"A Better Covenant" Hebrews 8:1-13
What are you worried about?
Are you concerned about your family?
Are you facing difficult decisions at work?
Are you wrestling with sin and temptation?
Hebrews 8 speaks to you.
The priestly ministry of Jesus Christ is exactly what you need.
You might think at first blush that a passage comparing Christ's priestly work
with that of the Levitical priesthood
has very little to do with your situation.
But Hebrews thinks differently-
which really means that God thinks differently,
because God inspired the book of Hebrews.
He gave this "word of exhortation" to those who struggle-
to weak Christians who needed encouragement.
When the apostles wrote to weak, struggling churches,
they didn't spend a whole lot of time analyzing the problems
or providing "practical suggestions."
They pointed the church to Christ.
They pointed those who were struggling to who Jesus is and what he has done,
and they called them to a life of participation in Christ:
because of who Christ is, and because of what he has done,
you have a new identity.
Everything in your life must be reoriented around him.
1. So What's the Point? (8:1-2)
The point of what we are saying is this:
we have such a high priest.
"Why should I care what sort of high priest I have?"
We aren't familiar with priests anymore.
We don't have people who offer sacrifices on behalf of the community-
though we do have their equivalents:
we have all sorts of "priests" who seek to mediate various blessings.
For instance, scientists and doctors take on a priest-like role
for those who worship the idol of long life.
Athletes, actors and singers are the priests of our entertainment culture.
Where do you look for life, happiness and blessing?
That is your priest.
Every priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
The priest's job is to placate the deity,
offering the required sacrifices and bringing the blessing of the deity
upon his people.
Otherwise the deity just might curse his people, and all sorts of bad things happen.
When people are feeling stressed out or upset,
what do they do?
Many turn the radio on and listen to their favorite songs.
Have you ever tried to interrupt a sports fan when his team is winning?
A computer gamer in the middle of his favorite game?
Objectively, it's absurd.
Whether you are watching that game or not is irrelevant to the outcome.
And yet you are drawn to it, and your happiness becomes tied to the result.
But we have a better high priest.
This central section of Hebrews (chs 6-10) is dealing with the better priesthood,
the better covenant, and the better sacrifice,
that have come in our Lord Jesus Christ.
We saw in chapter 7 the better priesthood.
Chapters 8-9 now speak of the better covenant, the better sanctuary, and the better sacrifice.
(You can see the connection between the high priest offering gifts in 8:3 and in 9:28)
Indeed, the superiority of Christ's priesthood is the foundation
for saying that Christ is the mediator of a better covenant.
In chapter 7 Hebrews uses Psalm 110:4 to help us understand what Genesis 14 says about Jesus.
Jesus is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek because Jesus is a priesthood of one.
He is a priest who is also a king-
and most central of all, he is a priest who is first and foremost a Son. (7:28)
Verses 1-2 of chapter 8 then gets to the very heart of Hebrews point:
The point of all this discussion in Hebrews 7 is that we have such a high priest.
We have a high priest who did not simply enter an earthly holy place,
but who entered into the heavenlies
and sat down on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
The crowning affirmation of what we are saying is that Jesus sits at the right hand of God.
Why is this "the crowning affirmation"?
Why is this "the point of what we are saying"?
Because without this we are still in the old covenant.
We have a high priest seated at the right hand of God.
Normally "sitting at the right hand" is a royal designation-
that is where the son of David is said to sit.
But as we have seen, Christ's priesthood is grounded in his sonship.
He is the priest after the order of Melchizedek-
a unique priest who is also a king.
Verse 2 refers to Jesus as "a minister in the holy places (the sanctuary),
the true tent (or tabernacle), that the Lord set up, not man."
The term "minister" is the word "leitourgos" (from which we get the word "liturgy"),
which emphasizes Christ's active service.
A priest is a priest regardless of what he is doing.
But a "leitourgos" or "minister" is one who is active in religious service.
And Christ is a minister in the sanctuary-in the true tent.
The old tabernacle was a shadow.
Even the temple, Solomon acknowledged, was not the true sanctuary.
"Look from heaven, your dwelling place."
The heavenly sanctuary is the true tent,
and that is a tent not framed by human hands,
but was pitched by God himself,
when God created the heavens and the earth.
2. A Shadowy Ministry (8:3-6)
And since every high priest is appointed to bring gifts and sacrifices,
therefore Jesus, too, must have brought a sacrifice.
We do not hear, yet, what that sacrifice was,
because Hebrews wishes for us to understand how the shadow points to the reality.
Children,
you know how a shadow works?
How is your shadow related to your body?
Your shadow is defined by two things:
1) your body
2) a source of light
There must be something that casts the shadow,
and there must be some light that creates the shadow.
Hebrews explains how this works:
the earthly priests "serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.
For when Moses was about to erect the tent (tabernacle),
he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything
according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain."
Moses was shown a picture of the reality.
Moses saw a pattern (the quotation is from Exodus 25:40),
In other words, Moses saw the heavenly sanctuary,
and God commanded him to build a replica-
or, better yet, a shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.
The whole of the earthly sanctuary is patterned after the heavenly one.
Which means that the whole of earthly worship
was designed to reflect the heavenly worship.
Jesus is the substance-or the body that casts the shadow.
And so when you look at the OT sacrifices and ritual,
you see a picture and a shadow of Jesus.
And that is why verse 6 says that Christ 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.
The Mosaic Covenant was a good covenant.
It was an administration of the covenant of grace.
But compared to Christ, it was a faulty and flawed covenant,
because it had no way to deal with death.
3. The New Covenant (8:7-13)
In order to show the surpassing greatness of the new covenant,
Hebrews insists that the Mosaic covenant (the "first covenant") was faulty.
It was not faulty in and of itself.
It was faulty because it could not accomplish what Christ accomplished.
Certainly part of the problem was that Israel did not keep the covenant.
But verse 7 makes it clear that the first covenant was not faultless.
In the evening service we are going through the book of Judges.
We are seeing how flawed the people were-and how even the leaders fell far short
of God's righteous requirements.
But Judges also reveals the problem with the Mosaic covenant:
the Mosaic covenant, in and of itself, did not have the power to change people.
Certainly God changed people in the old covenant,
but that was only through the power of the new covenant working in advance.
The quotation in verses 8-12 comes from Jeremiah 31.
Jeremiah 31 is one of the most glorious statements of the coming of the new covenant.
Jeremiah has prophesied the coming destruction of Jerusalem and Judah,
but promises that after this, the LORD will make a new covenant
with Judah.
We often think of the positive side of Jeremiah 31-
the promise of the new covenant.
What Hebrews points out, however, is the implication of Jeremiah 31.
If God needs to make a new covenant,
then there must be something wrong with the old covenant.
The old covenant could not bring us near to God.
The old covenant had a high priest who entered on behalf of the people,
but he could only bring the people symbolically.
The new covenant, we are told, is "not like the covenant I made with their fathers."
God made a covenant with Israel,
and gave to Israel a law.
But Israel "did not continue in my covenant."
Israel rebelled time after time.
The old covenant could not bring the people into their full inheritance.
The old covenant gave Israel a shadow of the inheritance-
the old covenant gave Israel an external statement of the law,
but it did not write the law on their hearts.
The old covenant also resulted in the covenant curse.
God had warned Israel that if they rebelled against him,
he would do to them all that he had done to Egypt (Dt. 27-30).
And sure enough, that is what happened:
Israel was sent into exile,
as Hebrews quotes from Jeremiah 31,
"They did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the LORD."
The new covenant is not like this.
What is the difference?
The old covenant had a priesthood that kept sinning and kept dying.
The priests had to offer sacrifices for their own sins,
and the high priests kept dying-
thereby signaling their failure to bring Israel to God.
But the new covenant has a sinless priest who never dies.
He serves as high priest by virtue of the power of an indestructible life.
The old covenant had flawed mediators, who could not guarantee their work.
The new covenant has a perfect mediator, indeed, a sure guarantee,
a surety, who has once for all paid for all our sins with his precious blood.
The old covenant was broken, with the result that Israel was sent into exile.
The new covenant cannot be broken,
because Jesus is the covenant keeper,
he is the pledge and surety of the covenant.
Because he has been faithful and inherited his inheritance,
therefore all who belong to him receive that inheritance with him.
This is the reason why "the point of what we are saying is that we have such a high priest."
We get preoccupied with our lives, our issues, our "needs."
And we begin to think that we are the center of the universe.
Hebrews 8 reminds us that we are not the center of universe.
Jesus is.
There are a couple of points from this quotation from Jeremiah 31
that I would to call your attention to.
First, from verse 12:
God will not remember our sins.
The language of remembering and forgetting is worship language.
When we forget God, that is the same thing as idolatry.
When we remember him, that draws us back to worship him.
Psalm 63, our hymn of the month, uses this same language.
Psalm 63 draws on the language of worship--of the sanctuary:
"I've seen you in your holy place,"
in reminding us of the great works of God.
But then David adds in verse 6 that he remembers God on his bed at night.
While our worship here is where we meet with God corporately,
this worship is not to end when we go home.
We are to "remember" him throughout our lives-
he is to be our chief thought throughout the day and through the night.
And God promises that he will not remember our sins.
You need to see the big picture first.
Why will God not remember your sins?
Because Jesus, the sinless one, has paid for all your sins.
It is once again the once-for-all work of Jesus that is the center of this forgiveness.
It is only because of Jesus that this has application to you.
The perfect sacrifice has been offered.
The new covenant has been established.
THEREFORE, your sins are forgiven.
And because your sins are forgiven,
therefore you all know the Lord.
The "for" in verse 12 demonstrates that verse 12 is actually the foundation for verse 11.
Why do you all know the Lord?
Because your sins have been forgiven.
I need not say to you "know the Lord"--
I am not a priest who mediates on your behalf-
I cannot bring you near to God;
I can only say to you "remember who you are in Christ!"
Remember that if you are in Christ, then God has written his law on your heart.
He has forgiven your sins and brought you near to himself.