Mediator of a Better Covenant

Hebrews 8:1-13

May 27, 2001

 

Trouble between Rome and Judaism seethed for decades. Resentment on the part of the Jews toward their Roman rulers was matched only by the suspicion and contempt the Romans held for the Jews. They tolerated each other. The Jews needed the Romans to reassemble their religious and political lives. The Romans needed the Jews to give stability to the Middle East. But the mutual toleration could not last forever.

 

The Roman governor of Judea, Florus, thought that the Jews were withholding taxes to Rome. So to cover his skin and compensate for the pressure he felt, Florus raided the Temple treasury in AD 66. The Jews responded in token by rioting. Florus then turned his troops loose upon Jerusalem, where they plundered the city and even crucified a number of its people. For years the priests had offered sacrifices and prayers for the Roman emperor and his welfare. But at the plundering of Jerusalem, the captain of the Temple persuaded the priests to cease offering daily sacrifices as an affront to Rome.

 

As emotions boiled, Jewish forces stormed the Roman fortress of Antonius, killed its soldiers, and took charge of Jerusalem. To stem the revolt, the Roman general, Vespasian, conquered Israel in AD 67 before returning to Rome to be crowned emperor. He left Jerusalem to his son, Titus, who conducted a five-month siege of Jerusalem before breaking through, destroying the temple and with it, all of the sacrificial and ceremonial practices of the Levitical priesthood. 

 

This cataclysmic event of AD 70 bore testimony to the words of the prophets, the apostles, and our Lord. After four years of rebellion against Rome, Jerusalem fell by the hand of General Titus, and with it fell the temple, the sacrificial system, and the Levitical priesthood. Though Christians suffered with Jews during the siege of Jerusalem, Christians alone knew hope and peace through the assurance that the new covenant-a better covenant, would last for eternity. 

 

This Epistle was likely written prior to the fall of Jerusalem. As these believers were being lured back into the sacrificial system, they were heading for hopelessness and futility. All of the vestiges of the old covenant were soon to crumble, though they could not imagine this at the moment. And this crumbling came by divine design.

 

Our Bible is divided between old covenant and new covenant (or testament).  The second intentionally replaces the first; the old covenant even predicts and foreshadows this reality. Behind the language of "covenant" lies the message of hope and promise from God for now and eternity. The new covenant is established upon the person and work of Christ. As our confidence rests in the Mediator of the new covenant, all of its promises and blessings belong to us forever. Why do we need a new covenant? And what are the promises that belong to those who are recipients of this covenant promise? Consider with me the excellence of Jesus Christ as the mediator of a better covenant.

 

I. The Covenant's Mediator

 

The old covenant refers to the covenant made by God through Moses with the Israelites at Mt. Sinai. It was a covenant of law that was weakened by the covenant members' inabilities to keep its demands. The contrast between them is seen throughout the New Testament in the covenant of grace that focuses upon Jesus Christ as the one who fulfills the covenant demands. For instance, in Galatians, Paul refers to the old covenant being allegorized by Hagar and Mount Sinai, while the new is found with Sarah (and the promise to her) and the Jerusalem "above" (Gal. 4). Jesus spoke of the new wine in old wineskins, so that the old could not contain the new (Matt. 9:16-17). While the Levitical priests served as the ongoing mediators of the fading, transitory old covenant, the High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, Jesus Christ, serves as the solitary mediator of the new covenant. Our pastoral author desires to reiterate this truth when he writes, "Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest." As "the main point" or 'the top of the list' he insists upon the superiority of Jesus Christ's priesthood. Having argued this he now explains what he means by Jesus Christ being "the mediator of a better covenant."

 

1. Finished work

 

What did the high priest do? Our writer explains, "For every high priest is appointed [by the Law rather than by oath] to offer both gifts and sacrifices." He served as a mediator on behalf of the people, but as we have seen in the past few weeks, he needed a mediator himself (7:27). His "gifts and sacrifices" could never take away sins. The atonement sacrifices merely covered the guilt that cried against them until the shadow [old covenant] passed and the substance [new covenant in Christ] came. The priest's work was characterized by offering inadequate sacrifices as an inadequate mediator on the basis of an inadequate covenant [due to the sins of the people]. His inadequacy was evident in the repetition of the sacrifices year by year.

 

In language similar to 7:26, our writer declares, "We have such a high priest, who 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." While the Aaronic priests repeated their work, Jesus Christ "has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." In other words, he has finished his work. It is never to be repeated [thus any reestablishment of the sacrificial system is blasphemous and foolishness]. The aorist tense of the verb implies that Jesus has taken his seat and is never to be usurped and never to be improved upon. He sits in the seat of authority as the kingly priest. He mediates a better covenant and reigns over those who are part of this covenant. His work was not limited in scope like that of the Aaronic priests, but "in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle," i.e., the work of Christ while transpiring at the cross was effectual before the throne of God.

 

And so we must insist upon posing the question: are you trying to improve upon what Jesus Christ has finished? Whether consciously by various acts of merit or unconsciously through the busyness of Christian activity, are you thinking that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was not enough to satisfy God and suffice for your salvation? Are you falling prey to the same temptation that these first century professing believers faced, that of trying to add to what Jesus Christ has completed? The work of your redemption is finished, for Jesus Christ "has taken His seat." The work of your redemption is transforming, for Jesus Christ reigns over you "at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens." The work of your redemption is eternal and divinely satisfying, for Jesus Christ exercised His ministry "in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man."

 

2. Settled reality

 

After reiterating that Jesus-in his perfections-did not have the qualifications to serve in the inferior, inadequate Aaronic priesthood, the writer points out that those priests were serving a shadow and not the eternal realities. "There are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and 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'." The "pattern" was a copy of the real, only a "shadow" that was never intended to be the real substance. When God gave the Law to Moses and established all the ceremonies and priesthood necessary for Israel's worship, the Levitical ceremonies and priesthood were never intended to be permanent. The tabernacle was a shadow not the ultimate. Israel made the tabernacle, and later the temple, with the accompanying sacrifices and rituals, the ultimate. While the moral law [Ten Commandments] stands as the revelation of the moral character and perfections of God, and his demands for men-and as such is unchanging, the ceremonial law was temporary as a foreshadowing of the reality to come. The old covenant being replaced by "a better covenant" consisted of the rules and regulations of the ceremonial and civil law. As Richard Barcellos put it, "The phrase 'Old Covenant' is not interchangeable with the phrase 'Ten Commandments'" [In Defense of the Decalogue, 29].  While the moral law of God stands, being a reflection of his own moral perfections, the ceremonial and civil laws are temporary, being replaced by "a better covenant."

 

For this reason our writer can declare, "But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises." The settled reality is that the work of Christ lasts for eternity because of his own qualifications as mediator of a better covenant. The word "obtained" implies that Jesus Christ permanently obtained his office of mediator, never to be improved upon and never to be replaced. And the reason for this is that the better covenant-the new covenant of grace-is "enacted on better promises." The tense of the verb in this case again demonstrates that the divine legislation established "better promises" that can never be improved upon and never be replaced. Jesus Christ finished the work of which all the sacrificial system was merely a shadow.

 

II. The Covenant's Superiority

 

Carefully, the writer is moving these struggling saints away from a fatal dependence upon the old covenant into a confidence with the new covenant. He makes the assertion, "For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second." There is the stinging reality! If all the rituals, sacrifices, and ceremonies had been effective then why did the prophets tell of the day that God would establish a permanent new covenant? His statement assumes that the first covenant was faulty. But why? Did God make a mistake in even establishing the first covenant? Was the new covenant an afterthought, an emergency measure because the first did not work out? Paul points out, in agreement with our writer, that the problem was not in the covenant (and in this case the agreement by the Jewish people to obey all the laws of God), but in the people who said they were part of the covenant.

 

1. Problem children

 

Occasionally someone will be discussing a family or classroom situation and refer to a problem child. That child or group of children is singled out as creating problems for the balance of the group. But in the case of our text, it was not a matter of problem child but problem children-everyone! "For finding fault with them," he writes of these problem children, not of a problem covenant.

 

As Moses received the words of the covenant from the Lord at Sinai, he returned to the people and repeated what God promised: "Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." Moses relayed the words to the people and their pledge was clear, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do!" (Exodus 19:5-6, 8) But did they keep the covenant? Everything the Lord told them not to do, they did; everything he told them to do, they did not do. So the writer explains that the problem was not with "it," that is, the covenant, but "with them," the covenant-breakers. It was not problem with a bad covenant but with bad people, bad hearts that necessitated the new covenant.

 

Do you think that you would have done any better than the Israelites? Their problem is our problem. We are all problem children because we are troubled by sin. It is our sin that is at the root of our moral breakdown, and disobedience and rebellion against God. Quoting the psalmist, Paul wrote, "There is none righteous, not even one" (Rom. 3:10). Because we are not righteous we have no merit to commend us to God. Therefore no man-dependent means can open the way to God for us.

 

2. Obsolete!

 

Out of great mercy and the abundant gift of grace, God declared the old covenant obsolete, done away with! When Israel had already fallen under God's judgment before the Assyrians and Judah stood at the precipice of falling into the hands of the Babylonians, when all looked completely hopeless, Jeremiah prophesied of a new covenant. "BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND 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." Quoting from Jeremiah 31:31-34, the pastoral writer establishes the superiority of the new covenant. It is a covenant for the divided house, good for Israel and Judah. It is unlike the previous covenant made at Sinai that did nothing but expose the sinfulness of men's hearts and inadequacy to effect personal salvation. In the old covenant the Jews did not continue in it or persevere. And God consequently showed his hand of judgment not care.

 

The assessment is clear: "When He said, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear." Do you want to hitch your wagon to a dead horse? Do you want to take a road that is nothing but a dead end? Do you want to take a medication that is sure to kill you? Then why should any of the hearers hang on to a covenant that is vanishing away?

 

III. The Covenant's Promises

 

The old covenant and new covenant differ in most every respect. The old is external while the new is internal. The old is temporary while the new is eternal. The old is national while the new is global. The old is addressed to one race while the new is addressed to every race. The old demands obedience while the new creates a heart for obedience. The old leads to condemnation while the new leads to glorification. Central to the new covenant's differences are the four promises made in verses 10-12. They constitute the covenant promises realized through the gospel of Jesus Christ and faith in Him.

 

1. New heart

 

The problem that the Jews constantly faced was obedience to the covenant. It was not that the covenant was weak but that the recipients of the covenant were weak. They did not have a disposition to obey the Lord. And so there were warnings and curses and captivity, but they continued on in disobedience to the covenant's demands. Maybe you have put yourself inside their skin as you have journeyed with Israel through the Old Testament. You felt the crushing weight of bondage in Egypt and rejoiced in God's deliverance across the Red Sea. You watched in horror, as they had no more than crossed the Red Sea before bitterly complaining against the Lord and wishing for the "good old days" of slavery in Egypt. You saw the abundant mercy of the Lord and the carelessness of the people. You watched during the time of wandering in the wilderness and later in the rebellious days of the Judges. You heard the warnings of the prophets. And you wondered why they did not obey the Lord. What they needed were new hearts! That is precisely what the new covenant provides.

 

"I will put My laws into their minds," is God's promise that the covenant of grace through Christ affects our understanding. The word used for "minds" implies an intellectual understanding, i.e., while the gospel of Christ affects our emotions it primarily affects our minds. Notice what happens. The laws that were written in stone and stood in condemnation of the rebellious Israelites are now, through the new covenant, written on the minds of all who have faith in Christ. What is the implication in this? If we go back to Exodus and the establishment of the old covenant, we find that the Lord was setting apart a people for himself, that is, a holy people. While Israel may have been holy people externally, through the gospel of Christ, every believer is inwardly holy unto the Lord. There is a new spirit of obedience emblazoned on the minds of believers. God's laws are put into the mind and written on the heart: "And I will write them on their hearts."

 

The heart is central to the understanding and will. It is the place of our affections and actions. Moses rebuked the stubborn and rebellious Israelites in his "swansong," calling them "a perverse and crooked generation" (Deut. 32:5). Their hearts were far from the Lord. But the new covenant relationship to the Lord changes this! God writes his laws on our hearts so that the desire of the believer is to follow after the Lord, to walk in obedience as his holy child, to express devotion to him through obedience. It is in the work of regeneration that a new disposition for following after the Lord is rooted in the life of the believer. This is exactly what our author explains in the benediction of this epistle:

Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you I 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 (13:20-21, italics added).

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 Johannesburg, 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 every 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"

 

This, in essence, is what Christ does. We still have the same heart, but it is radically new, God has written his laws within us [from John Blanchard, quoted and amplified by Kent Hughes, Hebrews: An Anchor for the Soul, 218].

 

2. New ownership

 

Many of the prophets exposed the idolatry of the Israelites. They had other gods. The historical books of the Old Testament reveal scene after scene of Israel pursuing other gods. But not so in the new covenant! "And I will be their God, and they shall be My people." The language, though from Jeremiah, is similar to that of Hosea. You will recall that Hosea's wife, Gomer, was a prostitute who had a son of harlotry that God told Hosea to name, Lo-ammi, explaining, "For you are not My people and I am not your God." Hosea's children were a living illustration of Israel's unfaithfulness to God and their breach of the old covenant. The promise given later that is fulfilled in the new covenant was this: "And I will say to those who were not My people, 'You are My people!' And they will say, 'You are My God!'" (Hosea 1:9; 2:23).

 

What does it mean to hear God say that He is our God and that we are His people? It is a radical re-orientation of everything in life! God gives himself to you! God takes you for Himself! Can you go about life with a business-as-usual attitude? You face every situation with a new consciousness that there is a new ownership over your life [Kent Hughes 219]. And that owner is none other than the Creator who has covenanted forever with you to be your God and you to be His child. My brethren, there are no storms large enough to rob us of that reality. There are no problems strong enough to steal us away from Him. There is no devil powerful enough to separate us from the new ownership wrought through Jesus Christ.

 

3. New relationship

 

Every person who is part of the new covenant has a relationship with the Lord. Unlike the old covenant that was nationalistic in nature with many who did not know the Lord personally, the new covenant seals this inward relationship to God through Christ. Notice how our writer puts it, "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." Do you recall how our Lord described eternal life? "And this is eternal life, that they might know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent" (John 17:3). The knowledge he speaks of is relational, intimate, certain, transforming. It is not knowing about God, it is knowing God, having received the implanted word in your souls through the revelatory work of the Holy Spirit (James 1:21).

 

4. New mercy

 

The crowning promise of the new covenant is the mercy of God shown in forgiveness of your sins. This forgiveness does not come by divine fiat but through a divine satisfaction in God's Son, Jesus Christ, as he bore the penalty of your sin at the cross. Now the writer can declare, "For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more." This is why our writer spends so much time explaining the nature of Jesus Christ as our mediator; for it is only through what he has done in his high priestly work, offering himself for our sins, that we might know the mercy of God in forgiving sinners.

 

Forgiveness is not earned; it is received by faith. It is not merited as though we deserved this from God; it is a gift of grace overflowing from the greatness of God's love. This forgiveness is so complete that the omniscient God who never forgets anything "remembers their sins no more." Bring up your forgiven sins to God and he has no memory of them. That is why Paul exults, "There is therefore now, no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus!" Forgiveness sets us free, liberating us to walk in thankful obedience to a God so gracious that he would forgive unworthy sinners through the sacrifice of his own Son.

 

Conclusion

 

Have you received the blessings of the new covenant? They are not received by joining a church or being around Christians. These blessings or promises of God are received by faith in Jesus Christ as your High Priest.

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