The New Covenant

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Tonight we are not going to return to our study of Mark. We'll do that, Lord willing—I think next Sunday night we'll go back to Mark. But tonight I want to do something a little different, playing off of something that really struck me as we were looking this week at the life of Christ, that final week.

You remember that on Thursday night of the Passion Week was the Last Supper. And at the Last Supper, Jesus takes the elements of the Passover (that traditional celebration that had taken place for some 1,400 years) and He turned it into something entirely different, a reminder of Him as the ultimate Passover Lamb. The Passover elements then become a reminder of Him, and He does something very interesting when He offers them the cup. You remember what He says? He gives them the cup, and He says I want you to drink from it, I want you to do this in remembrance of Me. But He says this cup is the new covenant in My blood, because with His death Jesus inaugurated what the Bible calls the New Covenant. Most Christians don't understand what that is. They don't understand that they in fact stand as the recipients of a covenant God has made. And tonight I just want to briefly look at what that is that Christ has done, because the ramifications of it are so rich and so encouraging. I think it will be to all of us.

We have to begin by asking a very simple question, and that is what is a covenant? If I were to ask you to define a covenant, how would you define it? At its most basic terms, a covenant is a legally binding promise. Those of you who are married or those of you who have attended a wedding, you've certainly seen a covenant. As a man and woman stand in front of God and an audience (and in front of those people) they covenant together, they make a legally binding promise. Sometimes there is a sign or a seal of that covenant, and in the wedding ceremony there is. You remember, the pastor who's officiating will usually ask, "Do you bring a sign or a seal of the promise of your love that you're making?" And then the rings are exchanged and offered. That ring, then, that you and I—if you're married, you wear on your finger—that ring is a reminder of the covenant that you have made, the legally binding promise before God and before witnesses that you have made. We understand the importance of covenants in normal human life.

But here is the remarkable thing: our great God condescended to make covenants with us, covenants with His people, legally binding promises to His people. In God's case, of course, it's not a covenant between equals as it is between a husband and a wife. Instead, God makes a covenant from Himself often unilaterally; that is, He determines what He will do. But He makes a covenant.

The question is why would God do that? Why would God condescend to use what is really a human expression, a covenant? Why would God do that? Well, the Bible gives us several reasons that God makes covenants with people. The first is to show that no one can nullify what He has done. Look at Galatians 3. Galatians 3 deals with a couple of covenants that we'll talk about in a moment. But in the middle of that flow, Galatians 3:15 says this: "Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations." Covenants are human instruments to show the commitment that we have to each other in some sphere of life. "Even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside." A covenant is put in place to show that it's not something you can just on a whim change your mind about. You can't just easily nullify a covenant. And God uses covenants to show that the promise He's making can't be easily nullified.

In the same verse we learn another reason for covenants, for God using covenants. It says so that "no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it." Once a covenant has been made, the conditions are set. You don't change those conditions. And in the same way, God makes covenants, legally binding promises to His people, in order to show that once He has acted, conditions can't be added to it.

A third reason is in Hebrews 6:17. In fact, turn over to Hebrews 6, because we're going to be near here in just a moment. Hebrews 6:17, "In the same way." Look back at verse 16: "Men swear by one greater than themselves, and with them an oath [is] given as [a] confirmation [as the] end of every dispute." There's an oath taken, a promise made, a covenant form. "In the same way God, desiring even more to show the heirs of the promise [that's us] the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath." God wanted to demonstrate to human beings that His purpose could not be changed, and so with an oath He sealed a covenant: this is what I'm promising to do.

And in verse 18 we find the fourth and final purpose of a covenant, and that's to encourage us. "So that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge [that is, in Christ] would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us." God lowers Himself to use what is really a human instrument, a covenant, in order to encourage us that what He has promised He will do. Really remarkable that God would do this.

When you look at the sweep of the Bible, there are several biblical covenants. Some would say that there was a covenant with Adam, and they would use Hosea 6:7. I'm not sure I would call it a covenant in the same sense as the other covenants, but certainly there was an agreement made with Adam that if he obeyed he would get life, and if he disobeyed he would get death. So in that sense I suppose you could say there was a covenant, but not in the same formal sense as in some of these others. There is the covenant with Noah made when Noah gets off the boat, and God covenants never to destroy the world again with water. And He lays out the forms of that covenant in Genesis 9. There's the covenant with Abraham, repeated a variety of times in the life of Abraham. The covenant at Sinai, the Mosaic Covenant as we call it, because Moses was the intermediary who brought that to the people. And then there was the covenant with David in 2 Samuel 7, in which God covenants with David and says one of your descendants will always be on the throne—forever. Of course, meaning Christ Himself. And then there is the New Covenant. Those are the major biblical covenants where God brings Himself down to man's level and He makes a legally binding promise for those reasons we just saw.

Now what I want us to do tonight is to look at the New Covenant, the "better covenant" as it's also called in Hebrews 8. Turn over just a page from where we were, Hebrews 8. Now let me give you an outline of this chapter. We're just going to sort of hit the high points of this chapter as we work our way through. And I hope by the time we're done you'll appreciate the promise, the legally binding promise God has made to you in Christ. We are participants. If you're in Christ, if you're a Christian, you are a recipient of the New Covenant, the new, legally binding promise that God has made His people. And that's spelled out in Hebrews 8. The first part of the chapter, verses 1-6 talk about the High Priest of the New Covenant, the One who actually is the mediator of that covenant, our Lord Jesus Christ. And the second half of the chapter, beginning in verse 6 and running down through verse 13, is an explanation of what that New Covenant is and why it's important, or should be important, to us. So let's look at it.

First of all, beginning with the High Priest of the New Covenant which is Jesus our Lord. Verse 1 begins by telling us about His position. "Now the main point of what has been said is this: we have a such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." We have a high priest who is in God's presence serving as that High Priest. Now notice he begins, "the main point." That Greek word can either be a summary or it can mean "the most crucial point." And it may be that both are meant here. He's summarizing what he's already said, and he's getting to the crucial point of everything he's developed. Chapter 7 is about Jesus being a priest after the order of Melchizedek, which is very confusing to some people. But the bottom line is Jesus acts as a priest on our behalf. He acts as our Great High Priest, and so the main point is we have such a high priest.

And notice His sanctuary. Verses 1-2 say, "[He] has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man." Our High Priest, unlike the earthly high priest, doesn't enter into merely a man-made place that represents God's throne room (only a copy of God's throne room), our High Priest lives in the throne room. He has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne. He rules in the throne room with God as His equal, and He serves in the real Holy of Holies in God's presence Himself. That earthly temple with its Holy of Holies merely represented the presence of God, and the high priest could only go in there one time a year. But our High Priest ministers in God's true presence, in the real presence of God, the true tabernacle which God pitched.

Notice His ministry in verse 3. It says, "For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer." Every high priest is continually to be offering gifts and sacrifices, so therefore it's necessary for Christ to offer something. What did Christ offer? Look back in 7:27: "[He] does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself." Jesus went into God's presence having offered Himself. Verse 4 is kind of an interesting verse:

Now if He were on earth [that is, if Jesus were our high priest on earth], He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve [as] a copy and [a] shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, "SEE," He says, "THAT YOU MAKE ALL THINGS ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN."

On earth Jesus couldn't be a priest. Why? Because He's from the tribe of Judah, not the tribe of Levi. The Levites had to be priests. And the Levites offered their sacrifices according to the Mosaic Law, and those things (notice verse 5) are merely copies and shadows of the heavenly things. Now think about that for a moment. All of those things that were required in the Old Testament (the tabernacle, the temple, the gifts, the sacrifices, even the priests), they were only shadowy copies, a shadowy outline of their heavenly counterparts. His argument is—remember what God told Moses? Build it exactly according to the pattern I showed you, Exodus 25:40. That doesn't mean there are actual temple buildings in heaven. That's not the idea. The idea is, the spiritual realities that those earthly buildings portrayed, those are in heaven. Both the tabernacle and its ministry were intended to illustrate symbolically the only way sinners can approach a holy God and find forgiveness.

Notice the progression of his argument so far. He said Christ is our High Priest; all high priests offer something to God; Christ has to minister in some way; but it couldn't be what the earthly priests do, because He's the wrong tribe and their ministry is only with copies and shadows. Now he's going tell us about the true nature of Christ's ministry: He is the mediator. Notice verse 6: "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry." Jesus is better than all those other high priests by as much as He also is the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. And now he's going tell us about the ministry that Christ has as our High Priest, the High Priest of the New Covenant. And now we're going see an explanation of what that New Covenant is. Notice verse 6: "a more excellent ministry," because He is "the mediator of a better covenant." That word "mediator" is a common word from secular usage in the Greek world. It's used often in business papyri.

You know, when I was down at the King Tut exhibit, we saw some examples of papyri. Essentially, growing along the banks of the Nile there's the papyrus reed. They would take that reed, and they would cut it into thin slivers—very, very thin. And they would press them on each other and then press them between some rocks, stones, to press them until they dried. And when they pulled the rocks away, what you had was a very basic writing surface. And then they would write on that paper they had made from the papyrus reed, and that's what they wrote on in the ancient world. Like we write on paper, that's what they wrote on was the papyrus. In that climate, in that part of the world when they threw those away in the trash heap, because of the dryness they have survived. And so they found many, many examples of normal, everyday writing that were pulled out of the trash heaps.

I spent six months in seminary translating papyri, and so I'm very familiar with them. And from the papyri, from those documents you can discern the use of biblical words in secular context, and one of the words is this word "mediator." It was often used in secular Greek business terminologies. A mediator was an arbiter, a go-between, one responsible to conserve the interests of both sides. Here's a definition: "A legal intermediary who represents two parties and through whose work a new relationship is established between those two parties." Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant, a better, legally binding promise from God. Jesus got us a better deal, if I can put it crassly. He was One who could get this contract, this legally binding promise, from God.

Notice the "better covenant." In verse 8 it's called the "new covenant." A covenant with God. Now, when we start talking about this covenant, this New Covenant, it's important for you to put it in the context of the other covenants. And I'm not going to go through this in great detail, but I do want you to see that in the history of humanity, God has made three redemptive covenants. That is, covenants, legally binding promises having to do with redemption, with salvation. The first one is the Abrahamic Covenant, and you can see that it occurs often in Genesis as God makes it. The second is the Mosaic Covenant, made with Moses and the children of Israel in Exodus 19 and in chapters 20-24. And then there's the New Covenant. That's the one we're studying. It initially appears in Jeremiah 31-34. The Abrahamic Covenant is called just that. The Mosaic Covenant is called the Sinaitic Covenant or the Old Covenant or the First Covenant. The New Covenant is called the better, the second or the new.

Now, the Abrahamic Covenant was made with Abraham, obviously, and with his seed. And Paul makes a great point of making that Christ in Galatians 3:16. With his physical descendants—there were aspects of the Abrahamic Covenant (about the land and all of that) that were with the physical descendants of Abraham. And then there were spiritual promises in the Abrahamic Covenant that were made to Abraham's spiritual descendants, according to Galatians 3:29. If you have have faith in Christ, then you are an heir of the promise made with Abraham. Why? Because it was promised to Abraham that in his seed all the nations of the world would be blessed. That's Christ bringing spiritual blessing on people all over the world who would believe in Him. The Mosaic Covenant was made just with Israel. And the New Covenant is made with all believers in Christ as well as with the redeemed Israel. The Abrahamic Covenant began with Abraham and ends—it doesn't end. It's an eternal covenant. The promises God made to Abraham, the spiritual promises, never go away. The Mosaic Covenant began at Sinai and ends with the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. It begins to fade away with the death of Christ. There's a transition period, but it ends when the temple is destroyed in 70 AD. The New Covenant began with Christ's death, and it is eternal.

Now I want you to look at the bottom of this, because it's so important. Some people when they look at the promises God has made people in the past, they think that they were somehow saved differently. Absolute not. When you look at these three redemptive covenants, notice the grounds of their justification is always grace through Christ. How do I know that? Well, in Romans chapter 4 Paul makes the point that Abraham was saved—how? By grace. In David's life, living under the Mosaic Covenant, how was he saved according to Psalm 32 (quoted again in Romans 4)? He was saved by grace as well. And the same thing for us: grace through Christ, Ephesians 2:8-9. How did they receive that justification? Well, in Abraham's case it was by faith. All of Romans chapter 4 uses Abraham as an example of faith. In the case of those living under the Mosaic Covenant it was also faith, according to Galatians 3:11. It wasn't works. They weren't working their way to heaven. Nobody can earn their way to heaven. And then the New Covenant is faith as well according to Romans 4:23-24. The summary of it? I will be their God, I will be their God, I will be their God. And if you want to see it explained, it's explained in these texts.

Here's the point I want you to make: these are not distinct covenants, but they are developments of one great, promised covenant of God's grace. Why do I say that? Well, what was the basis of justification before the fall? When Adam was in the Garden of Eden, what was the basis of his being justified before God? His obedience: you obey, you live. But after Adam sinned, what is the basis of justification since the fall? It has always been what? Grace alone. And so these are all just a development of God's saving purpose among humanity. We're talking now about the New Covenant, the one on the right-hand side.

Let's go back to Hebrews 8. As he explains this covenant, he begins by telling us that it is at the essence of Jesus' ministry. Notice [8:6]: "He has obtained a more excellent ministry." This is what Christ does instead of what all those earthly high priests did. His ministry is the New Covenant.

Secondly, it is necessary. This New Covenant is necessary because of the weakness of the Old Covenant or the Mosaic Covenant. Verse 7, "For if that first covenant [he's talking about the one with Moses now] had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, [God] says." Now let me ask you this. Was the Mosaic Covenant inherently, essentially flawed? Was it bad? No. What does Paul say about it in Romans 7? The Law is holy and it's good and it's righteous. In Romans 8 he explains it was weak because of our flesh, it was weak because of our sinfulness. In verse 8, then he begins a lengthy quote (You'll notice it's in all caps in your New American Standard.) all the way down through verse 12. That quote is from Jeremiah 31:31-34, where I showed you the New Covenant is first described. God will establish a new covenant. Why? Well look at verse 8 again. This is the quotation from Jeremiah. He found fault with the Mosaic covenant,

"BEHOLD, [God says the] DAYS ARE COMING... WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD."

What was the Mosaic Covenant's greatest weakness? Do you see it in verse 9? "THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT." The Mosaic Covenant could not itself empower obedience. That was its problem, and that was its weakness. And so there had to be a new covenant, because that legally binding promise God made could not empower obedience.

There's another reason for the New Covenant. It has better promises. Look at verse 10: "FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS," and He goes on. But notice the first promise, the first better promise: God implants His Law in our hearts. That's more than just knowing the Law. That's more than just knowing what God requires. In Ezekiel 11 it's explained like this: "I will... give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them." God says I'm going to empower you. Here's the promise I'm going to make to you. I'm going to rescue you in such a way that I will put the capacity to obey Me within your heart. I'm going to give you the capacity to obey. I'm going to write My Laws on your minds and hearts.

There's another promise that comes with this New Covenant. It's the promise that we can know God personally. Verse 10, "AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE." He's talking about that covenant relationship. I will covenant with them to be their God and allow them to be My people, to have that relationship with Me. And not just a covenant relationship, but true intimacy. Verse 11, "AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, 'KNOW THE LORD,' FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM." A covenant relationship and an intimate fellowship with God.

So look at the promises God's making in this New Covenant. He will implant His Law in our hearts. We can know Him personally, both through covenant relationship and intimate fellowship. And the third promise that's given here is God will permanently forgive our sins. Look at verse 12: "FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE." Folks, this is an essential part of the covenant, but it's not new in once sense. It wasn't new in Jeremiah's time. It wasn't new in David's time. Remember Psalm 103? As far as the east is from the west, so far will I remove your transgressions from you. So what was new about this? People in the Old Testament knew forgiveness. What was new about, what is new about this New Covenant God is making? Listen carefully. This is so important. This is the first time God explicitly includes the promise of the forgiveness of sins in a covenant. It's the first time God legally promises, legally binds Himself in a promise to forgive sins.

I love the word "remember" in verse 12. I will "remember" their sins no more. That's an expression, obviously, from Hebrew back in Jeremiah. In Hebrew "to remember" is always a deliberate act. You know, when we use the word in English, we talk about, you know, "I can't remember where I put something." It's more of a passive thing. It just kind of happens. "I don't know." With God when He says I don't remember, He doesn't mean it slipped His mind. He means I will make a conscious choice not to call that to mind, I will exclude it from My mind, I will shut it out of My mind. The omniscient God, the God who knows everything the moment it occurs, knows it before it happens, knows it intimately, knows all possibilities, that God says I will make you a promise: I will choose never to bring your sins back into My mind. "I will remember their sins no more." Forever. And that Hebrew expression also includes action. God will choose not only not to recall your transgressions, He will choose never to act toward you in the way they deserve. I will remember your sins no more.

There's one more part of his explanation of this New Covenant, and that is that it replaces the Old Covenant. Look at verse 13: "When He said [when God said], 'A new covenant,' He has made the first [that is, the Mosaic Covenant] obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." "Obsolete": something old or out of date. He doesn't mean that the moral commands of the Mosaic Covenant like thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not kill—he didn't mean those were sort of getting outdated and we didn't need those anymore. He's talking about all of that sacrificial system, all of the ceremony, all of the priesthood and all of those things that he describes here in Hebrews. He says all of those things are now obsolete and "ready to disappear." You know what's remarkable about that statement? The book of Hebrews was written probably AD 67-69. That means that within one to three years of the writing of this book, the Romans marched into Jerusalem and leveled the city, leveled the temple, and there haven't been sacrifices anymore. It was literally ready to disappear. There was that transition period from the death of Christ 'til AD 70 when the New Covenant was in place, but the Mosaic Covenant was slowly becoming obsolete, ready to disappear. And when the Romans marched in under Titus and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, the Mosaic Covenant went away. It disappeared.

Now here's what I want you to see. Here's how this ties in to this week that we've celebrated. Going back to what Jesus said in the Last Supper, you remember what He said? "This is My blood of the covenant." "This is My blood of the covenant," He said as He held up the cup. You know what He was saying? He was saying I have negotiated, I am the mediator of a new, legally binding promise God is going to make you, and let Me tell you what that includes: God'll give you a new heart that has the ability to obey Him, God will legally commit Himself to allow you to have an intimate relationship with Him, and God will make a legally binding promise to forgive all of your sins forever. And how do you know it's true? Because My blood is the seal of that promise. My blood is the sign that God will keep His Word, that God will fulfill this New Covenant promise.

Do you understand, believer, that you are a recipient of the New Covenant? You ever thought about this? God, the Eternal God has lowered Himself to use something that is used among us, a covenant, and He's bound Himself to a covenant. He's made you a legally biding promise that includes these things. Read this passage. This is what we have received, and it began with Christ. If you are a Christian, you are a recipient of the New Covenant. This is what God has promised you. And He has promised you that He will give you a new heart that will enable you to obey; He'll write His laws upon your heart. It's not like the Mosaic Covenant written on tables of stone where there was no empowering to obey them. God will allow you to be in a covenant relationship with with Him where He will declare Himself to be your God and you to belong to Him. And God will promise never to recall to His mind a single sin that you have ever committed. And if you're ever tempted to doubt, just remember that He sealed that legally binding promise to you with the blood of His eternal Son. Jesus is the High Priest of the New Covenant. Jesus is the offering that dies to make the New Covenant possible. Jesus' blood is the seal of the New Covenant. In fact, Jesus is the covenant. He is the legally binding promise.

Turn back to Isaiah. We close with this passage that I love. Isaiah chapter 42. Isaiah, you'll remember, has those sections of his book that anticipate the coming of Christ, the Servant passages, the Suffering Servant. One of those—of course the most famous of those being Isaiah 53, but here's another one. And as he talks about and anticipates the coming of Jesus Christ, listen to how he describes him. Verse 5:

Thus says God the Lord,

Who created the heavens and stretched them out,

Who spread out the earth and its offspring,

Who gives breath to the people on it

And spirit to those who walk in it,

"I am [Yahweh], I have called You in righteousness."

Now, He's talking to Christ here, OK? God the Father talking to His Servant, the Suffering Servant who is Jesus Christ.

"I am the Lord, I have called You in righteousness,

I will also hold You by the hand and watch over You,

And I will appoint You [You] as a covenant to the people,

As a light to the nations,

To open blind eyes,

To bring out prisoners from the dungeon

And those who dwell in darkness from the prison.

I am [Yahweh], that is My name;

I will not give My glory to another,

Nor My praise to graven images.

Behold, the former things have come to pass,

Now I declare new things;

Before they spring forth I proclaim them to you."

God told His son in the prophecy of Isaiah, You will be My promise. Folks, when we worship our Lord Jesus Christ, we worship the One who is God's promise to us: that He will write His laws on our hearts; that He will be our God and declare us to be His own children, His own people; and that He will never call our sins to His mind—ever. That's our God, and that is the New Covenant that Jesus sealed when He died for us. Let's pray together.

Our Father, we are overwhelmed with the fact that You would love us so much that You would want us to know the unchangeableness of Your purpose, that You would want us to know that You have made up your mind and this is what You will do. And so You make a covenant. You make a legally binding promise in which you put Yourself under obligation. You stake Your own character on the promise You make. Father, we thank You, because it does give us great encouragement. It does give us great hope to know that the promises You've made us will never be nullified, the promises You've made us will never have conditions added to them, but they stand because You've have covenanted with us in the New Covenant. And so that we would never doubt Your purpose, You sealed that promise with the blood of Your own Son. We thank You, O God, for the rich promises You've made us. Help us to be faithful to the covenant. Lord, help us to be faithful to You as the one who has unilaterally made that covenant with us. May we in turn show You love and praise and adoration and faithfulness. May we live our lives in obedience to You, not to earn Your favor, but as an expression of our love and gratitude. We pray in Jesus name and for His sake, amen.