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[a] 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[b] 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:[c]
“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.
Yesterday we began looking at the characteristics of the old covenant as they are recorded for us here
in Hebrews. The first one is that the law of God will be written on the minds and hearts of God’s people. That particular aspect of the new covenant was true for both those who lived in the OT as well as the NT.
The second characteristic of the new covenant finds God saying, “I will be their God and they shall be
my people.” Again, we see this throughout the pages of the Bible, both new and old testaments. It is the promise made to Abraham at the beginning of God’s revealing of the covenant, the relationship, He is establishing with His people.
God says that he will bring back the captives from Babylon and restore them and says in Ezekiel 11:20,
“Then I will give them one heart and I will put a new spirit within them and take the stony hear out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh and they shall be my people and I will be their God.” And the same thing is said in Zechariah 8:8 as well as
many others. Passages in the OT.
That is the essence of the Covenant of grace described in Genesis. God’s people are always known as a people
who have God as their God. Therefore, the phrase cannot refer to the NT era only no more than the first characteristic about the law of God being written on the heart is only a NT reality.
Third, there is the characteristic in verse 12 regarding the mercy of God and forgiveness that God grants.
This too, like the other two are truths known to the OT saint as well as those living at the time and after the Savior’s salvific work.
Psalm 78:38: But God, being full of compassion forgave their iniquity and did not destroy them.
Psalm 32:1-2, 5: Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered…I said I will confess
my transgression to the Lord and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.
We could go on and on with texts from the OT expressing both the hope and the realization that God forgives
those who humbly acknowledge and confess their sins. Therefore, this characteristic of the new covenant cannot be said to belong to the New Testament faithful any more or less than it does to those who lived in the OT era.
The fourth characteristic, actually the third in order in the text but I saved for last, is this phrase, “None
of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me form the least of them to the greatest of them.
I think it is safe to say that this phrase speaks to the victory of the gospel of Christ that will come,
that is our and is to be expected but we must admit, is not yet the case. It is not true in our day for we are saying to our neighbor’s and our brothers and even those in the covenant community that they must know the Lord. And it makes no sense for the author
of this book to say that this is the case in his own day since the new covenant has come and then to proceed anyway to write this book if the Bible which as one author put it, “…is nothing less than an impassioned plea to his brethren to know the Lord in
the face of incipient apostasy in principle no different than that of the fathers in the wilderness or of that against which Jeremiah protested.”
We must acknowledge that the Old Covenant/New Covenant distinction is not simply the Old Testament as the
old covenant and the New Testament as the new covenant, as the characteristics of the new covenant are in both the new and old testament. There must be something else.
Let’s do some theological reflection that might be helpful.
When we speak of the covenant of grace we are not speaking of two covenants but one. However, in this one
covenant we see that the Lord has administered it differently before Christ came and after He had come. The covenant of grace is before us from the garden of Eden forward.
All the elect of God are saved the same way, by God’s grace and in relationship with Him through the Promised
One. Before the coming of Jesus this relationship was administered to the church in and through the sacrificial system given to Moses.
The OT people had promises, types, sacrifices and even the tabernacle and temple as shadows, or pictures
but the purpose was the same; to draw the people into the redemption of God accomplished through the Lamb of God. But now those pictures and types are obsolete.
Jesus Christ is better because it is full and complete. The administration of the one covenant of grace
under Moses pointed to Jesus but now Jesus has come and the shadows, pictures and types give way to the substance, to the reality which is Jesus Christ.
To be continued…
Prayer: Holy Spirit of God, please go on with your patient work in me, giving me understanding into
the great redemption You have won for Your people. Continue changing my bitterness to joy, my sorrow to gladness and my fear to hope. Give me the spiritual sight to see past the seen to the gracious working that You are doing that cannot be seen. Fill me with
rejoicing in the confidence that if You are for me, who can be against me! Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
Hymn: Sometimes a Light Surprises
