The Better Covenant

The Better Covenant
Hebrews 8

While the Old Covenant was a physical covenant which required physical observances, the New Covenant is spiritual and while the observances have changed somewhat; they are both spiritual and physical. The Old Covenant was a shadow of things to come, or we could say that it is a shadow of a New Covenantal reality. The High Priest that we’ve been studying about is Jesus and we have compared Him to the Old Covenant high priests who were sinners trying to do the work of God.

In today’s lesson we are going to look at our High Priest who has ushered in a New Covenant and then we will compare that with the Old Covenant. We will look at why the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant and discuss why the Old Covenant is obsolete.
First of all, I want to draw your attention to Hebrews 8:11. Listen to what it says. “And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”

I am going to let that there and we will come back to that later to discuss that, but keep that in mind as we go along through the rest of the lesson.

Meanwhile, back in Hebrews 8:1 the author is asking us for a review. So back to chapter 1 of Hebrews and on.

Up to this point we talked about:
The various ways that God speaks to mankind
The Glory of the Son
We compared Jesus to the Angels and Jesus was better
The various warnings that were given up to this point
Jesus being perfect in suffering
We compared Jesus to Moses as an Apostle and Jesus was better
The various types of rest that God has given to Mankind
The Priesthood of Melchizedec
We compared the Priesthood of Melchizedec to the Aaronic Priesthood and the Priesthood of Melchizedec was better.
We talked about Who Melchizedec is and why Jesus can take on Melchizedec’s Priesthood
The Oath that God swore to Abraham
The swearing of oaths

All these things add up to one thing, we have a high priest setting on the right hand of Our Majestic Lord. Psalm 24

A Better High Priest

We go right from acknowledging the placement of our risen Christ to describing His ministry. The word minister in verse 2 of Chapter 8 is Leitourgos which means public servant. This word actually has deeper meaning than just a public servant though and we want to look at its deeper definition. It gets broken down to public servant in the Temple or Gospel and a worshipper of God and a benefactor of man. This is not necessarily the definition across the board wherever minister is used, but in this verse it is. This word Leitourgos is also where we get our word Liturgy.

Going on to the word sanctuary the Greek word is Hagion (Hag`-ee-on). The definition of Hagion is Holy Place, or Holiest of All or Sacred thing. Based on the definition of this word and by dissecting the word we understand that Sanctuary has been Sanctified by the presence of God.

The next word we want to look at is tabernacle. The word tabernacle in Hebrews 8:2 is Skene (Skeenee) and means tent or cloth hut. Literally it means habitation. With this in mind let’s read Hebrews 8:2 again and see how that sounds. “A minister of the Sanctuary, and of the true Tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man.” So breaking this verse apart using the Greek to give meaning to the words that have been used, we start to see something that would help us to understand this verse.

The context of this is: Our High Priest who is defined by His position at the throne of our Majestic God, is a Public Servant to the extent He draws man’s heart to God; through His serving in the place that has been Sanctified by Himself, making it a Holy Place in the living quarters that was set up by God. So the true Tabernacle is a place designed and pitched (or put into existence) by God. We can draw from this a conclusion that The True Tabernacle of God is not the Tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites built, but one that God built.

1 Corinthians 6:19, 20
Romans 12:1, 2
Jude 24, 25

The Tabernacle is the heart of man that God has bought with a price (His own Blood) and has Sanctified it by a continued renewing of our minds making our hearts holy and unblameable before Him, allowing Him to Dwell (Tabernacle) with us. Just as the Shekinah Glory came and rested on the physical tabernacle that Moses and the Israelites set up, God’s Shekinah Glory can rest on the Tabernacle that He so intricately has set up and purified.

The high priests under the Old Covenant were ordained by God to offer gifts and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people. This High Priest, who sits on the right hand of the throne of Majesty has offered His own sacrifices and gifts to God on behalf of mankind.

Ephesians 5:2

The High Priest here in Hebrews 8 is set at the right hand of Majesty. His work is complete. The high priests would not sit so long as they were in the tabernacle made under the Old Covenant because their work was never finished as long as they were in it. Jesus as our High Priest has finished His work of offerings and gifts to God, thus He is set down.

Exodus 25:40
Revelation 21:22

The Old Covenant was a shadow of heavenly things, and its key distinguishing feature was to bring men to Christ.

A Better Covenant

Jesus has a better ministry than the Levitical priests did due to the fact that He is a Better High Priest and has initiated a New Covenant which produces better promises.

The Old Covenant could deal with man’s faults by pointing them out, but did nothing to correct the faultiness of the heart. It was all about the physical relationship with God, keeping in touch with the sacrifices and methods of worship. They were promised under the Old Covenant that God would bless them physically with wealth, and health if they would keep His ways.

The New Covenant, not only was able to deal with the faults of mankind, but was able to correct the faultiness of the heart of man through a re-creation of the heart. God promises blessings which are not physical, but are spiritual. Consider the Peace, the Joy, the Hope, the Power to Live Above Sin, the Restored Relationship, and the Everlasting Life that God has promised to all who receive His gift of Salvation.

The Old Covenant was not without fault but served the purpose of helping people to understand their need of a Savior. When Jesus, our Savior came, He mediated a New Covenant which offered better promises.

Hebrews 8:8 Gives the promise that God would make a new covenant with Israel; offering them the Better Covenant. He goes on to clarify saying “Not according to the covenant that I had made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to lead them out of the Land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not”.

Jeremiah 31:31-34
Zechariah 8:7,8
Isaiah 54:13

This New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant for more than one reason, but I want to draw your minds to something that is noteworthy. The Old Covenant was written on tablets of stone while the New Covenant is written on the Fleshy tables of the heart. Instead of the Law of God being on some piece of stone hidden away in the Ark of the Covenant, the Law of God becomes incorporated into the heart of man, the Ark of the New Covenant and the New Mercy Seat. The Mercy Seat is the Throne of God where He reigns over your life under the New Covenant.

Now as we move on to verse 11, What have we set the stage for?
Does this mean that Christian teachers have wasted their time in teaching in the church? Does this mean that the time of discipleship is over? This is not how the Early Church felt, and the Apostles as well as other leaders in the church took time out to teach. One of the gifts that is mentioned is the gift of being a teacher. So then, what does this mean?

First of all, lets look at the New Covenant. If the New Covenant allows for mankind to have the laws of that covenant written on their heart, and allows God to reside in their heart (the Ark of The New Covenant); then it is evident that those who have accepted the terms of this covenant know who God is even if it is a basic knowledge. God’s ways are past finding out so we will never on this side of death understand God completely.

A New Covenant

Psalm 103:1-22
The joys of knowing your sins have been forgiven is something that under the Old Covenant they never could truly experience. Sure, they made sacrifices for atonement for their sins; but it was just a temporary fix for them. Every year they had to make the trek as heads of households and all of Israel if they could to Jerusalem to make yet another atonement for their sins.

Now that the New Covenant has been issued, the Old Covenant is gone. This does not mean that it is of no value, but that it has no hold over us. Hebrew 8:13 describes it as decaying preparing to vanish away. What then is the point of including the Old Covenant in our Biblical Canon? As we strive to learn more about God and the plan that He has set up for mankind the text of the Old Covenantal agreement has value in helping us to understand some key points about God. It is of great value to see how God has worked with mankind in the past.

For what it is worth, I want to just give you something to think about. There is a group of professing Christians, who believe that God wants them to re-instate the Old Covenant ways of worship and living including returning to animal sacrifices. Every once in a while this doctrine pops up and I just wanted to make you aware of it. What then does it mean if you return to the Old Covenant ways of doing things? It means you have rejected Jesus Christ your Savior and the New Covenant.

Psalm 101:1-6