Why Do We Need a New Covenant?
When Jesus ate the Last Supper with His disciples and instituted the ordinance of communion, He said, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood.” What did he mean?
One of the most important but least understood concepts in the Bible is that of “covenant.” The word is used over 250 times altogether and more often in the book of Hebrews than any other NT book, by far. A number of covenants are mentioned in the Bible, the most important for our purposes today being the Old Covenant (or the Mosaic Covenant) and the New Covenant. These two covenants have actually provided the names by which we refer to the two parts of our Bibles, the Old Testament and New Testament, for “testament” is simply the Latin term for “covenant.” The first 39 books of our Bibles revolve around the covenant God made with Moses, while the last 27 books focus on the covenant Jesus established with us through his death on the cross.
A covenant is essentially a pledged and defined relationship consisting of three elements: the parties to it, the promises involved, and the conditions imposed. Biblical covenants differ from most others in that the parties, namely God and His people, are not equal and therefore do not bargain over the terms. In fact, the Greek term used for “covenant” more often means “will.” The conditions of a will are established entirely by one person, and the other party cannot alter them; he can only accept or refuse the inheritance offered. So it is with the covenants God has made with us.
The Mosaic Covenant was a covenant God made with the nation of Israel. Among the promises of that covenant were promises of prosperity, health, longevity, and victory over enemies. The condition for enjoying those promises was obedience to the laws of the Covenant, with particular emphasis upon circumcision. If the Israelites kept the laws they would prosper; if they disobeyed them they would suffer.
The Mosaic Covenant, however, though it was in force for nearly 1500 years, was unsuccessful in helping men gain a right standing with God, principally because the people failed completely in their efforts to keep it. Several weeks ago we noted in 7:18 that “The former regulation (the Mosaic Covenant) is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.” Then a few verses later, in 7:22 we are told, “Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.” It is this New and Better Covenant that becomes the focus of our attention today in chapters 8. Let’s give attention to the reading of God’s Word in Hebrews 8:
The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.
Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law. They serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: “See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.” But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.
For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. But God found fault with the people and said, “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.
It is very important, however, that we make the connection between chapters 7 & 8 and understand that the reason a New Covenant was needed is because a new order of priesthood was inaugurated. The Old Covenant had its own priesthood, called the Levitical or Aaronic priesthood, which was designed to represent the people to God and represent God to the people. These priests did the best they could, but they were severely limited by numerous factors. For one, they could only serve 25 years maximum; sometimes they died in office; even when serving they had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could offer sacrifices for anyone else; and they had to offer sacrifices day after day, day after day (in other words, their work was never done).
But Jesus, the believer’s new high priest, doesn’t share any such limitations, for he is a priest, not of the Levitical order, but of the Melchizedekian order, which preceded and is far superior to the Levitical priesthood. Among the specific advantages of the Melchizedekian priesthood we noted are the following: it is without beginning and end; it was confirmed by God with an oath; it is founded on character and integrity rather than race and ancestry; it cannot be touched with death; and it is able to offer a sacrifice that never needs to be repeated. Now the author says in verse 1, “a priest precisely like that is what we have in Jesus.”
A priest of a new order, however, cannot operate under an old covenant, for it would hamper his ministry. Let me try to illustrate this by reference to what we saw going on in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. Setting aside the skepticism of some international observers who believed Gorbachev was the same old Russian bear simply wearing a disguise, and instead taking his initiatives at face value, what we found was a new kind of Soviet leader. He was not limited by the traditions of the past; he preached a new openness, a new concern for individual freedoms, and a new desire for international peace.
However, in a very few years Gorbachev made just about all the surface changes that could be made. There was only so much window‑dressing one could put on a communist dictatorship. The question was: would Gorbachev be willing to risk fundamental change in the system? Was he willing to push for popular elections, an overhaul of the politburo, and a guarantee of individual rights and religious freedom? History answered with a cautious yes, but sadly, the reforms were not lasting.
The point I am drawing from this illustration is that only so much change is possible on the strength of a change in leadership alone; there comes a point at which basic change in the constitution, fundamental changes in the system is needed.
Jesus Christ is the new high priest of the people of God. Knowing the Mosaic Covenant was fundamentally flawed, He did not even try to repair it or shore it up; rather He abrogated it (Colossians says He “nailed it to His cross”), and inaugurated an entirely new constitution for the people of God, called the New Covenant. He Himself became the mediator or minister of that covenant, the one who sees to it that the terms of the agreement are carried out. Our chapter opens by describing three things about the Minister of the New Covenant, namely His seat, His sanctuary, and His sacrifice.
The minister of the New Covenant (8:1‑6)
His seat (1) Verse 1 says, “The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, (this is not just theory or supposition; we actually have a high priest such as we’ve been describing) who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven.” This is the second of four times in the book of Hebrews where a special point is made of the fact that Jesus sat down. We first saw it in 1:3: “After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” It is mentioned again in 10:12: “But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.” And finally, it is reiterated in 12:2: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
Obviously, the fact that Jesus sat down after accomplishing our redemption was deemed a fact of great symbolic importance to the author of this letter. Why? Did you know that though there were a number of items of furniture in the Tabernacle and the Temple, there were no chairs, no pews. People didn’t come to the Temple to sing and worship and listen to sermons; instead they came to offer sacrifices and seek atonement for their sins. Even the priests had no place to sit down because they were constantly busy offering sacrifices. The contrast with the Minister of the New Covenant is amazing. He sat down and, in effect, bids us sit down and rest in the fact that He has accomplished the forgiveness of our sins.
A second major contrast that is drawn between the Minister of the New Covenant and the ministers of the Old has to do with His sanctuary.
His sanctuary (2) “We have a high priest,” verse 2, “who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man.” If Jesus serves in the true tabernacle, the tabernacle in which the OT priests served must have been something less. And, in fact, verse 5 informs us that they “serve at a sanctuary that is a copy and shadow of what is in heaven. This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.'”
A copy of a great masterwork of art is not the real thing but gives some idea of what the original is like. The resemblance is incomplete and not until the original is seen is the full glory recognized. I have seen hundreds of reproductions of the Mona Lisa, but several years ago I had the opportunity of seeing the original in the Louvre in Paris. It has a quality about it that is impossible to duplicate. Something is always lost in the copying.
So too with the sanctuary. Moses followed the blueprint he was given by God for building the tabernacle, but it was impossible for him to approach the beauty and perfection of the heavenly sanctuary where Jesus serves. This truth is made explicit in 9:24: “For Christ did not enter a man‑made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.” In other words, the Levitical priests of the Old Covenant operated in a sanctuary that was only a copy, a shadow of the true one. Jesus, the Melchizedekian high priest of the New Covenant, ministers in the true sanctuary, which is the very presence of God Himself.
Not only does Jesus differ from the ministers of the Old Covenant in regard to His seat and His sanctuary, but also in regard to His sacrifice.
His sacrifice (3‑6). Verse 3 of chapter 8 says, “Every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices, and so it was necessary for this one also to have something to offer. If he were on earth, he would not even be a priest, for there are already men who offer the gifts prescribed by the law.” The point is this: a high priest’s most important function was offering sacrifices, so in order for Jesus to be a high priest he had to have a sacrifice to offer.
However, His sacrifice must be completely different from that of the Old Covenant priests for two reasons. First, there was already a tribe assigned to the task of offering sacrifices in the earthly tabernacle and Jesus was not of that tribe. But secondly, and more importantly, those sacrifices were not doing the job. The problem is specified in 9:9, where we are told that “the gifts and sacrifices being offered (under the Old Covenant) were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper.” Furthermore in 10:3 we learn that the sacrifices of the Old Covenant were actually “an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.” Instead of dealing with sin in a final way, the sacrificial system by demanding repeated sacrifices kept reminding the people of how sinful they were.
Well, if Jesus had to have something to offer and it was not the sacrifices of the Old Covenant, what could he offer? In the middle of 9:26 we read, “Now he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” We will talk more in the next several weeks the nature of this sacrifice.
So far we have examined the Minister of the New Covenant, particularly in regard to His seat, His sanctuary, and His sacrifice. Secondly, I want us to turn from the Minister of the New Covenant to the Ministry He has, where we learn three important facts:
The ministry of the New Covenant (6‑10)
It is a superior ministry. In 8:6 it is clearly stated that “the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one.” As a high priest Jesus is tied inexorably to the legal and religious system of which he is a priest. Thus, to the same extent that the New Covenant is superior to the Old Covenant, Jesus has a superior ministry to that of the ministers or priests of the Old Covenant.
The reference to Jesus as the “mediator” is very instructive, for a mediator is one who stands in the middle between two parties and brings them together. He is a guarantor; He provides bail for a friend on trial; he guarantees a debt or an overdraft. Jesus is our mediator and the only one we need.
It is founded on better promises. That is specifically stated in verse 6: “it is founded on better promises.” What were the promises of God under the Old Covenant? We have mentioned prosperity, health, peace, victory over enemies, etc.‑‑basically earthly promises. And what are the promises of God under the New Covenant? We’ll look at a few of them in some detail in a moment, but for now let’s just observe that they are principally spiritual instead of earthly—spiritual prosperity, spiritual health, spiritual peace, and spiritual victory. In fact, one of the frequent mistakes made by the health/wealth theologians is taking Old Covenant promises and applying them today.
A third point made in our passage about the ministry of the New Covenant is that . . .
It is necessary because of the failure of the Old Covenant. Why is a New Covenant needed in the first place? The answer is offered in verse 7: “For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another.” So, what was wrong with the first covenant? Well, the problem wasn’t so much with the covenant itself as with the people who were a party to it. See verse 8: “But God found fault with the people. . .” The ineffectiveness of the Old Covenant was much more a reflection upon the faults of the Israelites than upon the nature of the covenant itself. But, for whatever reason it failed to produce a right standing with God.
Now a fourth and final fact about the ministry of the New Covenant is this:
It is offered Israel, literal and spiritual. In verse 8 the author begins to quote from Jeremiah 31, originally written, of course, to the Jewish people. It says, “The time is coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.” Several points are important here. First, the New Covenant is made specifically with the Jewish people. Frankly, I believe God still has a plan and purpose for the nation of Israel. The developments we have seen in the Middle East over the past 60 years cannot reasonably be called an historical accident. The prophetic Scriptures indicate that God is going to continue to work with the Jewish people until one day there is a great revival among them. In fact, the complete fulfillment of verse 11 of Hebrews 8 (“they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest,”) awaits, in my estimation, the national conversion of Israel that the Apostle Paul predicted in Romans 11:26.
Secondly, it is important to note that Jeremiah mentions both Israel and Judah as parties to this Covenant, for as you know the Jewish people had experienced a civil war following the reign of Solomon, and they formed two separate nations, more often enemies than allies. The New Covenant, says Jeremiah, would once again unite that which had been divided; old enemies would be friends.
But thirdly, though the New Covenant has special application to the Jewish people and will bring spiritual unity to them as a nation, the New Covenant is not exclusively for ethnic Israel. As a matter of fact, the great covenant that God made with Abraham, which is the foundation for all other covenants, specifically names the Gentiles as recipients of its blessings. I’m not at all sure Jeremiah saw this fact clearly, and even the author of Hebrews does not state it explicitly, for he is writing primarily to Jewish people. But nothing is more clear in the New Testament than the fact that the New Covenant is open to all those who come to God by faith in His Son. Gentiles are, so to speak, branches grafted into the spiritual trunk that is Israel.
Now, having looked at the Minister of the New Covenant and the Ministry of the New Covenant, it is time to examine the marks of the New Covenant.
The marks of the New Covenant (10‑13)
By the way, there are two words in the Greek language for “new.” Once means “new in time.” The other means “new in quality.” The author of Hebrews uses the latter word to describe the New Covenant. It is different in quality and kind from the Mosaic Covenant.
It is internal, not external. I think it is helpful to read verse 9 next to the middle of verse 10: “It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers . . . I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.” The Old Covenant was a covenant of written laws, some written even in stone. In addition, the laws were to be written on their wrists, on their foreheads, and on the doorpost of their houses. But the New Covenant is of a different nature‑‑it is internalized in the minds and hearts of God’s people. Let me explain.
In the Mosaic system virtually every aspect of a Jewish person’s life was controlled by legislation. There were dietary laws, economic laws, ceremonial laws, property laws, laws for everything. One could get a hernia carrying around the rulebook. Under the New Covenant, however, God’s approach is different. Oh, there are still some written laws; in fact, the basic moral law of God is repeated in the NT. But the many regulations about diet and relationships and property and finance are essentially replaced with principles, such as “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31). Or, “‘everything is permissible for me’—but not everything is beneficial. ‘Everything is permissible for me’—but I will not be mastered by anything” (1 Cor. 6:2). God began to treat His people as adults instead of children, asking them to use their God‑given intelligence and discernment to make wise choices instead of just looking for easy answers in the rule book. Decision‑making is far more internalized than externalized under the New Covenant.
The motivation to obey is also internalized. Under the Old Covenant the principal motive for obedience was the penalties imposed for disobedience. But under the New Covenant, with the laws of God written on men’s hearts and minds, there is a much greater tendency to respond out of love, recognizing God’s gracious provision.
It is personal, not distant. Verse 10 goes on, “I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” I believe Jeremiah is here acknowledging the fact that one’s relationship with God under the Mosaic Covenant was always distant, always mediated. The entire religious system was designed to let the worshiper know that God was not to be trifled with.
Imagine for a moment that you are living in Old Testament times and you desire to go to the Tabernacle to make a sacrifice. If you happened to be a Gentile or a woman you were not admitted. If you were a Jewish man you could approach the gate of the Tabernacle court. If you were a priest or a Levite you could enter the court, but only the priests could enter the Holy Place. And none but the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and then only once a year.
I’m certain many an Israelite peered through the gate in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the temple furniture and the veil that hung between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies. There must have been a mixture of curiosity and fear in the knowledge that there was a unique presence of God beyond that veil that was totally off limits to them. But none of that sense of distance is necessary under the New Covenant. No human mediators are needed; no earthly priests are necessary. There is no privileged class of special initiates who alone could teach others. Knowing God is now open to the least as well as the greatest, to the most ignorant as well as the most intelligent. One’s relationship with God under the New Covenant is personal, not distant.
It emphasizes forgiveness and mercy, not failure and judgment. The blotting out of His people’s sins is essential to this new relationship into which God calls His people, and the assurance of forgiveness of sins is written into the very terms of the covenant in the most unqualified fashion. In verse 12 God says, “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Complete and final forgiveness were never available under the Mosaic Covenant. Forgiveness before Christ was always provisional, always temporary. There was no such thing as a sense of having one’s sin problem settled.
I have often wondered whether an Old Testament Israelite must have felt much like a Catholic in the 1950’s. I remember many of my devout Catholic friends in Webster Groves who would go to confession every week. They would confess their failures of the past week and would be told what sort of penance was necessary for certain sins. I suppose they received some relief of guilt from the process or they wouldn’t have kept going back, but they never seemed to have any sense of confidence that their basic sin problem was taken care of. There was always the lurking fear that they might commit a mortal sin and perhaps die before confessing that sin. The ordinance of last rites and the doctrine of purgatory confirmed the view that one’s eternal destiny could never be settled until the last breath was taken, and sometimes not even until long after that.
Under the New Covenant, however, forgiveness is the order of the day. In fact, we are told that God actually forgets our sin. I’ve always marveled at how an omniscient God could forget something, but I was helped by hearing about a lady who was asked why she continued to be kind to another woman who had hurt her deeply. Her response was, “I distinctly remember forgetting that.” I guess that’s what God does. He chooses to put our sin out of His mind.
The conclusion our author offers in verse 13 is that “By calling this covenant ‘new,’ God has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” All the evidence points to the fact that within just a couple of years after the book of Hebrews was penned the Roman Emperor Titus invaded Palestine and destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the great Temple of Herod. The Jewish people have been unable to practice the sacrifices of the Old Covenant since that day. They should have stopped the sacrifices voluntarily when Jesus offered His once‑for‑all sacrifice, but when they didn’t, God stepped in and sovereignly stopped the sacrifices for them . Still, even though there is no temple and no sacrificial system, Orthodox Jews are to this day hanging on tenaciously to the Old Covenant, even though their own Scriptures, through their own prophet Jeremiah, have been telling them for well over 2,500 years that a New Covenant was coming.
Conclusion: We have studied the New Covenant today—the Minister of the New Covenant, the Ministry of the New Covenant, and the Marks of the New Covenant. The New Covenant is God’s new constitution for His people. It was established by God, ratified by the blood of Christ, and is available to be enjoyed by every man, woman or child who places his trust in Jesus. Don’t be satisfied with the Old Constitution, the use of human mediators, or a sense of distance from God. All that has been replaced.
Today we gather at the Lord’s Table. Every time we eat the bread or drink the cup we celebrate the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old. In fact, at the Last Supper Jesus said when He took the cup, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” The cup represents the New Covenant. Because Jesus shed His blood, we have the privilege of living under a constitution that is immeasurably superior to that which came before.
Tags:
Covenant
Mosaic Covenant
New Covenant
Sacrifice