Hebrews: Celebrating the New Covenant
Pastor Fletcher preaches from Hebrews 8:1-13 about the new covenant replacing the old. Discussion points: God relates to us through covenant rather than a contract, Jesus is the culmination of all the Old Testament covenants with the line of promise, the new covenant gives us the same intimacy with God that Jesus has.
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Scripture reader: [Hebrews 8:1-13] Now the point in what we are saying is this, we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.
For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
For he finds fault with them when he says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
This is the word of the Lord.
Preacher: Good morning, everyone. My name is Fletcher. It's, I'm the lead pastor here. It's a joy to have you this morning. Today is the first day of February, and if you are anything like many Christians, it means you have officially given up on your yearly Bible reading plan. Anybody else there? Anybody doing a yearly Bible reading plan this year? Who has tried a yearly Bible reading plan at some point in their life? Who has failed at a Bible reading plan at some point in their life. It is customary for Christians to fail at a Bible reading plan. It happens. And if you make it through, usually it's because you've tried like 2 or 3 times and you finally did it one year. And usually you don't make it too far past January.
And why is that? Because like any book, we tend to think that we should open this ancient book and start at the beginning. And Genesis, very interesting. Lots of stories. If you grew up around church, you're lots of stuff you've read before. There's some boring parts, there's some weird parts, but it's mostly interesting. Then you get to Exodus, the first half, you're, you're humming. You're like, this is great. I've, I've heard this story before. You get to the second half, you're like, what is happening here? And it's just like regulations on how to build a tabernacle. And it's like chapter after chapter of dimensions for carpenters to, to make tents. And then you get to Leviticus, and it's more of what is going on. It's like priest regulations for how to spot mold or leprosy on someone.
And it's, it's just difficult, ancient literature. And if you're anything like me, you have gotten to this point in the year, and look, I'm theologically trained now, so I can kind of understand it. But for years and years, you get to this point in the year and you're just like, why am I reading this? Have you ever asked yourself that question, as you've done your yearly Bible reading plan, why am I reading this? Other than the pastor said it's good for me. Like a, like a Flintstones vitamin, that's taking way too much of my time. It's just good for me.
The Old Testament's really hard, and it's really hard to understand how it can connect to our everyday life. And so there's a temptation with most Christians to major in the New Testament. And I'm gonna be honest, if you're new to Christianity, it's not a bad temptation just to give it, give into. I mean, the New Testament is way more applicable, way more devotional, and it's easier for the most part. The New Testament is where you should be spending most of your time as a new Christian. But I really do think that the Old Testament is very necessary.
And the book of Hebrews assumes a tremendous amount of Old Testament knowledge. Just every verse in Hebrews is assuming you basically know everything that happened in the Old Testament. So it's really hard to understand what's happening in Hebrews if you don't know what's going on in the Old Testament. But today, one of my primary goals is to help you to understand why the Old Testament is important, and why you might wanna read it, where it falls, and how it works.
You need to think about the Bible like this. You need to think about the Bible as a two-act play. So if you go to see a two-act play on Broadway, let's say it's a good one, OK? You go see a two-act play, and by the time you get to the intermission. You should be just like, well, they're in quite a mess. How are they gonna get out of this? And there's all kinds of loose strings. I mean, my daughter and I went to go see a play in, New York 2 years ago, 2.5 years ago. And by the intermission, we were just like, well, how are they gonna get out? What are we gonna do? There's loose strings, there's, there's just things that they've been saying. And the, a good two-act play though, you'll come back in for the second act. And it just kinda all culminates together, all the loose strings come together and you get this really satisfying completion.
And that's how the Bible should be. By the time you get to the end of the Old Testament, you should be reading these things and being like, well how's this gonna work? Because you read about the Levitical law, and you're like, but it doesn't seem like anybody can keep it. And you read about the kings, and you're like, it doesn't seem like there's ever been a good king. And you read about their promise for land, and you're like, it doesn't seem like that land is very sure to be theirs. And so everything you read in the Old Testament should just leave you thinking, well, that's not very satisfying at all. That's kind of the point. And so it comes together in the second half, or if you want to take a more modern, illustration for this.
Reading just the New Testament without the Old Testament is like starting the Marvel cinematic universe with Endgame. Like You can enjoy that movie. The ones that come after it, like, I'm not sure if anybody enjoys them, but you can enjoy Endgame. In and of itself, but it's so much more rich if you've seen all 20 movies that came before that. I went to go see that movie with Michael, who was doing announcements a few minutes ago, and as you can tell, he's a goof. So, we, there were other people there too. I don't remember who they were. it may have been some of you. but, but I remember very distinctly, there's a moment when a character captures a certain weapon, in Endgame, OK? It's old now, you should have seen it, but I'm not gonna ruin it. And when this, when this character reaches out his hand, and the weapon comes to his hand, Michael stands up in the crowd on opening night and goes Ahhh!! It's just like screaming, because at that moment, what was happening? Everything that we've seen in all the past movies suddenly comes together and it all makes sense, and we're excited, and it culminates into that moment.
This is how we should feel when we get to the New Testament. But you can't get to it unless you really understand and you do the work of the Old Testament. You should see all the loose strings. As you get there. So when you understand the Old Testament properly, this is how the New Testament should feel. It all comes together in Jesus. What was foreshadowed for millennia is now reality. Today's passage teaches us that Jesus makes sense of the Old Testament, and that Jesus offers a way more offers way more than the Old Covenant does.
So I have 3 points, understanding the idea of covenant. Comparing the old and the new covenant, and third, embracing new covenant life. So let's dive in. First, understanding the idea of a covenant. A covenant is how God relates to people. If you're going to really understand the Bible, you have to understand this idea of covenant. It's pretty foreign to most of us though. When you think covenant, the, the easiest comparison might be to a contract. And we might be familiar with contractors, we might be familiar with contracts. If you have a home as I do, and you need a little bit of work done, you might call an electrician. And you might, they might form up a contract. I give them money, they come and put wires together in my house. And then you might take the contract and you might sign it, and then they might show up. Maybe. That we kind of get that idea.
But a covenant is so much more than a contract. A covenant has this relational dynamic that's so much deeper. And the best comparison that we can have is marriage. Because that is what we intend to do with marriage. Now, I know some people who treat marriage as a contract. Where they say, if you don't live up to your side of the deal, I'm not living up to my side of the deal. But that's not what you said on the day that you got married. On the day that you got married, you said, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in health and in sickness, I belong to you. I'm committed completely to you, so when you don't live up to your side of the deal. I'm still committed, I'm gonna live up to my side no matter what, through thick and thin. I'm there for you.
That is a covenant, so much deeper than a contract. It has this relational bond of blood given to it, and this is how God relates to his people. You see the forming of covenant time and again throughout the Old Testament. There's at least 5 different covenants throughout the Old Testament, where God goes and he forms a covenant, and he makes a promise, and he gives a sign of the covenant. He does this with Noah, and he gives, he says, I'll never flood. The earth again, and he gives them the sign of the rainbow, and he does this with Abraham, and he says, I will make your descendants as plenteous as the stars are in the sky. And then he does this sacred ceremony where he has Abraham cut animals in two. To basically say we're both gonna walk through this, and, and if we break our covenant, to us should be happen what happened to these animals.
But then God puts Abraham in a deep sleep and God goes to the animals himself, basically to say, if I break the covenant, this is what happens, and if you break the covenant, this is what happens to me also. He takes the curse for both of them.
We see God relate to his people through covenant in many different ways throughout the Old Testament. And you can, you can see that it's certainly covenant and not contract. a couple of my seminary professors wrote a book on this a few years ago. It's been very helpful. They even form up some of the differences between covenant and contract that you might find in Hebrew literature. I have like a chart here for you. I know you probably need a telescope to see that. I'm sorry, but. It, it kind of shows you the differences in the literary structure between a contract and a covenant throughout the ancient literature.
So in a, in a contract, it lists these things, the date, parties, transaction, investiture, guarantees, a scribe, and list of witnesses. But with a covenant, it can, it's different because the covenant is the speaker introduced, you're given the history of the relationship, then a general command, detailed stipulations, the document statement, witnesses, and blessings and curses. And so if we look at the next part of this chart, he continues on to compare the two. With the contract, you have this expected benefit that you come to by mutual agreement. Through a, a negotiation, and it's like this thing oriented thing. And so you have an obligation of performance and it can be terminated through violation. But with the covenant, you have, it's not through an expected benefit, it's a desire for relationship. And the initiative is the stronger party. Now, I know my my marriage comparison doesn't fall perfect there in modern day and times, but if you think just like 100 years ago with Mr. Darcy, and he's like more powerful, traditionally, the marriage covenant was, was started by the stronger, of the parties, even though we have progressed beyond that in our American society.
It's, and then the orientation is gift and person oriented. The oblig the perform the obligation is loyalty and determination is indeterminate, even through the violation. So I just show that to show you that this is all. Baked into the biblical storyline. God relates with His people through covenant. Now, second point. oh, hold on, I have a quote. A covenant is, O. Palmer Robinson says that a covenant is a, a bond in blood sovereignly administered. OK.
Point number two. Comparing the old and new covenant. Throughout the Old Testament, God establishes a number of covenants with people, as I was mentioning earlier, Noah, Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David, all are the significant confidant bearers. Each covenant is similar, but the covenants layer on top of each other. So as you read the Old Testament, what you're reading is kind of like a, a seven layer cake, OK? a 7 layer dip that we're gonna enjoy next week for the Super Bowl, you know. But they, each covenant's layering on top. And so actually, when you get to the New Testament, the, the author of Hebrews, he just describes all of these old covenants summarized by the first covenant. So they're all kind of in the same thread of things, they're related to one another, but they are separate covenants that he establishes.
So verse 7, this is what Hebrews says, for if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. So the first covenant, everything that happened in the Old Testament, it wasn't enough. So we have to look for the second covenant. And in verse 13, it says, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So he doesn't say that the old covenant is useless. He doesn't say it's, it's wrong. He doesn't say it's bad. What he says is it's obsolete. It's like that old iPhone 3 that's sitting in your in your, in your drawer somewhere because you kept it because they weren't doing the trade-ins yet. And so you just have it there, and you're just like, what do I do with this? It's obsolete. I don't need it anymore. More. It was necessary for the development of the current iPhone 17. It had, it was a necessary step, but I don't need it anymore. It's obsolete.
That's the old covenant to us. It's an obsolete covenant, but it's still good. It's, it was good at its time. The old covenant lays the groundwork for the new covenant. And it's the way that God reveals Himself. It's the way that he shows Himself. So if I asked you to describe yourself. You could do that pretty simply. In fact, lots of us have been asked this in a job description, a job interview or something, right? So a classic first question. Tell me about yourself. Well, you can start by saying, If I was describing myself, well, I'm, I'm a husband, I'm a, I'm a dad, I'm a pastor. How much do you want to know? I don't know. I've lived in, in Somerville for, or in the Boston area for 14 years. I could keep going. But then if you're, if they keep going and they're like, no, I want to know more.
Eventually, you have to start, you know, talking about your family. You have to start talking about your parents. And if, and if then you have someone that's very inquisitive, or you have a therapist potentially, they might be like, tell me about your parents. How did they become who they are? And then you have to start talking about your grandparents and all of their childhood problems that they had growing up and how they created your parents to be the messed up people that they are, and that's how they made you. And if you wanna keep on going back, you actually have to go back pretty far because your grandparents, you know what, they had parents also who messed them up. And then you're like in the Great Depression somewhere, and it's like I have a great, great grandfather who like had to immigrate from somewhere. Whatever. It's, it's your story.
And it's how you reveal yourself, and it has to, it, it has layers to it. And so God is this eternal, changeless being. Who cannot simply be described. And so the way that God chose to reveal Himself is through generations of relational covenant with people, each time revealing a bit more of Himself, culminating into a final revelation of God in the flesh, the man, Jesus Christ. And Jesus would not be significant if you did not have the layer upon layer upon layer that we read about in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is full of shadows of who Jesus is, just shadow upon shadow, and as you read the Old Testament, you should be saying that sounds like Jesus, but not quite. That's the point.
And so I have a, a graphic to kind of show this. This all came from O. Palmer Robertson's book. It's, it's this layer upon layer of old covenant shadows, and each one builds upon your understanding of who God is. But you should see that it's not quite suff sufficient in itself, and it all culminates to the new covenant realities that we have in Christ. So one way you can think about it is the Old Testament is full of shadows that culminate into New Testament realities. The author of Hebrews gives us several examples here. So I'll just give you a couple of examples.
First, he talks about the priest. We've been talking about priests a lot, but verse 1, chapter 8, verse 1. Now the point and what we're saying is this, we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Now hold on a second, OK? Because there's a lot of things going on here. You have to understand what a priest is. A priest is someone who would go into the temple day in and day out and offer sacrifices for on behalf of the people. And it was obvious that these sacrifices weren't sufficient, because the priest would never be able to sit down. The priest would just go through, offer the sacrifice, come back out, and have to do it again tomorrow. They didn't have time to sit down. They had to keep going, and once a year they would do the big Yom Kippur, the high priest would go in and offer the sacrifice on behalf of the people.
Now Jesus is the culmination of these things. Jesus is the great high priest who really goes into the deepest presence of God, and he makes the sacrifice on our behalf. And you see all these priests of the Old Testament, they're sacrificing animals, but it really points to the fact that we need a human. We need a person to go and be our sacrifice for us. And these priests, they had to do it over and over again, but Jesus did it once, and that was sufficient. And then afterward, what did he do? He went and sat down in the place of authority, at the right hand of God. So not only is he the priest, but he's in charge.
Do you see all of this? You see how when you read about the priests in the Old Testament, you should think that's not gonna cut it forever. And when you read about Jesus and how he's the great high priest and all these things that he did. You might be able to appreciate it. But when you understand what it's coming from, these threads of what the priests used to do, it means so much more. It's like color when all you've seen is a black and white TV. It's so vibrant. Now, he continues, he offers more illustrations. The next one he offers is the temple is the temple or the tabernacle.
Verse 5, they serve a copy in shadow of the heavenly things. That's what I'm saying, that the Old Testament is a copy or a shadow. Of the things in heaven. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. And so the tent that he's referring to here is the tabernacle. It's the presence of God on earth. It's meant to reflect heaven.
But then what, when we get to the New Testament, we read John chapter one. It's so if you've never read the Bible before, start in John, it's the best place to start. But you won't get it unless you really get all the Old Testament. You'll have, you'll be able to read it over and over again because you'll see more and more things to pick up. In John chapter one, it says, that the word became flesh, and he tabernacled among us. He dwelt among us. Now, this is a direct allusion to the tabernacle in the Old Testament that the presence of God was contained in this tent. But the tent was pointing forward to a further reality, something that's far truer, which is Jesus Christ, the presence of God in the flesh, tabernacling among us.
You see, the Old Testament brings color to everything you read in the New Testament. It makes it so much more powerful. Now he listed, those are the two things that he listed in the passage. He could go on, he could talk about the king, he could talk about how David was a good king, but he also abused his power and raped a woman and had her husband killed. You, you could say, well, he wasn't a good enough king. Well, That culminates in Jesus, who isn't a a king who abuses his power, but instead. He lays his power aside for the good of others. You could talk about the land of Canaan. How the people are longing to go in Canaan throughout most of the first part of the New Testament, and then they're just trying to hold on to it from the middle part of the Old Testament, and then they're trying to get back to it at the end of the Old Testament. They're longing for Canaan, but what is Canaan compared to heaven? It's this longing for what Jesus provides. Old covenant shadows point forward to new covenant realities.
Verse 13. And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. All right, so let's try to apply this thing. #3. Embracing new covenant life, embracing new covenant life. Well, first, I hope that I've inspired you to believe that the Old Testament is worth your time. It is a labor of love. It's an ancient document. How many of you have read another book that's over 2000 years old? Not very good. The, the Yale philosophy major, has done it. Not many of us have attempted such a feat. And so it takes a moment to really appreciate what's happening there. But you can do it. People have done it. For generations now, and it's amazing that the Bible is in our language, we can read it. It's very good translations. It's just really amazing what we have. And so I think it's worth it. I think it's worth your time. I think it makes Jesus more beautiful.
But secondly, the thing I want you to see from this passage is that we live in a new covenant reality today, and we can embrace these new covenant realities. Hebrews 8 ends with. The longest quote of the Old Testament and the New. And it's from Jeremiah 31 now. I wouldn't blame you if Jeremiah was one of those books that you hadn't made it to yet, OK? It's, it's a difficult book. Jeremiah was a priest, in the final decades, final years of the kingdom of Judah, before it was taken off into exile. And so Jeremiah, he was called to be a prophet as a priest, and he came and warned the people, you are breaking the covenant with God. You need to repent or catastrophe is going to happen. And he preached for years and years, decades, no one ever listened to him. Sometimes he even did, graphic, like visual representations where he would be down in the mud and trying to get people to listen to him. He just really wanted someone to listen, and no one ever listened to Jeremiah. It was only at the end of his life when his his collection of writings and of prophecies were collected together and put into the book.
But what Jeremiah says in chapter 31 predicts the coming of Christ, and it's the prediction that the new covenant would occur. And so what we read here is from Jeremiah predicting what would happen with Jesus, verse 8, Hebrews chapter 8. For he finds no fault with them when he says, starting this quote from Jeremiah 31, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, both. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant. And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. And this is what he's saying, this is our new covenant realities that we live in today as people have been grafted into the house of Israel through the work of Christ.
This is what he says, I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each and they shall not teach each one his neighbor, and And each one his brothers saying, know the Lord, and they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. And so here's what he's saying. He's saying, one day. God's people will enjoy. The true depth of what we have in Christ, which is marked by two things, forgiveness and intimacy. That's the highlight of this passage, that we have forgiveness and intimacy in Christ.
Forgiveness, verse 12, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. The gospel of Christ is this, that we're all failures under the old covenant, that we've all broken the law, gone our own way, broken the covenant, yet he is faithful, and Jesus came to satisfy the law on our behalf. He paid the substitutionary penalty, which makes a lot more sense if you read the Old Testament, for us, so that we might have life with him. And because of what he's done for us, we don't experience the judgment of God, we experience forgiveness. And that forgiveness, the point of the forgiveness is to lead us to intimacy. Intimacy.
Verse 11. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor, and each one his brother saying know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. This is the promise of Christ, which would been scandalous in Old Testament times, that the even the least to the greatest, not just a man after God's own heart, would know God, but everyone can know God. That is the promise of Christianity, that you can know God. That is what Christ came to do, that you may enjoy fellowship with God as he He enjoys fellowship with God, not at arm's length, but intimate fellowship, as if you were at his right hand, as if you were seated with him on the throne, as if you were taking place in the internal dance that the Holy Spirit and the Son and the Father have been enjoying throughout eternity past and into eternity future.
Christ paid your penalty to bring you into that. That you might know him and experience intimacy with him. And friends, we live in a broken world where you only get that in part today, but one day. You will know it in full. I love how Tim Keller describes a covenant. He says, a covenant is a relationship that is totally binding and yet totally intimate at once. This is your God. This is how he relates with you. This is what he longs for you to enjoy and to participate in. Would you trust him? Would you trust him today? Would you go back to that again?
This book, Hebrews was written to a group of Jewish people who are being tempted to go back to their Jewish faith because they were being persecuted because they were Christians now. And the author of Hebrews, time and again is saying, why would you do that? Even if you're being persecuted, there's so many reasons to be a Christian. And let me just tell you all the beauties of that. And I'll tell you, we're not in the same place. No one here, as far as I know, is tempted to go back to their old Judaism. But you might be tempted to go back to your old way of life, your old ways of finding significance and meaning in your life. You might be tempted to go back to say, you know, I think I just need a little bit more money. I think I just need a little bit more attention. I think I just need, a little bit more love from someone, a little bit more substance. I think my life, I'm not in control of my life. I need my life to be under my control.
And the author of Hebrews again is saying, no, no, no. What Christ has done is better. What Christ has given you is better. And so would you embrace it today? Would you embrace that relationship with him? And when we come to the table, in many of the same ways as we have intimacy with Christ in part now, but we will in full. Today we get in part a taste of the feast that we will enjoy in the kingdom of God. The wedding feast of the Lamb, when the new covenant has been completely restored, when we are in the new heavens and the new earth, we will get to enjoy that intimacy in full.
And so until then, we participate in a sacred meal, being reminded that Christ's body was broken for us and his blood was shed for us. And we come back to this as a physical reminder of the gospel in our hearts. With that being said, I'm going to invite you to stand. You can take communion over the next song at any point you, you would like. Just make your way into the aisle, come down front, then come back to the middle to, to find your seat. Let's pray. We also have some prayer counselors in the back. If you would like to pray with someone today, we'll have someone in the, in the back corner, to pray with you.
Father, as we come to your table today, God, we pray that You would remind us of the intimacy and the power that we can have in Christ, that we would enjoy the, the realities of the new covenant with you. And that you would fill our hearts again. That you would help us to experience, again, a taste of what it means to be with you. In Christ's name we pray, Amen.