Hebrews 8:7-9 – The New Covenant vs. The Old (Part 1 - Intro)

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 14 Apr. 2019

Intro: The Context of Jeremiah

• “Best thing about being in the New Covenant is that I can eat bacon!” Is that all???

• The sermon today is actually not on Hebrews 8, but on Jeremiah 31, because most of Hebrews chapter 8 is an extended quote of this prophecy from Jeremiah!

  • The original prophecy was written while Jeremiah was in Jerusalem during the Babylon­ian army’s final siege against Jerusalem before the walls were breached and the entire city leveled. The Babylonians had already carried out successful campaigns against Jeru­salem over the years before and had already captured and relocated to Babylon all the important people like Daniel and Ezekiel. Jeremiah stayed with the un-important people left in Jerusalem, and now Jerusalem itself, the great city was about to topple. It seemed that God had abandoned His people. They were losing hope and doing stupid things in their despair. Into this hopeless situation God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah, en­couraging the Jews that He was still in control, that He still had a plan, and that His plan involved discipline for their idolatry, but that discipline of exile was only temporary. It would only be 70 years. The phrase “the days are coming” recurs several times through­out chapters 29-31 as part of a promise for the future after their 70 years of exile in Baby­lon, that the Jews would return to Jerusalem, that Jerusalem would be rebuilt, and that Jews would thrive there once again, and in the context of all this, we have this remarkable prophecy of God also making a new covenant!

  • Hebrews 8 seems to me to be an original translation into Greek of the Hebrew text of Jeremiah 31, with a couple of nuances that add emphasis to the author’s point without actually being an unfaithful translation.

  • The length of this quote is remarkable – one of the longest quotes in the New Testament. I think it’s because these are deep theological waters. There’s no way I’ll be able to cover even these seven verses in one sermon, but we’ll get a good start into it.

• Remember where we left off last time: Heb. 8:6 “But actually He [Jesus Christ] has turned out to have a more distinguished ministry [than the Levitical priests], inasmuch as He is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been legally-instituted upon better promises."

  • Moses was the “mediator” of the “law”¹ according to Gal. 3:19 “...the Law... was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.” (NASB)

  • There was a continuity between the covenant God made with Adam and Eve (which re­quired obedience, offered covering for sin, and promised a seed/descendant who would crush evil) and the Mosaic covenant (which, due to the proliferation of sin, added a body of written laws in the presence of angels while Moses was atop Mt. Sinai. The Mosaic law also required obedience, offered blood-covering for sin, and promised a greater prophet).

  • Galatians 3:16-17 also links the Abrahamic covenant with that covenantal arc, saying, “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made... not, ‘And to seeds,’ as of many; but as of one, ‘And to thy seed,’ which is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant, that was confirmed before of God in Christ, the law, which was four hundred and thirty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of none effect.” (NKJV) That is speaking of the promise to Abraham which came inbetween the promise to Adam and Eve (of a seed which would crush the head of evil) and the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai. All these covenants pointed to a metamorphosis in the future. The “law was ordained… until the seed should come.”

  • Jn. 1:17 “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” (KJV)

• The idea of a “better covenant” from Hebrews 8:6 is carried over into the next verse...

v.7 For if that first one were problem-free, no occasion would have been sought for a second one.

• As the saying goes, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” But the Greek grammar of v.7 indicates that there was something left to be desired in the first covenant. It presents being problem-free as an untrue hypothetical condition for the first covenant.

  • The first covenant was not a-memptos/fault-less/problem-free.

  • Now I think we need to be careful with what we say though about the first covenant. I can’t support the NIV’s rendering that there was something actually “wrong” with the first covenant.

  • Although the book of Hebrews speaks of deficiencies or faults or archaic-ness, it does not say that the law of Moses was actually bad or inappropriate or wrong in its time.

  • Let’s be careful to show respect for God and His word by how we talk about even the parts of it which are now obsolete.

  • If we cannot affirm with the Psalmist that “The law of the Lord is perfect” (Ps. 19:7), then we have a problem.

• The words describing the covenants here in v.7 are the Greek words for “first” and “second.”

  • Once again, I must criticize the NIV for going beyond what the Greek words actually say and positing the 2^nd Covenant as “other” than the 1^st. The Greek terms πρώτη and δευτέρας denote sequence and progression, not primarily “other-ness” or discontinuity. Let’s be care­ful to use the Bible’s actual words when we approach controversial subjects such as this.

• The Bible gives us historical accounts of the making of more than just two covenants: There was a proto-covenant with Adam and Eve, then one with Noah, one with Abraham, one with Moses, and then one with David – all before Jeremiah and Jesus spoke of the New Covenant. That make six covenants, not two, so which two are being referred to here?

  • Can all the covenants with Adam through David be lumped together as having the same character and together comprising one covenant in essence², in comparison to the New Covenant as the second? I think that is reasonable, especially since the “second” or “new covenant” spoken of here in Hebrews is clearly related to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

• A stickier question is determining whether the message of Hebrews is that the “New/Second” Covenant is essentially different from the “First” covenant, or whether it is “new” in the sense of “new and improved.”

  • For instance, if you like to wash your clothes with Tide laundry detergent and you go to the store and see on the laundry detergent aisle a box of Tide that says “New and Improved” on it, what do you expect? You expect a product essentially the same as what you’re used to, but a little better in some ways. It would really throw you off if you opened the box of Tide and found that it contained potato chips. That would be new and different, not new and improved.

  • This question is the subject of intense debate among Bible scholars, and I don’t expect to be able to end all those debates by myself in one sermon here.

  • I come from a Presbyterian background which has very definite doctrines about the Biblical covenants. The Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith says in chapter 7: “...The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works, wherein life was promised to Adam, and in him to his posterity, upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. Man, by his fall, having made himself uncapable of life by that covenant, the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the Covenant of Grace, whereby He freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in Him, that they may be saved… This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel; under the law it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all foresignifying Christ to come, which were for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation; and is called the Old Testament. Under the gospel, when Christ the substance was exhibited, the ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which, though fewer in number, and administered with more simplicity and less outward glory, yet in them it is held forth in more fulness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy, to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles; and is called the New Testament. There are not therefore two covenants of grace differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.”

  • Now, if you are a good Reformed Baptist, you will disagree with this. The editors of the London Baptist Confession started with the Westminster Confession, but purposefully removed this stuff when they made their revisions which came to be called the Second London Baptist Confession. Here’s what they wrote: “Man having brought himself under the curse of the Law by his fall, it pleased the Lord to make a Covenant of Grace wherein he freely offered[eth] unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved,; and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal Life, his Holy Spirit, to make them willing, and able to believe. This Covenant is revealed in the Gospel; first of all to Adam in the promise of Salvation by the seed of the woman, and afterwards by farther steps, until the full discovery thereof was completed in the new Testament; and it is founded in that Eternal Covenant transaction, that was between the Father and the Son, about the Redemption of the Elect; and it is alone by the Grace of this Covenant, that all of the posterity of fallen Adam, that ever were saved, did obtain life and a blessed immortality; Man being now utterly incapable of acceptance with God upon those terms, on which Adam stood in his state of innocence.”

  • I might add that a 21^st century movement of Presbyterians known as “Federal Vision” also called into question the Westminster formulation of a Covenant of Works presented to Adam before the Covenant of Grace, among other things.

• Several factors tend to muddy the waters in these theological debates:

  • One is a failure to distinguish, on the one hand, between the “Covenant of Works” the overarching Biblical principle of moral justification, which requires perfect obedience to all of God’s laws, which condemns all mankind, and which Jesus alone accomplished, and, on the other hand, the general call to mankind in both the Old and New Testament to obey God’s laws and be blessed. The two can easily get confused and this confusion can result in believing that God somehow switched back and forth between saving persons on the basis of faith in Him and saving persons on the basis of their good works, a position which Scripture does not teach.

  • Another thing that muddies the waters is a failure to distinguish between what God actually said in the Old Testament, on the one hand, and the humanistic doctrines of religious Jews in the first century, on the other. Often, passages in the New Testament which contrast law with grace are pitting the Gospel against man-made legalistic religion rather than against the actual teachings of the Old Testament, which are laced with grace.

  • Another confusing factor is that the Bible makes statements sometimes supporting continuity between the covenants and sometimes supporting discontinuity between the covenants. It’s a problem when theologians pile up all the scripture references on one side or the other and ignore the other scriptures which balance them out.

    Continuity	Discontinuity
    Called “The Eternal Covenant”	Mosaic, Law	New, Better
    Require Mediator/High Priest	Fallible, Levitical	Perfect, Melchizedekian
    Holy Place/Tabernacle/Pattern	Earthly copy	Heavenly original
    Blood Sacrifice Atonement	Repeated, of animals	Once, of Jesus
    Summarized: “I will be their God & they will be my people”	Physical emphasis: Out of Egypt into Canaan	Spiritual emphasis: Out of darkness into light
    “church” community of a people belonging to God	Mostly Jews, Occasionally Gentiles	Mostly Gentiles, Jews remain integral
    Standard = divine law	On stone, Torah, through Moses	On hearts/minds, through Jesus & Spirit

• There are ditches on both sides of the road that we need to be careful not to fall into.

  • On the one hand is the ditch of radical discontinuity between the New and Old Testament, not adequately engaging with the Old Testament and showing direspect for the majority of God’s words and therefore disrespect toward God Himself. This tends to be what Roman Catholic and Reformed denominations fear that the newer revival-oriented and Evangelical denominations are falling into.

  • The other ditch is radical continuity between the New and Old Testaments, seeing no distinction between them, remaining so engrossed in the Old that the New is disregarded and not seen for the improvement and superiority that it is and therefore shortchanging the glory of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. This tends to be what Evangelicals and Pentecostals fear the older denominations have fallen into.

• “In one sense the break between the old and the new covenants is so great that it may be said that the old covenant came to an end with the arrival of the new covenant. For this reason the new covenant must not be seen merely as a renewal of the old covenant... At the same time, a balance must be kept. As the summation of all God's covenant dealings with fallen men the new covenant remains connected with the old. One point of continu­ity is found in the reference to the Torah, the law that God will write in the hearts of new covenant participants. ‘I will write my Torah on their hearts,’ says the Lord (Jer. 31:33). In essence it is the same law of the old covenant that is now written on the hearts of new-covenant participants.” ~O. Palmer Robertson, Covenants

• Coming back to Heb. 8:7, what is asserted here is that there was a real need for a follow-up covenant, and the very existence of a covenant called the “New Covenant” – the very proph­ecy of a “New Covenant” by Jeremiah – is proof that there was some some incompleteness in the first Covenant which called for completion through the dispensation of a New Covenant.

v.8 yet when He identifies the problem He says to them, “Look, days are coming, the Lord says, when I will complete with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah a new covenant,

• The quote of Jeremiah begins here and is framed by a participle form of the same root word translated “blameless/problem-free” in verse 7.

  • Most English translations interpret this as God, through Jeremiah, finding fault with the people of Israel, however, I don’t see any fault-finding going on in that quote; it looks to me more like a promise of future blessing. (The phrase, “the days are coming” followed by a series of future tense verbs “I will make… I will put… I will write… I will be” clearly mark this out as predictive prophecy rather than exhortation.)

  • So I would suggest a slightly-different interpretation: that this body of prophecy from Jeremiah is geared toward “identifying the problem” of idolatry among God’s people and calling them to trust in God, particularly to wait for God to restore them from exile and to look forward to the blessings the Messiah would bring.

  • Therefore, I would suggest that the dative object “with/to them” is not the direct object of the participle “blaming” (as in “finding fault with them”) but is rather the indirect object of the main verb “He says” (as in “He says to them”).

• The first promise God makes here is “συν-τελέσω/I will make/effect/establish/complete.”

  • The original Hebrew of Jeremiah 31 uses the verb כָרַת, which simply describes the covenant-making process, but the Greek word chosen by the apostle to translate it here in Hebrews 8 adds an additional connotation of “putting everything together in one final step,” that is, “completing” a covenant, not doing it over from the beginning.

  • It’s the same root used throughout this book to describe Jesus’ earthly ministry:

    • Hebrews 2:10 “For it was appropriate to Him, the chief-leader of their salvation... to perfect [τελει-ῶσαι] through sufferings, having led many children into glory..." (NAW)

    • Heb. 5:8-9 “...He learned obedience from the things which He suffered, after He was thus matured [τελει-ωθεὶς], He became legally-responsible for eternal salvation to all those who obey Him...” (NAW)

    • Heb. 9:11 “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more-perfect [τελει-οτέρας] tabernacle..." (NKJV)

    • Heb. 12:2 “Looking unto Jesus the author & finisher [τελει-ωτὴν] of our faith" (NKJ)

  • To be sure, there is a beginning, but it is the finishing up/perfecting which is in view here in the “completion” of the “new covenant,” and the finishing-up is itself a process, with an “end” in the second coming of Christ. Hebrews also uses the same Greek root to describe the second coming:

    • Hebrews 3:14 “we have become companions of Christ if indeed we hold on to the beginning of our confirmed understanding until the end [τέλους]." (NAW)

    • Hebrews 6:11 “we desire for each one of y'all to display the same diligence toward the full assurance of the hope until the end [τέλους]" (NAW)

  • Conversely, the book of Hebrews explicitly denies that this completion/perfection/matur­ity/finishing could be found through the continued practice of Judaism:

    • Heb. 7:11 “So if perfection [τελεί-ωσις] had been in existence through the agency of the Levite priesthood… why still a need for a different priest to be raised up accord­ing to the order of Melchizedek and not dictated according to the order of Aaron?"

    • Hebrews 10:1 “For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never, with these same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect [τελει-ῶσαι]."

• And what is it that God is consumating or making? διαθήκην καινήν “a new covenant”

  • A covenant is a contract. It is relational in nature, but it is also part of business. It contains promises which oblige the parties to the contract to do what they promised. And it also defines (or implies) consequences for breaking those promises.

  • The point of this passage is that when two parties have a contractual agreement and then they compose and sign a new contract, it should be obvious that the terms of the previous contract were not enough; they needed some kind of improvement.

  • Once again, however, the language gives signals that this is not a radically new contract. God wasn’t scrapping all previous contracts and starting over from scratch.

    • One would have expected the word “the” in front of “new” if it were speaking of something which had no continuity which those covenants which went before it. This is another covenant in the development of redemptive history.

    • Furthermore, the Greek word chosen for “new” (kaine) does not necessarily mean “brand-new/novel.” There is another word in the Greek vocabulary (neos) which would have meant that kind of new. This word for “new” fits with the concept of “new and improved.” Kαινή is refurbished/renewed. To be sure, it’s not “more of the same,” it’s “not like” the previous covenant; it’s better, but it’s not necessarily categorically different.

• So, this “new covenant” is initiated by God, it is a future-oriented promise, it is the completion of a process (not a starting over from scratch), and it is centered around the coming of Jesus Christ.

  • “How intimately to the writer the unfolding from the Old into the New is bound up with the unfolding of revelation, may be seen from the opening words of the Epistle. ‘God having spoken - spake — in a Son — whom He has appointed heir of all things, who — when He had in Himself purged our sins, sat down’, etc. The participle aorist ‘having spoken’ and the finite verb ‘spake’ link the old and the new together, representing the former as preparatory to the latter. It will be noticed that in Hebrews 1.1-2, as in the statements of the Old Testament, and of Jesus and Paul, the new dispensation appears as final. And this applies likewise to the revelation introducing it. It is not one new disclo­sure to be followed by others, but the consummate disclosure beyond which nothing is expected. After speech in ‘a Son’ (qualitatively so called) no higher speech were possible ... Consequently there is nowhere any trace of the cumulative point of view: Prophets, Jesus, Apostles; the New Testament revelation is one organic, and in itself completed, whole.” ~Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology

• Notice with whom God promises to make this new covenant: “the house of Israel and the house of Judah” - not just individuals - households!

  • This should give pause to everyone who sees radical discontinuity between the old and new covenant because Jeremiah 31 says the New Covenant is for Jewish households.

  • It is not until we get to the New Testament that we clearly see the extension of the New Covenant to Gentiles. It didn’t come clear until Jesus explained it to His disciples and they wrote about it in their Gospels and epistles, but it is there in the O.T. (for instance, the apostles used Amos 9:12 – an Old Testament passage – as the clinching argument for the inclusion of Gentiles in the Church at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15:17).

• The mention of both the Northern kingdom of Israel and the Southern Kingdom of Judah in Jeremiah 31 also points to a theme of reconciliation and “coming together” of God’s fractured people in the New Covenant.

  • Israel and Judah had been divided into two separate countries for hundreds of years by Jeremiah’s time, yet here God promises to bless both with the same blessing!

  • In the New Testament, we see how these Gospel blessings, although they were “for the Jew first” (Romans 1:16; 2:9,10), were also intended to reach us gentiles as well, for it says in Eph. 3:5-6, “...it has now been revealed by the Spirit to His holy apostles and prophets: that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel.” (NKJV)

  • The New Testament includes a message about “dividing walls” being broken down between Israelite and Judean, Jew and Gentile.

• V.9 contrasts the future tense of the new covenant with the past tense of a historical event:

v.9 not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers during the time of me grabbing their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, which, as for them, they did not remain in my coven­ant, and as for me, I was unsympathetic toward them,” says the Lord

• The aorist verbs in v.9 point to a specific time in history, namely, the Exodus from Egypt, when God rescued the Hebrew nation from slavery. At that time of salvation, there was no Mosaic covenant; the last development in the covenants was the one God had made with Abraham to make him into a nation that had a land of its own.

• Once God had led the Hebrews into a relatively-safe place beside Mount Sinai, He established the Mosaic covenant, including a summary 10 commandments etched on stone tablets and hundreds more case laws recorded by Moses.

• The Hebrew nation’s response to this generous deliverance by God by-and-large was to sever the relationship by breaking the terms of the covenant. Most of them kept worshipping other gods and did not remain in covenant with God.

• God’s response to their covenant-breaking was (depending on your English translation) to be unsympathetic toward them/disregard them/turn away/show no concern/stop caring for them.

• Does that sound a little harsh of God? Let’s put it in context.

  • They had agreed to the terms of the covenant. They had said “Amen” back in Deuter­onomy 27:26 When Moses said, “Cursed is every man that continues/remains not in all the words of this law to do them” They had not “remained” in it, so the blessings contractually did not follow. God was good with His word.

  • The only time before Jeremiah 31 in the entire Greek Bible that such disregard/apathy is recorded is Jeremiah 4:17 “...they [the Babylonians] have surrounded her [Jerusalem]; because thou, saith the Lord, has neglected me.” (Brenton) In other words, God’s unsympathetic turning away was a response in-kind to the people’s having already done the same to God. They had stopped caring about Him first.

  • The same is true in the book of Hebrews. The only other place in this book where this verb occurs is Hebrews 2:3 “how would we ourselves escape after neglecting/showing apathy for such a great salvation?” (NAW) If God has shown you great care and concern by delivering you from slavery and you respond with no care or concern for God, there is no mutual relationship, no covenant. That’s New Testament.

• But there is discontinuity too. The New Covenant will not be along the same lines as that wilderness covenant.

  • “The fault of the old covenant lay, not in its essence… but in its inability to justify and renew those who failed to keep it… the new covenant is the sphere, not of abandonment, but of unceasing fellowship with God...” ~P.E. Hughes

  • “The defect did not lie in the covenant-law; it was good in itself but, to borrow Paul’s language, “it was weakened by the flesh” (Rom. 8:3)—by the inadequacy of the human material which it had to work upon. What was needed was a new nature, a heart liberated from its bondage to sin, a heart which not only spontaneously knew and loved the will of God but had the power to do it. The new covenant was a new one in that it could impart this new heart. It was not new in regard to its own substance: ‘I will be their God, and they shall be my people,’ quoted here from Jer. 31:33, was the substance of the covenant of Moses’ day… (Ex. 6:7, Lev. 26:12, 2 Cor. 6:16, Rev. 21:3).” ~F.F. Bruce

  • Now, the Essene movement of Judaism in the first Century, including the Quamran community by the Dead Sea, “bound itself in allegiance to [what it called] a ‘new covenant’ … which was not really new, but in fact a renewal or reaffirmation of the old covenant of the Mosaic dispensation.” (P.E. Hughes)

  • The Jews were already familiar with calling revivals “new covenants,” but they were looking for everything to be the same – that’s why many of them moved out into the desert to re-create the wilderness experience of Exodus, as though things couldn’t get any better than they were under Moses!

  • God is saying through the author of Hebrews, “Don’t go back there. It does get better than that! The New Covenant is not like the time when the Hebrews were wandering in the desert. The New Covenant is the way in to the Promised Land – a much better land than Palestine.

• All this, then forms the context behind Jesus’ statement at the “Last Supper,” when He said, “this is the blood which is mine, of which is the New Covenant, [and] which is being poured out for the many for the purpose of forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:28, NAW)

Conclusion

This has been a summary overview of Covenant Theology. What are some of the practical implications of these doctrines?

1. The fact that there are covenants initiated by God with humans is a reminder that humans are not ultimate. We live in a universe superintended by a transcendent God, so we need a relationship with that God, and God defines His relationships through covenants.

2. Disregarding God’s covenants is perilous. We need to study them and learn how to relate to God.

3. While it is important to see the New Testament and Jesus as essential to a relationship with God, it is also important to study the Old Testament in order to understand the New Testament in its proper context.

4. Christianity, however, is not about being conservative and preserving old ways. God’s covenants are all future-oriented. To be a Christian is to be forward-thinking along the lines of the promises offered by God in His New Covenant.

Next week, we’ll continue this study on the New Covenant, looking at the terms and conditions and promises offered in it.

APPENDIX: Side-by-side Greek Text & English Versions of Heb. 8:7-9^A