Hebrews 8:1-13. The New & Better Covenant

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1 Heb. 8 The New & Better Covenant Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest [Jesus], who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. [Heb. 8:1-2] The apostle says that this is the main point of this letter - we have a Man in heaven, a high priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. There were no seats for priests in the tabernacle and the temple. They stood to serve. But it is important for us to know that Jesus has sat down in heaven s throne. He is both our Priest and our King. His work of atonement is ended. Now He reigns over us and represents us before the Father. We come back to the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man in ch. 9. For now, let me say that when God gave instructions to Moses to build the tabernacle - God s tent of timber, animal skins and drapery in which He would live in the very centre of the camp of Israel - it was patterned upon a heavenly model. It taught then and teaches us now about heavenly realities. The temple - a structure of stone, wood and metal - was an adaptation of that model, and was designed firstly by David, then built by Solomon (980BC), then destroyed by the Babylonians (587BC), then rebuilt by Zerubbabel (516BC), then completely rebuilt and enlarged by Herod (20BC to 64AD), then destroyed by the Romans in 70AD. The temple in all of those times and states was not better than the tabernacle, and never as good a teaching model as that tent that God Himself designed and described to Moses. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest [Jesus] also have something to offer. [Heb. 8:3] Now if [Jesus] were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things [Heb. 8:4-5] just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, SEE, He says, THAT YOU MAKE all things ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN. [Heb. 8:4-5] [Tabernacle] That is what the design and building of the tabernacle was - a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. We say foreshadow - this shadow is cast by some bright thing that lies ahead. We will come to that in Heb. 9:1-12. It seems that Moses saw something - a heavenly pattern or image [Exo. 25:40], which he then was given detailed instructions to reproduce in earthly form [Exo ]. The offering of blood sacrifice by the priests was also a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. We will come to that in Heb. 9:13-10:18 But today, we are looking at ch. 8, which has two subjects: JESUS - the mediator and minister of a better covenant. THE NEW & BETTER COVENANT of which Jesus is the Mediator. Jesus is the greater and better Mediator and Leader (than even Moses). Jesus is the greater and better Priest (than Aaron or even Melchizedek). Jesus is the greater and better King (than even David or Solomon). Let s read on, and then I will pick up the headlines here about the New Covenant. # 1 of # 7

2 But now [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. [Heb. 8:6-7] For finding fault with them, He says, BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH [Heb. 8:8] NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD. [Heb. 8:9] FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. [Heb. 8:10] AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, KNOW THE LORD, FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. [Heb. 8:10-11] FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE. [Heb. 8:11-12] When He said, A NEW COVENANT, He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. [Heb. 8:13] That long quotation from the Old Testament is Jer. 31:31-34, though not directly from the Hebrew but mostly from the LXX (Greek version of the OT). What is a Covenant? It is a relationship governed by a binding agreement. It generally has both positive benefits and penalties. Covenant is a big issue in God s dealings with men. The Bible traces our history as mankind from our creation by God through the series of covenants that He has made. The covenants contained promises and penalties, and governed the relationship between God and His people. (Adamic) God made a covenant with Adam & Eve. They lived in all the provision and love of God, but there was one point of obedience, which they rebelled against. (Gen. 1-3) (Noahic) God made a covenant with Noah. God promised humanity that He would never again destroy all life on earth with a Flood (Gen. 9). God gave the rainbow as the sign of the covenant, a promise that the entire earth would never again flood and a reminder that God can and will judge sin. (Abrahamic) God made a covenant with Abraham. (Gen ) # 2 of # 7

3 (Mosaic) God made a covenant through Moses with the people of Israel. (Exo. Lev. Num. Deu.) This Covenant is also called The Law. The laws of God contain roughly 300 positive commands and 300 negative commands. (Davidic) God made a covenant with David (2Sam. 7) - that one of His descendants would be the everlasting King. (Messianic) God has made a covenant in Messiah Jesus. It has this condition - faith in Messiah Jesus for all men - Jews and gentiles. All the earlier covenants are completed (fulfilled) in Jesus Messiah. The New Covenant crowns, completes and supersedes the earlier covenants: Messianic Davidic Mosaic (The Law) Abrahamic Noahic Adamic I want you to hear this clearly: the New Covenant was not made between us and God, but between God the Father and His Son Messiah Jesus. This final better covenant that wrapped up all the previous ones was indeed made with a man, but this Man - the Man Messiah Jesus. For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Messiah Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time. [1Tim. 2:5-6] Jesus being the Mediator of the New Covenant is mentioned twice more in Hebrews [Heb. 9:15, 12:24], so we are not done with this yet. The New Covenant was made and mediated by Jesus, and like those who followed Noah, or Abraham, the blessing of the covenant rests upon us as heirs and beneficiaries. The New Covenant is a better covenant. Better than all the previous covenants. Better than the Law. BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD. [Heb. 8:8-9] This New Covenant was promised through the prophets to Israel because the Law was inadequate to bring people to righteousness - right relationship with God. Not because there was anything wrong with the Law, but because they were unable to keep the covenant. Unregenerate people can t keep God s Law. The house of Israel and the house of Judah did not continue in the Lord s covenant, so the time came when they fell from the care of God. The New Covenant has been enacted on better promises. # 3 of # 7

4 God made promises to Noah, Abraham, the nation of Israel, and to David, but the promises upon which the New Covenant is established are far better. The founding promises of the New Covenant are those between God the Father and God the Son. The Covenant was made and agreed between them, with Jesus standing as our representative - our second Man, last Adam [1Cor.15:45,47]. Second Man because Jesus stood as our representative Man and won where Adam had lost. Last Adam because Noah, Abraham and perhaps Jacob were also Adam s in that they were the start of a new race of mankind. Jesus has started a new race - the children of God, the redeemed of the Lamb, the Israel of God. All the previous covenant conditions were met by Jesus, and therefore every covenant promise is His as the heir. He is the rightful inheritor of all the promises, from Adam through to David and all the words of the prophets. This New Covenant is entirely His, but we are the beneficiaries. Three particular promises concerning us are repeated now as we work through the rest of Heb. 8 with its quotation from Jer. 31. PROMISE #1 I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. [Heb. 8:10] In this New Covenant God s laws are not etched on stone but written in our hearts and minds. The word laws is singular in the Hebrew of Jer and is torah. In a synagogue there is a treasured hand-copied torah scroll - containing the 5 books of Moses. Only a trained and certified scribe can produce a new copy of the torah, writing every Hebrew character with an ink quill or pen. Having the Law and treasuring the Law is one thing, but keeping (obeying) it is another thing altogether. The Law commands, but it cannot enable. Legislators may enact good laws, but they cannot induce others to obey them; parents may utter good precepts, but they cannot engrave them on the hearts of their children; and sages may express sound maxims and just 1 precepts on morals, but there is no security that they will be regarded. [Albert Barnes ] But this first - better - promise of God s New Covenant is that He will write His torah in our hearts and minds. (The two statements are Hebrew poetic parallelism - saying the same thing twice.) What was needed was a new nature, a heart liberated from its bondage to sin, a heart which not only 2 spontaneously knew and loved the will of God but had the power to do it. [F. F. Bruce ] A parallel passage to Jer. 31 is Eze. 36 Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.i will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. [Eze. 36:26 27] God writes His law in our hearts, so that we are being taught inwardly - by the Holy Spirit - how to live, how to delight, how to joy, how to rest in Him. 1 Albert Barnes: Barnes Notes on the New Testament 2 F. F. Bruce: The Epistle To The Hebrews (The New International Commentary On The New Testament) # 4 of # 7

5 This promise is not just that we will have information about what pleases God, but motivation and empowerment to do just that. PROMISE #2 AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, KNOW THE LORD, FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. [Heb. 8:10-11] In this New Covenant we shall know God as our god. It is another parallel statement: AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. Not just the king s God, or the priest s God, but our God. Read Genesis. Did Noah and Abraham know God? Read the Psalms. Did David know God? Read the Prophets. Did Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and all the others know God? Well, this God - their God - is our God. Israel s God is our God. The Israel of God is not in fact those of natural descent from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but Messiah Jesus and all in Him. The New Covenant was made for all who will trust Messiah Jesus - Jew and Gentile. Then, this God will be known by us. FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. It is a personal relationship of faith and obedience, in which we are dealing with the Holy One, the Almighty, the Eternal, the All-Wise. We are His dear children, but He is our great great Father and our God. No religion brings a man to actually know the Lord like this - only the New Covenant through Christ. The outcome or fruit of this knowing God is our obedience to His word. In the OT knowledge of God frequently connotes acknowledgement of His holiness and obedience to His 3 will. [F. F. Bruce ] That is what we learned in particular in going through the letters of John, as that apostle expounds the words of the Lord Jesus If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. [John 14:15] PROMISE #3 FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE. [Heb. 8:12] In this New Covenant there is full mercy and forgiveness for our sins. Another parallel statement: FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE. 3 F. F. Bruce: The Epistle To The Hebrews (The New International Commentary On The New Testament) # 5 of # 7

6 Micah had prophesied a century before Jeremiah that the God of Israel was incomparably a pardoning God, passing over transgression, unwilling to retain His anger, delighting in living-kindness, treading His people s iniquities underfoot, casting all their sins into the depths of the sea. [F. F. Bruce] But how would God put away our sins? Not just this sin and then that sin - and under the Law having to make another sacrifice for sin, and another one This mercy is based upon the full payment for our forgiveness - the blood (sacrifice) of Jesus Himself, once for all people, for all sin, for all time. God is not whimsically merciful towards us, He is just, but He can be entirely just in forgiving and justifying us because Jesus has died for our sins. That is how good this New Covenant is: Full pardon, a new heart, knowing the Lord. The Old Covenant was therefore obsolete. When He said, A new covenant, He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. [Heb. 8:13] When Jesus died on the cross at Golgotha, the veil in the temple was torn open from top to bottom[matt. 27:51] - not by a human hand. The Holy of Holies was shown to be empty. The sacrifices were complete. The time of the Law was ended. The Old Covenant was obsolete - fulfilled entirely in Jesus Messiah. Of course, the veil was repaired by the hands of men, and the profitable business of the temple continued there for some years, but the end was coming. Within just a few years of this letter being written all the apparatus of that Old Covenant - Jerusalem, the temple, the priesthood, the government of Judah - would disappear, destroyed by the Roman Empire - just as the Lord Jesus had predicted and as the disciples had expected. The surviving remnant of the people of Judah would be scattered among the nations. 4 The age of the Law and the prophets is past; the age of the Son is here, and here to stay. [F. F. Bruce ] It is fundamental in Christian theology that the old has performed its function and has now given way to the 5 new. [Donald Guthrie ] The New Covenant remains operative to the end of the age. That is, until Jesus the Saviour of the world returns as the Judge of all the world. That might sound obvious, but preachers often need to state the obvious. The Gospel offers Jesus as the Mediator of a New, greater and better Covenant to all people, of all races and nationalities. These three promises hold good for everyone who will believe the Good News of Jesus - as long as this age of Grace continues Jesus and His New Covenant are available to you Have you trusted in Jesus? You may have been a church-goer for many years, or this may be one of the first times you have attended the preaching of His word, but can I ask you to consider whether these three promises are true for you: 6 Pardon of sin, purity of heart, and the presence of God. [Andrew Murray ] 4 F. F. Bruce: The Epistle To The Hebrews (The New International Commentary On The New Testament) 5 Donald Guthrie: Hebrews (Tyndale New Testament Commentaries) 6 Andrew Murray: The Holiest of All - An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrews # 6 of # 7

7 Is that what you know and enjoy? If not, ask the Lord to receive you today as you ask Him to be your God, to forgive all your sins, to write His law in your heart so that you will honour Him and obey Him - to make you know the power of this New Covenant in and through His Son Jesus. Do you know this? Feel this? Enjoy this? Jesus and His New Covenant are available to your family and friends Do they know about the Lord Jesus and His great covenant of mercy and help? Do you talk about Him and His covenant mercy, help and faithfulness? Jesus and His New Covenant are available to every nation How interested are you in the completion of our Great Commission - to make this Great New Covenant known to all the peoples? We don t have to go to the ends of the earth. There are many around us even in our own town who have not heard the Gospel. Until the Last Day. [Communion] (1Cor. 11) David Evans 330 Northbrooks Harlow Essex CM19 4DP Mobile: Facebook: Twitter: david.evans@light house.church All Scriptures unless otherwise marked are taken from New American Standard Bible Update (NAS95S) Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation All rights reserved. Used with permission. 1. A debtor to mercy alone, Of covenant mercy I sing, Nor fear, with God s righteousness on, My person and off rings to bring. The terrors of law and of God With me can have nothing to do; My Savior s obedience and blood Hide all my transgressions from view. 2. The work which His goodness began, The arm of His strength will complete; His promise is Yea and Amen, And never was forfeited yet. Things future, nor things that are now, Not all things below or above, Can make Him His purpose forego, Or sever my soul from His love. 3. My name from the palms of His hands Eternity will not erase; Imprest on His heart, it remains In marks of indelible grace. Yes! I to the end shall endure, As sure as the earnest* is giv n; More happy, but not more secure, When all earthly ties have been riv n. Augustus Montague Toplady ( ) * earnest = Jesus our guarantor/guarantee, and the Holy Spirit our pledge/down-payment, of eternal life. # 7 of # 7