01.19. On The Import And Use Of διαθήκη In Scripture

Section Seventh. On The Import And Use Ofδιαθήκη In Scripture THE word now to be considered is of frequent occurrence, both in Scripture, and in the classics, but usually in a somewhat different sense. In the classics it commonly signifies disposition, arrangement,—or, more specifically, that particular disposition which is denominated a man’s will and testament the deed by which he finally disposes of his effects.

The latter is the more common usage; whence the old glossaries gave testamentum as the Latin synonym. The cases are so rare in which with classical authors it is found in any other sense, that little account needs to be made of them.

They do occur, however, and in one passage at least, the Aves of Aristophanes, 1. 480, the phrase, διαθεσθαι διαθήκην is used to express the making of a compact or covenant, to be carried out between two parties. But the common noun for such cases was undoubtedly συνθήκη. Yet for what was emphatically the covenant in ancient times, the Septuagint has preferred διαθήκη, which, accordingly, among Greek-speaking Jews, became the appropriate term for the covenant of God with Israel.

The first occasions on which the word was used had respect to transactions which strikingly displayed the goodness of God in making sure provision for the present safety and highest well-being of man (Genesis 9:9; Genesis 17:7.) It is possible, we may even say probable, that on this account mainly the term διαθήκη was employed rather than συνθήκη for the latter might justly seem an inadequate expression to characterize arrangements, in which it appeared so prominent an object to make men recipients of the Divine goodness, personally par takers, or instrumentally channels of blessing. It seemed more fitting to employ a term which, without altogether losing sight of the mutual relationship, as between two parties somehow standing in contract, should still give chief prominence to the beneficence of God in disposing of His affairs, so as to provide a suitable heritage of good for His people.

In this light it appears to have been understood by some of the Fathers. Thus Clemens Alex, describes διαθήκη as that “which God, the Author of the universe, makes;” namely, His arrangement or disposition of the riches of His bounty. Suidas defines it as ἡ Θεοῦ πρὸς ̓Αβραὰμ, καὶ τοὺς λοιποὺς προπάτορας γενομένη ἐπαγγελιά, the promise which God made to Abraham and the other patriarchs.

Isidore of Pelusiam gives it a somewhat different turn, and points to a more special characteristic, but one also that is derived from its more peculiar reference to God. He says, “συνθήκη is called in Scripture a testament because the promise it contains is firm and permanent; pactions, indeed, are often broken up, but legal testaments never.” (See Suicer.)

But, however we may thus be able to account for the use of διαθήκη rather than of συνθήκη as a translation of the Heb. berith, we must not allow it to assume, in its ordinary use, the classical sense of testament, rather than of covenant. There can be no doubt, that covenant is the proper rendering of berith; and as διαθήκη was employed as its synonym by the Septuagint, it must be taken in the sense of the original—unless the connexion should determine otherwise. Indeed, for any thing that appears in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Israelites knew nothing of testaments in the ordinary sense of the term; their rights of property were so regulated as to render these for the most part unnecessary; if only the means were at hand for ascertaining the family descent and relationship of the parties concerned.

They consequently made much account of genealogies, but none, so far as we know, of testaments. When God, however, designated the transactions into which He entered with their fathers by the name of covenant, even though the pledged and promised goodness of God might be the most prominent feature in them, the idea of a mutual paction or agreement was still meant to be kept steadily in view;—the Lord sustained one part, and the people another. And this was done, primarily, that they might have a clear and affecting proof of His desire to assure them of the certainty of the things guarantied in the covenant.

Not for this only, however, but for the farther purpose of impressing upon their minds the feeling, that they had a part to perform to God, as well as God to them, and that faithfulness in duty, on the one side, must keep pace with bountifulness in giving on the other. Such was the case even in the Abrahamic covenant, which is called, by way of eminence, the covenant of promise; for the assurance it contained of a numerous and blessed offspring carried along with it the condition, that parent and offspring alike should abide in the faith of God and keep His charge. In the English Bible the word covenant is the uniform rendering adopted for the Heb. berith; and so is it also in New Testament Scripture for διαθήκη, whenever the word points to the covenants made with the patriarchs or at Sinai.

Yet in the designation of the Scriptures, which belong to the periods embraced by those covenants, the sense of testament has been generally introduced. By a natural metonymy, the writings that pertain to a period during which a διαθήκη was in force had this applied to them as an appropriate name. Thus, in 2 Corinthians 3:14, St. Paul speaks of the veil remaining on the minds of the Jews, ἐπι τῆ ἀναγνώσει τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης, at the reading of the Old Testament, as our translators have rendered it, not of the Old Covenant.

We have become so much accustomed to the use of Testament in this application, that we rarely think whether it is altogether appropriate or not. Yet had it been proposed for the first time to our consideration, it could hardly have failed to strike us as a sort of anomaly in language, that the term Testament should be employed as the distinctive epithet for writings in which the term itself never occurs, while the term covenant is of frequent use, and in the later Scriptures, old covenant is employed to designate a period altogether or nearly past, in contradistinction to a new and better era approaching, (Jeremiah 31:31.) The Old covenant, therefore, was clearly the fitting designation for the earlier half of the Bible, rather than the Old Testament.

(Kohlbrugge, in a treatise Wozu das alte Testament, objects also to this designation, and deems it not warranted by the language of the apostle in 2 Corinthians 3:14. He conceives the apostle to be there speaking of the Hebrew Scriptures, not absolutely, but as they are to the unbelieving and blinded Jews; to these they are merely the old covenant, while to the enlightened believer, who can read them with open eye, they display the new covenant. Undoubtedly the books are very different things to the two classes mentioned; but the plain and natural import of the apostle’s language points to the books themselves, as containing what pertains to the Old Covenant.

Their further and prospective reference is not here taken into account. And if persons now think themselves entitled to disregard those books, because they are specially connected with the Old Covenant, this is an abuse chargeable on their own ignorance and sin.) The Vulgate, however, by its adoption of testamentum, instead of fœdus, has in this respect given the law to modern times. Some of the earlier versions presented both terms, at least in respect to New Testament Scripture, as Beza’s Testamentum Novum, Sive Fœdus Novum, and the Genevan French, Le Nouveau Testament, c’est à dire la Nouvelle Alliance.

But the alternative phrase never came into general use; and the only prevailing designation has been, and still is, The Scriptures of the Old and the New Testaments. Of course, as a convenient term for simply designating the two component parts of the Bible, it is of little moment whether we use the one or the other. The current epithets serve well enough to distribute the inspired writings into two sections or parts, standing related to each other, the one as the earlier, the other as the later revelation of Divine truth; the one springing up in connexion with that state of things which preceded the birth of Christ, and has vanished away; the other with that which was introduced by Christ, and abides for ever.

But as there can be no doubt that the substitution of Testament for covenant, in the designation of Scripture, arose from a disposition to regard the economy of Christ’s salvation in the light of a testament rather than of a covenant—as on this account the writings of evangelists and apostles came to be denominated The New Testament, and in conformity with this appellation that of Old Testament was assigned to the Law and the Prophets—the question very naturally presents itself, whether such be the Scriptural view of the matter? Whether the gift of Christ, and the benefits of His redemption, are exhibited in the light of a testamentary bequest? For if they are not, then the testamentary aspect of redemption must be pronounced formally incorrect, however in substance accordant with the truth of things; but if they are, the form also is capable of vindication.

In neither case is any doctrine of Scripture involved in the inquiry; it touches merely the mode of representation.

Now, as διαθήκη constantly bears in the Old Testament the sense of covenant, it may justly be inferred to carry the same meaning in the New, unless the connexion should, in certain cases, plainly decide in favour of the other rendering. So far as regards our Lord’s personal teaching, there is no room for any difference of view on the subject. Though He frequently referred to both the affairs and the writings of the old economy, He was very sparing in the use of the term διαθήκη.

Ho docs not employ it to designate the revelation of law from Sinai; nor are the transactions entered into with, the patriarchs, as the heads of the Jewish people; or with David, as the founder of the royal house, called by this name. The first, and the only time that the word appears in our Lord’s discourses, is at the institution of the Supper. The words of institution slightly vary in the accounts of the three evangelists, and of the apostle Paul, (1 Corinthians 11:1-34) but in each of them He is represented as using the expression ἡ καινὴ διαθήκη.

And using it, as He does, without a word of explanation, we cannot doubt that He intended it to be taken by the disciples in its current acceptation; namely, in the sense of covenant; for in that sense alone had it hitherto been employed. Nor can we but regard it as unfortunate, that at that special moment in our Lord’s ministry, and in connexion with the most sacred and distinctive institution of His kingdom, the later rendering of testament should have been substituted for the earlier one of covenant. For it confuses the expression in words which are of perpetual recurrence, as well as solemn import, and in respect to which it was desirable that the greatest clearness and certainty should exist; and in so far as the language may be distinctly understood, it presents the great redemption in an aspect which had not at least been previously exhibited, and could not therefore have been intended at the time.

How, then, it may naturally be asked, should such a sense have been so generally put upon it? Are there other pas sages in subsequent portions of New Testament Scripture, in which the word, in its connexion with the work of Christ, conclusively bears the meaning of testament? There is a remarkable one in the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which it certainly appears to have that meaning, and which will call for special investigation.

Leaving that passage, however, for a moment (which is in Hebrews 9:1-28,) there are various other places where the word διαθήκη is used; and always, it is proper to note, in reference to what was strictly a covenant. In the Epistle to the Hebrews itself, we read once and again of two covenants—an old and a new; the former imperfect in its nature and provisions, and destined to last only till the time of reformation; the latter, founded on better promises, complete in all its arrangements, consequently declared to be everlasting. In like manner, in Galatians 4:24-31, we have a discourse upon the two covenants, the covenants of law and of promise, as allegorized or typified by the facts and relations of Abraham’s family; the term διαθήκη being used as the common designation of both.

Again, in the third chapter of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, a contrast is drawn between the two covenantsthe old and the new—in respect to the points, in which the one differed from, by rising superior to, the other. In this comparison, however, the word διαθήκη is only once used; and our translators, following the Vulgate and the earlier English versions, have rendered it testament (“who hath made us able ministers of the New Testament,” 2 Corinthians 3:6.) Such was their regard to those guides, that on one occasion they have even adopted this rendering in connexion with a phrase which, in all the other passages where it occurs, has been otherwise translated.

The passage is Revelation 11:19, where the temple presented itself in vision to the prophet, and he saw “the ark of the testament,” as we find it rendered, but, as it should rather have been, “the ark of the covenant.” In all these cases, there can be no reasonable doubt that, whether referring to the old or to the new things in God’s dispensations, the “word διαθήκη is to be understood in the ordinary sense of covenant. So that if, in the one remaining passage where it occurs, we should see reason for adopting the sense of testament, this would furnish no ground for altering the translation in the other passages that have been referred to. The less so, indeed, as the passage in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, as far as regards what is denoted by διαθήκη, is of a somewhat general nature; it does not point exclusively, or even specially, to the transactions bearing that name in Scripture, but rather to the nature of διαθῆκαι generally—what those of Scripture have in common with others.

But let us turn to the passage itself. Commencing with verse Hebrews 9:15, for the sake of the connexion, it reads thus in the authorized version: “For this cause He (viz. Christ) is the Mediator of the New Testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament (διαθήκη both times,) they that are called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator (ὅπου γὰρ διαθήκη, θάνατον ἀνάγκη φέρεσθαι τοῦ διαθεμένου.)

For a testament is of force after men are dead (ἐπὶ νεκροῖς;) otherwise, it is of no strength at all, while the testator liveth (ὅτε ζῆ ὁ διαθεμένος.) Whereupon neither the first (viz. testament) was dedicated without blood.” The meaning obtained by this rendering may be briefly stated thus: A will does not become valid so long as the person making it is alive; it is a disposition of his affairs proceeding on the contemplation of his death, and can only take effect when he has himself ceased to live; whence also Christ, as the testator of an inheritance of blessing for His people, must die before the benefit provided by Him can be reaped. So understood, and viewed with reference to the practice known to exist among Greeks and Romans respecting wills, the sense of the passage is plain enough.

The only question is, will the sense obtained suit the connexion, and meet the real circumstances of the case? There are, obviously, some apparent incongruities in the way; both at the commencement and at the close. The statement is brought in to illustrate a certain correspondence between the preparatory and the final in God’s dispensations: Christ is the Mediator of a new διαθήκη, that by His death He might purchase redemption for those who could not obtain it by the old; for where a διαθήκη is there must of necessity be the death of the διαθεμένος.

But the notion of testament here involves some difficulty; since a mediator, in ordinary circumstances, has nothing to do with a testament; nor is there any essential link of connexion between a mediator and a testator. Then, again, at the close, where it is said, “Whence the first also—the first διαθήκη—was not consecrated without blood,” it is not death, as of a testator, but consecration from defilement, that is represented as constituting the establishment of the earlier διαθήκη. So that the connexion at both ends seems to hang somewhat loosely with the notion of a testament; and if that notion is here the correct one, its justification must be sought in some peculiarity connected, either with the transactions referred to, or with the point of view from which they are contemplated. It is possible, that such may be found, when the subject is properly considered.

Meanwhile, it is right to state, that the difficulties are by no means lessened by resorting to the other translation, and rendering by covenant. The late Professor Scholefield, who preferred this rendering, still found himself so beset with difficulty, that the passage appeared to him the “most perplexing in the whole of the New Testament.” (Hints for Some Improvements in the Authorized Version of the New Testament, p. 142.) He would render Hebrews 9:16-17, “For where a covenant is, there must of necessity be brought in the death of the mediating [sacrifice.] For, a covenant is valid over dead [viz. sacrifices;] since it is never of any force while the mediating [sacrifice] continues alive.” Here, we are first of all struck with the number of ellipses in so short a passage; sacrifice or sacrifices requiring to be supplied no less than three times—to διαθεμέου, in Hebrews 9:16, then to ἐπὶ νεκροῖς, in the first part of Hebrews 9:17, and again to διαθεμένος; in the second.

It is plainly too much; especially as a transition is made from the singular to the plural, and back again from the plural to the singular. Sacrifice and sacrifices were not wont thus to be interchanged in the reality. Then, to speak of sacrifices as dead, is altogether unusual, still more to put dead simply for sacrificial victims; no proper parallel can be produced to justify such a license.

And, finally, the rendering of διαθέμενος by mediating sacrifice is equally unwarranted: when used in regard to covenant transactions, it is so naturally understood of him who makes the covenant, that, as Professor Scholefield remarks, a strong nerve should be required for any one, that would be conscious of no difficulty in giving it a different sense here. In short, it is an entirely arbitrary translation, and no support can be found for it in the whole range of Greek literature. This alone is fatal to the view under consideration; and when taken along with the objections previously urged, leaves the matter under this aspect utterly hopeless.

It could serve no end to examine in detail the other modifications of the view, which proceeds to the adoption of covenant for the sense of διαθήκη, and “over dead sacrifices” for ἐπὶ νεκροῖς. The same objections substantially, or others equally valid, apply to each of them. We revert, therefore, to the apparently natural sense of testament, and inquire whether there be not some point of view, from which, if the subject be contemplated, a natural and satisfactory vindication may be gained for it.

This, we are persuaded, is to be found. The statement, it will be perceived in this aspect of the matter, proceeds upon the apprehension of a certain agreement between a covenant made by God for the good of men, and a will or testament made by a man in behoof of his heirs. There are, no doubt, obvious points of difference between the two; in this respect especially, that in a cove nant strictly so called, there is something of the nature of a mutual engagement or contract between the covenanting parties.

This, however, is not the aspect in which the Divine covenants are contemplated in this portion of the Epistle to the Hebrews. From ch. 8:6, where a formal comparison begins to be instituted between the New and the Old, they are viewed in the light of a disposition or arrangement, on the part of God, for the purpose of securing certain blessings to His people—imperfectly and provisionally in the Old Covenant, adequately and finally in the New. On this account, the contracting element in them naturally falls into the back ground, and the beneficiary or promissory alone comes into view; the discussion turns upon what God has done and laid up for them that fear Him, scarcely, if at all, upon what they are taken bound to do for God.

Now, it is precisely here, that a point of contact is to be found between a covenant of God and a testament of man; the very point which led to the adoption of διαθήκη as the fittest term for expressing the Heb. berith; because a covenant of God, in this aspect of it, is not, in the ordinary sense, a συνθήκη or compact, but rather a διαθήκη or disposition, an unfolding of the way and manner in which men may attain to a participation or inheritance in the riches of Divine grace and goodness. It is to this common element, that the apostle points, and on it that he founds this part of his argument for the superiority of the New over the Old. The first, he in effect tells us, did contain a disposition from the Lord’s hand as to the participation of His riches; but one only provisional and temporary, because of its presenting no proper satisfaction for the sins of the people.

It left the guilt of these sins still standing unatoned, in the eye of Divine Justice, and so, if taken simply by itself, it could not provide for men the eternal inheritance which God destines for His people. Christ, who comes actually to provide, and confer on men, a title to this inheritance, must therefore come as the executor of a new διαθήκη, to make good the deficiencies of the Old, and by a valid atonement remove the sins, which continued to lie as a bar across the path to the inheritance. He must (as stated in Hebrews 9:15) through His death provide redemption for the transgressions pertaining to the first covenant, that they who had been called under it, as well as those called now, might have the promise of the inheritance made good in their behalf.

Thus it comes to pass, that to do here the part of an effective mediator, in establishing a complete and valid covenant, Christ has, at the same time, to do the part of a testator; He must lose the personal possession of His goods, before He can secure for His people a right to participate in them; to enrich them He must, for a time, impoverish Himself—die the death that they (along with Him) may ultimately inherit eternal life. And so, in this fundamental respect, the two ideas of covenant and testament coalesce in the work of Christ; He is at once Mediator and Testator; at one and the same moment He establishes for ever what God pledges Himself in covenant to bestow, and by His voluntary death transmits to others the inheritance of life and blessing wherein it consists. It is, therefore, as true of this Divine διαθήκη, as of any human testament, that it could not be of force till the διαθεμένος; had died.

Till then the inheritance was bound up indissolubly with His own person; and through His death alone was it set free for others; as was plainly intimated under a natural image, by our Lord Himself, when He said, “Verity, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24.) When viewed in the light now presented, the allusion of the inspired writer is very different from what is commonly represented—a mere play upon words. On the contrary, each word is retained in its natural and appropriate meaning, while, at the same time, there appears a strictly logical connexion in the argument.

The train of thought proceeds, not upon a fanciful or fictitious, but upon a real point of coincidence and agreement between a Divine covenant and a human testament; hence also, between Christ the mediator of the covenant, and Christ the testator of the eternal inheritance; since it is the great object of the covenant, whether in its old or its new form, to instate men in the possession of that inheritance, and the great end of Christ’s work as mediator, to open the way to the possession by His sacrificial death. With perfect propriety, therefore, might the apostle, in confirmation of his principle respecting the necessity of an intervenient death, point back to the offerings of blood at the ratification of the old covenant, and identify death (as of a testator) with consecration by blood (as through sacrifice.) For as the old covenant did make a provisional or temporary arrangement for men attaining to the inheritance of life and blessing, it had in consequence to be ratified by a provisional or typical death.

The death inflicted there was Christ’s death in symbol, as the blessing inherited was Christ’s blessing by anticipation. But in the passage before us, the typical blood is presented in the more common aspect of a consecration (ver. 18;) and, under that aspect, its necessity and value are set forth, in the verses that follow, as the one grand medium of access for sinners to the region of eternal glory. This simply arose from the two aspects of death—death as necessary to the participation of the inheritance, and death as necessary to purification from sin—happening to coalesce in Christ; so that the same act, which was needed to secure, and did secure a title to the inheritance, was also needed to consecrate, and did consecrate, a way to the eternal inheritance; and but for the one necessity, the other should never have existed.

The two ideas, therefore, so far as Christ is concerned, run into each other; and as that of consecration was both the more usual, and the most immediately connected with the great theme of the epistle, the sacred penman quite naturally resumes and prosecutes it—quitting the other, which had been but casually introduced for the sake of confirming a truth, and marking a point of connexion between things sacred and common.

Such appears to us the correct interpretation of the pas sage, and the proper mode of explicating its meaning. The difficulty felt in arriving at this has arisen mainly from overlooking the special ground of the apostle’s statement; that is, the common element or point of coincidence between a human testament and a Divine covenant in the particular aspect referred to. Both alike contain a disposition in regard to the joint participation by others of the goods of him who makes it; and a participation that requires, as its indispensable condition, his own subjection to the power of death.

We thus obtain a clear and natural sense from the passage, without interfering with the received, which is certainly also the apparent, import of the words. (The considerations, on which the above explanation is made to turn had not suggested themselves to me when I wrote the article on the Epistle to the Hebrews in the British and Foreign Evangelical Review for Sept. 1854. I there adopted substantially Ebrard’s view.) At the same time, while we here vindicate the received translation, we cannot but regard it as somewhat unfortunate, that on the ground of a thought so casually introduced, and a meaning of διαθήκη nowhere else distinctly exhibited in Scripture, many, both of the ancient, and of the more modern theological writers, should have given such prominence to the testamentary aspect of the scheme of redemption.

The Cocceian school, to which several of our own older divines belonged, had a sort of predilection for this mode of exhibiting Christ’s relation to his people, and thereby gave a somewhat artificial air to their explanations of things connected with the covenant of grace. They were wont to treat formally of the testament, the testator, the executor, the legatees, and the legacies. Such a style of representation, though not altogether unwarranted by Scripture, has yet no broad and comprehensive ground to rest upon there.

When salvation is exhibited in connexion with a covenant, it is always (with the exception just noticed in Hebrews 9:15-17) covenant in the ordinary sense that is to be understood—a sense, that involves the idea of mutual engagements—individual parts to be fulfilled, and corresponding relations to be maintained though the place occupied by God is pre-eminently that of a bountiful and gracious benefactor. And to keep attention alive to the strictly covenant aspect of redemption, it had, doubtless, been better to have retained in the authorized version the rendering of covenant for διαθήκη in all but the one passage of Hebrews, and to have designated the Bible the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenants, rather than of the Old and New Testaments, In particular, it had been better, in the words connected with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, to have retained the common rendering, and read, “This is the new covenant in My blood;” since all should thus have readily perceived, that the Lord pointed to the Divine covenant, in its new and better form, as contradistinguished from that which had been brought in by Moses, and which had now reached the end of its appointment. Due pains should be taken to instruct the unlearned, that such is the import of the expression, and also to inform them, that while the covenant, as established in His blood, bears the epithet new, it is so designated merely from respect to the order of exhibition, while, if viewed with respect to the mind and purpose of God, this is the first as well as the last—the covenant, which was planned in the counsels of eternity to retrieve the ruin of the fall, and out of the depths of perdition to raise up a spiritual and blessed offspring for God.