Hebrews 8:8-13: A New and Better Covenant

Hebrews 8:8-13

A “New” and Better Covenant

Having concluded a lengthy description of Jesus’ priesthood and why it is superior to that of the Levites in general and Aaron in particular, the preacher turns his attention to the better covenant that Jesus mediates, which will be his theme for another large piece of the sermon.  He begins this section of the sermon with a lengthy quote from the Septuagint version of Jeremiah 31, the clearest explanation of the new covenant in the OT.  

1. List of Covenants:
1. Edenic: Gen 1:28-30; 2:15-17
2. Adamic: Gen 3:14-19
3. Noahic: Gen 8:20-9:17
4. Abrahamic: Gen 12:1-3
5. Mosaic: Exodus 20-40 (Moral, Civil, and Ceremonial Law. Circumcision)
6. Palestinian: Deut 30: 1-10
7. Davidic: 2Sam 7:4-17
8. “New Covenant”: Jer 31; Ezek 11:19; 36:26
2. Covenants are accompanied by:
1. A blood inauguration as a sign of the gravity of the pledge.
2. A blessing/curse for those who obey or reject the covenant.
3. A sign of the covenant (rainbow, circumcision, etc).
3. Differences in covenants:
1. Bilateral and conditional: Edenic, Noahic, Mosaic, Palestinian, Davidic
2. Unilateral and unconditional: Adamic, Abrahamic, New
4. Quote from Jer 31:31-33.
1. Longest quote of the OT in the NT
2. Again taken from LXX.  “Like a husband” vs. “I showed no concern for them” (Jer3)
5. Vs 8b
1. This covenant is made with Israel and with Judah, the united people of God.
1. No covenant is ever made with “gentiles” as soon as that word has meaning.
2. God has only ever had one people.
3. Blessings to gentiles overflow from the blessings on Israel (Abrahamic, Gen 12:3; 22:18)
2. Why do we claim this as applying to the church?
1. It is not specifically stated here (Heb 8) that it applies to the gentile church.  These are Hebrew believers, and it is not even stated as applying to the church in a Jewish context here.
2. Luke 22:20: Communion establishes the new covenant for the early church.
1. Originally a Jewish organism, but Paul writes to gentiles about observing this ordinance (1 Cor 11:17-34)
2. The covenant is inaugurated by the blood of Christ, and all the church benefits from that.
3. Paul specifically mentions the new covenant as applying to the gentile church at Corinth (1 Cor 11:25; 2 Cor 3:6)
3. “Jewishness” defined.
1. Physically: Matrilineal descent.
2. Spiritually: those who trust in God by faith:
1. Rom 2:28-29
2. Romans 9 (esp vs 6-8)
3. Col 2:11
3. Example of Abraham: Gen 15:6; Rom 4:3; Jas 2:24
4. Why mention Israel and Judah specifically?
1. At the time Hebrews was preached, Israel was “lost.”  Only Judah remained “in covenant” with God.
2. To reiterate that God’s covenant is also with Israel reminds us that the covenant is not dependant on our faithfulness, but on His.  
3. Also, we are told that there are those who will be brought into the new covenant who have no idea that they are “Jews.”
4. “Israel” therefore represents gentile believers who do not, before their salvation, recognize their belonging to the covenant.  “Judah” represents “old covenant” Jews who will, through faith, be brought into the new covenant as well.
5. Explanation brought by Rom 11: Those who belong to the “household of faith” belong to Abraham and are therefore Jews, whether grafted (gentiles) or “natural” (Jews).  (Hos 2:23)
6. The church HAS NOT REPLACED National Israel.  The Covenant is FOR THEM (Rom 9:5-6). We are simply enjoying the blessings as we are grafted into the new covenant, which is theirs by right.
6. Characteristics of the New Covenant (vs 9-12)
1. Not conditional, like the Mosaic (vs 9).  
1. Their faithlessness provoked God to abandon their blessing and to bring judgment (vs 9 in LXX).
2. The new covenant is dependant on God’s character and guarantee (7:22; 8:6)
2. The law is no longer external, but internal (vs 10a)
1. The problem with the Old was not the law, but the hearts of the people.
2. The new covenant solves that problem.  The law is written on their hearts, which regenerates them and changes their nature.
1. Ezek 11:19; 36:26-27
2. Cf Deut 30:6; Jer 32:39-40
3. NT: 2 Cor 3:3-8; Jas 1:21;
4. 2 Cor 5:17
3. Intimacy (10b)
1. No longer is there estrangement, but intimacy
2. OT: Gen 17:7;  Lev 26:12; Jer 7:23; 11:4; 24:7; 30:22; 31:1; 32:38; Ezek 11:20; 14:11; 36:28; 37:27; Zech 8:8; 13:9; Joel 2:27
3. NT:  Rev 21:3, 7;
4. In Hebrews: 4:16; 6:19-20 (Matt 27:51)
5. Specifically through the church: Eph 2:1-18
4. Universal knowledge of the truths of God (vs 11)
1. Misunderstanding: No need for Expositional teaching or prophecy.  All have intimate personal knowledge of God and His word.
2. Correct: Not that there will be no teaching, but there will be no need for evangelism.  “Know the Lord.”  “They shall all know me” not “They shall all have Ph.D’s in Theology.”
3. Teaching still a part of the Millennium:
1. Isa 2:3; 54:13
2. NT: 1Jn 2:27.  They have to be “taught” that they “don’t need to be taught.”  
4. Universal salvation amongst the Jews, but there is still a place for exhortation. This is not universal perfect righteousness (see below).
5. From the least to the greatest: Micro to Mega
5. Universal forgiveness of sins (vs 12)
1. God will nationally and radically pardon.  Inclusive language (all their sins).
2. He will no longer remember their sins, Ps 25:7
3. Other new covenant pictures:
1. Blotted out: Isa 43:25; 44:22
2. Atonement for sins: Psa 65:3
3. Cleansing: Jer 33:8
4. Pardon: Jer 50:20
5. Destruction of sin (tread underfoot, cast into sea): Mic 7:19
4. Predicated upon the mercy of God, not universal perfect righteousness.
1. If N.C. believers did not sin (removed from the presence of sins), there would be no sins from which we needed to be cleansed.
2. This pictures a Millennial kingdom relationship, not a new creation one.
7. The state of the Old Covenant (vs 13)
1. Once the N.C. had been announced, the O.C. was declared impermanent, temporal.
2. The dispensation of grace and obedience was “interrupted” by the dispensation of law, not replaced by it. The law had a definite temporal period of time.  A beginning and an end. Not, like the age of grace, simply an origin.
3. Watch tenses:
1. “Is becoming obsolete”  παλαιόω palaioō present passive participle.  It is happening right now, and the covenant is the object of the transformation, not the motivation behind it. God is “making it obsolete.”  It cannot resist this transformative power.  If we tie ourselves to the law, we are uniting ourselves to a decaying system (this is the sense the KJV adopts).
2. “Is growing old” γηράσκω gēraskō present active participle.  Happening right now, but involved in the action.  The law is driving itself toward its fulfillment in the N.C. The law was written to culminate in Christ
1. John 5:39
2. Luke 24:45
3. “Ready to vanish away.” ἐγγύς ἀφανισμός eggys aphanismos a noun phrase in Greek. Expresses eagerness.  “Throttles toward vanishing.”
4. Conclusion.  God decreed that this old system would go away.  It cannot be any other way.  The law itself, after being declared obsolete, yearns for its cessation and culmination in Christ.
4. Analogy: Children are created to mature and grow up.  As very young children, the concept of aging is unknown to them, but at some point, they “get it.”  Maturation has been declared, and they cannot fight it.  Shortly after this, most children long to “grow up.”  This desire tends to grow as the maturation approaches, so that “sub-adults” want very much to become an adult.  When this maturation happens, the child to whom it has come is usually very happy at the state of affairs.  At this point, childhood has not so much been destroyed as replaced with something better.  It has reached its logical fulfillment.  The parents may harken back to fond memories of the child’s youth, but the child rarely wants to go backward.
1. How does this fit?
2. Not fit?

Hebrews 8:1-8 The main point

The Main Point!

Hebrews 8:1-8a

The Superiority of Jesus’ priesthood has been the theme for several chapters of Hebrews now, and it is reinforced in the early part of Chapter 8 again as the “Main idea” of this whole sermon.  Then, after this reiteration and further elaboration on this theme, the preacher turns his attention to the better covenant that Jesus mediates, which will be his theme for another large piece of the sermon.  He begins this section of the sermon with a lengthy quote from the Septuagint version of Jeremiah 31, the clearest explanation of the new covenant in the OT.  

1. Vs 1: The Main Point
1. κεφάλαιον kephalaion: The Sum, total.
1. Acts 22:28 and here only
2. The ancients drew a line across the top of a list of numbers and added upwards, so that the sum was written at the top of the problem, not the bottom.
3. Everything he has been saying in his Sermon hangs on this idea, which is a Jewish construct to put the “main thing” in the middle of an argument (Chiasm).
2. Jesus’ superiority as a priest over and above all other priests descended from Aaron has been the theme for a while, and it is the central idea of the sermon.
3. Taken his seat:
1. His work is finished (Jn 19:30), whereas no other priest is ever done with their task.
2. The old covenant makes nothing and nobody perfect, complete. Only Christ's work does this on our behalf (Eph 1:3; Col 2:10).
4. At the right, the place of honor (Psa 110:1; Matt 22:44; Acts 2:33; 7:55-56; Rom 8:34; Eph 1:20; Col 3:1; Heb 1:3; 8:1; 10:12; 12:2; 1Pe 3:22; Rev 3:21)
5. Majesty on High: μεγαλωσύνηmegalōsynē
1. Luo: “to loose” or destroy.
2. Mega: Big, major
3. The ability to massively destroy.  
1. Life and death in his hands (Deut 32:39; 1Sam 2:6; Job 5:18)
2. Matt 10:28, the power of temporal and eternal life.
4. Heb 1:3; 8:1; Jude 25
2. Vs 2-5: Ministry on Earth vs Ministry in Heaven
1. A copy of of the pattern in heaven,
1. Copy: ὑπόδειγμα hypodeigma below-diagram.
2. Platonic? Not likely.  Exodus 20-40 happened before Plato.  Plato was well-read in near-eastern literature.  Perhaps plato is Hebraic as opposed to Hebrews being Platonic.
3. Interesting that he references the tabernacle, not the temple.
1. God specifically gave the pattern for construction to Moses for the tabernacle.  No such instruction for temple.
2. The tabernacle, then, is built on the pattern of a heavenly ideal, but the temple is not.
3. Temple is obviously meant to represent Christ (covered in skins, overshadowed by the glory cloud. Temple built with the same organizational cues as the tabernacle, but after the phoenician style.
2. Priests must have something to offer.
1. On Earth, Levitical priests offer animal sacrifices.
2. In Heaven, Christ has offered himself once.
3. If Christ were on Earth, he would not be a priest, since earthly priests have to be from Levi.  Melchizedek’s priesthood is a heavenly one.
3. Vs 6-8a Second covenant superior to first.
1. The announcement of a second (Jer 31) while the first was operating testifies to the imperfection of the first.
2. No “place” to look for a second if the first were perfect.
3. Why is the second better?
1. Better promises.
2. Better people with new hearts
1. The problem was not with the law.  It was with the people (vs 8)
2. Part of the new covenant is a heart replacement (Ezek 11:19; 36:36)
3. Interesting, this preacher does not say that the law is broken, but that the followers were.
4. Law will be replaced (7:12) but it was perfect and good (Psa 19:7; Rom 3:2; 15:4)