Christianity - A New And Better Covenant Series

Christianity – A New and Better Covenant

This Covenant has a better Priest (7:1-17, 7:20-8:5)

Jesus’ Priesthood cannot be destroyed by…

…Death (7:23-25) …Sin (7:26-28)

This Covenant has a better Hope (7:18 – 19)

This Covenant has better Promises (8:6 – 13)

Unconditional Promises vs. Conditional Promises

This Covenant has a better Sacrifice (9:1-10:18)

Slide

In the letter of Hebrews we have been going through, God has used the author to address some important things that were hindering the Hebrew Christians in their spiritual maturity and some who were in the church that were not yet Christians from truly receiving Christ as Savior.

But in today’s society, we read this sometimes and think,

“Well, since I am not Jewish, this has no bearing on me.”

But that is far from the truth as I hope to help us see today as we talk about the better Covenant offered by Christianity.

The coming of Christ brought forth a new and better covenant for the People of God.

When we say new Covenant, we recognize that there was an Old Covenant this was the Covenant that was made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai, the covenant of the Law.

Now this Old Covenant had conditions for God’s people to obey.

We read about this in

Exodus 19:5

5 Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.

We see some of the conditions and results of obeying or not obeying.

Deuteronomy 30:15-18

15 See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. 16 For I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.

17 But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, 18 I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed. You will not live long in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

These were the provisions of the Old Covenant.

Obeying God resulted in blessing and

Disobeying Him brought curses.

Now in this Old Covenant there were priests and sacrifices and promises that went along with the covenant.

This is how things operated before the New Covenant in Christ came into being but these things were a picture, a foreshadowing of the fulfillment that Christ would bring into all of these areas.

So we are going to look at why this new Covenant in Christ’s blood is new and better than the Old Covenant and in fact better than any psudeo covenant that we as a society may be following.

We are going to look at Hebrews 7-10

Slide

I will not read the whole thing to you right now, but as we go through, we will read selected portions to examine what the author was trying to tell the Hebrews and what application we can take from this.

The first thing about the new covenant in Christ’s blood was that

The New Covenant has a better Priest

Slide

Through most of chapter 7, the author talks to the Hebrews about the Priesthood of Jesus.

One of the questions that the Hebrews had is how can Jesus be a priest since he descended from Judah and not Levi.

Priest because of Regulation or Indestructible Life

Well, the author tells us that Jesus is a Priest in the order of Melchizadek and is a better priest than any of the Levitical priests because, as it says in Hebrews 7:16, they were priests on the basis of a regulation about their ancestry, but Jesus was a priest on the basis of an indestructible life.

So,

Jesus’ Priesthood cannot be destroyed by…

… Death

Slide

The Old Covenant had different High Priests because they would die and have to be replaced.

Hebrews 7:23-25

23 Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; 24 but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. 25 Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

But Jesus overcame death and always lives to intercede for us. He will never be replaced.

But not only can it not be destroyed by death.

Jesus’ Priesthood cannot be destroyed by…

…by Sin

Slide

Hebrews 7:26-28

26 Such a high priest meets our need-one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests men who are weak; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.