Mediator of a New Covenant
Piety
Christ is mediator of a new covenant: since a death has taken place for deliverance from transgressions under the first covenant, those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance. Hebrews 9:15
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him. But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Mark 3:24-27
Study
At Belmont Abbey College, all students, regardless of religious affiliation, were required to take two semesters of theology. I escaped the details and nuances of The Summa Theologica by taking “Christianity, Culture and Politics” (a prescient honors course offering for Fall 1975 that long pre-dated the rise of Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority) and a class in ethics.
A footnote to today’s first reading is what would have been in store had I taken the more normal Theology 201 or 202. In the small print of the New American Bible, we find the following explanation:
Jesus’ role as a mediator of the new covenant is based upon his sacrificial death (cf. Heb 8:6). His death has affected deliverance from transgressions, i.e., deliverance from sins committed under the old covenant, which the Mosaic sacrifices were incapable of effacing. Until this happened, the eternal inheritance promised by God could not be obtained (Heb 9:15). This effect of his work follows the human pattern by which a last will and testament become effective only with the death of the testator (Heb 9:16–17). The Mosaic covenant was also associated with death, for Moses made use of blood to seal the pact between God and the people (Heb 9:18–21). In Old Testament tradition, guilt could normally not be remitted without the use of blood (Heb 9:22; cf. Leviticus 17:11).
Such an explanation would have been much harder to find in the five volumes of TST without the benefit of hypertext footnotes.
Jesus also much more directly addresses the subject of getting control over our base instincts in today’s confrontation with the scribes. Unless we tie up the strong man who tempts us with power, money, sex, and easy routes to happiness, we will never get control over the temptations Satan sends our way.
Jesus is very direct in addressing the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. Thomas also addresses “Whether there be any supreme evil, which is the first cause of all evils?” By the end of that section, I am confused. By the end of Jesus’ address in Mark 3, I just want to avoid blaspheming the Holy Spirit. This sin “attributes to Satan, who is the power of evil, what is actually the work of the Holy Spirit, namely, victory over the demons.”
The scribes were guilty of the “everlasting sin” because they claimed: “"By the prince of demons he drives out demons." However, Jesus’s victory over demons is the work of God. Satan would have no motive to drive out Satan. That is solely the mission of the Holy Spirit.
Just think of how furious those scribes were when they realized what sin Jesus was accusing them of committing.
Action
You do not need a Ph.D. in Sacred Theology to get the concepts right from scripture. We can be grateful for the guides we have had along the way. Fr. Jerome Dollard was my first. He taught that course in Christianity, Culture, and Politics. He was my first real adult guide into these “civil religion” topics -- helping to focus the young minds in his class on the Spirit-inspired works of Dorothy Day as they oppose the Satan-inspired works of Chairman Mao and his little red book.
Who has been your guide?
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