Anyone who has ever been camping, spent significant time in the elements, read tales of extreme adventurers, or watched them on TV, knows that fire is essential to survival as it provides warmth and light, can purify water and cook food, and can discourage predators and signal rescuers. It’s no exaggeration to say that, in the great outdoors, life depends on fire. Now, to build a fire one must first find, collect, haul, and arrange the wood. This can be a time-consuming and labour-intensive activity. And yet, all that effort is futile without one final piece of wood: the match. The match is the fiery climax of the whole endeavour, bringing an essential ingredient for survival. The last piece of wood, as small as it may be, ignites the whole stack to usefulness.
Today we come to the match of the New Covenant—the final, climactic divine oath that ignites the covenants collected and arranged before it. It’s the New Covenant that provides the power the other five lack in-and-of-themselves and provides God’s people with a more completed picture of God’s plan to restore his fallen creation.
