NEW COVENANT

THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS

CHAPTER 8

Welcome back. We’ve been learning about Jesus as the High Priest in the last few chapters of our study, and now Paul reviews it once again in this chapter.

Now about the things we’ve talked about,

this is the summary:

We have such an high priest,

who is set on the right hand

of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;

A minister of the sanctuary,

and of the true tabernacle,

which the Lord pitched, and not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices:

so it is necessary that this man also have something to offer.

Again, Paul is showing the superiority of Jesus, because in the old covenant, the offerings and sacrifices were beasts and grain and wine and such. But in the new covenant, Jesus offered His life, a far more precious sacrifice.

For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest,

as Moses was instructed by God when he was about to make the tabernacle:

See that you make all things

according to the pattern shown to you in the mount.

Exodus 26:30

We’ll be studying about this “pattern” a little deeper in our study of Chapter 9, when Paul elaborates about the significance of the shadows of heavenly things.

But now Jesus has obtained a more excellent ministry,

in that He is the mediator of a better covenant,

which was established upon better promises.

For if that first covenant had been flawless,

then there would be no reason for the second.
But finding fault with them, God said,

Jeremiah 31:31-34

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord,

that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel,

and with the house of Judah:

Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers

in the day that I took them by the hand

to bring them out of the land of Egypt;

which my covenant they brake,

although I was an husband unto them,

saith the Lord:

But this shall be the covenant

that I will make with the house of Israel;

After those days, saith the Lord,

I will put my law in their inward parts,

and write it in their hearts;

and will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour,

and every man his brother, saying,

Know the Lord:

for they shall all know me,

from the least of them unto the greatest of them,

saith the Lord:

for I will forgive their iniquity,

and I will remember their sin no more.

The scripture passage that you just read from the book of Jeremiah should be without question, proof that the Old Testament is obsolete.

In calling it, A new covenant, He has made the first one old.

Now that which decays and becomes old is ready to vanish away.

          Make no mistake, God always knew there would be an old and a new covenant, otherwise, how would one shadow the other so perfectly? The new covenant wasn’t like a Plan B, in case Plan A didn’t work. It was certain and inevitable, and without one, the other would be meaningless. In our next study, Paul tells what is better about the new covenant, so you don’t want to miss it, right here at Daily Bread.