Hebrews: A Better Ministry, A New Covenant, The Old And The New (Chapters 8 & 9)

Not only is Jesus a greater high priest, but He also is the mediator of a new and better covenant than the Mosaic Covenant.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

You're listening to Teach Me the Bible podcast, where we unpack the meaning of books, passages and themes from Scripture. Join us each week as Dr David Klingler walks us through God's Word and teaches the Bible. Each episode has a study guide available in the show notes. This is Teach Me the Bible podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:31

Hey everybody, welcome back to Teach Me the Bible podcast. I'm Alex Wolfe, with Dr David Klingler and we are in the book of Hebrews. We're beginning in chapter 8 today. Last week in chapter 7, we sort of were introduced to Melchizedek and we're starting to develop the author's starting to develop Jesus as the High Priest. So chapter 8 is beginning with now. The main point and what has been said is this and so if you've not already heard what's come before this, you will need to hear that. So go back and check out the first seven chapters to get up to speed and then, if you've already done that, keep on listening. We're going to jump on in chapter 8 today.

Speaker 3: 1:16

Yeah. So we've kind of been flowing through this and, by way of just a reminder, we've got these Jewish believers who are undergoing persecution and considering going back to law keeping, and this book is a book that basically says, yeah, you don't want to do that. That's not a good idea, because in so doing you will fall into the discipline of the Lord, because if in the Old Testament, when God revealed himself to the fathers in many portions, in many ways, to the angels, and when Israel rejected the words of those messengers, they were disciplined, they fell in the wilderness, you think it will go better for you if you reject the words of his son, because in these last days he's spoken to us through his son, and so of no angel did God ever say this. And Moses, if this one that you are rejecting and going back to Old Testament, sacrifices angels and shadows, you're going back to the lesser, then, and they were judged and disciplined for rebelling against the lesser. Will it go better if you rebel against the greater? Of course it won't. And so he's walked down through here and he's talked about how Jesus is greater than the angels, he's greater than Moses, he's greater than the Aaronic priesthood, and that's the part that he started to develop in chapter 4 and into chapter 5. That every high priest. He's talking about this high priest.

Speaker 3: 2:58

But the high priest in the Old Testament was of the Levitical priesthood, and his point in chapters 5, 6 and 7, with a little bit of a warning in between 5 and 6 and 7, is that the Levitical priesthood was not the end all beehull. In fact it followed the type of a forerunner in Melchizedek. Melchizedek was this king priest who came onto the scene in Abram. He was greater than Abram. He blessed Abram. Abram paid a tithe to this priest and the Levitical priesthood was set up as kind of a following that pattern, the pattern that's set forth by Melchizedek.

Speaker 3: 3:43

And the story was also looking forward to a greater priest, even greater than Melchizedek, who would come, you know, kind of according to the order of Melchizedek. He would not come from the Levitical line, he would be a greater than. And so the Psalm 110, the Lord said to my Lord sit in my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. You know the Lord is sworn will not change his mind. You are a high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. And so the story is looking for this greater priest who will bring the greater rest, who will be a greater covenant, who will be greater than Moses, greater than the angels, and all this.

Speaker 3: 4:24

And if you go back against this greater one, it's not going to go well for you. In fact, if you reject the Lord, if you reject Christ, go back to the Old Testament, go back to the words of angels, to Moses, to the Old Sacrificial system, to the Old Sanctuary. It'll all just lead you back to Christ, who you've already rejected. And so what are you going to do? Reject him over again? That's not even an option, right? You're going to crucify him again. No, there's only one path, and the path is forward. And so we pick it up.

Speaker 3: 4:58

In chapter eight, he says now, the main point of what I've been saying 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 heaven. You know, after Christ's death, burial and ascension, he is ascended to the right hand, where he has made his sacrifice and he has sat down that's the point that's been made and is going to be made A minister in the sanctuary, in the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched or created or built, not man, for every high priest is appointed to offer, to carry both gifts and sacrifices. Hence it's necessary for this high priest also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth this is an interesting verse If he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law. In other words, if Christ were on earth, being from the tribe of Judah and not Levi, he would not be qualified to make those sacrifices in the earthly temple. Right, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who are of the Levitical order, who offer gifts according to the law, who serve as a shadow, a copy and a shadow of heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect a tabernacle, saying C, he says that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown to you on the mountain, 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 with better promises. So he's gonna tie the old tabernacle with the old covenant, the new tabernacle with the new covenant, and so the story was looking forward to a new tabernacle, a new temple, which is the Lord. We see that over there in Revelation, chapter 21 and 22.

Speaker 3: 6:56

And a new covenant. This was a covenant that was promised in the Old Testament. The old covenant had failed and Jeremiah comes and says I will make a new covenant. In fact, this is what's gonna be quoted here the first covenant. If the first covenant had been faultless in other words, the Mosaic covenant had been perfect, faultless, in other words, the Mosaic covenant had been perfect, faultless, able to do all that was promised, there would not be a need for a second. There'd be no occasion for a second For finding fault with them.

Speaker 3: 7:31

He says finding fault with Israel. He, the prophet, says. The Lord, says behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will affect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their forefathers on the day when I took them by the hand and led them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in that covenant and I did not care for them, says the Lord. 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 in their mind, in their mouths, and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they will be my people. And they shall not teach every man, his neighbor, fellow citizens and everyone, his brother, saying know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. So now the writer of Hebrews. That's the end of the quote out of Jeremiah.

Speaker 3: 8:34

So now the writer of Hebrews jumps back in and says when he set a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is near disappearing, right. So what's going on? Well, the new covenant which comes out of Jeremiah, ezekiel 36, you get this Deuteronomy, chapter 30, it's promised that there's a future for Israel, will there be restored? But they have to repent, they have to return right, and so the law's job was to convict them of their sin and the spirit that comes also to convict of sin, to convict of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. And so they have not yet repented. Yet the new covenant has been enacted. There are those who have. Paul calls himself a minister of the new covenant. The new covenant is available for Israel through faith in Christ.

Speaker 2: 9:41

But not all Israel has.

Speaker 3: 9:43

But not all Israel has believed, and so the old covenant still stands to do its function to condemn Israel. And that's his point that the new covenant has been introduced, but the old covenant is still working as well, and so you're looking for the time when the new covenant replaces the old completely. And so we continue into chapter nine. Now, if the first covenant had regulations of divine worship and the earthly sanctuary for there was a tabernacle prepared and he goes through all of the how it was situated the lampstand, the tables, the sacred bread, it was called the holy place. And behind the second veil there was a tabernacle which is called the holy of holies, having the golden altar of incense in the Ark of the Covenant, covered in all sides with gold, and above it the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat and all this. But of these things we cannot speak now in detail. He continues. But when these things have been thus prepared, the priests are continually entering the outer tabernacle performing the divine worship. But into the second only the high priest enters once a year, and not without blood, for he offers for himself and for the sins of the people committed in ignorance. Now the Holy Spirit is signifying this that the way into the holy place had not yet been disclosed, while the outer tabernacle was still standing, which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly, both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make the worshiper perfect or complete. There's our word again, the author and completer right.

Speaker 3: 11:27

The old law could never do the work that only Christ could do. It could not complete, it could not bring to maturity, since they only relate to food and drink and various washings and regulations for the body imposed until the time of Reformation. But when Christ appeared as the high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say not of this creation. He entered into the earthly tabernacle to make this sacrifice or to present the sacrifice with blood, but into the heavenly tabernacle, the true, not the type, not the shadow. Not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood. He entered into the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of heifer sprinkled, sprinkling those who have been to sanctify the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of the Christ who, through the eternal spirit of, offered himself without blemish to God, cleans y'all's consciences from dead works to serve a living God.

Speaker 3: 12:52

These dead works, these works that can only cover sin but can never take it away. They were a partial, they were a shadow, they were always looking towards the greater promised one of Genesis three, who would come and lay down his life for sin. And so, for this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant, the old Levitical priest. He was the administrator of the old covenant, with bulls and goats and in the tabernacle pitched by human hands on the earth. But this is a altogether different priest in a different tabernacle, and so, for this reason, he's the mediator of a new covenant, in order that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

Speaker 3: 13:53

For where a covenant is, there must by necessity be a death of the one who made it the old covenant. They entered into the land with the old covenant and they had rest in the land. But another point that he's already made is that they are looking towards a future rest, a resurrection, an eternal rest, and so if Joshua's rest, that he offered was the end, all be all, then the future rest, the future eternal rest, would not have been mentioned. So all of this, the greater Moses, the greater minister, the greater covenant, the greater tabernacle, all of this is his point is that everything in the Old Testament was pointing to Christ, who you are rejecting, and you're going to go back to things that don't work. And even when that you go back to the things that don't work, that never accomplished or brought to fruition or completed what was promised. When they rejected those things, they were laid low. There's no way this is a better deal for you if you reject this.

Speaker 2: 15:08

So even in all these details, he's still making the same point.

Speaker 3: 15:13

Oh, he's making the same point, he's piling on.

Speaker 1: 15:15

Right, and what about this, and what about this and what?

Speaker 3: 15:17

about this and what about this? And did you consider this? And so it's just over and over and over. And so he continues in chapter 9, verse 17,. For a covenant is valid only when men are dead. A covenant inheritance, for it is never enforced while the one who made it lives. Therefore, even the first covenant was not inaugurated without blood, for when every commandment had been spoken by Moses and all the people according to the law, he took the blood of the calves and the goats, and the water and the scarlet wool and the hissup and sprinkled both the book itself and all the people saying this is the blood of the covenant which the Lord has commanded you. And in the same way, he sprinkled both the tabernacle and all the vessels of the ministry with blood.

Speaker 3: 16:10

According to the law, one may also say all things are cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of these things in the heavens to be cleansed with these, but the heavenly things themselves, with better sacrifices than these, for Christ did not enter into a holy place made with hands a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. Nor was it that he should suffer for himself. Often, as the high priest enters into the place, year after year, with the blood not his own. Otherwise he would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world. But now, once at the consummation of the ages, it has been revealed to put away sin and sacrifice for himself. And so much as it was appointed for men to die and after comes the judgment so also the Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, shall appear a second time for salvation without sin. He came for the first time to die for sin. The second time he's not coming to die for sin. That's the point To those who eagerly await for him.

Speaker 3: 17:37

And so in chapters eight and nine he has moved the discussion to explain why this greater priest, this Melchizedekian priest who's bringing a better covenant, why that's so important. And he's laying the groundwork for what he's going to say in chapter 10, a verse that, if you are familiar with Hebrews at all for it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. It never worked, the act of the Levitical priesthood, year after year, continually working, never, never completed the job. It never paid for sin. It never took away sin. And so you want to go back to the partial that never worked, and rejecting the real. What are you more on? No, that's how I'd have said it. That's not how he says it, but that's how I would have said it. You know, you need to think this thing through a whole lot better.

Speaker 3: 18:43

So here's what's coming next time we're going to be in chapter 10. We're going to continue this discussion into chapter 10. And then in chapter 11, he's going to end chapter 10 with we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the saving of your soul. And then he's going to say consider the saints, consider all those in the Old Testament who didn't shrink back and they're so, you know and and he'd say well, for the saving of their soul.

Speaker 3: 19:23

But they never received what was promised. They didn't shrink back, they never received what was promised. What's promised is the second, you know, the return, the deliverance, the salvation that's coming at the return of Christ. So the way he ended chapter nine is what they're looking forward to. They're saying you know, we need the deliverance now. I said no, keep enduring, deliverance is coming Right. And so in chapter 10, he's going to continue that and then use the illustration in chapter 11 for these saints who also didn't. They didn't shrink back, but they never received what was promised either, and so, apart from us, they would not be made perfect, made perfect.

Speaker 3: 20:05

And so, therefore, endure chapter 12. And so here we are, even today, still not to the place yet where Christ has returned, and so we're still in need of endurance. And so, when we get to chapter 13, it will be okay. Well then, what do we do, right? How do we live in this time where we still need endurance as we're still looking for the return of Christ? And so it's a very logical argument, logical progression, but we'll pick it up next time as we continue in chapter 10.

Speaker 2: 20:36

So don't go back to the partial. When you're standing here looking at the, the full, the full Right. That's good. Hold on to that as we continue to walk through this book. We'll see you next week for chapter 10.