HEBREWS: Lesson 15 - A Better Covenant; A New Covenant

Today we completed Chapter 8 - A Better Covenant; A New Covenant.

In previous lessons we looked at the role the high priest played under the old covenant in Israel. Once a year, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies in the tabernacle, or the temple, which symbolized God’s throne: “Go into the very presence of God.” He was the only one who could go there, but he couldn’t go in until he had made a sacrifice, an acceptable offering to God.

Prior to entering the Holy of Holies, the high priest would make a sacrifice according to the prescription that God had revealed in Scripture. And then the blood of that sacrifice would be taken by the high priest into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled on the mercy seat atop the ark of the covenant. He would also have a sensor with incense in his hand which symbolized the prayers of the high priest for his nation. Prayers were offered, but only after the sacrifice had been made.

And so it is with our Lord Jesus Christ. He now lives, interceding for us, constantly praying us into eternal glory. He has the right to do that because He has also made the appropriate sacrifice. And unlike any priest or high priest before Him, He sacrificed Himself. Chapter 7, the end of verse 27, “He offered up Himself.” This is the first time ever a high priest was also the sacrifice. Jesus ever-lives to make intercession for us in the presence of God in the heavenly Holy of Holies, because He has full access, having provided the acceptable sacrifice.

Notice in verse 1 His seat: "...who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." There was no seat in the Holy of Holies under the old covenant. The high priest went in, sprinkled the blood, waved the incense, and left immediately. But this High Priest [Christ Jesus] is such a high priest who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. He sat down permanently in the presence of God, fully acceptable to God, honored above all other priests.

Why at the right hand of God?

The supreme court of Israel, the Sanhedrin, had seventy members, plus the high priest. They were the adjudicating body of the nation Israel. They made the final decision; they were the final court of appeal. On the left and right sides of that body of men, there sat a scribe. If the verdict was condemnation, the scribe on the left rendered the verdict condemnation. If the verdict was acquittal, the scribe on the right side rendered the verdict acquittal. Our Lord is on the right side saying to God the Father, “Acquittal, acquittal, acquittal,” no matter what the crime is, no matter what the offense is, because He has Himself paid in full the punishment for that crime. He ever-lives to declare that we [those who are saved] have been acquitted, forgiven.

What do we mean a better covenant?

In verse 8 it says “a new covenant.” And in verse 13, it’s repeated, “a new covenant that makes the old covenant obsolete.”

On Thursday night of Passion Week, when our Lord gathered with His disciples in the upper room, they gathered to hold the Passover. The Passover was a feast commemorating God’s deliverance of the children of Israel out of Egypt. The Passover commemorated the delivering power of God. But on that night, our Lord transformed that Passover into the Communion service.

Read Luke 22:14: “When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. And He said to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat the Passover with you before I suffer; for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.’ And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, ‘Take this and share it among yourselves; for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.’ And when He had taken some bread and given thinks, He broke it and gave it to them saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ And in the same way He took the cup after they eaten saying, ‘This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.’”

That Thursday night in the upper room He was anticipating the death He would die in just a few hours, the next day on Friday; a death that He would die to satisfy divine justice, to ratify the new covenant which was promised in the Old Testament. His death would be a substitute for believers, to provide forgiveness, deliverance from judgment and reconciliation with God. This is the new covenant.

What is a covenant?

Simply stated: a covenant is a promise. Or a covenant can be a collection of promises. In the case of the old covenant, it was a collection. The new covenant can be said to be this: all God’s promises, all the treasures of heaven promised in one covenant, all the treasures of heaven promised in one covenant through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How was God's Holy Law revealed to man?

The holy law of God has been revealed to man since creation in several different ways. There was the law of God before the fall, there was the law of God given at Sinai, and there is the law of God that comes in the new covenant.

Revealed in Adam's nature:

Adam imitated God, because God’s law was in him naturally. It was in his nature. Then came the fall; and when the fall came, Adam’s heart was darkened, and what was natural to him was sin – dominating, relentless sin. In fact, only evil was natural to him and everybody he produced after that. So we see that before the flood, God said, “I looked at the world and it was only evil continually.”

After the fall, God eventually chose another son to replace Adam; that son was a nation, Israel. Israel was like every other nation; it was made up of people who naturally did sin and only sin. Like everyone else, they were under the dominating power of iniquity. Evil was normal, and they could not and did not imitate God.

Revealed in the Levitical Law:

So God wrote His law for them, because it wasn’t natural to them. They passed that law down to the world. And that law described how they were to live and how they were to enjoy fellowship with God and blessing from God and escape judgment. Obedience was unnatural. Obedience was alien. Obedience was foreign. Obedience was impossible. The old covenant did nothing for the heart.

The old covenant didn’t write anything on the mind or the heart, it just wrote the law of God in cold, hard, crushing stone, threatening everyone who disobeyed it. The Word of God does the same today. We are to obey God's Word. That external law, with all of its requirements had no power in it to help the sinner. It couldn’t save, it couldn’t change the heart, so it had to become obsolete.

Revealed in the Son of God:

Then the law came in another form. The law came in a human form in Bethlehem, in a child, the Son of God. This is a far better representation of the law of God, far better than stone, because stone was external. But now the law was internal, and it was in a man. It was in the Lord Jesus Christ. He even said, “You have heard it said. But I say unto you,” and then He drove the law into the heart. It’s not just what you do, it’s what you think. He says in Matthew, chapter 5, that He did not come to set aside the law, but to fulfill the law. He said in Matthew, chapter 3, that He came to fulfill all righteousness. So in Christ, you have the perfect - the perfect person, the perfect obedience to the law of God

Jesus obeyed God’s law. Why? Because it was His holy nature. God’s law was written on His heart, and nothing else was written on His heart. It dominated His mind, and nothing else occupied His mind. That is why the Father said, “This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased.” He was a living example of God’s law. That’s a better pattern to follow than something written down. It’s better to see it living, because then you’re dealing not only with the external, but you’re dealing with the internal. You’re dealing with not only behavior, but you’re dealing with attitude. So now we have something more than the law in stone, we have the law in flesh, and it’s clearer, it’s more understandable

What was the purpose of the Law?

The answer is clearly given in Scripture. Read Romans 7:7. “What shall we say then? Is the law sin? May it never be! On the contrary, I would not have come to know sin except through the law; for I wouldn’t have known about coveting if the law hadn’t said, ‘You shall not covet.’ But sin, taking opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind; for apart from the law sin is dead. I was once alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin became alive and I died; and this commandment, which was to result in life, proved to result in death for me; for sin, taking an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.”

If you never saw the law of God, you would just go happily through life thinking you were fine. But when facing the law of God, it kills you, it slays you. Why does the law want to do that? Why is that the purpose of the law? What does God have in mind for the law?

Read Galatians 3:19. “It was added because of transgression.” Why? Verse 24: “The law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith.” The crushing weight of the law, the threat of the law is to put us in a situation of desperation where we are looking for a Savior. 

What hope do we have since we can't keep the written law and we can't live like Christ?

In a sense, a perfect life [Christ] is just as useless to us as a perfect written law. Why? Because we can’t keep the law that God gave Moses, and we can’t live like Christ either. And if the law written was to show us our sin and lead us to Christ, then the law lived in Christ was also to show us our sin and lead us to Him. It doesn’t work to preach Jesus as an example and try to be like Him. If you get close to the life of Jesus and you see it for what it is as revealed in Scripture, it will crush you just as much as the stones will crush you.

The perfection of Christ in some ways is more disturbing; it’s more intimidating than even the law in stone. His perfection forces on us a higher view of the law than we could ever know just reading it. He greatly defines the true view of obedience, holiness, and righteousness. In fact, Jesus was so disturbing in His holy obedience to God that He intimidated the most religious people, the superficial legalists to the point where they saw His kind of righteousness as a threat, and they killed Him for it. 

So what hope do we have?

The answer comes in verse 12 of Hebrews 8. Here’s part of the new covenant from Jeremiah 31: “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” That’s a new covenant. That does not appear in the old covenant; does not appear in the old covenant. He will forgive our violations. He will forgive our transgressions in the new covenant. That’s why the new covenant has come and the old is obsolete.

So what happens when we come to Christ and we are forgiven through the provision of His sacrifice? What happens? What about the law? There it is, verse 10: “This is the new covenant. I will put My laws into their minds; I will write them on their hearts. I’ll be their God, they’ll be My people.”

What defines us in that way? We are God’s people, He is our God, because His law has been put into our minds and written on our hearts. The law in Adam’s heart was loved and obeyed. The law in Moses’ stone was rebelled against. The law again in Christ’s life perfectly obeyed. And now the law in us is loved and cherished and delighted in and obeyed imperfectly.

Our society hates God’s law. It’s unnatural; sin is natural. It is an offense to sinners. They resent Christ and they resent a Christ who lives in perfect adherence to God’s law. You proclaim the true Christ in His true holiness and righteous perfection, and you will become more and more hated, as our society becomes more and more ungodly.

Christ is the model, but you can’t follow the pattern. You have to be forgiven for violating the law, even as manifest in Christ. That forgiveness comes because God is merciful and remembers our sins no more.

So what defines a believer?

The law in the mind, the law written on the heart; that’s what defines those who belong to God and are His people. We are those who have had God’s law written on our hearts. We love it. We desire to obey it, to follow it, to proclaim it. All our failures and violations are forgiven. Our nature is changed so that now there is a sense in which it is our deepest desire to obey the law of God. “O, how I love Your law,” David says. Paul says, “Your law is holy, just, and good; and I find myself doing things I don’t want to do, because what I want to do is obey Your law.”

There is yet another revelation of God’s law, another stage greater than any yet, and that’s in eternal glory. We will obey from the heart, not in the limited ways we do now, but in a limitless way. What is heaven going to be? Eternal, perfect obedience. We will be like Christ when we see Him as He is: perfect, eternal, obedience, with the accompanying personal blessing that comes from God. The law is our joy; we are no longer condemned by it. Christ has satisfied its demand. But having it written in our hearts and our minds, we love it, we seek to obey it, to proclaim it. And for all our failures, we seek cleansing.