HEBREWS: “A Greater Covenant (Hebrews 7:18-22; 7:28-8:13)” | 10/22/23
Hebrews 7:18-22; 7:28-8:13 | 10/22/23 | Thad Yessa
I want you to picture with me your first cell phone, mine was a Samsung SCH-A930. I thought this phone did it all when my dad let me pick it out at the Verizon store. It had a 1.3-megapixel camera/video camera that could swivel around for easy-to-take selfies or, as we called them back then, self-portraits. It had the capability to transfer music to it so that I could have music with me versus having to carry around a completely separate MP3 player. My first phone, and perhaps yours did everything you needed it to: text, call, and take pictures! Now how many of you would trade the phone in your pocket for that sweet phone I described? It seems ridiculous to even suggest considering that now the phone in our pocket does so much more than allow phone calls, text messages, and pixelated pictures. My dad asked the question when I first inquired about trading in the phone that I loved for a smartphone, which is still nothing compared to the computing power in our pockets today, but my response was, “It is better in every single way!”
This morning, the author of Hebrews – some think it’s Apollos, others Luke, others Paul… we’re not sure WHO wrote Hebrews – he’s going to make a detailed, calculated argument to the 1st c. formerly-Jewish-now-converted-to-Christianity recipients of his letter, that it’s time to update their “phone”. They have been using this phone their entire lives, but there’s a new phone in town. And it’s not just version 2.0 with a few minor changes. We’re talking about the last phone they might ever need to buy. Because as we’re gonna see, it’s perfect, it is better in every single way. There’s not a single feature left to be upgraded, or improvement left to be made in later versions.
The Old Covenant is the “working arrangement” that God had with Israel. He had chosen them for a special relationship that He did not have with any other group of people on earth. He took just a few patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) and grew their descendants into a great nation and gave them a land (Canaan) and His law to live by (see Exodus 20 and following). The Israelites were to remain loyal to God, obeying Him and worshipping Him alone. If they did, He promised to bless them, and if they did not, He promised they would be chastened (see Deuteronomy 27—28). God established a sacrificial system that would allow them to be cleansed (temporarily) from their sins—but these sacrifices had to be repeated over and over. He ordained priests to represent the people before Him, as the people could never come directly into the presence of God. And even with all these accommodations, the nation as a whole was unfaithful and eventually fell under the judgment of God.
So Hebrews 7-8 is going to outline 5 distinct ways in which Jesus blows the Old Testament system and, in particular, the old covenant out of the water.
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Hebrews 7:18-22; 7:28-8:13
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.
28For 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.
8 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[c]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[d] 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:[e]
“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.
1) A Greater POWER (7:18-19)
The author of Hebrews is picking up, following his assertion of Christ's eternality in verse 17, “You are a priest forever more”, begins telling his audience about the shortcomings of the former commandments and the former law, which they held in high regard. The writer is not alone in pointing out these shortcomings. In Romans, Paul reminds the church that the law was powerless to do what Christ did for us. Jesus accomplished and affected our salvation, while the law was incapable of doing such a wonder. The law is perfect in the sense that it does all that God designed it to do, but it does not lead to salvation. Only Christ can do that.
The author uses two words in verse 18 to emphasize that the Old Covenant, the law, was not effective: weakness and uselessness. The law was not useless in regard to its utility—it still adequately performed its given responsibilities, it functioned in the exact way it was supposed to. Paul tells us we should be grateful for the law since it exposes our great need for a Savior. In Romans 7:7 Paul explains that he would not know his sin without the law. The law, therefore, is not useless in the sense that it has no use at all but in the sense that obeying it does not provide any ultimate, eternal rewards. The law is used to condemn, but it can never be used to save. For bringing about salvation, the law is utterly and completely useless.
This is the heart of the law's weakness. On the one hand, the law is so strong that it is stamped into the hearts and minds of every single human being in such a way that none are left untouched (Rom 2:15).
That's how powerful the law of God is. On the other hand, it is not powerful enough to be able to save. The law is weak in this regard. The law is weak and unprofitable where salvation is needed because God did not design it to save sinners.
We see the law and its inability to perfect anything. This contrasts with Christ the great high priest, who, through union with him by the working of the Holy Spirit, washes wretched rebels spotless before God. The law never made anyone perfect—it never produced truly holy, perfect people, and it certainly never produced perfect individuals. The law reveals sin, and the law kills—it certainly cannot save, for it was never intended to do such a thing.
In the old covenant, the law functioned in many ways the Israelites desperately needed, but it could not draw them closer to God. The law exposed the pervasive sinfulness of man and, as a result, the great need for a great Savior. Christ, however, does precisely what the law could never do. He saves. Jesus accomplished our salvation and gave us a new hope—a hope through which we now draw near to the holy Creator God, not because of our ability to keep the law, because we can’t, but by the work of Jesus and the POWER of this new covenant.
With the author discussing such a radical change in the Old Covenant/Priesthood, there must have been concern among the minds of his readers. How do we know this will be the last update that God makes to His Covenant, that there won’t be a New Newer Covenant?
2) A Greater PROMISE (7:20-22)
The author points out that Jesus’ priesthood and the New Covenant are built on the foundations of God’s promise, that Jesus’ priesthood, “Was not without an oath” (v. 20). You might be asking where is it that God made such an oath? He points us back to Psalm 110, which by now should be familiar to us as this is where we find Melchizedek mentioned. What this Psalm and Scripture are pointing to is the remarkable promise about Jesus’ Priesthood, and the New Covenant were God’s final “act,” as it were. God is swearing/promising/covenanting that he would not be making any changes to this New Covenant. This one is perfect because it now has the right “guarantor of a better covenant” (v. 22). It has the RIGHT person to guarantee the New Covenant, Jesus.
On the other hand, “those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath. God never said, “I promise you, Aaron will be my priest forevermore. He never said, I swear, that the temple sacrificial system is going to be the way it’s going to be forever. As we will see in chapter 8 all of these things, the Tabernacle, the high priests, the sacrifices, were all but a shadow of something better to come. But with Jesus, God makes a promise. We can be assured that all the blessings of the New Covenant will be infallibly applied because God’s covenant promise cannot fail because God’s priest, Jesus Christ, cannot fail.
This brings us to the reason why the author of Hebrews is writing this letter. He is writing primarily to a Jewish audience who have become Christians and for reasons that aren’t completely known to us apart from what is described as experiencing much suffering and difficult times. They are thinking of trading in Jesus/New Covenant for the Old Covenant/Sacrificial system. The author is reminding the church, as Pastor Will reminded us last week, that we have a perfect and sinless priest and one who reigns at God’s right hand. Jesus’ one-for-all sacrifice atoned for our sins for every.
3) A Greater PRIEST (7:28-8:5)
Jesus was sinless. Why would the readers think of trusting in priests who were sinful and mortal when they are beneficiaries of the work of Jesus, who has been perfected and offers a complete cleansing from sin? “The law appoints men in their weakness,” but we have “a Son who has been made perfect forever” (v28)
This contrast the author is making is the heart of the gospel. We are broken, sinful people who are separated from the holy God, and no ordinary priest, no earthly system, no animal sacrifice, and no amount of effort on our part is enough to bridge that gap. What we need is the perfect Son of God, who became a human being, to represent us before God as our great high priest forever. Because of his perfect obedience and his indestructible life, we can have great confidence that our sins are forgiven, and therefore, we can “draw near” to God with confidence.
“But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.”’ Ephesians 2:13
The pastor portrays two distinct ways in which Jesus is a greater high priest:
First, where Jesus does His work from. Jesus is “seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.” and “a minister in the holy places, the true tent that the Lord set up, not man”. Jesus has a place of honor and glory, not separated from God, but He is seated next to God. Christ holds a status that no other earthly high priest occupied. But Christ, the great high priest, serves in an exalted status never occupied by those earthly priests. As such, he's seated at the right hand of God on high. Paul describes Christ's exalted position in Philippians 2. He writes that Christ humbled himself by taking on human form, even to the point of dying on a cross (v. 8). Because of this obedience, God has highly exalted Jesus and has given him a name that is above every name (v. 9). Christ's seat at the right hand of the Majesty—a title for God-demonstrates his exalted status. This imagery of "sitting at the right hand" is from the ancient world when kings would surround themselves with powerful nobles. The person to the right of the king was the most powerful and the most prestigious noble in the royal court. Thus, Christ's place at the right hand of God is a supremely exalted position.
“From his seat at the right hand, Christ continues his work as Redeemer. Too many Christians think Jesus has already done all that he's going to do for us. We look back to the cross and the resurrection and assume this is where his work ends. But two very important aspects of his work aren't finished. For starters, Christ didn't accomplish in his earthly ministry all the Messiah was foretold to accomplish. This didn't make his mission a failure. Rather, Revelation tells us a spectacular fulfillment is coming. We're still waiting for Christ to vindicate his Bride and finally judge the nations, so this aspect of his work is yet to be finished. Secondly, Christ is not done mediating for his people. While Christ’s atoning work is finished, his advocating work is not. Jesus sits at his Father’s right hand; he intercedes for us. What a tremendous encouragement to reflect on Christ’s active and ongoing work for His people.” - M. Kruger
Secondly, Jesus is a greater high priest because he offers a better ministry! Jesus' priesthood offers a better sacrifice. Like any priest, Jesus would have been expected to bring a sacrifice: Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus it is necessary for this priest Jesus| also to have something to offer" (v 3).
But we wouldn't expect Jesus to bring an ordinary sacrifice. Why?
Because he's not an ordinary priest. In fact, our author goes out of his way to remind us of this fact: "If he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all" (v 4). Our author is not denying that part of Jesus' redemptive activity took place on earth. Rather, he's emphasizing that Jesus did not operate like the Levitical priests; he never entered the earthly temple in Jerusalem as they did.
M. Kruger points out, “Have you ever noticed that Jesus never even tried to enter the Holy of Holies to be in God's presence? As the Son of God, he would have had as much right to be there as anyone. But that was not the nature of his priesthood. He knew his priestly ministry was going to be in heaven, not on earth.”
Because Jesus' priesthood is different, we would expect his sacrifice to be different. The priests made offerings "according to the law," but not Jesus. No, he offered what no other priest in the history of Israel had ever done: he offered himself.
And there is no sacrifice that can put you in better standing with God than Jesus. In fact, he is the only one who can put you in good standing with God. That is what we saw in 7:26-27: he offered himself as a perfect sacrifice and dealt with our sins once and for all.
4) A Greater PEACE (8:6-12)
The old covenant wasn't without fault. Its faultiness wasn't broken and in need of repair, though. Its faultiness was rooted in its incompleteness. The old covenant was never intended to bring complete peace and salvation.
The old covenant was faulty because it was not final. If it were the final covenant, there would have been no need for a better covenant.
The old covenant came up short because it could not provide a priest who would make ultimate and full atonement for the sins of God’s people. After all, under the old covenant-there remained a need for constant sacrifices. The endless repetition of sacrifices demonstrated the covenant's incompleteness and inability to deal with sin once and for all time. This makes Christ's statement on the cross all the more breathtaking. When he cried, "I is finished" (John 19:30), he was announcing that the wrath of God toward the sins of his people was finally paid in full. Never again would there be a need for animal sacrifice, for Jesus paid it all.
Even the high priest of the old covenant had to make unrelenting sacrifices for his own sins before he could make a sacrifice for the sins of the people. But the author of Hebrews is now declaring that the final priest has come, not to atone for his own sins, because this priest Jesus never sinned, but to save his people. Indeed, a better priest with a better ministry has come to mediate a better covenant enacted on better promises. Jesus's ministry of inaugurating the new covenant is "superior" precisely because of these "better promises" and “better peace.” In the new covenant God will write his law on the hearts of his people (rather than on tablets of stone). As a result, all covenant members will know the Lord, and sins will be dealt with completely, and they will be able to have true peace with God without worry of that peace disappearing.
The new covenant promise is laid out in Jeremiah 31:31-34. We read in verses 8-12. Jeremiah wrote to show that the Lord had long ago foretold the day when his final priest would come. The covenant community should have concluded from the sacrifices of old that a final sacrifice and a final priest, who would not have to sacrifice repeatedly, were coming. I have to imagine that one high priest along the way had to ask, “Why do we do the same thing over and over again? The author of Hebrews uses Jeremiah 31:31-34 to ask his readers, "Were we not told? Why did you not see?" God spoke through Jeremiah to announce the need for and the coming of a new and better covenant.
The picture Jeremiah paints is that peace would come through the mediator of a new and better covenant. The terms of this new and better covenant would bring a peace infinitely greater than what the old covenant could produce. The extraordinary promise of the new covenant was not that God would dismiss the old covenant but that he would be merciful toward our iniquities and remember our sins no more (Jer 31:34).
“Our greatest problem is sin, for it removes us from the presence of God. Our sin and His holiness are incompatible, yet God promised to reconcile sinful people to himself through the mediator who would inaugurate the new covenant. He chose to do this through his Son, Jesus Christ, the mediator who established the new covenant in his blood (Luke 22:20). In him, the extraordinary promises and the better covenant were fulfilled. The Lord is merciful to His people because Christ suffered and died in their place, and they are now hidden in him forever by virtue of their faith and repentance. In Jesus, all the new covenant promises belong to God's people.” - Al Mohler
(1) The promise of internal peace. “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” (Heb. 8:10b).
(2) The promise of personal peace. “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Heb. 8:10c).
(3) The promise of final peace. “For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more” (Heb. 8:12).
5) A Greater PERMANENCE (8:13)
But under the old covenant, forgiveness was never final and forever. One had to return year after year after year on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16) so that the high priest could continually slaughter an animal and place the blood of the sacrifice on the altar in the Holy of Holies. For an OT believer, it was wonderful to experience forgiveness for sins previously committed. But each person knew that with future sins, there was a need for another, future sacrifice. The blood of bulls and goats could never perfectly purge their consciences. But in the new covenant, established by the shedding of Christ’s blood, our sins are altogether and forever forgiven: past, present, and future.
The prophecy and promise of the new covenant entails the passing away of the old. The old was clearly inferior to the new, for it did not empower Israel to observe the law. With the coming of the new covenant, the law is inscribed on the heart so believers desire to do the will of God. In addition, the new covenant differs from the old covenant in that every covenant member knows the Lord. All those who are truly covenant members are regenerated. The new heart of believers is based on the forgiveness of sins accomplished in the new covenant. Jesus' sacrifice atones for sins once and for all. As believers, we can rejoice that our sins are forgotten and that we are new creatures.
“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. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (Ezek. 36:26-27).
2 Cor 3:11 “For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory.”