“But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.” NASB
“But the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises.” NIV
1. Better ministry 2. Better covenant 3. Better promises 4. Better mediator.
As I surveyed the content of this chapter and began to formulate in my mind the things to be said from it, I was concerned at first because I felt I had already said much of what is here in previous sermons and I didn’t want to bog you down with much repetition.
Then I went back to the beginning and realized that precisely what the writer himself has done is to recap. This is a synopsis of the first seven chapters of HEBREWS.
“Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.” 8:1-2
The key verse of the chapter though, is verse 6, and we will use that verse as a pivot point as we reconfirm things the author has laid out for us.
“But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.”
SHADOWS VS REALITY
We have had several opportunities recently, in our discussions even in contexts apart from our HEBREWS study, to observe that the things of the Old Testament consisted of shadows of what was to come in the New.
When we are focusing on what we call the ‘types’ we agree that the very lives of the ancients were foreshadowing what would later be fulfilled in God’s plan of redemption.
We have talked about the numerous types or shadows of the Gospel that were played out just in the deliverance of the Children of Israel from Egypt. I refer to these only as an example for clarification of what I am saying here.
There was the blood on the lintel, doorposts and at the basin of the doors of the Israelites’ homes that looking back, we see as a type of the cross. The people were instructed to stay inside once the blood was applied, and eat of the roasted Passover lamb and the other elements of the meal, each of which had some symbolic application to Christ and His atoning death for us. Then they were led out in the morning by Moses, himself a type of Christ as the redeemer of his people leading them out of bondage and into a new life, and so forth.
Well, the writer to the HEBREWS has told us in verse 5 of our text that the priests and the Temple and the implements there for worship and the form of worship itself were copies and shadows of heavenly things.
The priests themselves, in the performance of their duties in the Temple, were shadows. They were types of Christ, who was the fulfillment of the types.
When we read verse 5 we see that the admonition of the Lord to Moses is quoted from Exodus 25, warning the prophet that in the construction of the tabernacle and all articles of worship, the altar, the laver, the tools found inside the holy place and so on, were to be made precisely according to what Moses was shown while on the mountain, meeting with God.
The reason was that they were to serve as shadows of things not seen by the eyes of men, and since they were representations of heavenly things they were to be precise representations of what was above.
The point the author is making though, is that all these things, the priests, the tabernacle and later the Temple, all the items found there and the forms of worship themselves, were inadequate. Although they served as tutors, pointing to the fulfillment that would come in Christ, they could never be the reality.
Therefore, when the reality came, when the types were fulfilled and all things symbolized finished in the perfect work of the eternal High Priest of Heaven, there was no longer any need for the shadows. There was no need any longer for the tutor.
The veil covering the Holy of Holies was torn from the top to the bottom at the death of Jesus on the cross, meaning it was God Himself who tore it, and because of the finished work of Christ man and God were now reconciled and there was no longer any need for playacting.
Now I use that word, ‘playacting’, not to insinuate that the priests of old were not sincere in the function of their duties, but because everything they did amounted to a sort of stage play, mimicking the reality that Messiah would fulfill.
When John the Apostle had the scrolls of his revelation on Patmos disbursed to the churches the style of his writing indicated they were meant to be acted out like stage plays. The specific symbolism used consisted of figures familiar to the Jewish and Christian community, and they would have understood what he was telling them, while on-looking Romans and other Gentile unbelievers would not.
This serves as a good illustration of God’s purpose in the establishment of the Jewish order of worship, beginning with the giving of the Law all the way through to the specific instructions for washings, sacrifices, offerings, schedules, feast days and so on.
Those who were eagerly awaiting and looking for the coming of Messiah, attending and observing all the rituals of the Temple being performed for them understood what these things signified.
Those who were true worshipers from the heart carried out their religious exercises knowing they were looking for something better.
They may not have understood the details, any more than we who study Revelation can discern from what is there all the details of the Second Coming and the Millennial reign of Christ on earth. But we understand enough to know what it is all pointing to and we wait with eager anticipation for the fulfilling of it all, in faith trusting that since God knows the details all will be done perfectly and according to His omniscient will.
A BETTER MINISTRY
Having said all of that, here is the application I want to make for you and for me and for all true Christ-followers everywhere.
If we were to say that the shadows have become reality and stop there, we would not be helped. To say that Christ by His atoning work on Calvary’s cross and His resurrection has fulfilled all the types and shadows and brought in the new covenant is really only relating historical fact.
There are many who know these truths and have never responded to them in faith for salvation. I have worked many a shift in jails and I can attest that most inmates can verbalize the Gospel message because they’ve heard it so many times from prison chaplains, visiting preachers, Christian family members and the plethora of tracts and pocket New Testaments that jails get filled up with; but few believe. And this is true in most other circles of society. Very few cultural groups go long without being exposed in some fashion to the Gospel message. But hearing is not necessarily believing.
I must be quick to add here, however, that unbelief is not exclusively the condition of the unchurched. Many people who are in the church approach their religion in a way that needn’t involve faith at all.
Christ is the substance of the shadow- the fulfillment of the type – but if there is not a regenerative work in the religious adherent then Christ is no benefit to him or her at all.
But you see, the very thing that makes the ministry of Christ better than the ministry of the old covenant is that whereas the Law could only command from without but could not change within, the ministry of our High Priest changes within and writes the Law on hearts of flesh.
Hence, verse 10, where Jeremiah is quoted:
“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE.”
There are Biblical examples of people who understood the difference between law and grace. This is not a New Testament concept.
David is a prime example. He was king. When confronted by Nathan about his adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, he had a choice to make. He could have banished Nathan from his presence and told him to mind his own business. He could have had Nathan beheaded or locked away in a dungeon to rot. He also could have gone to the priests and offered sacrifices of repentance to cover his sins and then just gone on with life.
But here he was, a liar, a murderer, an adulterer, yet God called him a ‘man after My own heart’ because David understood grace. He knew God by heart. He knew that God was the heart-changer, not religious ritual.
He pleaded, “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness; According to the greatness of my Thy compassion blot out my transgression.”
He confessed, “Against Thee, Thee only, I have sinned, and done what is evil in Thy sight.”
He acknowledged, “For Thou dost not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; Thou art not pleased with burnt offering.”
He declared, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart.”
By the same token, there are those in the church who have this heart to heart relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and there are those still depending on their religious piety to garner and maintain favor with God.
The ministry of Jesus is better than the ministry of religious ritual, my friends, and the difference is of eternal significance, because one is dead and the other brings life.
BETTER COVENANT, BETTER PROMISES
Now I want to talk about why the new covenant in Christ is better than the old covenant based on Law. In a nutshell, it is because it is based on better promises. Let’s read verses 7 and the first part of 8.
“For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them,…”
Now just stop right there. When the writer says, ‘For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second’, the obvious implication is that the first was not faultless. Therefore, there was fault.
But then we read, ‘For finding fault with them…’
He did not say ‘it’, but ‘them’. Who was the ‘them’? It was the people to whom the old covenant was given. What did God tell Moses well in advance of their apostasy?
“For when I bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey, which I swore to their fathers, and they have eaten and are satisfied and become prosperous, then they will turn to other gods and serve them, and spurn Me and break My covenant.” Deut 31:20
Anything dependant on the faithfulness of men will eventually fail. The old covenant said over and over, ‘if you will, then I will’. But they did not, even when they promised they would. They were unfaithful and broke the terms of the covenant at every turn.
In contrast, and by the way, remember that we’re reading the prophet Jeremiah here, so the people who heard him had no excuse and they could not say that they did not know the new covenant was coming – they should not have rejected it when it came – but notice the wording of it, which makes it a better covenant based on better promises.
In verse 8 God says, “I will effect a new covenant”
In verse 10 God says, “This is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel”
In verse 10 God says, “I will put My laws into their minds”
In verse 10 God says, “I will write them upon their hearts”
In verse 10 God says, “I will be their God”
In verse 12 God says, “I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember them no more.”
Keep in mind now, that this is the new covenant He will make with the House of Judah and the House of Israel. It is a future covenant, the benefits those of His church enjoy now during the church age. So it is not a covenant per se, with us; we are the body of Christ, acceptable to the Father in Him.
The church is not under contract with God. It is by His grace alone that He has grafted us in and given us His Holy Spirit and life.
Remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Eph 2:4-7
O praise the Lord, that He has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, but in His mercy remembers them no more, because He dealt with them, all of them, once for all in the body of His Son, our Savior, Jesus who is the Christ!
God has done it all. He said “I will” and He has and His promises are better because they can never fail; He can never fail. Every man is a liar but God is forever true.
BETTER MEDIATOR
If we of the church recognize these things, think how great will be the rapturous joy of the Jews who will one day enter into the new covenant He has promised them.
They will look upon Him whom they pierced, says Zechariah, and they will mourn for Him as for an only son. But in that day mourning will be swallowed up in rejoicing as they believe finally in their Messiah and the words will be fulfilled which say, “For I do not want you brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery, lest you be wise in your own estimation, that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and thus all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. AND THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS’.” Romans 11:25-27
A mediator is one who stands between to bring reconciliation to aggrieved and estranged parties.
The priests under the old covenant could never bring men into the presence of God for reconciliation. They could never take away sins. They could never make a cleansing sacrifice. They could not minister forever, nor intercede perpetually before the Father for the people. They were sinful. They were themselves transgressors. They died.
But Christ is a better Mediator who lives forever and will surely keep His promise, when He says through the prophet, “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying ‘Know the Lord’, for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more”
You know, we’re really the Johnny-come-lately’s to this whole picture. The nation of God’s choice has longed for the promise of their Messiah since they were given birth in Abraham; and although they did not recognize Him when He came – although they as a nation rejected Him – He is still the consolation of Israel and the glorious One for whom they still watch and wait.
The new covenant God makes with His people is superior in every way, because it does not depend upon men to obey a Law, since the Law of God will be written on their hearts. It is superior because it is enacted on promises from God that cannot fail. It is superior because instead of demanding obedience to outward forms of worship it changes the human heart and brings forth true worship from the inner man. It is superior because it is mediated by One who lives forever in the power of an indestructible life.
We enjoy by God’s magnificent grace, the benefits of this mercy and this Mediator who died for us and rose again, believers. In the meantime Israel waits. But we may continue to pray with her as we wait for the trumpet blast and the voice of the Archangel…
“O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.”
[And assure them with a voice made one in Him,]
“Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!”
For He has promised, and He will not delay.
