Hebrews Lesson 122 April 17, 2008
NKJ Psalm 119:9 How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed
according to Your word.
For the last (I don’t know how long
it’s has been - a good ten or twelve lessons which is probably closer to) 3
months, we’ve been on a little bit of a diversion in studying the whole
doctrine of the New Covenant and how important that is. We use the references
to the New Covenant every month when we celebrate the Lord’s Table. We talk
about Jesus statement at the Last Supper - that “this is the New Covenant of My
blood which is given for you.” We talked about the fact that in many contexts
how the New Covenant has been established and how based on II Corinthians that
Paul said we are ministers of the New Covenant. But, what does that mean?
Somehow we think that we live in the
era of the New Covenant simply because as we look at Scripture we see that the
Scripture is divided into two parts. We usually refer to them as Old Testament
and New Testament, but literally they are identified as the Old Covenant and
New Covenant. So this really draws this distinction between the two. In the
history of doctrine and the history of theology, there have been a variety of
different interpretations as to just exactly what the New Covenant was or is,
when it came into effect, and what its implications are for the Church Age. A
lot of those issues relate to ultimate eschatological framework whether or not
you are post-mill a-mill or pre-millennial. Among those who are pre-millennial
there are different views among those who are dispensational even among those
who are traditional what we would call traditional or classic
dispensationalists which would be the Scofield-Chafer-Walvoord-Ryrie school of
dispensationalism that even those men have held to different positions. So this
is not something that has always been clear; but thankfully because of what
these men have studied and worked through, then we can come to some really good
conclusions as to just exactly what the New Covenant is.
Last week and this week I took the
opportunity as I’ve been going through this study to pull out and go through
some different articles on the New Covenant that I have and some different
things written by some different people. I hadn’t read him in a long time and I’m
at a point now where I never know where I ever learned anything anymore because
I have heard it from so many different people. I went back and in the late 90’s
Dwight Pentecost published - I think it was about his last new significant book
that came out on the kingdom.
As I read his chapter on the New Covenant I thought, “Well, I
can’t find a hairs worth of difference between my view of the New Covenant and
Pentecost’s view of the New Covenant.”
That is probably a good thing, but
what I am saying is some things I’ve done. I have expanded our understanding a
little bit especially when it comes to understanding this whole concept of regeneration as it has been applied to
the New Covenant - what that means; but also in trying to bring a little more
precision into some areas of study. In doing that we went back through all of
the Old Testament passages that are used to reference the New Covenant and the
New Covenant to Israel. We looked at passages in Hosea, then Isaiah, and then
Jeremiah – the key passage in Jeremiah 31 which is the one that’s quoted
here in Hebrews 8:6-8 which is where we are studying in our study of Hebrews
and then on into other citations in Amos, last week Joel 2 and how Joel 2 is
quoted in Acts 2. Last week I felt a little rushed at the end. but I wanted to
connect the Joel 2 passage to Acts 2 because how that is handled. In fact one of the things – you
know sometimes I think I probably end up doing too much; but sometimes the Lord
just dumps stuff on me.
I had not announced this here, but
some of you wouldn’t know this man. A theology professor that Chafer Seminary
has had Dr. John Beck who has done an excellent job teaching theology for
Chafer Seminary for probably the last 12 or 14 years - 67 years old - almost
two weeks ago he had serious stroke; then he went to be with the Lord I think
it was a week ago this last Tuesday. So he was directing studies on I think
four or five different courses one of which was a course on dispensationalism. I
ended getting the nod to pick up that course and continuing the work on that
which isn’t an exceptionally heavy load because it’s only three students
working through material that I’m pretty familiar with.
But one of the students emailed me a
question today and said, “You know I’ve read these three books now on Ryrie’s
book on dispensationalism and a couple of other books and I’m still not really
sure what the difference is between progressive dispensationalism and classic
dispensationalism.”
So I’ve kind of had that floating
around in the back of my head today. But one of the key issues in this debate
between the two in terms of the interpretation of Scripture has to do with
understanding what Peter meant there in Acts 2 when he said:
NKJ Acts 2:16
"But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:
...and how we understand that
prophecy.
I’ve gone through that (I think it
was earlier in the fall.), we looked at the four different ways in which New
Testament writers quote the Old Testament - one of which is where it is just a
matter of application that there may be 5 or 6 different characteristics of the
Old Testament event or prophecy and 5 or 6 different characteristics of the New
Testament event or prophecy and there is only one thing that they’ve got in
common. That’s what the New
Testament writer is saying. Often
we look at it whenever it says, “This is what the prophets – this
fulfills the prophet’s statement. “
We think that it’s one-to-one historical or prophetical correspondence
like Micah 5:2 prophecy that said that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem
and He is literally born in Bethlehem.
But sometimes (and frequently) Old
Testament passages are cited as comparison or analogy or this is like that. How
you take that will affect a lot of your interpretation of the rest of the New
Testament. So we spent time on that and I made that connection last time
between Joel 2. We looked at the Acts 2 quotation there when Peter says - he is
talking about the apostles speaking in tongues. They’re speaking in languages
on the Day of Pentecost. This is simply something he was saying was similar to
the kind of manifestations of the Holy Spirit that were prophesized by the
prophet Joel in relation to the last event prior to the Day of the Lord which
is at the end of the tribulation period.
Then I connected that to Romans 10,
a passage that is one that people get very confused about; the passage that is
often misquoted and misused in numerous evangelistic settings - a passage that
says that if we… I want to quote it correctly, Romans 9 and 10;
NKJ Romans 10:9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your
heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10
For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation.
There are a number of different ways
in which good men interpret this verse and handle this verse that I think
attempt to deal with the context to some degree and at least recognize that
this verse is not saying you have to do two things to be saved - number 1
believe and number 2 make a public confession of your faith. Many people reject
that, but they still come up with two or three different ideas. I have taught
some different interpretations of this as I’ve wrested with it; but where I have
been for at least the last ten years is an understanding of the context of
Romans 9, 10 and 11 where Paul is dealing with the relationship of the current
status of Israel as unsaved in relationship to the righteous demands of God. The
whole book of (the whole epistle of) Romans is written to show the necessity of
God’s righteousness being kept – the integrity of God’s righteousness
being kept inviolate. And so that’s why there is this reference here “believing
unto righteousness” because of what is said it the first two or three verses of
that chapter.
But the quotation there again is a
quotation that comes out of Joel 2 that whoever calls on the name of the Lord
shall be saved. This is such an important concept to understand this because as
soon as Americans (who have been so trained in revivalist terminology coming
out of the early 19th century) that as soon as you see the word
“saved”, you think in terms of phase one salvation and being saved from the
penalty of sin which we would call justification-salvation. But if “saved” here
which is the Greek word sozo
refers to justification-salvation in my opinion this is the first time in the
book of Romans that it refers to justification – salvation. Paul usually
uses the word sozo
in Romans to refer to phase three glorification or physical deliverance. He
never uses it as a synonym for justification because he has three chapters on
justification and he doesn’t want to get people confused on the terminology.
James is the same way. When you get to James 2, it talks about what’s the
relationship of faith to works.
Someone has faith and not works, can that faith save him? When he uses
that phrase, can that phrase save him?
He’s not using “saved” there as justification-salvation. He is talking
about phase 2 salvation. So we have to be very careful not to make knee-jerk
interpretations just because we see the word “saved” that it means being saved
from eternal condemnation and receiving eternal life.
The quote from Joel 2 in Romans
10:13 as I pointed out last time gives us an interpretive key for this passage
that it’s not talking about justification-salvation because the time when the
Jews will call on the name of the Lord to be saved according to Joel 2 is what
happens when they have escaped to the area around modern Petra or Basra--that
area over across the Dead Sea where they flee during the Tribulation. We’ve
studied those passages on Sunday morning in Revelation 11. In Revelation 12
where the woman who is Israel flees into the wilderness and is protected by God
for 1,230 days which is that 3 1/2 year period during the Tribulation. So it’s
at the end of that period that they call upon the name of the Lord to be
physically delivered. If you understand physical deliverance there and this is
the ultimate physical deliverance of Israel, that fits the context of what Paul
is talking about in Romans 9, 10, and 11 that there is a remnant; but
eventually there will be deliverance for Israel. So this is exactly what
happens and I pointed this out last time went to Romans 11 and this shows the
ultimate deliverance of Israel that’s covered in Romans 11:25-26.
NKJ Romans 11:25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that
blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has
come in.
NKJ Romans 11:26 And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
"The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness
from Jacob;
..that in this manner all Israel will
be saved. Manner is described in the second half of verse 26 which is a quote
from Isaiah 59:20.
NKJ Isaiah 59:20 " The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those
who turn from transgression in Jacob," Says the LORD.
NKJ Isaiah 59:21 "As for Me," says the LORD, "this is My covenant with them:
This is when that New Covenant is
established with Israel. Now if you turn with me from Romans 11 back to Isaiah
60 - remember that quote comes out of Isaiah 59 and there is a whole connection
there between what God is doing and the Messiah. Isaiah 59 describes this deliverance from God that in Isaiah
59 talking about how their iniquities separated them from God and their sins
are hidden from Him so that He will not hear. Then it continues to identify the
causes of their condemnation in the latter part of that section down through
verse 8.
NKJ Isaiah 59:9 Therefore justice is far from us, Nor does
righteousness overtake us; We look for light, but there is darkness! For
brightness, but we walk in blackness!
They are groping for truth.
NKJ Isaiah 59:10 We grope for the wall like the blind, And we grope as
if we had no eyes; We stumble at
noonday as at twilight; We are as
dead men in desolate places.
Their transgressions are
multiplied.
NKJ Isaiah 59:12 For our transgressions are multiplied before You, And
our sins testify against us; For our transgressions are with us, And as for our
iniquities, we know them:
NKJ Isaiah 59:13 In transgressing and lying against the LORD, And departing from our God,
Speaking oppression and revolt, Conceiving and uttering from the heart words of
falsehood.
…indicating that they are far from
salvation.
Then starting at the second half of
15 and 16 talks about their Redeemer who will come and redeem them.
NKJ Isaiah 59:15 So truth fails, And he who departs
from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there
was no justice.
NKJ Isaiah 59:16 He saw that there
was no man, And wondered that there
was no intercessor; Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him; And
His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
In verse 20 we read:
NKJ Isaiah 59:20 " The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those
who turn from transgression in Jacob," Says the LORD.
NKJ Isaiah 59:21 "As for Me," says the LORD, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon you, and My words which I have
put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your
descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants," says
the LORD, "from this time and forevermore."
… indicating that that is clearly a
New Covenant passage.
Chapter 60 then will describe how
the Messiah is going to come and the Messiah is going to come and deliver them
in that chapter and 61 relates to the Millennial Kingdom.
So, all of this connects these
things together. So what I wanted to do tonight before we wrap up with our
final look at a couple of New Testament passages is to go through a very quick
summary in terms of what we studied in terms of the New Covenant.
So we’re going to start the summary
and I’ve got 18 points. So we are going to fly through these because they are
very familiar to you. But, I want to pull it together for you so you don’t
forget this and it’s not just a bunch of loose ends.
NKJ Revelation 11:13 In the same hour there was a great earthquake, and a
tenth of the city fell. In the earthquake seven thousand people were killed,
and the rest were afraid and gave glory to the God of heaven.
That’s a lot of “all the rest” people. The view that most people have of
the Tribulation is this is a time when massive numbers of unbelievers die and
the caricature that you get from the covenant camp and the caricature you get
from anybody who is anti-dispensational is we just want to kill everybody and
God is this harsh, evil God killing all of humanity in the tribulation period.
But what you find and I’ll be pointing out as we go through Revelation is just
the enormous number of people that are saved in the period of the
Tribulation. For example (and
we’ll spend some time on this when we get there but) in the seal judgments in
the fifth seal judgment in Revelation 6 there is this picture that John has of
an altar in heaven and underneath the altar all these souls that have been
slain for the Word of God.
NKJ Revelation 6:9 When He opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those
who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held.
NKJ Revelation 6:10 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, "How
long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood on those who
dwell on the earth?"
And God basically says, “You got to wait awhile.”
Then in chapter 7 after the 144,000 are saved and as we’ll see the
events in chapter 7 take place in heaven at the same time the seal judgments
are going on upon the earth and answer the question: how can anybody survive
these seal judgments?
There is a fascinating passage in Revelation 7:9 where John writes:
NKJ Revelation 7:9 After these things I looked, and behold, a great
multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and
tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white
robes, with palm branches in their hands,
How many are there? These are the martyrs. These are not Church Age
believers or believers of all time because Old Testament saints haven’t been
resurrected yet. Church Age believers are already raptured and rewarded. These
are the ones who come out from the Tribulation. These are the martyrs.
How many are there? They’re without number. Now that doesn’t mean a big,
big number because if you look a couple of chapters later in Revelation 9 when
you come to the 6th trumpet judgment there is a 200-million demon
army that is released from under the Euphrates. Now 200 million is a whole lot,
but it’s not a number that no one can count because you can count up to 200
million. So we know that 200 million is a number that is smaller contextually
than those who are saved who are so many that you can’t count the number. So
that tells you just by the way John uses numbers in Revelation that the number
of martyrs that get saved out of the Tribulation is beyond 200 million. That’s
a whole lot of folks that are going to receive the grace of God and benefit
from the mercy of God during the tribulation period. So during the Tribulation
many, many Jews are going to be saved, not just the 144,000 and not just those
in Jerusalem but among the millions if not billions that are saved on the
planet during the tribulation period.
NKJ Zechariah 12:10 " And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of
Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom
they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.
They
will understand what it is that they have done.
NKJ Ezekiel 36:27 "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My
statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
And Joel 2:28-29 the pouring forth of the new Spirit at the end of the
Tribulation:
NKJ Joel 2:28 "
And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all
flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream
dreams, Your young men shall see visions.
NKJ Joel 2:28 "
And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all
flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream
dreams, Your young men shall see visions.
There is one other passage we really
didn’t look at in any kind of detail. I just want to allude to it very briefly.
It’s in II Thessalonians 2, one of the great chapters on the Antichrist that we
will be getting into in our study of Revelation because we are first introduced
to the person we call the Antichrist in the first seal judgment. The rider of
the white horse is a depiction of God’s revealing the Antichrist and enabling
him to take power. Then you get into II Thessalonians 2 there is an interesting
chronology that’s given. One of the things that occurs is that we read in verse
3:
NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day
…which is the Day of the Lord.
will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of
sin is revealed, the son of perdition,
Most English translations translate
this word “the falling away.” The word that is used there “for the falling
away” is the Greek word apostosia
which is often understood to be apostasy. That’s why they translate it “falling
away”. The core semantic meaning for apostosia means to depart. It refers to a departure. When
it’s applied to doctrine it is a departure for truth, i.e. apostasy. But, it’s
used in other examples - for example of a ship departing from port and other
places. So it has been argued by numerous scholars that the more accurate
interpretation or translation here should be “Let no one deceive you by any
means for that day will not come unless the departure comes first.”
See if it’s falling that must come
first, then we have a sign of the rapture that there must be a great end times
apostasy before the Lord can come back at the rapture. That would violate the doctrine of
immanency. But we have the departure coming first. That departure is the
departure of the church, which is the rapture. So the departure comes first and
then the man of sin is revealed. So you and I may see someone who will become
the Antichrist, but we won’t know it because he won’t be revealed as such until
after the departure takes place, which is the rapture. The man of sin, which is
just another title of the Antichrist, is one who opposes and exalts himself
above all.
NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called
God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God. 5 Do you not remember that when I was still
with you I told you these things?
6
And now you know what is restraining,
Key word – restraining.
that he may be revealed in his own time.
“That he may be revealed” in talking
about the revealing of the Antichrist.
Paul says in verse 7:
NKJ 2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work;
only He who now restrains will do so until
He is taken out of the way.
The one who now restrains is the
Holy Spirit. He is the restrainer of evil. As long as the Church Age is here
(as long as Church Age believers are on the planet), there is the presence of
the Holy Spirit who is restraining evil and holding things back until He is
taken out of the way. But once the restrainer is removed (once the Holy Spirit
is removed because of the rapture) when the rapture occurs, believers who are
here in the tribulation period won’t be indwelt with the Holy Spirit (won’t be
baptized by the Holy Spirit) because that is a characteristic of the Church
Age. They’re not going to be in Christ because there is no baptism of the Holy
Spirit; there is no filling of the Holy Spirit. It goes back to an Old
Testament type of dynamic in relationship to the Holy Spirit so that
Tribulation believers don’t have the Holy Spirit. That is why there is this
remarkable transformation that will take place at the end of the Tribulation
when Jesus returns and the Holy Spirit is poured out on Israel. That’s part why
they have such a sudden realization of what they have done. They will receive
the Holy Spirit and He will make these things very clear to them
instantaneously. So in the New Covenant promises future indwelling of the Holy
Spirit…it’s not part of the spiritual life of the Tribulation. It will be part
of the spiritual life of the millennium and the manifestations of the Holy
Spirit in the Millennial Kingdom are going to be greater than they are in the
spiritual life of the Church Age believer.
NKJ Luke 22:20 Likewise He also took
the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is shed for you.
All you can get from that verse is
that His death on the cross is establishing, is laying the foundation you might
say, for His new covenant – for the new covenant that is in His blood
I Corinthians 11:25 is when Paul’s
explanation of this to the Corinthians. He quotes from the Luke passage. He
says:
NKJ 1 Corinthians 11:25 In the same manner He also took the cup
after supper, saying, "This cup is the
new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of
Me."
So those are two of the references
in the New Testament to the New Covenant.
Now in Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24
– those are the parallel synoptic gospel passages for the Lord’s Table.
The statement is recorded in a little bit different form. In those two accounts
the statement is recorded.
NKJ Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which
is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Now remember I pointed out on Sunday
morning that sometimes in the reading of the gospels in parallel passages, you
will read and it looks like a discrepancy. Did He say, “This is My blood which
is given for you?” Did He say, “This cup is the new covenant of my blood.” Or
did He say, “This is my blood of the new covenant”? Which did He say? Well, he
could have said both. See, Jesus didn’t say everything in these quick little sentences.
You see the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew and you see the same sermon given in
Luke, but He is giving it on the plain. There are differences. It’s just like
you have heard me give the Doctrine of Eternal Security let’s say in 8 or 10
different series. Every time you hear it, it may be 90% the same and 10%
different. Jesus did the same thing. He didn’t just teach one thing one time. He
taught one thing many times, many places. So the writers of Scripture would
draw from perhaps different times when He taught it. So these aren’t
contradictions, they are - sometimes Jesus said 5 sentences. When He is quoted
by one author they quote two of the sentences and then the other author quotes
another two sentences. Jesus used a lot of repetition which any good teacher
would do. So in the Matthew passage and the Mark passage the emphasis is placed
on the soteriological aspects of the covenant. This is in the structure of the
sentence.
NKJ Matthew 26:28 "For this is My blood of the new covenant, which
is shed for many for the remission of sins.
…emphasizing the soteriological
aspect necessary for the forgiveness of sins where as in the Luke 22 passage
and the I Corinthians 11 passage there is an emphasis on the eschatological or
the prophetic part of it. Remember,
before this Jesus says:
NKJ Matthew 26:29 "But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from
now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's
kingdom."
So He is saying that as He drinks
cup the next time He drinks wine (drinks the cup) with His disciples it will be
when the kingdom is established. So there is that prophetic aspect to it that
causes us…not only the Matthew passage causes us to look back to the cross when
the covenant is established, the Luke quotation and Paul’s statement in I
Corinthians 11 force us to think in terms of a future fulfillment of that new
covenant.
The same thing happened with the
Exodus. The Exodus event was a memorial to God’s deliverance in the past in
1446 BC. But at the same time the elements – the Passover lamb, the
unleavened bread those elements looked forward to and were types of the future
Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world. So there is a past and a
future element to the Passover and a past and a future element to the New
Covenant. So the New Covenant was understood there to be a future fulfillment.
Now the next passage that people go
to that seems to be the one that everybody has trouble with is II Corinthians
3:6. So why don’t you just turn with me to II Corinthians 3 and we’ll pick up
the context. (We wouldn’t want to be guilty of taking the text out of the
context and being left with a con job.) Again Paul in II Corinthians has to
deal with this attack on his personal credentials and his apostolic ministry
that he is a true and genuine apostle. He says:
NKJ 2 Corinthians 3:1 Do we begin again to commend ourselves? Or do we need, as some others,
epistles of commendation to you or letters
of commendation from you?
I remind you I talked about this
several weeks ago when I looked at II Corinthians 12 and the thorn of the flesh
that there you have the use of the word boasting about…I don’t know 12, 13, or
14 times. It is heavy usage in those two chapters because Paul is finally going
to give some credentials.
But the reason he is pressured into
that is because these Judaizers (these false teachers) are following him around
and they say, “Look at all we’ve done.
We’ve had all these miracles and we’ve had all these signs and wonders
and that establishes us. We’ve done this and we’ve done that so you need to follow
us. What has Paul done? He doesn’t have any letters of commendation. Where did
he go to seminary? Where is his resume?” That is essentially what they’re
asking. Paul never focused on what he had done or what he had accomplished
because he made the focus Jesus Christ and the cross. So that is what he is
referring to here.
He says, “I don’t need to commend
myself or my ministry. That’s not the focal point.” He says, “If you want
validation look at the ministry, the effect of my ministry in your life.”
NKJ 2 Corinthians 3:2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;
3 clearly you are
an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the
Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.
4
And we have such trust through Christ toward God.
5
Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think of anything as being from ourselves, but our
sufficiency is from God,
6
who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter
but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.
So he talks about the fact that he
is a minister of the New Covenant. Then he goes on to talk about this in these
subsequent verses. But the point that he is making is that as an apostle what
he is doing is applying to those who become believers in this age, the gospel
that comes from the sacrifice that is made on the cross. That sacrifice is what
is the basis for the New Covenant. The New Covenant is established and enacted
with Israel. By virtue of that covenant though, there is blessing by
association to Gentiles and to all the world. That is what God had promised to
Abraham - that all the world would be blessed through him. So that blessing
comes through Christ who is the other party of the New Covenant, and we as
Church Age believers are in Him and by virtue of our position in Him and in
relationship to Him we partake of certain New Covenant blessings. That’s
exactly what the writer of Hebrews does.
So let’s turn as we get ready to get
back into our study of Hebrews 8 proper, let’s go back and connect this very
quickly. In the first part of Hebrews 8, the writer of Hebrews (We don’t know
who it was; it wasn’t Paul) now this is the main point of the things that we
are saying.
NKJ Hebrews 8:1 Now this is the
main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is
seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,
He has made the pointing in chapter
7 that when there is a change in priesthood, there is a change in covenant. The
covenant is the legal structure that establishes the spiritual life aspects of
a particular dispensation. So what the writer has been arguing is that the
priesthood related to the old covenant was related to a physical qualification,
being genetically related to Aaron and being a Levitical priest. But that priesthood was limited in time
because the old covenant was limited in time. And there had to be a new
covenant that would establish a new priesthood (a Melchizedekean based high
priesthood.) That is the basis for Jesus Christ’s high priestly ministry. So He
is a high priest based on the New Covenant and we as Church Age believers have
a priesthood. Our believer priesthood is related to Jesus Christ’s high priesthood.
So that’s how we connect to the New Covenant; not because there’s a New
Covenant with the church, but because the Church Age believers have a unique
position in Christ. In Him Paul says in Ephesians 1:3:
NKJ Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places
in Christ,
So this is connected not to a direct
covenant with us, but in terms of our position being in Christ. Then back in
Hebrews 8:6 we read:
NKJ Hebrews 8:6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry,
inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on
better promises.
This brings up for his thinking the
fact that New Covenant is what’s in effect and leads him to quote from Jeremiah
31. His whole point is simply to show that New Covenant implies that the old
covenant was temporary. Now we looked at verse 8 and verse 7 says:
NKJ Hebrews 8:7 For if that first covenant
had been faultless,
It wasn’t.
then no place
would have been sought for a second.
That begins the quote at the
beginning of verse 8. This is the quote from Jeremiah 31:31-34. If you look in
your Bible, in my Bible the quotations from the Old Testament are in italics. So
Jeremiah 31:31-34 is quoted verbatim word-for-word all the way down through
verse 12. We’ve already covered all of that in our study of Jeremiah
31:31.
So the writer of Hebrews quotes the
whole - all four verses from the Old Testament. Then he makes his point. Notice
what he does in verse 13. He says:
NKJ Hebrews 8:13 In that He says, "A new covenant,"
He doesn’t exegete anything else in
the passage. He says:
He has made the
first obsolete.
That’s all he’s saying. He’s not
saying that anything else in that passage applies. He’s saying, “The only thing
I want you to pay attention to is that he calls it a new covenant.” The
terminology “new” means that the covenant it replaces was never intended to be
permanent.
Now what is
becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
…the whole Levitical priesthood the
whole temple ministry all of that, what is becoming obsolete and growing old is
ready to vanish away. When is it going to vanish away? When the Temple is
destroyed in 70 AD which is just a short time from when this is written. This
is written in the early 60’s probably. So that pulls all this together on the
New Covenant and this establishes our foundation from the Old Testament to
understand why he is going to go into the things he is going to go into in
chapter 9.
The first thing he is going to start
with is dealing with the tabernacle. So we will be taking the next several
months to go back through Exodus, Leviticus dealing with the tabernacle,
dealing with the sacrifices, the offerings, all of those things to understand
that so we can at least appreciate what it is that the writer of Hebrews is
saying to these former Levitical priests who are now believers and the
implication of those things. So that concludes our diversion into the New
Covenant in preparation for our exposition and development of Hebrews 9.
So let’s bow our heads in closing
prayer.