Author: Lamar Austin

We are beginning Hebrews 9 today.

1 Now even the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness. 2 For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence. It is called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a second section called the Most Holy Place, 4 having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant. 5 Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.  Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

You might be wondering, “What does this have to do with my life in 2023?”  Well, our author will get to this point–although we won’t today—which shows how this impacts our lives even today:

“For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:13-14)

How many of us long to have a pure conscience?  How many of us deeply desire to know that all our sins are finally and fully forgiven, that there truly is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1)?  Well, the author of Hebrews is going to show us how this is possible through Jesus Christ, the mediator of the New Covenant.

God’s way of dealing with sin has changed, but the fundamental problem that faced Old Testament Israel and New Testament believers is the same problem we face today—we need a way to attain a pure conscience.

The fact is, we still deal with guilt and a guilty conscience.  Years ago, psychologist Eric Fromm observed, “It is indeed amazing that in as fundamentally irreligious a culture as ours, the sense of guilt should be so widespread and deep-rooted as it is” (The Sane Society, [publisher unknown], p. 181).  A cartoon hit the nail on the head.  It showed a psychologist saying to his patient, “Mr. Figby, I think I can explain your feelings of guilt.  You’re guilty!”

The Bible declares that all of us are guilty before the bench of God’s holy justice. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).  The Bible teaches that guilt is more than just a bad feeling.  It is true moral culpability that alienates us from God and brings us under His decreed penalty, eternal punishment in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:11-15).  But, thankfully, the Bible also declares that God has provided a remedy for our guilt.  It is vital that we understand and apply this remedy personally.

John MacArthur (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Hebrews [Moody Press], p. 221) points out that the Bible only devotes two chapters to the story of creation, but it gives about 50 chapters to the tabernacle.  It was the center of Jewish worship under the old covenant.  It was God’s prescribed way to enjoy fellowship with Him on this earth.

The author of Hebrews begins his stark comparison between the saving powers of the old and new covenants with a brief summary in verses 1–5 of the layout and furnishings of the wilderness tabernacle, which he concludes by saying, “Of these things we cannot now speak in detail” (v. 5).  And, indeed, there was no real need to discuss them in detail because his Jewish readers were well acquainted with the desert sanctuary and its regulations for worship.  But we are not.  And thus, some detail is in order before we launch into the comparison of the covenantal systems.

Israel’s tabernacle was a portable tent-shrine that was always situated at the geographical heart of Israel, with all the tribes camped around it in designated orderly formation.  It was natural for the writer to use the tabernacle for his lesson, rather than the temple, because he proceeded to associate this sanctuary with the giving of the Old Covenant at Mt. Sinai (cf. 8:5). Furthermore, he had been using Israel’s experiences in the wilderness to challenge his readers.

Approaching the tabernacle, one first would see the white linen walls of the court of the tabernacle, which formed an enclosure 150 feet long and seventy-five feet wide.  The uniform whiteness of the enclosure’s walls broadcast the holiness of its function.  The fence surrounding the courtyard was about 7½ feet high.

When a worshiper entered the courtyard, he was immediately in front of the altar of burnt offering, a large bronze altar with a horn at each of its four corners to which offerings could be tied.  It was a hollow wooden box about 7½ feet long and 4½ feet high and was overlaid with bronze.  A few steps farther in would bring you to a stand on which was a bronze basin filled with water where ceremonial washings would occur (Exod. 30:17-21; 38:8).

This was as far as the layman could come, and it is here that he laid his hands on the head of the sin offering (Leviticus 1:4) in order to identify with it.  Behind the altar and a little to the right stood the bronze laver, a washbasin for the exclusive use of the priests, which, if neglected, imperiled their lives (Exodus 30:20, 21).

Directly behind the laver was the tabernacle, a flat-roofed, oblong tent fifteen feet in height and width and forty-five feet long.  It was made of wood but was overlaid with gold.  It was covered with three layers of cloth and skin.  The first consisted of gorgeous woven tapestries of blue, purple, and scarlet yarns and linen, which was then overlaid with two layers of animal skins.  Inside, the tabernacle was divided into two rooms by an ornate veil woven of the same colors along with gold and embroidered with cherubim.  The veil was supported by four golden columns set on silver bases.  The first outer room was called the Holy Place, and the second inner compartment the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies.

Our writer briefly describes these rooms.  Of the first room he says, “For a tent was prepared, the first section, in which were the lampstand and the table and the bread of the Presence.  It is called the Holy Place” (v. 2).

There were no windows in the tabernacle, so the lampstand was there to provide light.  The lampstand was made of solid gold, with three branches springing from either side and each of its seven branches supporting a flower-shaped lampholder (cf. Exodus 25:31ff.; 37:17ff.).  The table, called “the table of the bread of the Presence” (Numbers 4:7), contained twelve loaves of bread, one for each tribe.  

These furnishings were all profoundly prophetic of Christ.  The seven-branched candlestick of pure gold speaks of the Divine Son who left Heaven’s glory to become the light of the world and make his people to shine as such (cf. Matthew 5:14–16; John 1:4, 5; 8:12) by reflecting His glory.

The consecrated bread anticipates Christ’s words, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35ff.).  He is the true spiritual sustenance of his people, and apart from him there is no life.  We “feed” on Him through faith in Him and His teachings.

Now the attention shifts (Heb 9:3–5) to the most holy place, commonly called “the holy of holies.”  No Israelite had access, and even the high priest entered just once a year on the Day of Atonement, and then only because he represented the nation and had undergone a week of ritual cleansing from sin. It was the most sacred spot in the world because Yahweh dwelt there.  Of course, he is omnipresent and everywhere at all times, but the most holy place was his special dwelling place.  In the first century, it was an empty room, as the Babylonians and others had long before cleaned it out of its furnishings.  Still, it symbolized all it had previously meant to the Jewish people.

“Behind the second curtain,” he says, “was a second section called the Most Holy Place, having the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant covered on all sides with gold, in which was a golden urn holding the manna, and Aaron’s staff that budded, and the tablets of the covenant.  Above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat” (vv. 3–5).

Scholars have been puzzled because elsewhere the Scriptures place the golden altar of incense not inside the Holy of Holies, but in the outer room “in front of the veil” before the Holy of Holies (Exodus 30:6).  In fact, it had to be outside the Holy of Holies because it was used daily by other priests (Exodus 30:7, 8).  So why does the author of Hebrews present the altar of incense as part of the Most Holy Place?  Most likely, as Leon Morris explains, “The author has in mind the intimate connection of the incense altar with the Most Holy Place.  So it ‘belonged to the inner sanctuary’ (1 Kings 6:22), as is shown by its situation ‘in front of the curtain that is before the ark of testimony—before the atonement cover [mercy seat] that is over the Testimony (Exodus 30:6)” (Leon Morris, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981), pp. 81, 82).  So our author was speaking theologically, not spatially.  In other words, he was describing the connection between them in a logical sense, not a locational sense.

While the location of the incense altar is puzzling to some, its prophetic significance is not, for the incense prophesies of the ultimate prayers offered by Christ, our high priest, in the presence of God.

Finally, the cover of the ark of the covenant is even more indicative of Christ.  It was at the mercy seat, the gold plate covering the ark upon which the blood of the atonement was sprinkled, that the sins of Israel were propitiated. Romans 3:25 tells us Christ was “displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood” (NASB).  Likewise, 1 John 2:2 proclaims, “and he Himself is the propitiation for our sins” (NASB).

The mercy seat symbolized Christ’s work.  Moreover, Jesus fleshed out the contents of the ark.  He perfectly fulfilled the stone tablets of the Law (Deuteronomy 10:5; Matthew 5:17), which were there to remind Israel of their obligation to obey God’s laws and to remind them of their failure in doing so.  Aaron’s staff that budded when it confirmed him as high priest (Numbers 17:1–11) is fully flowered in Christ’s priesthood.  Again, it would remind them of their rebellion against Moses’ authority.  And the manna again speaks of him who is the ultimate Bread of Life (cf. Exodus 16:33, 34; John 6:35ff.).  But once again it would remind Israel of God’s provision and their continued dissatisfaction and ingratitude.

As God looked down into the ark, He saw the symbols of Israel’s sin, rebellion and failure.  But when the blood of sacrifice was applied to the mercy seat, the blood of sacrifice covered His sight of the sin of Israel.

It was all so glorious!  “The cherubim of glory” (9:5) perpetually looked down in wonder as they knelt at the mercy seat with their wings arched and touching overhead.  “Glory” here is a synonym for God.  They were called the “cherubim of glory” not because they were themselves glorious or beautiful but because it was between them that the “glory” of God’s presence appeared. God said of the Ark in Exodus 25:22a, “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you.”  Everything shouts, “Glory!”

The problem is that as the Old Testament progresses, whereas God’s glory once filled the tabernacle and temple, that glory eventually departed because of the idolatry and sins of the people of Israel.

The prophet Ezekiel records a number of visions which he had concerning the glory of the Lord.  At the beginning of these visions, the glory of the Lord is seen residing within the Temple and specifically between the cherubim (Ezekiel 9:3).  As Ezekiel watches, the glory of the Lord moves to the threshold of the Temple (Ezekiel 9:3; 10:3).  From there it moves to the east gate (Ezekiel 10:19) and finally out to the mountain which is to the east of the city (Ezekiel 11:23).  This was a sign of God’s judgment.  The glory of the Lord departed and it was not long after this that the Temple was destroyed.

The ark was taken from the temple at its destruction by the Babylonians in 587 bc (Jer 3:16) and never seen again, though many legends sprang up about its preservation, perhaps hidden by an angel (2 Bar 6:7).  It was never replaced, and the holy of holies remained an empty room, as the Roman general Pompey discovered to his surprise when he entered it in 67 bc (Josephus, War 1.152–53).  In place of the ark, a small stone slab was placed in the room, called “the stone of the foundation.”

Here is the point.  Do you remember how Jesus came to Jerusalem on the week in which He was crucified?  The Biblical account is very specific.  He came by way of the Mount of Olives – the mountain directly east of the city; the mountain over which the glory of the Lord had last been seen in Ezekiel’s vision.

The coming of Jesus to the Temple was the return of the King to His sanctuary.  He came cleansing the Temple.  But more importantly, He came to provide a cleansing for all men.  In this sense, He not only cleansed the Temple, He IS the temple.  It is in Him and through Him that people today are able to approach God.

Our author is pointing out the way to approach God under the “first covenant,” the Mosaic or Sinaitic covenant (Heb. 9:1), which “had regulations for worship and an earthly place of holiness.”  It was an external system enacted in an “earthly sanctuary” (see also 8:2). Our author will point out that this way of approaching God in worship was meant to be a picture of something better.

“The chief obstacle in the way of the Hebrews’ faith was their failure to perceive that everything connected with the ceremonial law—the tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices—was typical in its significance and value.  Because it was typical, it was only preparatory and transient, for once the Antitype materialized its purpose was served” (A. W. Pink, Hebrews, p. 460).

A contrast is set up by the word “now” at the beginning of Hebrews 9:1, which corresponds to the word “but when” in verse 11, indicating a shift from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.  His point in verses 1-5 is to show that the tabernacle is modeled after a heavenly tabernacle, both of which point to Jesus Christ.

As we saw in 8:5, the design of the tabernacle and its worship was not left up to human ideas, but God revealed everything in great detail to Moses on the mountain.  The whole thing was an Old Testament portrait of Jesus Christ.

Thus, we are not meant, today, to prepare an animal sacrifice to present at the bronze altar, and we do not have a high priest to enter the Holy of Holies once a year to secure atonement for us.  Rather, Jesus Christ has done all that through His own death on the cross.

The author has said all he needs to discuss at this point and so concludes by remarking, “We cannot discuss these things in detail now” (v. 5) because that would go beyond his intentions.  Enough has been communicated on the actual furnishings, and now it is time to turn to the actual service taking place in the sanctuary.  The readers are now able to understand the way the ancient pieces prefigured Christ and now the author wants to move into the way their rituals prepared for the work of Christ in his ministry.

Our author is again encouraging his readers not to go back to the old rituals—the tabernacle and sacrificial system, the priesthood.  Jesus Christ is a better mediator in a heavenly tabernacle, and is a better priest offering a better sacrifice.  In all these ways our author is trying to enforce the foolishness of returning to Judaism.

This sanctuary was an earthly sanctuary, built by man (Heb. 9:11) and pitched by man (Heb. 8:2).  The Jewish people had generously brought gifts to Moses, and from these materials the tabernacle was constructed.  Then God gave spiritual wisdom and skill to Bezelel and Oholiab to do the intricate work of making the various parts of the tabernacle and its furnishings (see Exodus 35-36).  After the construction was completed, the sanctuary was put in place and dedicated to God (Exod. 40).  Even though the glory of God moved into the sanctuary, it was still an earthly building, constructed by human hands out of earthly materials.

Wiersbe notes: “Being an earthly building, it had several weaknesses.  For one thing, it would need a certain amount of repair.  Also, it was limited geographically; if it was pitched in one place, it could not be in another place.  It had to be dismantled and the various parts carried from place to place.  Furthermore, it belonged to the nation of Israel and not to the whole world” (Warren Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament, pp. 827-828).

And again, the tabernacle was clearly created to picture something deeper and more powerful.  It points again and again to Jesus Christ—His nature and His work.  This is what Israel needed to assuage their guilt and purify their consciences, and it is what we need today as well.  We don’t need rituals and regulations; we don’t need tabernacles and sacrifices; we don’t need priests.  All we need is Jesus Christ.  He is all we need for Jesus paid it all.  There is no forgiveness outside of Christ and complete forgiveness through Jesus Christ.

If you have never believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior, admit that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness and run to the cross.  Run to Jesus Christ and put your whole faith in Him alone, make Him your only hope for salvation.  Cry out to Him and say, “Jesus I believe you died for my sins and I ask you to forgive my sins through Your precious sacrifice.”

We are looking at the New Covenant in Hebrews 8:10-12, which is a quotation from Jeremiah 31 and forms the longest New Testament quotation from the Old Testament.  Here it is:

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

So first, the New Covenant was internalized.  No longer written on tablets of stone, it is written upon the minds and hearts of New Covenant participants (by faith), thus giving them a deeper motivation and greater power to keep God’s laws.

That was last week.  Let’s move on to the other benefits of the New Covenant as promised by Jeremiah.

Secondly, the New Covenant gives us the promise of an exclusive relationship with God.  The rest of verse 10 says, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Even this is another motivation for obedience.  As Spurgeon said, “The best way to make a man keep a law is to make him love the law-giver.”  And we love Him because He first loved us!

Now, it is obvious that God is God over all creation, but this is speaking of a truer, more tender relationship that would exist between God and his people that He brought into covenantal relationship with Him.

In a transcendent sense, God is God “to every star that burns, and to every worm that creeps, and to every gnat that dances for a moment. . . . He is a God to every man that lives lavishing upon him manifestations of divinity, and sustaining him in life.”  But there is also a tender, truer relationship of heart to heart, spirit to spirit—so that “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” is true in a deeper, more soul-satisfying way than those on the outside can imagine.

This was one of the most precious truths of the Abrahamic covenant—that the only true God would be the God of this people, Israel, and they would belong to Him as a precious possession.

This is why David said: “Blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!” (Psalm 144:15b)  When we have the one and only true God as our Lord, we are truly most blessed!

Jesus expands upon this when He taught His disciples to pray “Our Father.”  This was a revolutionary concept, to believe that God was “my Father.”  Under the Old Covenant, the whole nation was thought of as Yahweh’s son, but not individuals.

One of the means of assurance of our salvation is the very fact that through the Spirit of adoption we can have the courage to pray to “Abba” Father (Romans 8:17).

The new covenant brings a new relationship between people and God.  Intermediaries (priests) who were vital under the old covenant, have changed roles under the new covenant.  No longer is God’s truth apprehended and applied through priestly mediation.  Rather, the new covenant made each believer a priest (1 Pt 2:5, 9).  Every believer has access to God through prayer.  Every believer can understand God’s saving promises as revealed in the Bible because he or she has God as a living presence in his or her heart.  (Bruce Barton, Life Application Bible Commentary: Hebrews, 120)

We are not only His through creation, but through redemption as well.  Redemption means “to be bought back.”  We were once enslaved to sin, held captive by Satan and destined to death.  But like Hosea, who bought his adulterous wife out of slavery (Hosea 3), so God purchased us.  And He paid an infinite price to get us back.  The redemption price was the blood of His beloved Son.

Peter says, “knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold,but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18-19).

It was the blood of Jesus Christ that ransomed us from our captivity to Satan.

This double ownership by God is illustrated in this story.

There was a father and son in England.  The boy loved boats.  His dad carved a beautiful model boat out of wood.  It had fabric sails with rigging and carefully painted features.  One summer day, the boy told his father that he was going to sail his model ship in the shallows of the bay.  A sudden squall came up and the wind swept the boat out to sea.  The distraught boy returned home and told his father the sad news of how the boat was lost.

Six months later the boy was walking downtown when to his utter amazement he saw his own boat for sale in the window of the village pawn shop!  He ran in and told that owner that the boat belonged to him.  The shop owner admitted that it may have been true that it had once been his boat, but that he had paid twelve pounds to obtain it.  The next day he returned to the pawn shop with his father.  The boy waited outside.  His father came out of the store with the beautiful boat under his arm.  He had redeemed it by paying the price that had been set.

We are “twice God’s,” meaning that we are His not only by creation but also by redemption.

When he says, “I will be their God…” He means that He will be for us everything that a God should be.

• Will He be a Father for us?  Yes, a loving, personal Father.  The very best.
• Will He be a Shepherd?  Yes, a good shepherd supplying all we need, even at the cost of His own life.
• How about a Friend?  One who sticks closer than a brother.
• A Savior from our sins?  Yes, He is the Lord our Redeemer.

When He promised, “I will be your God…” all that is included in His being and promises are for us.”

Right after the golden chain of redemption in Romans 8:30, Paul asks, “If God is for us who can be against us?”  Then he lists four great assurances of God being “for us,” (1) that He has already done the most difficult thing—giving up His one and only Son for our redemption, so we can believe that He will do everything necessary for our ultimate glorification; (2) that as the ultimate judge He has already declared us righteous, no matter what human judges may say; (3) that Christ is not condemning us for our sins, but interceding for us before God; and (4) that absolutely nothing can separate us from God’s love found for those in Christ Jesus.

So through the New Covenant we become “His people.”  We belong to God.  He says, “You are my own, my precious possession, my inheritance, my beloved, the apple of my eye.”

This New Covenant relationship is echoed by Peter in his first epistle, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

That last part, “once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people” is a quotation from the book of Hosea.  Although Israel, like Gomer, was prostituting themselves with other gods, Yahweh promises that one day He would show them mercy and bring them into an exclusive and eternal relationship with Him.

Like the bride says to her beloved in Song of Solomon “I am my beloved’s and he is mine” (6:3; 7:10) it is an expression of a delightful, intimate relationship.

Charles Spurgeon once said:

People have their treasures, their pearls, their jewels, their rubies, their diamonds, and these are their peculiar store.  Now, all in the covenant of grace are the peculiar store of God.  He values them above all things else besides.  In fact, He keeps the world spinning for them.  The world is but a scaffold for the Church.  He will send creation packing when once it has done with His saints.  Yes, sun, and moon, and stars shall pass away like worn-out rags when once He has gathered together His own elect, and enfolded them forever within the safety of the walls of heaven.  For them time moves; for them the world exists.  He measures the nations according to their number, and He makes the very stars of heaven to fight against their enemies, and to defend them against their foes.  “They will be my people.”  The favor that is contained in such love it is not for tongue to express.  Perhaps on some of those quiet resting-places prepared for the saints in heaven, it shall be a part of our eternal enjoyment to contemplate the heights and depths of these golden lines.

This is why we have such immediate access to our heavenly Father in prayer, like little John John playing under the desk of his father, the President, John F. Kennedy, in the Oval Office.

It is interesting that God made a similar statement in Exodus…

Then (when God brings Israel “out from under the burdens of the Egyptians“) I will take you for My people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.

And yet although there is a similarity between God’s declaration in Exodus and the New Covenant, they are not the same.  Leon Morris explains it this way…

The God Who saves people in Christ is the God of His redeemed in a new and definitive way. And when people have been saved at the awful cost of Calvary, they are the people of God in a way never before known. (Gaebelein, F, Editor: Expositor’s Bible Commentary 6-Volume New Testament. Zondervan Publishing)

How do we define the New Covenant?  It is defined by four glorious promises.  The first is the promise of internalized religion in new hearts; the second is the promise of an exclusive relationship with the one true God…

The third is the promise of personal intimacy.  Look at verse 11: “And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.”

So what is this verse referring to?

Remember that our author is drawing a sharp contrast between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.  The reality is that although Israel was the covenant nation, many individuals did not know God in a saving way.  Although every boy was circumcised the 8^th day and memorized the Torah by age 12, that did not mean he was a recipient of God’s saving grace.  In fact, Judas Iscariot was a part of the covenant community and bore that very mark upon his body, yet Jesus called him the “son of perdition.”  And what about Caiaphas the high priest?

God’s covenant with Moses was a national covenant.  Individuals either trusted God and His promises (like Abraham) or they did not.  Every Israelite knew of God, knew the conditions of the covenant, but very few continued to love God and obey God.

When the New Covenant talks about knowing God, it is not talking about information knowledge, but rather relational knowledge.  It is communicated in Genesis 4:1 where it says “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain…”  It is the knowledge of deep, personal intimacy.

Jesus was speaking of this same reality when he said in Matthew 7:23 of those who claimed to minister and do miraculous feats in the name of the Lord, “Depart from me, I never knew you.”  Of course, this does not mean that Jesus is ignorant of certain facts about them, but rather that there was no relational intimacy, therefore no relationship.

The wonder of the New Covenant is that every person “from the least of them to the greatest” (in other words, no one is left out), by virtue of believing in Jesus Christ, has an intimate relationship with the living God.

Jesus defined eternal life by saying, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life does not come from merely knowing some facts about God, but about entering into an intimate and personal relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.  That is what our author is talking about here.

While our author says, no one needs to say to his neighbor or brother “know the Lord” for all will know me, this doesn’t mean that we never need to pursue a deeper knowledge and more intimate understanding of God.  In fact, we will be growing in our knowledge and understanding of this marvelous, mysterious God throughout eternity.  He is infinite and we are finite—we will always be learning.  And it doesn’t mean that we have no need of teachers (Eph. 4:11).

What it means is that there are no second-class citizens within the body of Christ.  Everyone has access to this relationship and everyone can grow in this relationship.  Notice how universal this promise is: they will “all,” from “the least of them to the greatest.”  From the youngest child who exercises faith in Jesus to the most sophisticated theologian, this covenant introduces each one into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ.  You cannot be too young, or too old, too mentally challenged, or too unimportant.  On the other hand, you can’t be too educated, too influential, too affluent or too powerful.

If you are not on intimate terms with Jesus Christ today your problem is not your age, your gender, your social status or race.  Your problem is that you (and I) have fallen short of God’s standard of perfection.

And that is what makes promise four such good news.

The fourth promise is the promise of thorough-going forgiveness.  Verse 12 says, “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

What must not be missed is that this sentence, as great as it is, is introduced with the little for “for.”  Little words make a big difference.

Here he is saying that all of the prior promises of the New Covenant are based on this one ultimate promise.  Internalized religion with a new heart, an exclusive relationship with the true God, a personal intimacy with God all are ours because God promises to forgive us.

Because of the death of Jesus Christ, God of His own sovereign will, will never ever call to His attention our sins.  He will never treat us on the basis of our sins IF we have put our trust in Jesus Christ and what He did for us on the cross.

What did Micah say?

18 Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. 19 He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. (Micah 7:18-19)

Did you know that the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean is deeper than Mount Everest is high?  In other words, the farthest distance you could take anything on earth is in the “depths of the sea.”  God has removed your sins from you as far as could possibly be reached.  And that is just a symbol for the infinite distance God moves our sins from us!

The New Covenant promises us complete forgiveness.  This is precisely what the old covenant could not do.  Under the old covenant, sins were never completely forgiven because they were never truly forgotten.  They were covered, awaiting and pointing to the true forgiveness through Christ’s death.

In Romans 3 Paul says…

23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.  This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

God remains just in that He punished our sins, but He is also “the justifier” in that He punished our sins in Jesus Christ.  While he “passed over former sins” Christ has now paid the price for those sins.  Judgment has fallen, but it fell upon Jesus Christ.

Please listen to me.  Those who are listening today as sinners or legalists please hear me.  Christianity is not a religion for perfect people.  Christianity is not a religion for those who have their “acts together.”  It is not a religion for those who are spiritually self-sufficient, but for those (like me) who have failed God again and again and are in dire need of having their sins forgiven.

Your forgiveness is final and complete in Jesus Christ.  Jesus paid it all, everything last bit through every last drop of blood on the cross.

When verse 13 says that the Old Covenant is “obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” he is saying that God is about to put his exclamation point on the finality of the Old Covenant with the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  So don’t turn back to the Old Covenant.  You have such better promises in the New Covenant.  Embrace them all through Jesus Christ!

He was born into a priestly family.  His beginning was rather spectacular.  In all likelihood his father was the high priest during a time of great reformation in the nation of Judah under the leadership of a king named Josiah.

Even before his birth God had set him apart to be a prophet—a divine mouthpiece to speak God’s word to the people of the southern kingdom.  As he grew into adulthood and the time of his public ministry dawned, it became obvious to all who knew him that he was a deeply sensitive and compassionate young man.  In fact, he has been referred to by some as the “Weeping Prophet.”

For 40 years he faithfully proclaimed the word of God to Judah during the darkest days of that nation’s existence.  Violence and immorality dominated the headlines, idolatry and perverted worship were rampant, apostasy was the spirit of the age among the covenant people.  It is not surprise then, that although he was uncompromisingly faithful to proclaim the word of God to his people, that the majority of his own countrymen regarded him as a traitor.  His life was often in serious danger.  He experienced constant opposition, beatings and imprisonment.

But it was his responsibility to announce the impending avalanche of judgment that was soon to come upon his people, and it broke his heart.

His name Jeremiah means “the Lord throws.”  It serves to illustrate that he was personally hurled into a very hostile setting by the Lord himself and that God was soon to hurl the people of Judah into the Babylonian captivity.

To that end he was commanded not to take a wife and not to bear any children.  His life was to serve as a sign that ordinary human existence and relationships were soon to be brought to an abrupt halt.  The people of God had repeatedly violated the terms of the covenant to which that had long ago agreed to obey.  The terms were exceedingly clear: obey me and I will bless you; disobey me and I will curse you.

When Moses read the laws of the covenant to Israel the people said: “We will do everything the LORD has said; we will obey” (Exo. 24:7).  F. B. Meyer remarks of this: “But how little they knew themselves!  Within a week or two they were dancing wildly around the golden calf.”

The consequences of their persistent disobedience were driven home glaringly and starkly 100 years earlier when the northern kingdom was sacked by the Assyrians and the people were sent into exile.  You would think that they had learned from that, but they did not.  Instead, they became even more brazen and unfaithful!

So God finally said to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 7)

22 For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ 24 But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward. 25 From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day. 26 Yet they did not listen to me or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.

Prophet after prophet was sent to call the people back to covenant faithfulness and exclusive worship.  Jeremiah went “up and down the streets of Jerusalem” (Jeremiah 11:6) trying to gain the ear and the heart of his people.

What makes this such a sad scene is that merely a few years prior to this they had taken such a positive turn.  Jeremiah’s own father, the priest Hilkiah, had found the book of the covenant that had been lost in the rubble.  He brought it to king Josiah, who called for national repentance and reformation.  Once again there seemed to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

In 2 Kings 23:3 we read…

And the king stood by the pillar and made a covenant before the LORD, to walk after the LORD and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all his heart and all his soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people joined in the covenant.

One commentator notes: “I do not doubt that the first impulse of Jeremiah’s heart was to leap for joy when the news of a clean sweep of all heathenism was first received.  But as a prophet, viewing it from God’s standpoint, he could see that it never had an chance of success.”  It’s not that it became superficial; it’s that there was never any question of it being anything else.  And sadly, he was right.

Before long, everything snapped back to normal.  Josiah died and all that he had done directed towards reform was quickly undone.  The days very quickly became dark once again.  The spiritual lives of the people declined rapidly. Idolatry, indecency, immorality and inhumanity were rampant.  The Babylonian armies were sharpening their swords.

The Old Testament consistently reveals the steady failure of the people of God to keep the covenant regulations.  Sure, there were spiritual highpoints under men like David, Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah, but the fact remains, like a bride who repeatedly breaks her marital covenant with her husband, the history of Israel is characterized by consistent spiritual harlotry as time after time they walked away from God and cried out to other gods, false gods.

It becomes quite clear that the people who entered into a covenant relationship with God could never keep that covenant.  All their willpower and initial enthusiasm was not enough.  All their good intentions were not enough.  They just did not have the power within them to keep the covenant.

But in the midst of the darkness of apostasy and pending judgment, Jeremiah prophesies of a light that penetrates through the thick clouds of darkness—the promise of a new covenant with his people.  The writer of Hebrews refers to this new covenant as a “better covenant” (Heb. 8:6), a superior covenant.

Why is it better?  Because this covenant is based on “better promises” (Heb. 8:6) that will provide for his people everything they need to obey it.  It is a better covenant because it is built on better promises.  And those promises are what we will look at today.

Over the last couple of weeks we’ve looked at how the New Covenant is described: (1) it is mediated by Jesus Christ (8:6); (2) it is distinct from and superior to the old (8:6, 9) because it provide no power, could not save but rather condemned; and (3) it was made with God’s people—both Jews and Gentiles who entered into that covenant through faith in Jesus Christ.  We showed that some of the promises of the New Covenant do belong to the church and that we partake of those promises through the blood of the covenant.

Today and next week, we will define the New Covenant.  Exactly what are these “better promises”?  We see four of them in this quotation from the book of Jeremiah here in Hebrews 8:10-12.

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

First, we see the promise of an internalized religion.  Look again at verse 10: “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts.”  This was the problem with the Old Covenant.  The Old Covenant was written on tablets of stone and existed outside of them, apart from them.  Also, the Old Covenant primarily focused on external behaviors.

Everything looked great on the outside, but it wouldn’t work.  It would be like the excitement of tearing downstairs on a Christmas morning, excitedly opening the packages that you knew hid the very gift you had been hoping for, and then discovering that it wouldn’t work because there were “no batteries included.”

That’s the problem with the Old Covenant—the standards of behavior were made quite clear, but no power was given to keep those standards.

But the New Covenant tells us that at the moment of regeneration, the Holy Spirit internalizes the New Covenant so that by nature now we are both motivated and empowered to obey God.  God’s standards are now written into our minds and engraved upon our hearts.  We want to obey, long to obey, delight in obedience not out of fear, but out of sheer joy.

Yes, there were times when the Holy Spirit came upon people in the Old Testament and they were able by God’s power to do things they normally could not do.  Think, for example, of Samson’s strength.  But that constant provision was not intrinsic to the Old Covenant.  It failed to deal with the bad heart which keeps us from obeying God.

Listen to God’s promise to Jeremiah’s younger contemporary Ezekiel in Ezekiel 36.

26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

Same idea, just developed more thoroughly.

Under the New Covenant, a spiritual operation would be performed upon the people by God Himself in which a heart of stone (that old, stubborn, prideful, self-centered heart) would be excised and replaced by a fleshly heart that would be open and sensitive to God’s Spirit. 

The problem is our old hearts.  They neither love God’s laws nor want to obey them.  They are more prone to disobedience and having one’s own way.

On one occasion Dr. Christian Barnard, the first surgeon ever to do a heart transplant, impulsively asked one of his patients, Dr. Philip Blaiberg, “Would you like to see your old heart?”  At 8 p.m. on a subsequent evening, “the men stood in a room of the Groote Schuur Hospital, in Cape Town, South Africa.  Dr. Barnard went up to a cupboard, took down a glass container and handed it to Dr. Blaiberg.  Inside that container was Blaiberg’s old heart.  For a moment he stood there stunned into silence—the first man in history ever to hold his own heart in his hands.  Finally he spoke and for ten minutes plied Dr. Barnard with technical questions.  Then he turned to take a final look at the contents of the glass container, and said, ‘So this is my old heart that caused me so much trouble.’  He handed it back, turned away and left it forever” (John Blanchard, The Truth for Life (West Sussex, England: H. E. Walter Ltd., 1982), p. 231),

The Old Testament law was written on stone.  It was external to the person.  They could put it on doors, arm bands and on their foreheads.  But even memorizing the law did not guarantee performance of it.

We all need more than needle-point stitching of the 10 commandments above our fireplace or mounted on courtroom walls.  It must be engraved upon our hearts by the Spirit.

Even when the old law was given, of course, it was intended to be in His people’s hearts (Deut. 6:6).  But the people could not write on their own hearts like they could write on their doorposts.

To be sure, there was (and is even now) great benefit in memorizing God’s Word!  Those who obeyed the wisdom of Deuteronomy 6:6–9 and tied God’s Word on their hands and foreheads and wrote them on the doorframes in their homes and impressed them on their children surely benefitted in their minds and hearts (cf. Deuteronomy 6:6).  Psalms 1 and 119 eloquently testify to the benefit of knowing the Law, for it could guide and influence the heart.  But the writing on the heart was beyond the power of unaided man.  Something far more radical was needed—a spiritual heart operation.

What Jeremiah and Ezekiel were talking about was more than merely committing certain laws to memory and meditating upon them “day and night.”  It is God’s promises to put within his people a new governing principle and motivation and power that would incline us and move us to do His will.

Paul speaks of this New Covenant as “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3) and James speaks of God’s Word that is now “implanted” in us (James 1:21).  The aspiration to obey, the delight in obedience, the hunger to comply, the power to obey, the joy in obedience…all come because of this better promise, better than anything the Old Covenant could supply.

Law never transformed people.  In fact, Paul says, laws catalyze sin.  It arouses the flesh to disobedience!

“But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead,” Paul says in Romans 7:8.

And in Romans 7:13 Paul says the law brought death through sin, “producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.”

The law can show us what delights God, but give us no power to produce the behavior that delights God.  Thus, the law without the power to obey just brings guilt and condemnation.

But through the New Covenant we do have a new motivation, a fresh desire, to pursue what the New Testament calls “the law of Christ.”  You see, it’s not that the New Covenant has no boundaries or standards connected to it.  God says, “I will put my laws into their minds and write them upon their hearts.

At the very core, that new law is the law to love one another.  In Romans 13:8 Paul says, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

All the other laws merely flesh out how to love one another.

So the first promise of the New Covenant is the promise of an internalized religion.  I hope that thrills your heart.  Now you have the power you need to live a life that is pleasing to God.  You access that by faith in God’s promise.  “Lord, you have written your law in my mind and upon my heart.  It is now encoded in my DNA.  You have given me the power through union with Christ and your Holy Spirit to obey your law.  I believe Christ will live His righteousness through me today.”

We must remember that we are “new creations” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  What a better promise!

In the new covenant, the will of God is inscribed on our heart, internally, experientially, in the sense that whatever God requires of us in terms of our obedience he provides for us in terms of the Spirit’s internal, enabling power.

One of the ways we see Christ working as the Mediator of the new covenant is in Hebrews 13: 20-21:

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant [this is the purchase of the new covenant], even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The words, “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight,” describe what happens when God writes the law on our hearts in the new covenant.  And the words, “through Jesus Christ” describe Jesus as the Mediator of this glorious work of sovereign grace.

Because the new covenant provides motivation and power, we can have confidence that God’s Spirit within us can overcome our weaknesses and inadequacies.  We remember that trusting and obeying Him isn’t done in our own fleshly strength.  God works in us to shape our desires and accomplish what He wills (Phil. 2:12-13).  We’re not asked to conjure up halfhearted obedience performed with a begrudging grin, but God himself produces spiritual fruit through His abiding Spirit–“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Gal 5:22-23).  We love and obey Him from a transformed heart, giving Him the glory, honor, and thanks.  (Charles R. Swindoll, Swindoll’s Living Insights: Hebrews, 128)

Any participant in the New Covenant has something that the believer of past ages never had.  He or she has a new heart in which the Holy Spirit dwells.  He has the Holy Spirit living within him.  He has the Keeper of the Covenant indwelling him.  And that makes a crucial difference.  It means that God has gifted His people in a special way, working now from the inside out, thus making it possible for saints to obey God’s law of love.

Next week we will continue looking at the further blessings of the new covenant.

God has made a new covenant.  The Old Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, as glorious as it was, was ineffective for perfecting us and could not provide eternal forgiveness of sins.  We began looking last week at the way this new covenant was described in Hebrews 8:6-9.  First, we noted that it is a covenant mediated by Jesus.  Sin had separated us from God, but Jesus came as the Mediator to bring us back to God.  He alone, as the perfect, sinless God-Man, could do this.

So let me read Hebrews 8:6-9 again.

6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

So this covenant is superior because it was mediated by Jesus.  But also, secondly, it is a covenant that is distinct from and superior to the old covenant because it founded on better promises.

6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.

This is the same logic as we saw back in Hebrews 7:11, where our author spoke of the inferiority of the Levitical priesthood.

Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron?

If that priesthood could have brought about God’s saving plan, why was there need for another?  Because the old covenant and the old priesthood could not bring about the perfection that was required for a relationship with a holy God.

Just as the new priesthood was prophetically pictured, so a new covenant was predicted by both Jeremiah and Ezekiel, and even in seed form as far back as Deuteronomy 30:6.

So Hebrews 8:7 says, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.”  The imperfect tense is used with the verb “to look for,” so that it is communicating that throughout the Old Testament a new covenant was “continually sought after.”

This is a thought-provoking jab at those seeking to return to Judaism.  It is as if he is saying, “You really want to go back???  Those who lived under it were continually looking for a better way.  Who wants to live under the fear of ‘obey or die’?”

There were essentially two problems associated with the old covenant.  First, the covenant itself.  “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.”

The “if” here in verse 7 is a second class conditional sentence, meaning that it supposes that it is not true.  It is not true that there was nothing wrong with the first covenant.  In other words, there definitely was something wrong with the first covenant.  The word “wrong” or “faulty” here brings out the contrast with the “perfection” that was sought through the covenant.  It demanded perfection, but could not provide it.

But didn’t God set the terms of that first covenant?  Yes.  Verse 8 emphasizes that both covenants were initiated by God.  Then why is there fault to be found in it?  How could a God-initiated covenant be at fault?

God’s intention with the Old Covenant was never to save people.  That was not the way people were saved, even in the Old Testament period.  People have always been saved through faith.  The purpose of that covenant was implicitly to expose people to their own sinfulness and to help them see how much they needed salvation from outside themselves.  In that sense it does serve God’s purpose.

Writing to the believers in Galatia who were being tempted by the Judaizers to return to the yoke of the law (the Old Covenant), Paul reasoned rhetorically…”Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?  Certainly not!  For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.” (Galatians 3:21)

Galatians 3 then goes on to explain that the law was given as a guardian until Christ came.  The law was provided to show us our sin and our need for a Savior.  It was there to show us the impossibility of living up to its demands.  But we no longer need this guardian now that Christ has come.

In what way was the old covenant at fault?  Though it set forth before the people of Israel an objective standard by which to live, it supplied no power to live up to that standard.  It was written on tablets of stone, not upon human hearts.

This covenant is based on “better promises,” not new regulations.  It is based on the good news that Jesus Christ has done what we could not do—perfectly keeping the law—and then dying as the perfect sacrifice to pay the penalty for our disobedience.  These better promises are spelled out in vv. 10-12.

The old covenant was flawed, not in what was spelled out in the Law’s requirements, for the Law was good (cf. Romans 7:12), but in that it was “weakened by the flesh” of the people (Romans 8:3), because “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:7, 8).  Because of this, it could not deliver on its wonderful promises.  

That is why verses 8 and 9 show that the fault also lay at the feet of the people themselves, of us.  Verse 8 begins “for he finds fault with them.”  Why?  “For they did not continue in my covenant…” (v. 9).

In verse 9 he uses the language of a father and son.  “I took them by the hand,” he says.  “But they didn’t want to walk with me.”  So He ultimately had to turn his back on them.  These are the terms of the Old Covenant, faithfully walk with me, be consistently obedient to my commands.

People vehemently demand their own free will and chafe against the idea of a divine enablement for them to believe in Christ.  God gave them all kinds of positive motivations to obey—that He would bless them, give them their own land, give them rest from all their enemies, bring prosperity and long and happy lives, give them abundance of children, cause the nations to bless them.

Wouldn’t those be enough motivation to encourage them to obey God freely? 

God also told them the consequences of disobedience—curses, captivity, misery, famine, barrenness, destruction.

But even with all these promises of blessing and warnings of cursing, Israel again and again chose of their own free will to break the covenant.  As in Judges, we see an unending cycle of disobedience, chastisement, repentance, blessing, then disobedience, chastisement, repentance and blessing, over and over and over again.  Constant failure under the Old Covenant.

In Judges they go through this cycle over and over again, doing what is right in their own eyes.  Throughout the books of Samuel and Kings they had some good kings, many bad kings, and a royal mess. 

In reality, our wills are not free.  They are driven by selfish desires, Satan’s lies and the world’s promotions, to resist God and His law at every turn.  Paul says in Romans 8 that the sinful mind is hostile to God, “does not submit to the law of God nor can it do so.”  It lacks the ability.

And the Old Covenant made no provision to compensate for that weakness.  It provided the standard, but no power to accomplish that standard.  And that is the difference: The New Covenant supplies the power that the Old Covenant never could.  It supplies a new heart, a new disposition and the Holy Spirit.

You don’t need a fresh commitment to do better or try harder, you need a new heart.

You don’t need a fresh commitment to get serious about religion, you need to be born again.

Verse 9 tells us this covenant is “not like the covenant that I made with their fathers.”  This is not the Old Covenant 2.0, a patched-up version of the original.  Jesus told us that new wine required new wineskins.  This is a brand new covenant, a different kind of covenant.

The new covenant was founded on “better promises,” both because of their extent and because of the covenant’s ability to bring them to fulfillment in the lives of sinful humanity.  The new covenant could deliver!

As Adolph Saphir said: “How great is the contrast between the old and the new covenant!  In the one God demands of sinful man: ‘Thou shalt.’ In the other God promises: ‘I will.'”

Thirdly, it is a covenant made with the people of God.  Verse 8 says, “I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”  That is from Jeremiah 31:31.

So, is this our covenant today?  Does it apply to the church today?

Certainly it is a covenant with the people of God, the descendants of Abraham, written 600 years before Christ.  When Jeremiah first recorded these promises of the new covenant, Israel was divided between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms, Israel and Judah respectively.  The Northern kingdom was already captive to Assyria and the Southern kingdom soon to be in Babylon.

But God envisions a day when the Old Testament people of God would be regrouped into one new nation, but the Northern kingdom would not at that time return.  The new covenant will reunite the twelve tribes under one head.

The new covenant would bring together those who had been divided by bitterness and hostility: it was to be established with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. The promise of the reunion of Israel and Judah was symbolical of the healing of every human breach and the reconciliation of all nations and persons in Christ, the seed of Abraham in whom all the peoples of the earth are blessed and united (Gal 3:8f., 16, 27-29) because he “has broken down the dividing wall of hostility” (Eph 2:14).  What God accomplishes through Christ is nothing less than the reconciliation of the world to himself (2 Cor 5:19ff.).  (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 300)

When the New Covenant was inaugurated through Jesus there was no Northern Kingdom, so that part of the New Covenant will not be literally and completely fulfilled until the future.

However, we the church today, do participate in some of the promises of the New Covenant.

First, when the apostle Paul quotes the words of Jesus in 1 Corinthians 11 and tells the Churchabout its responsibility to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, he explicitly mentions that this is the celebration of the New Covenant prophesied in Jeremiah 31.  This makes no sense if we do not at least in some sense participate in the New Covenant.

Second, in 2 Corinthians 3:6 Paul indicates that he was a “minister of the new covenant,” and he was the “apostle to the Gentiles.”  He goes on to describe that New Covenant ministry.

Third, the blessings of the prophesied New Covenant, those described specifically here in Hebrews 8 and throughout the rest of the NT, are identical with the blessings that Christians in the Church receive and enjoy: forgiveness of sins, the empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit, and the knowledge of God inscribed on our hearts.

Fourth, the people to whom the book of Hebrews was written are members of the Church!  His point in this epistle is, “You now have and are participants in the new and better covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 and established by Jesus through his death and resurrection; so why would you ever want to go back under the old covenant and its inferior ways?”  If the members of the church in Rome, to which this letter was addressed, are not also members of the New Covenant, nothing in this entire book makes any sense at all.

Fifth, according to Hebrews 8:6 the new covenant “is” better (present tense) and “has been enacted” (perfect tense) on better promises. And those better promises are precisely what he describes in vv. 10-12 that apply to us, the Church, today.

Sixth, in Hebrews 10:15 our author says that the Holy Spirit bears witness to “us” the Church that God has made this new covenant with us!

The New Covenant definitely began with Israel but it was never intended to end with Israel (Matthew 15:24 and Acts 1:8).

So this is a covenant that the church participates in.  However, there are some promises in both Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36 which do not apply to the church.  Those will be applied to Israel and Judah in the future.

Our writer knows exactly what he is saying.

• Just as the Jewish Sabbath is a type of our rest.
• Just as Melchizedek is a type of Jesus Christ as the priest-king.
• Just as the lambs that were sacrificed typified Jesus Christ in His sacrifice.
• So the New Covenant is offered to us but will one day be consummated for Israel.

Turn with me to 1 Peter 1:1-2

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Only one point I want to make here.  Peter is writing to Christians.

About this same group of people Peter later says (1 Peter 2:9), “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…”

All four of these descriptions were descriptions of Old Testament Israel.  God referred to Israel as His “chosen people” in Deuteronomy 10, to them as a “royal priesthood” and a “holy nation” and “a people belonging to God” in Exodus 19:5.

Peter is applying these Old Testament descriptions of Israel to the church of Jesus Christ.  So this covenant, which will ultimately and finally be fulfilled for ethnic Israel, is being fulfilled right now for those Jews AND Gentiles who are the body of Jesus Christ!

The New Covenant with all its benefits IS for all those who believe in Jesus Christ.  Some now, others in the eschatological future.

This is a covenant that God makes with Israel and Judah and because of Jesus Christ we are allowed to participate in the inauguration of these promises.  God says, “I will make a new covenant…”  The Lord made it clear that this covenant would originate with God, and not with man.  At Sinai under the Old Covenant the key words were if you (Exodus 19:5), but in the New Covenant, the key words are “I will.”

This covenant is truly new, not merely “new and improved” in the way things are marketed to us today.  Today, products are said to be “new and improved” when there is no substantial difference in the product.  But when God says “new,” He means brand new, qualitatively new.

There are two ancient Greek words that describe the concept of “new.”  Neos described newness in regard to time.  Something may be a copy of something old but if it recently made, it can be called neos.  The ancient Greek word kainos (the word used here) described something that is not only new in reference to time, but is truly new as to its quality.

Note well who is speaking and who is making the covenant. It is the “Lord,” the God of grace who keeps his promises.  Four times the words, “declares the Lord” appear in this quotation from Jeremiah 31.  Again and again in that quotation God declares, “I will make,” “I will put,” “I will be,” “I will forgive.”  (Richard E. Lauersdorf, The People’s Bible: Hebrews, 87)

10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”

A month-long trip overseas and he thought he would be busy and not miss his wife.  But at the end of the second week he thought, “I’ve got two weeks left of this?” (It would just take me two days!).  By the end of the third week he couldn’t think of anything but his wife and wanted to go home now!  He couldn’t get through that fourth week fast enough!

What helped him make it through?  A picture of his wife.  During those four weeks he looked at it, talked to it, slept beside it.

Thirty minutes before landing he put on a new shirt, washed his face—just like a first date.  He was full of butterflies.  After landing, in the airport, he looked around, but she was nowhere to be found.

At baggage claim he saw her coming.  He later said, “I can still remember what she wore.”  He couldn’t let take his eyes off her.

But what would you think if he would then have said, “Thank you for coming to pick me up.  But I’ve come to prefer you in picture form.  You’re okay, but I like the 5 x 7 of you.”  Pretty stupid, huh?  To replace substance with the symbol, the reality with the picture.

This is what the Hebrews were being tempted to do with Jesus.

What do I mean?

Well, everything in the Old Testament has anticipated in picture form the reality of the coming Messiah and his saving work.  In Him the long-awaited age has arrived.  The old order is consequently rendered null and void, symbolized by the rending of the veil.  The Old Covenant was no longer valid and the Old Covenant pictures were supposed to be discarded.  They had done their job while before Jesus appeared.

But some of the Jewish people were considering returning to the Old Covenant—replacing the living, breathing reality with a Polaroid image.

Jesus, as we saw in Hebrews 7, is the ultimate priest—not just the best, but the final priest.  He is also the ultimate sacrifice, the only one that truly takes away sin.  And He continues to serve in a better sanctuary (8:1-6)—heaven itself.

Hebrews 8:6 summarizes: “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”

This is a comparison between the old covenant and the new covenant, favoring the new covenant.

Why draw upon this now?  He had mentioned it back in Hebrews 7:22, because of the oath sworn to Melchizedek, “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”

The verb tense in Hebrews 8:6 is the perfect tense.  Jesus “has received” this ministry as a past, completed action (with nothing left to do) but with continuing results that reach into our present lives.

But why does the author choose to develop this idea now?

Envision in your mind an archery target with concentric circles.  These circles are periphery, moving into the target.  Everything our author has said so far is not the bull’s eye.  The bull’s eye is the new covenant.  If they can perceive and acknowledge that the old covenant is an inferior, shadowy reflection of the new and better covenant they can be persuaded not to return to Judaism.

But what do we mean by “covenant”?  Our writer uses it seventeen times, so we’d better understand it.  In the simplest sense, it refers to a bonded agreement between two parties, ratified by a blood sacrifice.  It brings about the uniting of the two parties in a relationship with one another, which results in a common purpose, common friends, common enemies, mutual confidence, loyalty and the exclusion of strife.

The choice of diatheke as the term for “covenant,” rather than suntheke, which is the more common word for covenant, is no doubt deliberate.  Suntheke was the common word in the Old Testament for agreements and for covenants between two equals, like a marriage covenant.  Suntheke referred to covenants in which both parties had obligations.  Sometimes both parties were human, like the covenant between Jonathan and David, or in the marriage covenant between husband and wife.  Most often they were between God and man, such as the Noahic covenant, signified by the rainbow, in Genesis 9, the covenant between God and Abraham in Genesis 15.

Since God is the initiator, they all reflect a measure of His grace.  Some were unconditional in nature (uni-lateral) in which all the promises were from God to man; others were conditional (bi-lateral), involving obligations on both parties.  The Abrahamic and Davidic covenant were unconditional.  The Mosaic, or Sinaitic covenant, was conditional.

What’s the difference?  In an unconditional covenant, the work of God alone is required to experience the benefits of the covenant.  In conditional covenant, both sides had to keep up their obligations.

The term diatheke, is also often translated “will.”  The conditions of a will are not made on equal terms.  They are made entirely by one person, the testator, and the other party cannot alter them but can only accept or refuse the inheritance offered.  (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Hebrews, 91)

A covenant was considered a binding agreement among the ancients, and thus they were never entered into lightly.  After pieces of the sacrificial animal were laid opposite one another, the individuals who were cutting covenant would walk between the flesh.  This walk represented the so-called “walk into death” indicating their commitment to die to independent living and to ever after live for the sake of their covenant partner and to fulfill the stipulations of their covenant.  We see this practice in Jeremiah 34:8ff, esp. vv. 18-19.

Furthermore, this “walk unto death” was a testimony by each covenant partner that if either broke the covenant, God would take their life, even as had been done to the sacrificial animal.  In short, we see the gravity of entering into and then breaking covenant.  Covenant was a pledge to death.  A pledge cut in blood.  In covenant the shedding of blood demonstrated as nothing else could the intensity of the commitment being made between the two parties.

We see this graphically portrayed as God reinforced His covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15, starting in verse 8.  Abraham asks a question:

8 But he said, “O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?” 9 He said to him, “Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon.” 10 And he brought him all these, cut them in half, and laid each half over against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half. 11 And when birds of prey came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. And behold, dreadful and great darkness fell upon him. 13 Then the LORD said to Abram, “Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for four hundred years. 14 But I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 As for yourself, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. 16 And they shall come back here in the fourth generation, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, 19 the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, 20 the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, 21 the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites and the Jebusites.”

The Hebrew word for covenant, berith, literally means “cut,” this covenant making was called “cutting a covenant,” referring to the sacrificial animal.  Notice in Genesis 15 that only God passes through (v. 18); Abraham is asleep.  This indicates that God’s covenant with Abraham was unilateral, all the obligations lay with God.  He was binding Himself to this covenant.

Such was not the case with the Mosaic covenant on Mount Sinai—the Old Covenant.  In this case, God would bless Israel IF they were faithful to obey the stipulations of the covenant.  They could choose blessing or cursing, life or death.  And we see this played out throughout their history.

Both the Old and New Covenants were inaugurated through blood, the Old Covenant through the continual offering of the blood of bulls and goats, while the New Covenant was established through the once-and-for-all offering of the blood of Jesus Christ.  With His disciples Jesus said, offering them the cup, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:25).

When Moses read the covenant, they said (Exodus 24:7), “All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.”  Of course, the consistent record of Israel, from that very moment, throughout the Old Testament, even during the time of Jesus and the apostles, was to constantly disobey the Old Covenant.  They could not keep it.  God knew that they needed circumcised hearts.

The Law of Moses was very clear in stating, “Thou shalt not” or “Do this and live” or “Be ye holy.”  But there was nothing in the law itself that could empower the people to obey it.  The Law of Moses told the people of Israel what they should and should not do but it was never capable of supplying them with the internal energy or the spiritual power to obey. 

I have no idea who wrote this statement, but perhaps you’ve heard this explanation for the difference between the Old covenant and the New covenant, or the difference between the Law and the Gospel:

“To run and work the law commands,

Yet gives me neither feet nor hands.

But better news the gospel brings:

It bids me fly, and gives me wings!”

But that is a provision of the New Covenant—a new and greater ability to keep God’s commands.  In Hebrews 8 the writer now turns to exalting the superiority of the New Covenant and the gap between the two is enormous.  Today we will deal with the question: How is the New Covenant Described? in verses 6-9.  In this portion our author describes the reasons for the change from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.

Next week we will look at How is the New Covenant Defined? in vv. 10-13.  Here he will quote the four superior promises of the New Covenant (vv. 10-12), and finally he will underline the certainty of the change (v. 13).

Our author gives us three descriptive statements about the New Covenant.

First, it is a covenant mediated by Jesus Christ.

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. (Hebrews 8:6)

The Book of Hebrews in many places describes how the “new” is better than the “old.”  It speaks of better things (6:9); a better hope (7:19); a better covenant (7:22); better promises (8:6); better sacrifices (9:23); better possessions (10:34); a better country (11:16); a better resurrection (11:35); and a better word (12:24). 

Whatever else may be said about this new covenant, the most important fact is that it is mediated by, inaugurated by Jesus Christ.  The thing that makes this covenant successful is that it is based not upon our own efforts, but on the work of Jesus Christ alone.  “Mediator” refers to a “middle man,” someone who stands between two parties and helps remove a disagreement and achieve a common goal.  In this case the goal is to activate the New Covenant, this new bond relationship between God and man.

We are separated from God by our sin.  Isaiah 59:2 says, “but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”

As our Mediator, Jesus Christ steps between a holy God whose justice requires that we pay the penalty for our sins and He stands as our sin-bearer, having paid for our sins and satisfied God’s justice, thus removing the barrier that kept us apart.

In His mediatorial death Jesus Christ secures the interests of both parties he represents—God’s need for His justice to be satisfied and our need for forgiveness of sins.  In 1 Timothy 2:5-6 Paul presents this mediatorial role of Jesus Christ.

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Verse 6 tells us how Jesus mediated between a holy God and sinful mankind, by giving himself as a ransom for all.

His mediation consisted of what the writer spoke about in Hebrews 7:27, “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”

This author always uses this concept in relationship to the new covenant and Jesus’ death.

14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. 15 Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

Because Christ offered Himself and was the perfect sacrifice, He is now the “mediator of a new covenant.”

We see this also in Hebrews 12:23-24

23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

This New Covenant is inaugurated by the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ.  He is its Mediator.  As we would expect, all of this was prefigured in the making of the Old Covenant.  When the people agreed to obey the Mosaic Covenant (Exodus 24), Moses did this: He took the blood of the sacrificed animals and poured half of it into bowls and the other half he sprinkled on the altar.  “And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words’” (Exodus 24:8).

Half of the blood sprinkled on the altar speaks of sacrifice offered to God; sprinkled on the people speaks of blood being applied to them.  Jesus fulfilled this on the cross.  We proclaim that the sacrificial blood was offered to God and applied to sinful mankind.  Jesus is the Mediator, removing the barrier of our sin and inaugurating the better covenant of relationship with God.

This new covenant, not like the covenant made with the people through Moses, would be of grace, not of works; radical, not external; everlasting, not temporary; meeting man’s deepest need and transforming his whole being, because from beginning to end it would be the work, not of man, but of God himself.  (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 300)

Our author is showing us the superiority of the New Covenant to the Old.  And the first reason is because the ministry Jesus has received is that of Mediator.  That ministry is superior because the covenant itself is superior.  We will look at two more descriptions of the superiority of the New Covenant next week.

But let me just remind you why this author is emphasizing this.  He is saying that we should not prefer the picture over the real relationship which we can have with God through Jesus Christ.  Staying with the Mosaic law, with its sacrifices and priesthood, was like preferring the picture over the person.  Don’t do that today.  Don’t choose a man-made effort to try to reach God’s favor when He has offered His one and only Son as the way to salvation.  Trust fully and only in Jesus Christ today.

We were talking last week about Jesus’ exalted position.  Having finished His work on the cross, completely satisfying God’s wrath against our sins and paying the penalty for our pardon, He “sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty of heaven.”

So, we want to continue our examination of what it means to be seated at the right hand of God.  We said it is a place of honor, exaltation and power.

There are many passages which speak of God’s right hand.  David prophesied that the Messiah would sit at God’s right hand” (Psalm 110:1).  Jesus said that He would sit at the right hand of God (Mark 14:60-62).  When He ascended to heaven, He then sat down at God’s right hand (Mark 16:19; Hebrews 12:2).  At God’s right hand, He poured forth the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33).  Peter preached Jesus as being exalted to be at God’s right hand as our Prince and Savior (Acts 5:30-31).  Paul taught that Jesus is at God’s right hand, interceding for us (Romans 8:34).  He is at God’s right hand, “waiting till His enemies are made His footstool” (Hebrews 10:12-13).  Yet while He sits and waits, He also rules! (Psalm 110:1-2,5; cf. 1 Corinthians 15:24-26).  For at God’s right hand, He is above all other authority (Ephesians 1:20-22; 1 Peter 3:22).  In one place, we do read of Jesus “standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55-56).  Was Jesus here showing His respect for Stephen, the very first Christian martyr?

Rather than an imperfect human priest who can only enter the Holy of Holies once a year, and never stay there for long (much less sit there permanently!), we have a high priest seated at the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens!  The point is, “Why would you even consider going back to the old system when you have such a high priest permanently seated in such an exalted position?”

To be a high priest at all was pretty prestigious.  One man at a time.  One day in God’s presence.  Highly respected.

But that is no comparison to Jesus.  Six times in the book of Hebrews it is indicated that Jesus is the one enthroned at the right hand of God.  He is a “kingly priest,” and that royal dignity is in view here.

The priesthood of Jesus is performed in heavenly glory with a dignity that is kingly and a power that is divine.

From the perspective of the Ancient Near East, the one who sat at the right hand of a ruler is the one who represents the ruler, acts for the ruler and has the rights and authority of the ruler.  Jesus is the sovereign authority as the reigning Lord.

In Ephesians 1 as part of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians, he writes:

19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. 22 And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.

Currently Jesus has all authority and has inaugurated the kingdom.  The consummation of that kingdom will be established at his second coming.  That is presented proleptically in Revelation 11:15 when the seventh angel blows his trumpet and loud voices cry out, “”The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever,” and will finally be established when Jesus Christ returns and establishes his kingdom on earth (Revelation 19-20).

Verse 2 continues to describe the place from which conducts his present ministry: “a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man” (Hebrews 8:2).  Jesus Christ currently ministers “in the holy places, in the true tent.”

First, let’s just notice that Jesus Christ “ministers” or “serves” there.  This is amazing in itself and shows the upside-down nature of Christ’s kingdom!  When is the last time you heard of a king who served?  You haven’t.  Kings don’t serve, they are served by others.

He told his disciples (Mark 10:45), “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”  He came as a servant.

This willingness to serve others runs counter to the natural grain of humanity, because those in exalted positions characteristically view their role otherwise.

Charles Colson had a glimpse of this in his White House days when on a Sunday evening he accompanied the President from the Oval Office in the West Wing of the White House to the Residence. The President was musing about what people wanted in their leaders. He slowed a moment, looking into the distance across the South Lawn, and said, “The people really want a leader a little bigger than themselves, don’t they, Chuck?” Colson agreed. “I mean someone like de Gaulle,” he continued. “There’s a certain aloofness, a power that’s exuded by great men that people feel and want to follow.”

Colson comments in retrospect, “Jesus Christ exhibited none of this self-conscious aloofness. He served others first; He spoke to those to whom no one spoke; He dined with the lowest members of society; He touched the untouchables” (Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict (New York/Grand Rapids, MI: William Morrow/Zondervan, 1978), p. 85).

Jesus serves others throughout his ministry, but left His disciples with an unmistakable illustration in John 13. 

1 Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 2 During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him, 3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, 4 rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. 5 Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. 6 He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, “Lord, do you wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered him, “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.” 8 Peter said to him, “You shall never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.” 9 Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, not my feet only but also my hands and my head!” 10 Jesus said to him, “The one who has bathed does not need to wash, except for his feet, but is completely clean.  And you are clean, but not every one of you.” 11 For he knew who was to betray him; that was why he said, “Not all of you are clean.” 12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

When Jesus girded himself with a towel, that is not an aberration of his human nature, but an expression of His divine strength bowing down to serve us.  In Psalm 18:35, David expresses this amazing perception of God’s condescension: “You have given me the shield of your salvation, and your right hand supported me, and your gentleness made me great.”  Some versions say, “You stooped down to make me great.”

Who went to Adam and Eve?  Do they themselves come to their senses and pursue God?

Who present Himself as the spurned lover in the book of Hosea?  Yet, He still pursues.

It is His nature to seek.  To serve is His dignity!

And because He humbles Himself to serve, God will highly exalt Him.  One of my favorite passages of Scripture reminds us:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:5-11)

Even now, Jesus Christ, sitting in kingly glory and constantly receiving the worship of heavenly beings, serves us.  He may have “sat down,” but His is far from inactive!  How incredulous!  How marvelous!

And how does He serve?  Remember Hebrews 7:25.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

He is advocating for us against the accuser in 1 John 2:1, “if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

We “have such a high priest,” not just any priest, but even the best human priest, but the only high priest who could possibly draw us near to God.

Highlight in Hebrews 7:25 that word “always.”  There are no lapses.  No brownouts.  No temporarily lost signals.  He constantly lives in order to serve us by interceding for us before the Father.  That is the best possible service we could receive.

Thirdly, we see the superiority of Jesus’ high priestly ministry is established by the arena in which He serves His people.

Verse 2 speaks of the “true tent.”  Jesus is, “a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”

What does the author of Hebrews mean by that?  What he is saying is that the earthly tabernacle and the sacrificial system was a temporary shadow, pointing to the real thing that is greater and more effective in dealing with sin.

It is not that the Old Covenant tabernacle was false, but that it was temporary and a shadow of the true tabernacle in heaven.  Moses was shown a plan upon the mountain (Exodus 26:30) and it was of the “true tent that the Lord set up, not man.”  This shows the permanent reality of the heavenly tabernacle.

Why is this so important?

Because we would be in trouble if this were not so.

Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. (Hebrews 8:4)

That is, if Jesus were ministering on earth, then we would be left with the current tabernacle with its priests and sacrifices, and this would not pay for our sins.  If he were talking about the earthly tabernacle, Christ couldn’t serve because He was not of the right lineage.  He wasn’t born into the right family and not only would He be unable to be our high priest, but He would not be able to be a priest at all!

But, there is a true tabernacle, a heavenly tabernacle, set up by God, not by man.

They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” (Hebrews 8:5)

The words “copy” and “shadow” get their significance from the fact that they point to something greater.  The earthly tabernacle is merely a copy, a shadow of a greater reality.  The word “copy” means that there was an original, a master.  The word “shadow” contrasts with something that is real.

To emphasize the more excellent ministry of Messiah, the concept of a copy and shadow is repeated throughout this section.  These words apply to the earthly tabernacle in Hebrews 9:9, “symbolic for the present age” and then he says the earthly tabernacle and furniture are “copies of the heavenly things” in Hebrews 9:23.  In Hebrews 9:24 he again emphasizes that “holy places made with hands…are copies of the true things.”

Thus, the purpose of the earthly tabernacle in the wilderness and the temple in Jerusalem was always to point to the greater reality that they typify—a tabernacle in heaven.

Moses was given minute details (15 chapters worth) for designing and constructing the first earthly tabernacle.  The warning to follow “the pattern” (quoted from Exodus 25:40) was given in the midst of minute instructions about the ark, the table, the lampstand, and the size, shape, and materials specified to build the tabernacle (Exodus 25—31; cf. 25:9; 26:30; 27:8)

The word “pattern” meant something more than verbal instruction. Very likely it denoted a model along with verbal explanation.  Moses may have been privileged to view a model on Sinai, then was given personal instruction.

This produced inventive rabbinical speculation.  For example, the Talmud says, “An ark of fire and a table of fire and a candlestick of fire came down from heaven; and these Moses saw and reproduced” (TB Menahoth 29a) (Leon Morris, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary , vol. 12 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1981), p. 76).  Some rabbis held that the angel Gabriel descended in a workman’s apron from Heaven with models of the tabernacle furniture, which he showed Moses how to build (Edward Fudge, Our Man in Heaven (Grand Rapids, MI: 1974), p. 82).  This, of course, is groundless speculation, but it does show that Jewish interpreters believed there was a heavenly tabernacle.

It can truly be said of the Aaronic priesthood, as verse 5a avers, “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.”  The substance, the ultimate reality, of the tabernacle is where Jesus is—at the right hand of God.  This being so—and coupled with the dizzying glory of the Lamb surrounded by the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders amidst rainbows of praise—what must the real sanctuary and his priestly ministry be like?  Imagine the multi-faceted shadow of the glorious tabernacle, and then imagine the ultimate heavenly reality!  Remember that the heavenly counterpart is free from the spatial and material limitations of the earthly tabernacle and temple.  If such was the shadow, what must be the substance?  Do not fail to employ your imagination, because however grand and wondrous your imagining is, it cannot exceed the reality of Christ’s heavenly tabernacle and priesthood!

And we can learn a lot from the layout of the tabernacle and the furnishings precisely because it is made to the exact specifications of the heavenly tabernacle.  Moses couldn’t take artistic license in building the tabernacle.

Why?  Because they represented something greater and must have correspondence to it.  Jesus didn’t come to serve us in the replica, but He does serve us in the original.  He is in heaven, in the real Holy of Holies, serving His people.  That is why His ministry is superior.

To show us just how important this is he draws us to a conclusion with another comparison to the old order.

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises (Hebrews 8:6)

Jesus’ priesthood and ministry is far superior (“much more excellent”).  How superior is Jesus’ priesthood?  As superior as the new covenant is to the old.  And that is very, very exciting!  But you’ll have to wait until next week before we get into that.

Do not turn away from Jesus Christ as the ultimate, only worthy sacrifice for your sins.  This is the only sacrifice that God regards as satisfying to His wrath against our sins.  Apart from Jesus Christ, when God looks at us He sees us in all our sin, all our guilt and all our defilement.  But united to Jesus Christ by faith, He sees us in the righteousness and worthiness and purity of Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ is what you need.  Jesus Christ is all you need.  Don’t turn to anything else.  Don’t try to add anything else to simple faith in Jesus Christ.  Trust in Him alone.

Before we get into chapter 8 of Hebrews, we have a few verses to cover in chapter 7.

25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

The point the author of Hebrews is making is that Jesus is a better priest.  He comes from a different linage, after the order of Melchizedek, instead of Levi and the Aaronic priesthood.  Therefore he is an eternal priest and “always lives to make intercession for [us].”  In addition, he is totally sinless.  Look again at verse 26, “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.”

He is unlike the current priesthood, which must “offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins.”  Jesus, being sinless, does not need to offer sacrifices for himself.  Throughout his life he lived a totally sinless life, always doing the will of His Father and pleasing Him in every respect.  Thus, He could give himself as a sacrifice for us, because he was spotless and without defect.

The Levitical priests had to offer sacrifices to pay for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices for the people.  Jesus, however, because He was perfect, “once for all…offered up himself.”

Notice that Christ “offered up himself,” it was a willing sacrifice.  Although it was the Father’s will, Jesus willingly submitted to that will in the garden.  He says in John 10:17-18…

17 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.  This charge I have received from my Father.”

The reason Christ offered up himself “once for all” is that His sacrifice perfectly appeased God’s wrath against sins.  Jesus said from the cross, “It is finished,” which can be translated “paid in full.”  No subsequent sacrifices are needed. Jesus paid it all.

Jesus is a superior priest because He is a Son (the Son of God), not a mere man, because God swore His priesthood into existence, because His priesthood is more recent, because his priesthood is permanent, because it is now in heaven, and because his person is perfect.

The outcome for us is inevitable and eternal: “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest” (v. 26a).  Hallelujah!  Double hallelujah!  How dare we go anywhere else with our need!  How dare we go to others without first going to him!  He is everything we need!  Either we are children or we are not.  Either Christ is sufficient or he is not.  And he more certainly is!

“One of the most distinctive themes in the theology of Hebrews is the change from old to new in God’s dealings with humankind. In Jesus Christ a decisive shift in salvation-history has occurred according to God’s plan. What was provisional and ineffective has been superseded by the final and full salvation in the Son of God, a change anticipated in the Old Testament itself” (Buist Fanning, “A Theology of Hebrews.” In A Biblical Theology of the New Testament, p. 398).

A better priest enacts a better covenant.  That is the theme of Hebrews 8.

And you might say, “So what?”

Well, I hope that a fresh understanding of the new covenant that Jesus enacted will be transforming to your life, and therefore exciting to you.

To the Jews, who for fifteen hundred years had been raised upon the Old Covenant with the Mosaic Law, it was very difficult for them to ever accept the possibility that the Old Covenant had been replaced with a new covenant.  Although this had been promised in the Old Testament prophets, they were leery about believing that it had been enacted by Jesus.

In previous chapters we have been shown that Jesus is superior to…

• The prophets (Hebrews 1:1-3)
• The angels (Hebrews 1:4-2:18)
• Moses (Hebrews 3:1-5)
• Aaron and the Levitical priesthood (Hebrews 5:1-10; 7:1-28).

So our author has been proving that Jesus is indeed a superior priest, having offered a superior sacrifice which inaugurates a superior covenant.

Let me read Hebrews 8.

1 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. 3 For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. 4 Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. 5 They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” 6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. 8 For he finds fault with them when he says: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. 10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. 12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” 13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Why is Jesus so superior?

First, the superiority of Jesus’ high priestly ministry is established by the finality of His atoning sacrifice.

Our author begins verse 1 with the statement, “the point of what we’re saying” and that is not so much a summarizing statement as the idea that this is the apex, the high point.  It is not just the main point, this is the high point.  He will continue to develop this thought for the next three chapters. 

The author leads us on from his treatment of the priesthood after the order of Melchizedek beginning in Hebrews 4:14 and now reaching a crescendo in Hebrews 7, the writer has been emphasizing the priesthood of Christ to emphasize the point that Christ’s ministry far surpasses that of the Levitical priests.

And here is the high point: “We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty of heaven.”

Jesus is not just any priest, but “such” a high priest…a glorious high priest.

Don’t miss this little point here.  Our author uses the present tense here, “we have.”  We continually have this kind of priest, presently functioning for us.  He is our priest.  If we believe in Jesus Christ, He is our priest forever.  There will never be any change in that.  He is continually interceding for us.  There will never be any change in that.

Two things are highlighted about this high priest in verse 2.  One deals with the place the high priest ministers in (which we will deal with secondly).  The other deals with the posture of the high priest.

The Levitical priest never, ever sat down.  There was no place for them to sit.  Neither a chair nor a bench was part of the furniture of the temple.

In Hebrews 10:11-12 we read…

11 And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God,

The Levitical priest was always standing because their work was never done.  They were always having to offer new sacrifices for the continuing sins of the people.  They did this day after day, “offering repeatedly the same sacrifices.”  Why?  Because these sacrifices “never take away sins.”  They are ineffective in permanently taking away sins.

In contrast, Jesus as the better high priest has “sat down.”  The verb indicates a completed, non-repeatable action.  And He is seated because his work made a single sacrifice that is effective “for all time.”  It is the physical expression that signified: “It is finished.”

In John 4, Jesus had to explain to His disciples what his real “food” was, declaring…

Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34)

At this point in his ministry he still had much to do, so he was always at work doing the Father’s will.  But in John 17, Jesus indicated in his high priestly prayer “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”

By this time the work was done.  Yes, He still had to hang upon the cross to satisfy God’s wrath against us and pay the penalty for our sins and rise again, but He could speak of His work as effectively finished.

And then John records Jesus’ words on the cross in John 19:28-30.

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

“It is finished” translates the single verb tetelesthai, which means in essence, “paid in full.”  The perfect tense speaks of the permanence of this payment—a single payment that has continuing benefits for us today.

In ancient times when someone had a debt that was finally paid off, the lender would write “tetelesthai” across the bill to certify that it had been paid in full.  And when Jewish priests would examine an animal for suitability to be sacrificed, they would use this same verb if they found the animal to be faultless.  We owed a debt we could never pay, but Jesus fully paid the debt He did not owe.  That is amazing grace!

Because in his person he brought finite man and infinite God together, he could then do what no one else could—he could bear all our sins in a single cosmic sacrifice.  Hence the heavenly song, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5:9).

In contrast, no earthly Levitical priest ever sat down. “And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” (10:11).  “Each repeated sacrifice was only a reminder that none of the sacrifices ever provided a finished salvation.  The blood of animals did not wash away sin or cleanse the guilty conscience; it only covered sin until that day when Jesus Christ died to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29)” (Warren Wiersbe, The Wiersbe Bible Commentary: New Testament, p. 824).

Jesus did what no priest before Him had ever done.  He sat down.  His work was finished.  It need never be repeated.

Several months ago we saw in Hebrews 1:3 this description of Jesus’ superiority to the angels:

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Then back in Hebrews 8:3 this contrast is emphasized.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.

The Levitical high priest had to offer many “gifts and sacrifices.”  But Jesus Christ, “this priest” made one single offering…Himself.  This quantitative difference is carried out in the verbs as well.  For the Levitical priests “to offer” is in the present tense, an ongoing activity; for Jesus Christ “to offer” is in the aorist tense, in this context indicating an action which was not repeated.  Jesus, in one act, had brought before God the one offering that would perfectly satisfy God’s requirement.

Jesus Christ does not need to offer sacrifices day after day.  Hebrews 7:27 says, “He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.”

Jesus is superior.  His offering of Himself makes all other attempts to win God’s favor unnecessary and ineffective.  We don’t have to do anything else to be well-pleasing to God.  You need to understand that God is totally and completely satisfied with you IF you are in Christ.  You don’t have to do anything because Christ has already done it.  Someone has distinguished between all other religions and Christianity in that all other religions are spelled D-0, “do,” while Christianity is spelled D-O-N-E, “done.”

If is the height of foolishness, even though it seems fitting, for us to try to earn God’s favor through our own efforts.  First, we could never do enough.  Second, even our righteousnesses are like filthy rags, shot through and through with defilement.  Believe me, your morality will never satisfy God like the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ does.

Any attempt to earn the favor of God on your own will make Him decidedly unsatisfied with you!

Now, because Christ is seated doesn’t mean He is inactive.  Remember that in the presence of the Father He continues to be our intercessor (Hebrews 7:25) and advocate (1 John 2:2).

Second, we see in verse 2 that the superiority of Jesus’ high priestly ministry is established by the manifestation of His royal dignity.

This has to do with the place where Christ is now seated.  Notice the absolutely unique location. “who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty of heaven.”

We not only have a High Priest who has majestically taken His seat at the Father’s right hand (v. 1), but we have One who now ministers as a priest in the heavenly sanctuary (v. 2; cf. Ps. 110:1).

The “majesty of heaven” is a description of God the Father in all His glory, His radiant splendor.  Revelation 4:2-3 describe that scene in these words:

2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne. 3 And he who sat there had the appearance of jasper and carnelian, and around the throne was a rainbow that had the appearance of an emerald.

Jesus is seated “at the right hand of the throne,” at God’s right hand, a place of honor, exaltation and power.

The big idea of Hebrews 7 is that we can each draw near to God and be saved completely because of the superior priesthood of Jesus Christ.  We have seen that (1) the Levitical priesthood and the Law are inferior because they cannot make anyone perfect—that is, they cannot so cleanse a person’s life so that they are able to draw near to God.  We have also seen that (2) the New Covenant and the priesthood of Jesus are superior because they do provide a way for us to draw near to God.  Today we’re going to explore (3) the superiority of Jesus priesthood in that it provides for a complete salvation.

We see this in Hebrews 7, verses 20-28.

20 And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, 21 but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.'” 22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant .23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

Jesus’ priesthood is superior because, unlike the Levitical priesthood, Jesus’ priesthood is backed by God’s oath (7:20-22).

In contrast, the Aaronic priests ascended to their position, not on the basis of divine oath, but rather because of divine instruction.  God said, “Then bring near to you Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the people of Israel, to serve me as priests” (Exodus 28:1).  This was followed by an extended ceremony, but there was no oath (cf. Exodus 28, 29; Leviticus 8, 9).  Certainly God did not swear to Aaron, or any other priest, that his priesthood would be forever.

But when it came to the priesthood of His Son, “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.’” (7:21, citing Psalm 110:4).

We saw a similar thing back in Hebrews chapter 6, in vv. 13-18, regarding God’s promise to Abraham, that He swore by Himself to make the promise to Abraham that much more secure.  God’s bare word, of course, is enough to make His promise certain.  But when He adds His oath, it is like underlining the promise, highlighting it in bold print and putting it in brackets with multiple exclamation points after it!  And to this He adds, “and will not change his mind.”  God is emphasizing that this is a permanent priesthood.

An oath was not necessary, because God’s word is enough.  But because humanity is a race of liars, God accommodated himself within the sphere of human undependability (Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), p. 267). 

His oath is a double-assurance to fallen, duplicitous humanity of the eternality of Jesus’ Melchizedekian priesthood.  Whatever “God confirms by an oath becomes something so utterly unchangeable that it is woven into the very fibre of the universe and must remain forever” (William Barclay, The Letter to the Hebrews (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1957), p. 85).

On the basis of the fact that Jesus is a “priest forever,” he adds (7:22) “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”  In the Greek text, the name Jesus is placed last in the sentence to emphasize that this covenant depends upon his priesthood.  That name “Jesus” means “Yahweh saves.”  As the angel told Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

Since the old priesthood was the heart of the Old Covenant, and God terminated both of them, the new priesthood must be connected to a new covenant that is superior to the Old Covenant.  Since the new Priest has come, so must the New Covenant have come (cf. Luke 22:20).  It is not only a new covenant, but a “better covenant.”  It is qualitatively better than the Old Covenant because the Old Covenant could not make mankind perfect, could not enable us to draw near and could not ultimately save us.  All of these things are now possible through the New Covenant.  Our author will expand upon this New Covenant in Hebrews 8:7-13.

This is the only time that the word “guarantee” is used in the New Testament.  Jesus, who offered Himself on the cross for our sins, is our surety or guarantee of this better covenant, assuring its effectiveness to do that is promised.  Also, this emphasizes to us that we are not the guarantor of our salvation, Jesus is.  It doesn’t depend upon our hold on Him, but His hold on us (John 10:28-30).

Philip Hughes (A  Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], p. 267] observes, “It is a matter of exceptional significance that the covenant with Abraham and the declaration concerning the priestly order of Melchizedek were both confirmed by God with an oath, for under these two heads all the gracious promises and prophecies which precede the coming of Christ are gathered, and with the coming of Christ both the evangelical covenant and the evangelical priesthood burst into fulfillment.”

In other words, God’s oath stands behind the two crucial prophecies and promises about Jesus Christ.  It’s like a double warranty from the God of truth Himself backing our salvation!  It therefore cannot fail.

John MacArthur puts it, “All of God’s promises in the New Covenant are guaranteed to us by Jesus Himself.  He guarantees to pay all the debts that our sins have incurred, or ever will incur, against us” (The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Hebrews [Moody Press], p. 198).

Because Jesus still lives and will live forever, his priesthood provides a perpetual petition for our salvation before God.

Verses 23-24 reinforce the contrast between the human priests who live and die, and Jesus Christ, who lives forever.

23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

A glance at the old Aaronic priesthood demonstrates its impermanence.  When Aaron, the first priest, had served his term, God took him and his son Eleazar to the peak of Mount Hor. And there, the Scriptures tell us, “Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son.  And Aaron died there on the top of the mountain.  Then Moses and Eleazar came down from the mountain” (Numbers 20:28).  Later, when Eleazar died, his son Phinehas succeeded him (Joshua 24:33).  Aaron—Eleazar—Phinehas—the priestly succession continued on.  The concluding comment for every priest was inevitably, “and he died.”

Josephus reckoned that some eighty-three priests served from Aaron until the destruction of the second temple in AD 70 (Antiquities, 20.227). But the Talmud lists even more—eighteen during the first temple and over three hundred for the second (Yoma 9a).³

In marked contrast to this, the author asserts that Jesus “holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever” (v. 24).  The Greek word for “permanently” can have the sense of unchangeable or permanent as our translation has it, or it can mean that the priesthood is non-transferable.  Hebrews scholar Philip Hughes thinks that “The term is enhanced by its ambivalence: the priesthood of Christ does not pass to another precisely because it is a perpetual priesthood” (Hughes, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews , p. 268).  The word may, indeed, have both senses.

Some of the Levitical priests were good, some were bad, but Jesus remains the same forever, so we can expect to receive the same benefits from His perfect and perpetual priesthood.  We never need to worry about a “bad priest” replacing Him!

The high point of the benefits that we receive from Jesus as our high priest is found in verse 25.

Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

First, notice that Jesus is “able to save.”  The angel promised Joseph, “He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).  Born spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1) and blinded to the gospel (2 Corinthians 4:4) and enslaved by Satan (2 Timothy 2:25-26), we could do nothing to save ourselves and need help from the outside.  According to John 3:19, we didn’t even want to be saved because we “loved the darkness” (cf. Ephesians 4:18-19).  On our side, salvation is an impossibility.

But thank God Jesus IS “able to save.”  In Ephesians 2:1-5 Paul writes…

1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. 4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved—

That ability to save is put in the present tense.  Thus, it refers not just to the past act of justifying sinners, but also to the present process of sanctifying us.  Raymond Brown says, “He saves us, not only in the moment of initial commitment, but day by day and moment by moment” (Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1982), p. 139)—through all time!  His perpetual saving work brings about our growing sanctification as we are made ever more like him.

Not only is Jesus “able to save” but He is “able to save to the uttermost.”  That word “uttermost” could have the connotation of “forever” (the ultimate in time) or “completely” (the ultimate in effectiveness).  Both are true but the context probably stresses the idea that our salvation has been completely accomplished.  There is nothing left for us to do.  Nothing that we can do; nothing even that He has to do else.  “It is finished” regarding our salvation.

Whoever we are, whatever we have done, no matter how heinous our sin—whether it is murder, infidelity, perversion, betrayal, embezzlement, lying, jealousy, hateful gossip, or whatever—Christ can save us completely and eternally.  We must take greatest pride in this gospel, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Romans 1:16).

This salvation enables us to “draw near to God through Him.”  There is no salvation, no relationship with God as our Father, except through Jesus Christ.  There is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ.  “No one comes to the Father except through me” Jesus says in John 14:6.  And Peter preached, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

And that salvation comes to us because “He always lives to make intercession for [us].”  Jesus sits eternally at the right hand of the Father, petitioning the Father in our behalf.  John 17 and Luke 22:32 are good examples of this from his earthly life.  Peter would not have survived Satan’s attack if Jesus hadn’t prayed for him.  Peter didn’t realize how vulnerable he was to Satan and he didn’t realize how valuable He was to Jesus.  But Jesus prayed for him and he succeeded as an apostle.

In Romans 8 Paul says that God will work all things “together for good” for those who are His.  The good is to become conformed to His Son Jesus Christ (Romans 8:28-29).  Paul then gives the golden chain of salvation in verse 30.

And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

How can we be sure that God will do this, to glorify us together with Christ in heaven?  Paul presented it as absolutely sure by putting this future event in the past tense, “those whom he justified he also glorified.”

But also Paul gives four evidences of this sure salvation in vv. 31-39.  First, God shows that He is for us by doing the hardest thing imaginable, giving up His one and only Son (vv. 31-32).  Then, he says we don’t have to fear any charge against us, because the ultimate judge of the universe, God Himself, has already declared us righteous (Rom. 8:33).  Can anyone condemn us?  Listen to his answer:

Christ Jesus is the one who died–more than that, who was raised–who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Jesus doesn’t condemn us; He prays for us.

Finally, vv. 35-39 tells us that absolutely nothing in all time or space can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We also see the value of this present intercession for us in 1 John 2:1, where the apostle tells us, “But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  Jesus Christ stands before the Father, showing the wounds in his hands, feet and side, that He received from paying for our sins.  They are already paid for and we cannot be charged with them!

By the way, notice that it is not the prayers of the saints that saves us, but the intercession of Jesus Christ.

Our author continues showing the superiority of Jesus’ priesthood by pointing out his sinless life.

26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

This kind of priest meets our need.  He, and He only, is suitable for our salvation.  He “answered exactly the requirements of the predicament” we were in as sinners. 

It is absolutely amazing, overwhelming marvelous, that after we have rebelled against God, spitting in His face, betraying Him with treachery after treachery, that He Himself provides the One—His only beloved Son—who accomplishes our salvation by being everything God intended us to be—totally and devotedly and joyfully obedient—so that we can now become what God intended us to be.  God gives us that kind of priest.  He truly treats us as precious in His sight!

The author here piles up five terms that emphasize the perfect purity of Jesus Christ.

First, he is “holy”, which points to His character and position as “set apart” to God, dedicated to His purpose.  He is uniquely God’s holy one.

Second, he is “innocent,” meaning that He is “entirely free from all that is evil and harmful, both in action and in motivation.”

Thirdly, “unstained” comes from the sacrificial system, in which animals had to be without blemish or injury.  It refers to “freedom from any moral or spiritual blemish.”  Although the Levitical priests may have been ritually pure, inwardly they were still defiled as sinners.  Jesus, however, was pure outside and inside.

And this is the unique thing about Jesus’ priesthood: not only does he make an offering for us, but He is the offering for us.  1 Peter 1:18 stresses the fact that we are not saved by material goods or religious traditions, but “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”

The next quality “separated from sinners” does not mean that Jesus didn’t associate with sinners.  He wasn’t separated in a spatial sense, but in a spiritual sense.  Despite the fact that he was a “friend of sinners,” and touched unclean lepers (Mark 1:41) and even the dead (Luke 8:40-56), yet He was able to remain pure because of the power of His holiness.

He had to share our humanity to be our Savior, but He didn’t share our sinfulness (Heb. 4:15).

Finally, Jesus is now “exalted above the heavens,” referring to his resurrection, ascension and now present session in glory at the right hand of the Father.  Thus, He serves as our perpetual high priest in the heavenly temple.

In their weakness, the Levitical priests had to offer up sacrifices first for themselves.  Jesus didn’t need to do that, because He was without sin.  Therefore, the offering of His body for us means our sins are forgiven once for all.

We don’t need more sacrifices.  Everything has been done, through the death of Jesus Christ, for our salvation to be complete.  He saves us completely.

So God meets our need to become truly human by giving us the kind of priest we need, one who is sinless and eternal.

• The father wants us to draw near to Him and become like Him.
• The Son came that we might draw near, and askes the Father that He might enable us to do so.
• The Spirit moves in our hearts to move us closer to God.
• Every person of the Godhead is wanting and working for us to draw near.

What’s holding you back?  If there is any anxiety within you that maybe God doesn’t want you to draw near, this passage in Hebrews shatters that!  God definitely wants us to draw near.  God wants you to draw near!

Last week we began to explore three ways in which the Levitical priesthood was inferior to the priesthood of Jesus Christ, according to the order of Melchizedek.

We saw that first, if the Levitical priesthood would have accomplished its purpose, God would not have predicted a new order of priesthood according to Melchizedek (7:11).  But God did predict that new order in Psalm 110:4 and Jesus fulfills that prediction.  Second, any change in the priesthood necessitates a change of the law, for they are intertwined with one another.

Third, Melchizedek and Jesus were not of the Levitical bloodline, thus they represent a new, different priesthood.  We see this in vv. 13-14…

13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests.

Our author states what everyone knew—that Jesus descended from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi.  The tribe of Judah has no one that has ever served at the altar.  The word translated “was descended from” is literally, “has arisen from” and is a Messianic reference (see Luke 1:78 where Simeon calls Jesus the “sunrise from on high” and Malachi 4:2 where he is called the “sun of righteousness,” also 2 Peter 1:19 where Peter speaks of “the morning star arises,” in reference to Jesus).  Verses 11 and 15 speak of another priest arising, and the Greek word means “another of a different kind.”  Jesus is thus legitimately a priest, just of a different order, and He is the only priest of that order.

Again, as Philip Hughes pointed out (p. 260), if the author is countering the false concept of a Dead Sea sect—that there would be two Messiahs, one from the priestly tribe of Levi and another from the kingly tribe of Judah—then his point here corrects that error.  In one person, Jesus is both our king and our priest according to the order of Melchizedek.  The old Levitical order has been set aside.  There is no longer the need for a Levitical priest to function for the people in offering sacrifices for the forgiveness of sins.

Note also that our author calls Jesus “our Lord” in v. 14, a title that he uses only again in 13:20 (in 2:3 he is “the Lord”).  He wants us to recognize that Jesus isn’t just another human priest, but God in the flesh.  He is the exalted Lord.

Having established the inferiority of the Levitical priesthood, our author now turns to establishing the superiority of Jesus’ priesthood.

The New Covenant and the Priesthood of Jesus are Superior Because They Provide the Way for Us to Draw Near to God (Hebrews 7:15-19).

15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

Again, the argument proceeds in three steps:

First, Jesus is superior because, unlike the Levitical priesthood, Jesus’ priesthood is eternal.

The qualifications for being a Levitical priest were all external—chosen by physical lineage (Lev. 21:6-23).

The qualifications for the Levitical priesthood were patently external.  A priestly candidate had to be: (1) legitimate, (2) a Levite (meaning that his mother had to be an Israelite and his father a priest before him), and (3) having no physical defects.  There were 142 physical blemishes listed that could disqualify him, some of which are recorded in Leviticus 21:16–23.  His ordination ceremony was painstakingly external regarding how he was to be bathed, clothed, anointed with oil, and marked with blood.  After his ordination he had to observe specified washings, anointings, and hair-cutting.  The focus was external throughout.

Jesus, however, has become a priest, like Melchizedek, based on one internal power–the “power of an indestructible life” (Heb. 7:16).  Melchizedek was a type of this quality, “having neither beginning of days nor end of life” (7:3), but Jesus is truly eternal.  John 1:4 says “in Him was life.”

This does not mean that he never died.  It means that our priest died a death that could not hold him; the grave couldn’t hold him—a death that was followed by resurrection!  Therefore, to say that Jesus is high priest on the basis of “an indestructible life” is to say that he is high priest on the basis of the Resurrection.  This is implicit in the words of the Father to the Son: “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” (v. 17).  Thus, the Resurrection not only declared Jesus to be the Son (Romans 1:4), but it also marks the inauguration of Christ as our high priest.

This thought will be continued in vv. 23-24…

23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.

The Levitical priests existed in greater numbers because they all died and had to be replaced by the next generation.

• The Jewish historian Josephus says that there were 83 high priests from Aaron to the destruction of the temple in A. D. 70.
• The Talmud says that there were 18 during the first temple and more than 300 during the second (Leon Morris, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 12:71).

However many there were, the point is that they were not perpetual.  They all died and were replaced.  But Jesus, “holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever.”

No one else was needed to step in and take His place because He still lives.

Matthew 27:1 tells us about the priests who conspired in the death of Jesus.

When morning came, all the chief priests and the elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him to death.

Although they accomplished this, Jesus lives today and they are all dead!  He became a permanent high priest after His ascension, because He would never die again.

Jesus’ priesthood was based on the life that was in Him, not His physical descent from anyone.  His was a life that could not be overcome by either sin or death.  What’s more, He had the power to transmit this life to those who believed in Him.  Thus, He could do what no Jewish priest could ever do–give a life to people that neither sin nor death could overcome.  And since His life is not limited by time, His priesthood continues forever.  (C. S. Lovett, Lovett’s Lights on Hebrews, 153)

Second, the old covenant and Levitical priesthood are set aside (7:18-19a).

18 For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness 19 (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.

The “former commandment” in v. 18 is a reference to the law by which the Levitical priesthood and its succession were regulated.  It had to be “set aside” or abrogated because it was unable to bring us to God and unable to secure full and final forgiveness of sins.

The word used for “set aside” is athetēsis (NIV – set aside); that is the word used for annulling a treaty, for abrogating a promise, for scoring a man’s name off the register, for rendering a law or regulation inoperative. The whole paraphernalia of the ceremonial law was wiped out in the priesthood of Jesus.  (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Hebrews, 79)

It was set aside because of “its weakness and uselessness.”  It was always weak, but formerly useful.  It was useful precisely in that it anticipated the advent of a superior priest, it pointed to the need of a better sacrifice and priesthood.  Now that the superior priest has arrived, the “former commandment” is now useless.  Therefore, it is set aside.

The weakness and uselessness of the Law was not inherent in the law itself.  As Paul explains (Romans 7:12), “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.” Rather, the problem was in the weakness of our sinful flesh that made it impossible for us to keep the law (Romans 7:13-14; 8:3).  The law made demands we could not keep; grace supplies what the law demands.

One reason that God instituted the Law was to show us the utter sinfulness of our hearts (Rom. 5:20; 7:13).  As such, it was never designed to bring sinners near to God.  This is what the author means by “for the law made nothing perfect (Heb. 7:19).  Sinners were prevented from entering the Holy of Holies.  And, the sacrifices prescribed by the Law could never completely cleanse the sinner’s conscience or take away his sins (Heb. 10:1-4).

The first statement of verse 19, “for the law made nothing perfect” is the issue.  If we are not made perfect before God, our efforts and service and worship are worthless.  The law did not make us perfect, therefore, it is worthless.

Now, the Law itself can be summed up in two words: be perfect.  The problem is, we cannot be perfect.  This kind of attitude still exists today.  We have lowered our standard.  When they are asked, people routinely say that they will get to heaven by “being good” or by “doing the best I can.”  But if we could get to heave by our own efforts, we would have to be perfect.  Not just “good” but perfect.  Not “doing the best I can” but “living without any sin whatsoever.”  And that is impossible!

“The law made nothing perfect,” let all legalists mark this.  Let all who think they can be perfect, realize that we “all fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

The law provides expert diagnosis of our sin problem, which is absolutely essential. But the law does not provide the cure to our sin problem. Only Jesus can save us from our sin problem.

“Although the law performed a valuable function, its essential weakness was that it could not give life and vitality even to those who kept it, let alone to those who did not.  In fact, its function was not to provide strength, but to provide a standard by which man could measure his own moral status.  Its uselessness must not be regarded in the sense of being totally worthless, but in the sense of being ineffective in providing a constant means of approach to God based on a totally adequate sacrifice.” (Donald Guthrie)

The writer came to the same conclusion about the law as Paul did in Galatians 3:19-25, but he got there in a totally different way.  In Galatians, Paul showed the law as a tutor that brings us to Jesus.  In Hebrews the law is associated with a priesthood that has been made obsolete by a superior priesthood.

Third, the new covenant and the priesthood of Jesus provide a better hope through which we draw near to God (Hebrews 7:19b).  The rest of verse 19 says, “but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”

We have a better hope, and that better hope comes through the priesthood of Jesus.  The “former command” is replaced by a “better hope.”  What is this “better hope”?  It is connected with a “better covenant” (Heb. 7:22) that involves “better promises” (Heb. 8:6) of a “better country, that is a heavenly one” (Heb. 11:16).  Hope, as we have already seen in our study of Hebrews, looks forward to this better country, where we will worship the Lord in sinless bodies and serve him in his creation (Heb. 3:6; 6:11).  It is the priesthood of Jesus that allows for this hope.

That “better hope” is the New Covenant, which we will unpack later in Hebrews 8:6-13.

The author’s point is, if you’ve got something better, why go back to something “weak and useless”?  Maybe they were nostalgically thinking of “the good old days,” but they were losing sight of the fact that what they presently had in Christ was far better than anything that they had under Judaism.  What the Old Testament saints looked forward to, we have received!  We have full forgiveness of sins through Christ’s better sacrifice.  We don’t have to stand out in the courtyard while a priest represents us in the Holy of Holies.  Instead, we have a high priest within the veil, and He invites us to draw near to the very throne of God, which is the throne of grace, to receive grace to help in our times of need!

We should revel in the fact that we can be brought near to God, not through anything we do, but simply because of what our high priest did.

During his student days in France, Donald Grey Barnhouse was pastor of a little Evangelical Reformed Church in the French Alps.  Once a week he went to a neighboring village for an instruction class.  Each time he made the trip he passed the local priest, going on a similar errand in the opposite direction.  They became good friends and often chatted together for ten minutes or so before they went their separate ways.

On one occasion the priest asked him why we Protestants do not pray to the saints. “Why should we?”  Barnhouse asked.  The priest launched an illustration of the way one might get an interview with the president of the French Republic.  One could go to the Ministry of Agriculture or to the Department of the Interior, etc.; any one of the cabinet members might succeed in opening the door of the president’s office so that Barnhouse might see him.  The priest’s triumphant smile implied that the simplicity and clarity of the argument were such as to preclude any reply.

At that time Raymond Poincare was president of the Republic; he lived in the Palace of the Elysee in Paris—the equivalent of the White House.  Barnhouse said to his friend, “But, Monsieur le Cure, suppose that I were the son of Monsieur Poincare?  I am living in the Elysee with him.  I get up from the breakfast table and kiss him good-bye as he goes off to his office.  Then I go down to the Ministry of the Interior and ask the fourth secretary of the second assistant if it is possible for me to see the Minister of the Interior.  If I succeed in reaching his office, my request is for an interview with my papa.”

The absurdity of a son’s having to go through a father’s assistants to reach him was at once apparent.  The priest was thunderstruck as Barnhouse added that he was a child of God, an heir of God and joint-heir with Christ, and that he had been saved through the death of the Savior and thus had become a son with immediate access to the Father.

What “a better hope” (v. 19) is ours through the eternal priesthood of Christ.  It was a hope the psalmists longed for and the prophets predicted.

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul gives the essence of the mature, spiritually fulfilled Christian life.  “so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith–that you, being rooted and grounded in love,may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3:17-19).  This is Christianity–“the fullness of God.”

That is the basic goal of the gospel.  Judaism brought a man into the presence of God, but not in the purest and fullest sense.  The veil was always there.  Only in the New Covenant is complete entrance possible.  Only by the blood of Jesus Christ, only by His priestly intercession at the right hand of God, based on His perfect sacrifice on Calvary, was access to God opened.  These are the great recurring themes in Hebrews.  (John MacArthur Jr., The MacArthur NT Commentary: Hebrews, 184)

Today, perfection —access—is ours through Jesus Christ.  The veil has been rent asunder, inviting us into the Holy of Holies.

Let us come with joyful boldness to our constant priest and Savior and Lord!

In Hebrews 10 we read…

19 Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.

What a privilege we have!  Don’t hesitate now to take it.  Jesus Christ has made the way for you to have free and full access to God by believing in Jesus Christ.  The better hope that Christians have is the assurance that this special, eternal, and intimate relationship with God is now possible for us to experience thanks to our Great High Priest.

How does this relate to you today?  Well, make sure that you understand revel in the fact that you have been made acceptable to God totally through what Jesus has done and not at all through anything you have done.  Second, make sure that you are utilizing and enjoying the great privilege of drawing near to God through the blood of Jesus Christ every day.

In 1903, someone noticed a Russian sentry standing guard at a post with no apparent reason for his being there.  When asked why he was standing guard there, he answered, “I’m just following order.”  The question was then asked of the captain of the guard, but he also didn’t know why a sentry was posted there.  The inquiry eventually went all the way up the chain of command to the czar, but he didn’t know either!  So he asked someone to track down the answer.  Finally, it was discovered in 1776, that Catherine the Great had planted a rose bush there, and posted a sentry to guard it.  The bush had been dead for over 80 years now, but the sentry was still standing guard.  Traditions are hard to change!

Religious traditions are especially hard to change and that is because people insist that God, not man, ordained them.  The Jews rightly believed that God had ordained the traditions and practices of the Mosaic law almost 15 centuries before the time of Christ.  The Law was the very center of the Jewish culture.  They ordered their lives around the Sabbath worship and the yearly feasts.  The priest and Levites oversaw and regulated the worship at the temple.  The sacrifices and rules for ceremonial cleansing were all spelled out in the law.  These laws and traditions were deeply entrenched!

To challenge the validity of these laws could cost you your life!  The opponents of Stephen, the first Christian martyr, charged, “This man never ceases to speak words against this holy place and the Law; for we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth, will destroy this place and change the customs that Moses delivered to us” (Acts 6:13-14).  Paul’s opponents shouted, “This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place” (Acts 21:28).  Even many Jews who had professed faith in Christ were still “zealous for the law” (Acts 21:20).

So the author of Hebrews faces the formidable task of trying to convince his Jewish readers and that Law (having to do with ceremonies) and the Levitical priesthood that was inextricably linked to the Law was now obsolete and set aside because of the far better New Covenant and priesthood of Jesus Christ.

He will make some radical statements about the law: it was weak and useless; it made nothing perfect (7:18, 19).  Because of these problems, it has been changed and set aside (7:12, 18).  He is drawing a distinct dividing line between Judaism and Christianity here.  You cannot blend the two into a homogenous hybrid.  He doesn’t want his readers to go back to the old Jewish way, as if it were “good enough.”  Even if they must suffer persecution for their faith in Jesus Christ, they must persevere, because Jesus has provided “a better hope…through which we draw near to God” (Hebrews 7:19).

That statement was radical, too.  Every Jew knew that you couldn’t just stroll into the Holy of Holies and have a little chat with God!  Emphasizing the holiness of God, the Levitical system was designed to keep uncleanness and sin at a distance from God, lest He destroy them.  Only the high priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and that once a year on the Day of Atonement after purification and offerings for his own sins.  But the key phrase of this passage is that “we draw near to God” (v. 19; cf. 4:14-16; 6:19-20; 10:19-22).  This was a staggering concept for those from a Jewish background!

At the end of this passage we find the author arguing that our salvation is complete and secure precisely because of Jesus’ superior priesthood.  Since He lives to make intercession for us, He saves us “completely” (Heb. 7:25).  Thus, we can dare to draw near to God and be saved completely because of the superior priesthood of Jesus Christ.

Let me read Hebrews 7:11-28…

11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? 12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. 13 For the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. 14 For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. 15 This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, 16 who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. 17 For it is witnessed of him, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” 18 For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness 19 (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. 20 And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, 21 but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.'” 22 This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. 23 The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. 26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself. 28 For the law appoints men in their weakness as high priests, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.

In our last study of in Hebrews 7 we saw that our author was establishing the superiority of Jesus’ priesthood because it is based upon the order of Melchizedek.  Now, in vv. 11-14 our author will explain the insufficiency of the Aaronic priesthood and in vv. 15-19 the sufficiency of Melchizedek’s priesthood.

Both sections are based on the author’s brilliant and original understanding of Psalm 110:4, “The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,’” which the author saw as a solemn decree of appointment spoken by God to God the Son that would establish him as our eternal priest.

The Levitical priesthood and the Law are inferior because they cannot make anyone perfect.  Verses 11 and 12 say…

11 Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? 12 For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.

Notice how the author is concerned with this concept of perfection.  It does not mean being without any flaw or defect, but rather it refers to “the condition in which men are acceptable to God” (Leon Morris, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 12:66). Often in Scripture the word “perfection” has the meaning of “maturity” or “completeness.”  So, some assume “perfection” here means “completeness in relation to God.”  But actually the meaning here is more specialized and means “to put someone in the position in which he can come, or stand, before God”— access to God.  This is also the meaning of “perfect” in verse 19, which says, “(for the Law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”  It is also the meaning in two other Hebrews texts—10:1, 14.  So again, “perfection” here in verse 11 refers to access to God and a right relationship to him.

Our author is arguing that the Levitical priesthood did not give someone access to God and a right relationship with Him.

This right relationship is precisely what the old covenant Law and priesthood could not provide.  The Law, of course, was not useless.  After all, it came from God and was mediated by angels (cf. 2:2), and it provided important services.  The Law marvelously served to enhance one’s awareness of sin.  Paul tells us in Romans 7:7, 8 that the Law’s command not to covet made him aware that all he did was covet.  The Law helped him see how spiritually dead he was (cf. 2 Corinthians 3:7ff.).  The Law also programmed God’s people regarding the necessity of an atonement, as seen in the repeated demand of a blood sacrifice.  Sin necessitated the shedding of blood.  Sin . . . blood, sin . . . blood, sin . . . blood—this developed a conditioned reflex regarding the need for atonement. Indeed, the whole system provided a type of Christ, so that John the Baptist would cry out as Jesus passed by, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” (John 1:36).  The Law was, in effect, a teacher, as Paul explained in Galatians 3:24, “The Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (NASB).

In reality, the Law was an excellent institution. The real problem was that man was sinful. “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do . . . the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot” (Romans 8:3, 7).

As to the crucial matter of access, F. F. Bruce says, “The whole apparatus of worship associated with sacrifice and ritual and priesthood was calculated rather to keep men at a distance from God than to bring them near.”

Our author then argues for the inferiority of the Levitical priesthood in three ways:

First, if the Levitical priesthood would have accomplished its purpose, God would not have predicted a new order of priesthood according to Melchizedek (7:11).

Notice here that the priesthood is the basis of the law, not the other way around.  Without that priesthood it would be impossible for the law to operate in its fullness (Frank E. Gæbelein, Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, 66).

But at the height of the Levitical priesthood, in the Golden Age of Israel, David predicted that another priest would arise according to a different order—the order of Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4).  The simple fact that God describes a priest… according to the order of Melchizedek in Psalm 110:4 shows there is something lacking in the priesthood according to the order of Aaron.  God would never establish an unnecessary priesthood.  And He would not introduce an inferior priesthood.

The writer’s point was that since God promised in Psalm 110:4 that the coming Messiah would be a priest after Melchizedek’s order, He intended to terminate and replace the Levitical priesthood, because it was inadequate.  If the Levitical priesthood had been adequate, the Messiah would have functioned as a Levitical priest.

What he’s saying is that, for all its beauty and truth, the OT Levitical priesthood could never bring men and women into the presence of God or offer a sacrifice that would forever cleanse them from the guilt of sin.  Furthermore, if that OT priesthood had been perfect, why would King David have announced hundreds of years later in Psalm 110 that God has appointed a new priesthood, not after the order of Aaron but after the order of Melchizedek?  Whatever is “perfect” and permanent doesn’t need to be replaced.  His point, then, is that years after the Levitical priesthood was established God speaks of yet another, superior, and abiding priesthood, namely, that of Jesus Christ, not in the line of Aaron but in the line of Melchizedek.

Philip Hughes (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews [Eerdmans], pp. 255-256) points out that the first century Jewish Dead Sea sect “looked for the appearance of two Messianic figures, one priestly, ‘the Messiah of Aaron,’ and the other lay and kingly, ‘the Messiah of Israel’…”  The priestly Messiah would be the head of the nation, with the kingly Messiah, from the line of David, subordinate to him.  Hughes suggests that if the original readers of Hebrews had been influenced by this or similar teaching, then the author’s point that Jesus fulfills both roles in his one person, according to the superior order of Melchizedek, is quite relevant.

Second, our author argues that a change of priesthood necessitates a change of law, for they are intertwined.  Verse 12 says “For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.”

Imagine how unthinkable this would be to a Jew!  The Law of Moses was the bedrock of the Jewish religion and culture.  How could you even talk about changing the Law?  But the author is arguing that the Law and the Levitical priesthood were so closely linked that you could not change the priesthood without changing the Law.

The Mosaic Law was given in order to validate the Levitical priesthood.  If the Levitical priesthood is taken out of the Mosaic Law, nothing of meaning is left.  Why?  Because the whole purpose of having a religious system is to bring people into fellowship with the living God.  If there are no priests to represent the people, then there is no reason to have a religious system.

This is certainly a pivotal concept in Scripture!  If the priesthood is changing—with Jesus’ priesthood replacing that of the Levitical priesthood, then the law is no longer operative in a way that brought about a completion of its purpose.  He is at least arguing that the ceremonial part of the Law (dealing with sacrifices and the temple) had been fulfilled and changed by the death of Jesus Christ as the Passover Lamb.

So, is the Law now null and void?  Do we have no responsibilities to keep the law under the New Covenant?  Actually, Ezekiel’s revelation of the New Covenant includes the idea that God gives us His Spirit to “cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” and Jeremiah’s explanation of the New Covenant includes this statement about the law: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.”  There would be no purpose in doing that if the Law has no lasting value to us today.

But in what sense?  It seems obvious that Christ fulfilled, through his death, the ceremonial aspects of the law—what the sacrifices signified.  The civil laws, which regulated life under the nation of Israel, seem to be incorporated largely into our own civil laws, without some of the strict penalties attached.  It is the expression of the law of God contained in the Ten Commandments for which we have obligation to fulfill today.  These Ten Commandments flesh out what it means to love God and love our neighbor.

But it is primarily the sacrificial system and priesthood that the writer of Hebrews says has been replaced.  The New Covenant (Hebrews 8) and Christ as the great high priest according to the new order of Melchizedek, replace the Mosaic Covenant and Levitical priesthood.

The New Covenant, with this new high priest, offers us everything that the Old Covenant could not provide.

Atonement: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness.  By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). 

Life: Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die” (John 11:25, 26). 

Conscience: “How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God” (9:14). 

Access: Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).