Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2003

From the Pulpit at Pilgrim's Rest Presbyterian Church in America

The New Economy of Christ
For the Lord’s Day:  the 30^th of November 2003

Hebrews 7: 15-19

“This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life.  For it is witnessed of him, ‘You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.’  On the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. ”

Introduction:  Some years ago, we briefly assisted a homeless family to get off the streets and into a better situation.  The father of the family claimed to be a former Army Captain who had been put out of the service for no good reason.  So he and his German wife and their children returned to this country, where their enjoyment of a former prosperity was long delayed.  We met them after the first Desert Storm, and the best I can understand their situation is this.  During the late eighties when the young hawks were determined to return the military to a lean green fighting machine – this particular captain along with a lot of others was found to be incompetent in the area of charisma, leadership and a team mission focus.  He simply did not have it within him to do his job.  I base this upon my short observation of his character and personality – since I have been in the military, I had learned what a real leader was like and he could never have fit the bill. 

Friday night I went to see the movie Master & Commander, which is an excellent study in command and the pursuit of one’s duty in the Napoleonic Royal Navy.  In the course of the story, one “Jonah” as the sailors called him – committed suicide by jumping overboard.  He, who had been commissioned a young Ensign in the Navy, had never risen in rank, being passed over for promotion several times.  Rather than accept the reality of not having risen to the station in life he expected, he took the coward’s way out instead of trying a different career.

That fiction was not far from the fact of the homeless “captain” that we chanced upon!  You see, in spite of every leadership seminar, military and civilian training programs – leaders are born not made!  The biblical principle is that one man out of ten is so gifted.  And those societies and organizations that ignore the obvious evidence of history are ill-governed at the very least.  One reason that the German military did so well for so long in the twentieth century was the fact that they realized this principle and built their temporary success upon their understanding of so called “natural selection.”

Europe and most of the world have developed stratified societies where nepotism provided the only certain security to fame and fortune in times of peace.  Warfare and other dire emergencies tended to rearrange the political and social landscape from time to time.  In the late Eighteenth Century – the temporary egalitarian nature of the French Republic threatened all of Europe with a different model of leadership – whereby the most gifted and talented men might rise to command the world.  This great revolution failed upon the hard hearted rock of Napoleon to raise his family of brothers to the kingship of dependent realms where they all proved their lack of their brother’s drive, energy and natural abilities.

I say all of this in preparation for our lesson today: that there is in the New Economy and administration of the Covenant in Jesus Christ a profound difference from the Levitical and Aaronical order of Church government with which the Old Covenant Church was structured.

Development:  In addition, there is another essential difference in the two economies that we will learn more about in sermons to follow.  During the Old Covenant it was somewhat rare to burn a whole beef.  The usual practice was to drain the blood, burn the inedible parts and either sell or consume the meat portion of the lambs, kids and beeves.  The sacrifice of these animals was only a shadow of the greater sacrifice to come in Jesus Christ.  And by themselves – those sacrifices were unable to purchase perfection.

It remained for the true “Lamb of God” to come into the world and be raised up on the cross, where His own blood poured out upon the same geography wherein the previous sacrifices had poured the blood of countless sacrificial animals for almost a thousand years.  Like the members of the Old Covenant, we too feed upon the “Lamb of God” in our communion service.  We do so because the Lord Jesus expressly commands us to take and eat.  “This is my body which is for you,” and “This cup is the new covenant in my blood.”  While the two Covenantal aspects remain remarkably similar – the New Economy is profoundly different.

Even as the Westminster Divines would admonish us the “covenant [of grace] was differently administered in the time of the law, and in the time of the gospel.”  And this administration of the new economy is profound precisely in the nature of the One who graciously made the final, once for all sacrifice for sin.  We must focus on the phrase which sets Christ apart for this calling in our text for today:  “by the power of an indestructible life.”

Only in the perfect life of Jesus Christ, the God-man is that text fulfilled.  Neither the power of Rome nor the false hopes of the Jewish Sanhedrin could have taken the Lord of all the earth down – unless He by plan, providence and willingness were to lay His own life down for the benefit of His own people.  Neither could death and Hades hold Him – at the appointed time, after three days:  He arose from the dead, thereby destroying the power of death and giving those who believe in Him a more certain hope that He has won for them eternal salvation.

F.F. Bruce describes how this remarkable gospel is superior to that which preceded Christ’s coming in power and glory.  “The Christians’ high priest is immortal; having died once for all and risen from the dead, He discharges His ministry on His people’s behalf in the power of a life that can never be destroyed.  The law which established the Aaronic priesthood is called a ‘carnal commandment’ because it is ‘a system of earth-bound rules’ (NEB); it is concerned with the externalities of religion – the physical descent of the priests, a material shrine, animal sacrifices and so forth.  Like everything else in the Levitical regime, the Aaronic order of priesthood was marked by transience; it stands thus in contrast to the permanence and effectiveness of the priestly office of Christ.”

Commentator John Brown urges us to consider the same understanding.  “’The law of a carnal commandment’ is plainly the law of the Levitical priest hood.  … But the priesthood of the person mentioned in the 110^th Psalm was not to be constituted in correspondence with this law, but in correspondence with ‘the power of an endless,’ or indissoluble, ‘life.’  The person spoken of is not a mortal man, but ‘the King eternal, immortal, and invisible,’ who sits on the throne of heaven, at the right hand of His Divine Father; and His priesthood has a correspondence to His immortal life.”

Application:  We are left with two final thoughts to ponder this morning.  The first comes from the phrase:  “On the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness.”  Bruce quotes another commentator on the meaning of the Greek words which we read as “set aside” and other translations that read: “disannulling.”  “E.K. Simpson points out that its Hellenistic sense of ‘an act of supersession or setting aside’ appears in its technical use by ‘the Alexandrian grammarians to signify the obelizing of a suspected passage counted spurious and therefore to be expunged from an author’s text.  In this sense of deletion we find it in the papyri with reference to annulled decrees and even paid-off loans.”

For any of you who have successfully paid of a car or property loan – within a few weeks of that accomplishment, your bank will send you confirmation from the local court house that the former title or deed has been cleared of their once outstanding loan.  This is what the Apostle is urging his readers to accept concerning the legalities of the Mosaic Covenant which was so minutely described in all its legal complexities and ceremonial rituals.  They are superceded – He announces.  In July of 1776, the members of the Second Continental Congress voted to supercede the laws, decrees and oversight of the British Crown and Empire.  The thirteen colonies then went on to ratify that decision and later, having become States they did ratify a temporary confederate form of government and finally in 1787 a constitutional federal system.  However, in so doing – none of the underlying principles of law, rules, regulations or moral statutes were disdained.  The only thing that had changed was the ruling authority at the top of the system.

In the grand scheme of God’s covenantal system regarding His rule, oversight, love and providential care of His own people, nothing basic or foundational really changed.  He simply consolidated the temporal order in the direct hands of His one and only Son:  Jesus Christ.

The second thought in our last verse today is this one:” on the other hand, a better hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God.”  It is here that the ESV translation helps immensely with the implied contrast showing and demonstrating the superiority of the new economy in Christ.  John Brown quotes an older commentator by the name of Ebrad.  “The law in every respect opened up and imposed a number of problems without solving any of them.  It set up in the Decalogue the ideal of a holy life, but it gave no power to realize that ideal.  By the law of sacrifice it awakened the consciousness of the necessity of an atonement; but it provided no true, valid offering for sin.  In the institution of the priesthood it held forth the necessity of a representation of the sinner before God; but it gave no priest able to same men.  In short, it left everything unfinished.”

Jesus Christ, in His person and in His work validates every unfinished aspect of the law and thereby through that new economy brings us closer to our Lord and our God.  So, as we draw near to the table of our Lord, there to feast and sup with Him, let us glory in the intimate personal terms of the New Covenant given in His own body and His own blood.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES
Brown, John.  A Geneva Series Commentary:  Hebrews.
Bruce, F.F.  The Epistle to the Hebrews.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.
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