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

A Better Covenant
For the Lord’s Day:  the 7^th of December 2003

Hebrews 7: 20-22

“And it was not without an oath.  For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the one who said to him:  ‘The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, “You are a priest forever.”’ This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. ”

Introduction:  Recently I received a fairly common credit card offer in the mail.  However, the terms were uncommonly good (no interest on transferred accounts for a year and only 7.9% interest thereafter).  As I enquired about it – I discovered that if was only for my wife’s business account and thereby I was unqualified for consideration.  And so it is with all manner of discounts, loans and new accounts across the corporate landscape – not all offers are equal and some are better than others.  Of course for anyone interested in borrowing money – there are all manner of opportunities but they are not all good and some companies should be avoided at any and every cost.  But, they all offer to fulfill a personal need and desire to help American consumers manage their life style.

In the growing religious smorgasbord of assorted and varying faith systems – well do we understand that equality here in this regard is a frail will-o-the-wisp and even an eternal nightmare if you do not receive an offer directly through the Holy Spirit:  to participate in the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.  And that offer, like the credit card I pursued comes in our name only and cannot under any circumstances be traded, sold or given away – even though Esau thoughtlessly dismissed the calling he presumed he could have attained.

Now of course, we must return to the underlying theme of our chapter and indeed the whole book: that the New Covenant of Jesus Christ is better than that Great Covenant revealed through Moses in the books of the Law, as the first five are described.  In fact, if we would have shortened this series and preached one sermon instead of seven on this detailed chapter, we would have outlined a sermon with five arguments for the superiority of Jesus Christ.  And today we will cover the third argument: specifically for a better covenant.

Development:  There are three points to the argument for a better covenant:  there was an oath, it was given by the Lord God of heaven and earth Himself and this fact mandates that Christ’s priesthood must last forever and ever.  Obviously, the statements here demand a public hearing because they both undercut the legitimacy of the Jewish religion as well as the legitimacy of the popular Muslim and the Mormon religions as well.

Within the last year I have had a chance to look over a small Jewish catechism book.  While the ethical sentiments are noble enough, there is no religion of substance left since their Messiah has already appeared and to their ultimate disgrace – He has not been recognized, accepted or appreciated.  This is why the arguments of the Apostle in this letter to the Hebrews is of such vital importance:  because the Jewish religious hope was fulfilled only in Christ and without Him – there is no hope to the promises long treasured and looked forward to!  Jesus Himself proclaims for one and all to hear:  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6: 44)  Paul adamantly states for the record that:  “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.”  (1 Timothy 2: 5-6)  And Luke as well chimes in on the exclusive claims of the New Covenant doctrines:  “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”  (Acts 4: 12)

Both of the other popular cults would teach us that after the first advent of Christ there was something more revealed.  The vile “prophet” Mohammed has dared to force his person and ruminations to the forefront of history as it must be recognized behind the Devil’s curtain.  And thereby he has raised himself above the person and character of God revealed in Jesus Christ.  It is as if the Apostle had never written that Christ was established by the very oath and promise of God:  “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever’.

Then in order to establish the works righteousness of their cult, the latter day sinners refuse to recognize Jesus Christ as He is revealed in the New Covenant record and go on to make a seventh rate, unpublished screenplay an equal to the written revelations concerning the real and final Messiah.  Yes, we are being politically incorrect – but we are claiming nothing that the scriptures do not reveal: that the person of Christ is exclusive in all of history and that in Him – God the Father made Himself known to those who would listen to His voice.

Now, let us return to the focus of the Apostle’s arguments.  First of all, we are asked to acknowledge the fact that Psalm 110: 4 contains an oath that applies directly to the promised Messiah.  In the closing words of our passage last week, we read that Christ constituted “a better hope … through which we draw near to God.”  John Brown argues “the hope [at the close of the sixth chapter], as well as here, is the hope resting on the declaration, confirmed by the oath of God, that the Messiah was to be a perfect, perpetual High Priest.”

Raymond Brown also supports and believes the witness of the Apostle when “He cites this Psalm because it contains God’s oath that this distinctive priesthood ‘after the order of Melchizedek’ will be permanent and changeless.  Nothing could be more definite.  The first part of the oath declared the supreme fact, ‘The Lord has sworn,’ and it must be remembered that in Hebrew thought, when God said something it was done.  It was not a mere word; it had in itself the power to initiate the event.  The second part of the oath declared its reliability: ‘and will not change his mind.’  The Lord will not go back on his word.  So, when in eternity the Lord took upon himself for us this priestly work ‘in the service of God’, the permanence of his ministry was confirmed by God’s oath.  The Lord God said it would last ‘for ever’, so it certainly will.”

Earlier in this series, one of my commentators mentioned that before the coming of Christ – the Jewish scholars hung on this same passage in Psalm 110: 4 a similar hope for a Messianic Priest who would usher in the final act of history.  However, once Christ arrived – in order to maintain a separate identity, they had to reinterpret and apply many of their earlier hopes and expectations to rule Him out of the equation.

John Owen helps us to understand the mind of the Hebrews before these transitions in textual understanding were completed.  “People become priests in two ways, with or without an oath.  The dignity of the priesthood depended on and was declared by the way God was pleased to initiate men into that office.”  This is nothing more than what the Apostle is arguing here.  However, since Christ’s office as priest was established by oath, therefore Owen observes: Christ “was made a priest with an oath.  This oath was constituent of his office.  His call and consecration came from this oath.”

Of course, then we should understand – the antiquities reference to Melchizidek is nothing more than to indicate that there is more than one means to ordain a priest than within the Old Covenant ordering revealed and instituted by and through Moses.  In other words, the Lord: He is God and He can do whatsoever He wills in this and every other matter.  And yet – the Lord God is always consistent with His word, His will and His promise.  Melchizidek existed not only to minister to Abram but also to provide a type of priesthood other than that instituted under the law.  And the fact that God has done this in the distant past, indicates that He may also choose to operate outside of the Jewish box in the present and future as well.  This leads us to our second and necessary point that God has indeed spoken this oath.

I know that it has been well over a year since we began this series on Hebrews.  But the very first sermon was entitled: “God Has Spoken.”  And we would not be wasting our time here this morning if we did not believe that sincerely!  Of course we live in a time when the sound of many hands clapping in adoration of the human spirit has almost drowned out the more sensible commitment to the reality of our Holy God.  In antiquity, even many of the pagans believed that God had spoken and the only arguments that remained for them was which one and what was his proper name.  The Greeks had a doctrine that the “logos” or “word” of creative power came forth from the Supreme being and John and Paul went on to argue that His real Name was Jesus Christ.  And so would we, but we are preaching to the choir here of course and it is a more difficult audience when you must argue with the followers of Mohammed or Joseph Smith, because they have additional texts which they hold sacred.  And their texts must undercut those of both Covenant records otherwise – they have no reason to continue their existence and their whole religious structure would come crumbling down.

Providentally, it was enough for a large number of the Hebrews in the time of Christ to hear the Apostle in his arguments here.  Psalm 110 was long established and understood to apply to the Messiah who had just appeared.  So therefore, this was a powerful argument to them that their former covenantal structures were inadequate to measure up to the ongoing work of the Lord of Life!

Application:  Our third point this morning is that as a part of this oath given to David the King: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, ‘You are a priest forever.”’  God has solemnly stated that Jesus Christ in becoming the final High Priest will remain so forever afterwards.  John Owen writes that “this confirms that his office was unchanging and that he himself, not any successor, will hold and discharge this office.”

The Scots commentator, old John Brown becomes almost poetic in his exctasy:  “Our thoughts are turned back through the course of eternal ages; and we seem to witness – through the minuter parts of the sublime scene are hid in excess of brightness – that awfully important transaction among the eternal and independent Three in One, from which originates the whole scheme of our redemption, and which, according to the different aspects in which our feeble faculties consider it, is termed ‘the counsel of peace,’ or the decree of mercy.  The general meaning, however, is abundantly apparent.  God has in the most distinct and solemn manner, declared it to be His unalterable determination that Jesus Christ shall be ‘a Priest for ever, after the order of Melchisedec.’”

Now what does all of this mean for us today?  That is the topic with which Brown and Bruce spend the most time.  And this is our final point for today:  “This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.”

John Owen deserves our hearing first and foremost on this topic:  “Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.  This covenant or testament would be better than the previous one, which is to be annulled.  After God had made one covenant with his people, he would not remove it, abolish it, unless its replacement was a better one.  This better covenant would have a surety, become the guarantee.  Christ undertook on our behalf, what was needed, and so the promise was fulfilled.”

F.F. Bruce tells us that the Apostle “introduces a further aspect of the priesthood of Jesus which will be developed in the following chapters – Jesus’ role as guarantor and mediator of a covenant which is as much superior to the covenant of the ancient regieme as His priesthood is superior to that of Aaron.”

Before we close, John Brown would want us to make certain we understand two vital terms in that last sentence of scripture which we have read today.  He begins with the word translated here as “covenant,” or in some versions “testament,” is a more comprehensive than our ordinary use of a “covenant.”  “It signifies a constitution, an arrangement, a dispensation or economy.  It is the word ordinarily employed to denote the two divine arrangements or economies under which God has placed His Church, and here plainly describes that order of things introduced by the Messiah; and that order of things is stated to be a better order of things than that to which the Levitical priesthood belonged.”

Second there is the word “guarantor” which may also be translated as “surety”.  “A ‘surety,’ or sponsor, is one who stands in the room of another, and acts for him when he cannot act for himself.  In both the economies under which God placed His Church there were such sureties, - persons who stood between God and His people, persons who acted in their name and for their behalf.”   This “mediator” as our Confession describes him is a mediator of the divine covenant or economy and therefore is the same thing as a priest, “who does for man what man cannot do for himself.”

The better “covenant” in Christ is precisely better because of the personage of the “surety,” the sponsor who was and always is Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.  Any religion which is not built on “Jesus’ blood and righteousness” as the old hymn goes is no religion worthy of attention.  To Christ, the Old Covenant did indeed point in both word and deed – but now that Christ had come, its usefulness was over.  In Christ and in Him alone resides the favor of God and if we do not have Him – we are lost forever and ever.  Praise be the God and Father who has made Christ known to us and to whom we owe our salvation in this life and the next.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

 Brown, John.  A Geneva Series Commentary:  Hebrews.
Brown, Raymond.  The Bible Speaks Today: The Message of Hebrews.
Bruce, F.F.  The Epistle to the Hebrews.
Owen, John.  The Crossway Classic Commentaries: Hebrews.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.

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