic in import.

Finally, Romans 11:26, 27 quotes Isaiah 59:20, 21, in its anticipation of God’s still future covenant with Israel: “My covenant with them when I take away their sins.” The point of the reference seems to go beyond that of Jeremiah’s new testament (Jer 31:31-34), which was fulfilled in Christ’s sacrificial first coming (see [http://biblegateway/wiki/IV. God’s covenant with Israel. THE NEW COVENANT, IV]), and to imply Ezekiel’s testament of peace (Ezek 37:25-28), which will some day transform not only the Jewish nation, but also all the nations of the world, at His victorious Second Coming. The progressive revelations of the diathēkē will thus have achieved that same goal of final salvation which the prophets anticipated. In fact, the Apostle John closes out human history in the first half of his Apocalypse with an OT covenant-object, “In heaven...there was seen in his temple the ark of his covenant” (Rev 11:19).

B. Limitation. The NT affirms that the old diathēkē was “glorious” (2 Cor 3:7-11 KJV); it was divine in origin (Heb 8:9 RSV); it embraced redemptive promises of reconciliation with God (Eph 2:12, 13), which were not annulled by the law (Gal 3:17); and it was confirmed by God’s own oath (Acts 2:30; Heb 6:13-17) in both the Davidic (Pss 89:3, 35-37; 110:1) and Abrahamic (Gen 22:16, 17) testaments. The OT had been conscious of a preliminary character (Jer 31:31, 32), and the apostolic writers unite in recognizing its temporary nature.

Paul insists that Christ is “the end of the law” (Rom 10:4), who fulfills its promises (2 Cor 1:20). Indeed, through its stress on external written revelation and through its more limited appreciation of the internal, infilling power of God’s Holy Spirit for all believers (cf. Jer 31:33, 34), it could be said of the older revelation that “the letter killeth” in contrast to the newer testament, through which “the spirit giveth life” (2 Cor 3:6). For, even as the OT validates its testamentary promises of the Redeemer who would come to Zion by referring to a continuing presence of the words of God in the mouths of His prophets (Isa 59:21; cf. Rom 11:26, 27), so too the NT emphasizes “the reading of the old covenant” (2 Cor 3:14), meaning “Moses [v. 15] in the form of the OT Scriptures” (NIC, 2 Cor, p. 111). Some have questioned the suitability of this phrase, if used in the modern sense as a title for the pre-Christian OT, for the newer diathēkē of Jesus Christ had attained to only a part of its eventual twenty-seven book form (Vos, Biblical Theology, p. 35). Yet Hodge’s exegesis of 2 Corinthians seems correct when he speaks of the apostle’s “metonymical use of the word covenant for the books in which that [older] covenant is contained” (Commentary on 2 Corinthians, pp. 69, 70). The older testament simply cannot be dissociated from writing. Furthermore, while Paul does describe the “covenants...from mount Sinai [as] bearing children unto bondage” (Gal 4:24, 25), it must be recognized that the apostle’s specific conflict lay with the perverted legalism of the Pharisees of his day and that a written testament need not necessarily suffer spiritual limitation simply because it is verbalized (cf. the NT books); Isaiah’s own covenant passage had specifically correlated “my Spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth” (59:21).

The Epistle to the Hebrews summarizes the limitations of the old diathēkē under the term σκιά, G5014, “shadow” (10:1): It only foreshadowed the good things of divine revelation that were to come; and it failed to attain to the εἰκών, G1635, “very image,” that should characterize the NT’s clearer representation (G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT, p. 496). The former lacked faultlessness (8:7), not simply because it was fragmentary (1:1) and mediated in a secondary way through angels (1:14; cf. Acts 7:53; Gal 3:19) or through Moses (Heb 3:3), but more fundamentally because of its weakness and even unprofitableness (7:18), due to its shadowy, typical nature (8:5); it prescribed mere ceremonial “copies of the heavenly things” (9:23). In particular its priesthood, which was personally infirm (7:28) and was equipped only with symbolical animal sacrifices that could “never take away sins” (10:11), existed as an anticipation of Christ in His perfection and in His unique work for the propitiation of God, in heaven (7:26, 27; 9:24; 10:12).

C. Testamentarianism. God’s NT revelation provides His own normative explanation about the nature of the old diathēkē: it not only confirms the validity of the OT’s affirmations; it also establishes the ultimate character of those aspects of divine redemption that had, perforce, to remain unclarified prior to the incarnation of Jesus Christ (see [http://biblegateway/wiki/Covenant (in the Old Testament) COVENANT IN THE OT]). Within the context of the NT the most crucial passage is Hebrews 9:15-22, esp. vv. 16 and 17. The former reads, “For where a diathēkē is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator” (KJV). These words indicate a last will. Marcus Dodds, B. F. Westcott, and a few others have argued that the “death” signifies only a self-imprecation of dismemberment for non-fulfillment (cf. Jer 34:18-20), which was “brought out” by the ratifying ceremonies of a covenant. Such an explanation appears unlikely, for it is not the threat of death but the death itself that is brought out or adduced. Furthermore, the threat of death does not seem always to have been a necessary element in covenantal, as opposed to testamental, thought; cf. David and Jonathan. Verse 17 is decisive: “For a diathēkē is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth” (KJV). As Dean Alford stated: “It is quite vain to deny the testamentary sense of diathēkē in this v....I believe it will be found that we must at all hazards accept the meaning of testament, as being the only one which will in any way meet the plain requirement of the verse” (The Greek Testament, IV:173, 174; cf. the renderings of ASV, RSV).

What then is involved in Alford’s “all hazards”? First, the fact that the same term, diathēkē, appears twice in Hebrews 9:15 in the preceding context and is implied in v. 18 which follows. The former reads, “And for this cause he [Christ] is the mediator of a new diathēkē, that a death having taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first diathēkē, they that have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance” (KJV). The ASV and most scholars tr. diathēkē as “covenant” (though the ASV mg. has “testament”), claiming “amphiboly, or two-fold use, by which the writer of Hebrews in ix. 16 sq. substitutes for the meaning covenant...that of testament” (J. Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the NT, p. 137). In this passage one again notes the presence of death. There is also the use of the term κληρονομίας, “inheritance”; and the whole statement is closely associated with what follows (Heb 9:16). “For where a testament is...” etc. One must conclude that “testament” is the meaning of diathēkē in v. 15 as well as in vv. 16 and 17. Verse 18, moreover, reads, “Wherefore even the first [diathēkē] hath not been dedicated without blood.” This reference to diathēkē must also be rendered in accordance with the context, and particularly with the prior mention of the first diathēkē in v. 15. It cannot, therefore, be tr. “covenant” but must be, as in KJV, “testament.” Such a conclusion is required, not only for the sake of consistency, but also for the understanding of the argument of the passage. Meredith Kline has sug gested that the explanation for Hebrews 9 must lie in the Hittite-type dynastic treaty, particularly as reflected in Moses’ “last will and bequest” (Deut 33, 34), Christ being both the dying representative of God (paralleling Moses) and at the same time, together with His redeemed brethren, the resurrected inheritor of universal dominion (paralleling Joshua; WTJ 23 [1960], 14). The point of reference must be testament; for, Dodds has asserted: “To adduce the fact that in the case of wills the death of the testator is the condition of validity, is, of course, no proof at all that a death is necessary to make a covenant valid” (EGT, IV: 336). For liberal interpreters it remains possible to dismiss this passage as a formal, ad hominem argument, one that alleges proof where no real parallel exists (Behm, TWNT, II; 134; cf. B. Weiss, Biblical Theology of the NT, II: 207), or to say that “the ambiguity of the word covered for the author, as also for the Gr. commentators, the logical hiatus” (A. S. Peake, Hebrews [The Century Bible], p. 188). For an evangelical, who holds that God is the primary author of Hebrews 9, any interpretation which necessitates the grouping of the Holy Spirit of inspiration along with Gr. commentators who are in need of extenuation for logical hiatuses becomes inconceivable. Verse 22 then explains the entire OT concept of sacrifice, which for the author of Hebrews “was the centre and soul of Judaism” (Stevens, op. cit., p. 490), in terms of the diathēkē; for without the shedding of testamentary blood there could be no remission of sins. Throughout Hebrews 9 one must conclude that diathēkē means testament and that thus both the old and the new diathēkēs are testaments.

From this point it follows naturally to conclude with E. Riggenbach (Der Begriff Διαθήκη im Hebräerbrief) that in Hebrews as a whole the term likewise connotes “testament” (contrast Vos, PTR, 3 [1915], 617, 618). The same conclusion may, however, be applied to all the NT’s references to the older testament. Vos favors a true testamentalism in Acts 3:25 (following Deissmann, op. cit., p. 175; cf. MM, p. 148), where Luke states that the diathēkē that God made with the Israelite fathers has been realized in Jesus Christ; Paul’s stress rests upon legal terminology and the fact of inheritance (Gal 4:24-30). The testamentary significance of the NT term diathēkē when used for Christ’s newer covenant with the Father and for covenants between men has already been noted (see above, II, iii). Concerning the latter, Vos contends: “That Paul (Gal 3:15)...gives this specific turn to the idea...cannot, of course, give plausibility to the assumption that the LXX associated God with the idea of a ‘last will’” (op. cit., pp. 601, 602; vs. Deissmann, loc. cit.). Furthermore, the fact that the NT uses diathēkē for God’s covenant with Israel and that it specifies the meaning “testament” does not prove what the LXX trs. may have had in mind either. It does show that the divine author of the OT intended the saving bequest of His Son Jesus Christ from the very inception of His revelations. Patristic writers even went so far as to say that, since Israel had from the beginning forfeited the covenant by their idolatry, there really was no “new covenant” at all, but just the one testament in the death of Jesus, for Christians only (Barnabas, 4:8-18; 13-14:5).

Bibliography B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews (1889), esp. 298-302; G. B. Stevens, The Theology of the NT (1906), 490-514; E. Riggenbach, Der Begriff Διαθήκη im Hebräerbrief (1908); A. Carr, “Covenant or Testament? A note on Heb 9:16f.,” EXP, VII: 7 (1909), 347ff.; L. G. da Fonseca, “Διαθήκη—foedus an testamentum?” Biblica, 8 (1927), 9 (1928); MM, 148, 149; J. Behm, “διατίθημι, διαθήκη,” TWNT (1935), II: 105-137; G. Vos, Biblical Theology (1948), esp. 32-36; R. Bultmann, Theology of the NT (1951), esp. I: 97, 98, 110, 340; R. Campbell, Israel and the New Covenant (1954); J. Murray, The Covenant of Grace (1954), esp. 25-30; J. B. Payne, Theology of the Older Testament (1962), 82-85.