My wife Jeanie is a shopper par excellence! She loves to shop. But what she loves to shop for is the great deal—she loves finding and getting something of great value for pennies on the dollar. So she’s an expert garage saler. She’s always checking out the sale racks at the back of stores. She shows up after Christmas, and at the end of various seasons, looking for the close-outs and clearances as stores empty their shelves of things that are out of season, or at the end of their inventories, to find a great deal.
So, she’ll come home really excited from a garage sale when she finds a pot that normally costs $50 or $60 for two or three dollars, when she finds men’s shirts that normally run $50 to $75 after Christmas, or after the season, for $2 and $3 apiece, when she gets rolls of Christmas wrapping paper for about a tenth of what they normally sell for. About a year ago at this time, with the help of her sister, she found a recliner chair that would help me stand up after heel and knee surgery in a neighboring town that should have cost us $600 to $800. It was offered to us for something like $50, but I think because of the Pandemic, the person selling it to us didn’t want to chance meeting us at the door, and left it outside for free, if we would just come and pick it up.
So she’s a great shopper. She knows how and where to find great deals. And she’s discerning—she knows a great deal when she finds one.
And it’s that same kind of discernment that we need to apply when it comes to our relationship with God. When God offers a good deal, even a great deal, we need to be discerning. We need to be able to tell when it’s a great deal, and we need to take it when it’s offered.
And God has offered a great deal, a far better deal than He’s ever offered before. And the Book of Hebrews tells us it’s the New Covenant. It’s just the kind of deal you and I need—it’s the best and now the only deal that God offers. It’s free, and it provides just what we need—a changed heart, a personal relationship with God, God’s mercy and the forgiveness of sins. And it’s offered by His Son, Jesus Christ, who has paid the price for us—it comes free of charge with repentant faith. It’s a deal none of us want to miss, and it’s a deal we certainly don’t want to abandon. Because it’s the only deal, or covenant with God that is now available.
And that’s the gist of the argument as we come to Hebrews 8. If you’ve been with us, you know that the writer to the Hebrews is concerned that Jewish Christians in the first century we’re contemplating abandoning Christ to return to Judaism because of the great persecution that they had endured from their fellow Jews for many years. He has shown how Jesus, and the Christian faith is superior to Judaism in every way—how Jesus is superior to the angels through whom the Old Testament Law was revealed, how Jesus was superior to Moses, the Mediator of the Old Covenant, how Jesus, as our Great high Priest forever is superior to the Old Covenant Levitical Priesthood, and now He moves to show us how the Covenant which Jesus Mediates, the New Covenant is far greater than the Old Covenant that these Jewish believers were thinking about returning to. More than that, He’s going to tell them that it’s the only covenant that God is offering--that the Old Covenant has now become obsolete and was coming close to, and now, historically, has even passed away.
And having concluded that Jesus is the great high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek in chapter 7, He now summarizes His argument with this though in verses 1-6: Recognize that Jesus, the better priest, offers the better covenant from the better place—heaven. Recognize that Jesus, the better priest, offer the better covenant from the better place—namely heaven.
Hebrews 8:1: “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 Majesty in the heavens.” Such a high priest? What kind of high priest? He’s clearly referring back to what He has just said about Jesus in Hebrews 7:26: This Jesus, this high priest, is holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. He has permanently replaced the sinful multiple mortal high priests who had to give multiple sacrifices in the Old Testament Tabernacle and Temple which could never take away sins. But He, by one sacrifice, as the Son of God, has paid for our sins once for all, and by this sacrifice, he is going to say, He has inaugurated a New Covenant, a better covenant than the Old Covenant which had been offered through Moses.
And a point of comparison is given here in verse one. How is this priest greater than the other priests of the Old Covenant? He is greater in this respect. He doesn’t minister in an earthly sanctuary, but by virtue of who He is as the Son of God, made perfect, He has taken his seat in a better place, at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens. In that sense, His high priesthood is superior to any other priesthood, or any other priest, in that He ministers on our behalf in the very presence of Almighty God, making peace between God the Father and His people.
Verse 2 emphasizes this point: “A minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched not man.”
Now at this point, for those of you who may not be familiar with the word tabernacle, we need to define it. The tabernacle in this context is a reference to a large tent constructed in the wilderness wanderings of the Jews at the direction of God which is where God was worshiped, where God’s manifest presence dwelt, and where the priests and Levites offered sacrifices and offerings for sins to enable the Jewish people to continue to have a right relationship with God. The tabernacle was in effect, the mobile version of the temple, which later succeeded it. A temple, by definition, is the house of God, or the dwelling place of God. And so it was in the Old Testament. God, who is everywhere and beyond being housed in anything built by man, chose to localize His manifest presence among the people in first a tent, and then in a building called the temple. But now we’re being told that Jesus is now ministering in a sanctuary, another word for the dwelling place of God, in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. In other words, Jesus, now that He is actually in heaven, at the right Hand of God the Father, is in the true tabernacle, the heavenly one, where God dwells. And so He not only has a better priesthood, in that it’s eternal, and He’s perfect, but He ministers in a better place, not an earthly sanctuary, or tabernacle, but in the very presence of God Himself in Heaven. So again, in every way, this is a better deal, a better priest, a better tabernacle, the true tabernacle, than the one the Old Covenant offered.
Now in the next few verses the writer will go to great length to explain this. That Jesus ministers in this heavenly tabernacle, not in an earthly one, for He would not have been qualified to minister in the earthly tabernacle by the Law, since he was not of the tribe of Levi. But He offers sacrifices in the true tabernacle, of which the earthly one was only a copy and a shadow of. In other words, the Old Covenant pictured in concrete earthly terms for our understanding of what must happen in heaven for man to be reconciled with God. And the earthly tabernacle was essentially given not as the reality, but as a copy of the reality of what goes on invisibly and spiritually in heaven for our sins to be paid for and for us to be reconciled with God.
Verse 3: “For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, He would not be priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the Tabernacle, for, “See,” He says, “that You make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.”
Now, obviously, this is where things get a bit complicated. The point is that all along the Old Covenant was temporary. Its purpose was to prepare a people to receive their Messiah, the one High Priest who could make a sacrifice that was sufficient to atone for their sins, and thus result in the forgiveness of their sins. The Tabernacle, and the succeeding Temple, was to be designed in a very specific way so that it would both illustrate the problem between God and Man, God’s holiness versus man’s sin, and to show how that seeming irreconcilable difference might somehow, someday be reconciled. Since God is holy, His justice demands that sin and sinners be judged for their sins. His holiness requires that sin and sinners be punished. His wrath would break out against us sinners at any moment except for one thing: He is also patient, and merciful and loving. And so God, in Exodus 25:4, exhorts Moses to be very careful that he have the Tabernacle constructed precisely according to the pattern that God showed Him on the mountain, because the Tabernacle was designed to show the people just how their sin separated them from a holy God, and how, eventually, by a blood sacrifice, their sin would be paid for, and they would be ultimately reconciled with God, and therefore able to come into God’s presence.
So for a moment let’s remember how the Tabernacle, and eventually the Temple, was designed. The Tabernacle consisted of an outer court, where the people could come to worship. And then there was a holy place, an inner compartment, where only priests and Levites could enter. And that’s where they prepared the various animal/blood sacrifices and offering and presented them before the Lord. Again, that place was called the holy place. But then there was a third more inner compartment, or sanctuary, called the most holy place, or the holy of holies. It was there that the manifest presence of God dwelled, the shekinah glory of God. And only one person could enter that inner sanctuary, the most holy place, once a year, and when He did so, it was the High Priest, and there He offered the blood of a sacrifice for his own sins and another for the sins of the people. Otherwise, it was dangerous to go into the most holy place because the wrath of God might break out against you. Between the outer court and the holy place there was a curtain or veil, and then there was yet another curtain or veil separating the holy place from the most holy place. And by all this God was signifying the relationship of sinful man to a holy God. You cannot approach God as a sinner unless a blood sacrifice has been given as a covering for your sins. Sin, according to God’s justice, must be paid for. And those blood sacrifices in the Old Testament were types of or foreshadowed the only sacrifice for sins that would ultimately count in its ability to take on God’s wrath that really should have been meted out against us. That sacrifice would ultimately be Jesus Christ Himself. But until His coming, sinful people approached God via blood sacrifices of bulls, goats and sheep, that symbolized and prefigured the one great sacrifice that alone could take away sins—Jesus Christ.
So, in this picture, we have a copy and shadow of what must take place in heaven for us to be reconciled to God. A greater priest than the priests of the order of Aaron must offer a greater sacrifice, in this case, Christ offers Himself, in the real heavenly tabernacle, which the earthly tabernacle only symbolized or represented. Thus, the people of Israel were prepared to receive the one Sacrifice that could pay for sins for all time—the Lamb of God who alone could truly take away the sins of the world. And through this one sacrifice, men could be reconciled with God, and come themselves into the most holy place, the very presence of God in heaven.
So now in verse 6, we have yet another summary: “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.” How is Christ’s ministry a more excellent ministry? Well, it’s the actual ministry, the actual priesthood and the actual sacrifice for sin that saves. As a priest, He is the one priest who has mediated, or brought about peace between God and man. And His priesthood is based on a better covenant, the New Covenant, which has been enacted on better promises than the Old Covenant.
Now all this is very relevant to the hearers. They were thinking about going back to Judaism, to the Old Testament sacrificial system, which was still operating at the time of this writing in Jerusalem, in the Temple. But what they’re being told is that if they do so, they’ll be going back into a religious system that was just a copy and a foreshadowing of the reality which saves; that it will have no ability to save them, because it has been superseded by the only High Priest, with the Only Sacrifice that will ever matter for their salvation, which has been enacted on the basis of a New Covenant, a New Deal, a better deal between God and man.
So the questions that now might be asked are, first, where was this New Covenant authorized in the Scriptures, in God’s Word? How can I know that this is true, for instance? And secondly, what are the better promises that this new deal, this new covenant offers?
Well, the answer is given in verses 8-12: Keep the better, New Covenant, authorized in Jeremiah, with its offer of a changed heart, mercy, and forgiveness. In other words, the New Covenant was predicted in the Old Covenant. The Old Testament, the Word of God which you all revere, prophesied that there would be a New Covenant that would govern man’s relationship with God. It is this New Covenant which Jesus inaugurated at the Lord’s Supper and enacted at His death on the cross that was predicted in Jeremiah 31:31-34. And what are the better promises: They were the promises of a changed heart, a transformation from the inside out of mind and heart, the enactment of God’s mercy toward our sins and the forgiveness of our sins, so that all men, from least to the greatest, who accept this sacrifice, would know the Lord or would have a personal relationship with God.
Verse 7: “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.”
Now it’s perhaps hard to understand why God would give a covenant that had some fault to it. But the truth was that it was not the Old Covenant that was at fault, but the people to whom it was given. As Romans 7 tells us, the Law was true and righteous and good, but man was not. The people who received the Law were unwilling and unable to keep the Law, as we shall see. So, they broke the covenant. Thus a new covenant needed to be given that would somehow resolve that problem of man’s sinfulness and inability or unwillingness to keep the Law.
That covenant was predicted in Jeremiah 31:31-34 as Israel was experiencing judgment for its failure to obey the Law:
Verse 8: “For finding fault with them” (This is an important statement, because it tells us where the problem was, not so much with the Law, but with the people not able to fulfill it)
“Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new Covenant with the House of Israel and the house of Judah; Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out often land of Egypt, for they did not continue in My covenant, and I did not care for them.”
So again, what covenant was that? It was the Covenant enacted by Moses as God brought Israel out of Egypt in the Exodus. God spoke from the top of Mount Sinai, gave the 10 Commandments, and all the people promised to keep them, and of course, then right away broke the covenant in the matter of Aaron’s Golden Calves. And they continued to do so in various ways throughout Jewish history. So God now promises to give a new and better covenant that will be an improvement on the Old Covenant in four important ways given in verses 10-12: “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.” In other words, the major change enacted will be this: The commandments which had been external will now be internal. There will be a transformation of character from the inside out. God’s laws will now be written on men’s hearts rather than on tablets of stone, so that men are motivated from the inside out to do what God wants them to do. The issue of divine enablement to please God is hereby instituted, and we know this happened after Jesus death for our sins by the very words of Jesus Himself in John 14:17 as He described for the disciples how they would be different after His death as opposed to how they were before His death. Speaking of the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “ I will ask the Father, and He will give you another [a]Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17) Somehow, when Jesus paid the penalty for our sins, it now made it possible for God’s Holy Spirit not only be to with believers, but to be in them, to indwell them, and to enable them to actually want to do from the inside out what God wanted them to do. The result is that we would truly be God’s people, and He would truly be our God. And a third result is that when that happened, verse 11: “And they shall not each everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone His brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ For all will Know me, from the least to the greatest of them.” I take it that this is speaking of the moment of salvation, the moment of faith in Christ as Savior, when the Holy Spirit indwells a believer, that he immediately has a right and personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.
And, of course, the crowning achievement of this New Covenant would be how it would resolve the problem between God and man, man’s sin. Verse 12: “For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.” This New Covenant, once in place, would result in God’s mercy shown toward our sins in a more complete way than ever before—our sins will be forgiven, they will be remembered no more, they will not be counted against us. Why, because they had been counted against Christ when He died on the cross to pay for them. He had become the Scapegoat. He had become the sin-bearer. He suffered as a substitute for us so that both justice and mercy could be fulfilled at the same time.
Now at this point it’s important to remember historically what happened at the very moment Christ gave up His Spirit on the cross, at the moment He died. At the moment He died He had satisfied God’s wrath against us for our sins, and at that very moment, guess what happened in the Temple—the veil, or the curtain, that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the Temple and mankind, was split in two. It signified that the Holy God had been reconciled to sinful man because God’s justice had been meted out against His Son so that His love and mercy could be shown to sinful mankind, and our sins were forgiven. Access to God and into His personal manifest presence had now been granted for the first time in history, sins had not merely been covered but completely taken away because Christ as our substitute sufferer had paid for them, and a right relationship with God through Faith in Christ death for our sins became possible, and a reality for all believers. And the very next time Jesus saw His disciples, after His resurrection, in John 19, it was recorded, He blew on them, and they received the Holy Spirit—the very power by which now they would live the Christ-like life and serve Christ. This is the New Covenant. What a deal!
What can we conclude from this? One thing namely: Christianity cannot be reduced to a list of rules or commands that we attempt to fulfill on our own. That’s impossible. Christianity is Christ having died for our sins so we could now be empowered to die to our sins and live for Christ. As the Apostle Paul put, “For I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, but not I, but Christ who lives in Me, and the life that I now live I live by the faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).
So, the point made is this: Don’t abandon the New Covenant--the Best and now only covenant--for The Old Covenant Keep the better, New Covenant, because it’s a way better deal. It offers a changed heart, a relationship with God, God’s mercy and His forgiveness. And it’s free because it was paid for by the Lord Jesus Christ!
And one more thing, the writer adds. It has rendered that Old Covenant obsolete and made it ready to disappear.
So don’t go back—the Old Covenant is obsolete, and in fact, it has disappeared. There is no sacrifice for sins, no relationship with God, no salvation, no forgiveness, no heaven available if you abandon Christ, and the New Covenant, and return to the now Obsolete Covenant of Moses.
Verse 13; When He (God) said, ‘A new covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”
Well, logically speaking, since Christ fulfilled what the Old Covenant only predicted, prepared, and foreshadowed, the entire reason for the existence of the Old Covenant now had already disappeared. It was rendered obsolete by the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The way to God and forgiveness of sins had already been opened. Those Old Testament priests and sacrifices and tabernacle and temple which only foreshadowed the reality that Christ our Great High Priest and Sacrifice actually fulfilled, had already outlived their usefulness. And then a prophecy is made here: it “is ready to disappear.”
The Old Testament sacrificial system was rendered obsolete the moment Christ died. In God’s mercy, He allowed for a 40-year transition. The Book of Hebrews was probably written between 65 and 69 A.D. And guess what happened in 70 A.D? The eventual Roman Emperor Titus came, besieged Jerusalem, defeated the Jews, and destroyed this magnificent temple, just as Jesus predicted it would be destroyed 40 years earlier, so that not one stone was left upon another, so that they took away all the stones, levelled the ground, sowed it with salt, and plowed it so that there was no evidence, other than a retaining wall, that the temple was ever there.
The result is, in the sovereignty God, that the Jews who still hold to the Old Covenant, have not been able to offer a single Old Testament authorized blood sacrifice for the atonement of their sins for 1951 years—because no sacrifice outside the temple is authorized, as Deuteronomy 12:5 tells us. And that’s because the only necessary sacrifice, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God who took away sins, had been offered and there is now no other authorized sacrifice for sins.
God’s message to us is this: This is the New Deal. This is the Real Deal. This is the only Deal that matters. Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross. He established the New Covenant which forgives your sins, gives you a personal relationship with God, and changes your heart so you can now please Him. And more than it it’s free. He paid for it. You receive by faith, a repentant in faith in the Christ of the New Covenant who paid it.
What a deal!
You can’t afford to pass it up!
