THERE
IS A NEW COVENANT continued
Heb
8:7, 8
In our last post we wrote of the new covenant being
better. We shall continue with that
thought in this post. None of the
covenants we have discussed could be said to be faulty, because they were all
made by God. Even the Mosaic Covenant
with its covenant of Law is holy, just, and good. What then was the problem? The problem was and is man's moral inability
to keep that law. The sad fact is that
none of the first seven covenants could take away sin. They could predict that expiation, but they
were unable to accomplish it. Thus the
New Covenant is better, for it actually gives us redemption.
It is new, not in that
the old is destroyed and a completely new covenant is given. No, Jesus, Himself, said that He came not to
destroy the law, but that through Him the law might be fulfilled. The Mosaic Covenant had ordinances of divine
sacrificial services which were types that would be fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. It also had a tabernacle that
was in itself a type of Jesus in so many ways.
It had a special day of sacrifice and repentance called the Day of
Atonement. On that day the High Priest
would offer the atoning sacrifices and sprinkle the blood on the tabernacle
furniture and then kill the scape goat confessing the sins of Israel
over that goat as he laid his hands on its head. That goat was then taken out to the
wilderness and let go. This type is
fulfilled in Jesus taking away the sins of the world. On that day, and only on that day the High
Priest, and only the High Priest would go into the holy of holies of the
tabernacle once a year to make the atonement.
This is fulfilled in our Lord’s going to the cross once and for all to
make the one sacrifice that would take away sin and make an access to God, the
Father. The sacrifices of bulls and
goats could not take away sin, but Jesus, by His own blood entered into the
Holy of Holies and obtained eternal redemption for us. Thus we can see that the old covenant was not
destroyed because it was good, but the new covenant has so improved on the old
one to accomplish what the old one pictured.
This new covenant was
made with the same people that the old one was.
Heb. 8:8 tells us that the Lord said, "...Behold, the days come,
saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah." So even the New Covenant is made with the
united kingdom
of Israel,
which has not come to pass yet. Again
Heb. 8:10 says, "For this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, saith the Lord: I will
put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts: and I will be to
them a God, and they shall be to me a people:"
This new covenant is in
mercy. Israel
nor the Gentiles are any more able to live up to the Old Covenant than Israel
was. The Mosaic Law shows what sinners Israel
were, but it also shows the sin of the rest of the world. There is none righteous, no, not one. We are all sinners. All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God., Rom. 3:23. Heb.8:12 says, "For I will be
merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I
remember no more." Now this
verse 12 is written to the same people as those in verse 10 when He said,
"...I will make (a covenant) with the house of Israel
after these days," Some say God is
through with Israel
because she rejected His sin. In Heb.
8:10-12, however, God is showing that He will be merciful to the house of Israel
and forgive their sin. This is in line
with the Covenant with David where we sal the conversion and restoration of Israel. What think ye of this?
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