Hebrews: The New Covenant Administration of Christ Max A Forsythe (c) Anno Domini 2004

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

A Prophetic Proof Text
For the Lord’s Day:  the 20^th of June 2004

 Hebrews 8: 8-13

⁸  “For he finds fault with them when he says:
‘The days will come, says the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah;
⁹    not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of the land of Egypt;
 for they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I paid no heed to them, says the Lord.
¹⁰ This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
After those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
¹¹ And they shall not teach every one his fellow
or everyone his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
 for all shall know me,
 from the least of them to the greatest.
¹²  For I will be merciful toward their iniquities.
And I will remember their sins no more.’.
¹³  In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete.  And what is
becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.”

 

Introduction:  In the latter decades of the Nineteenth Century, a new methodology for business organization arose within the context and formula of Capitalism.  This incorporated model, first established and legalized in the East, quickly moved from state to state where it was adopted in practically the same terms.  The superiority of the new organization and its administration quickly demonstrated its powers and prosperity in the energy and steel industries.  Carnegie and Rockefeller applied the evolutionary aspects with a Darwinian ruthlessness that eliminated thousands of rival businesses as if they were only inferior species doomed to extinction.  Rockefeller, himself – like to brag that in bringing his Standard Oil Company to domination of his whole industry, he had eliminated over twenty-thousand competitors and taken hold of ninety-five percent of the oil industry.  Carnegie did almost the same for the steel industry, and in his old age remodeled the university landscape through selective gifts to accomplish a further evolution not only in thought but also application across the whole landscape as well.

This ruthless application of evolutionary empire building has continued into our day.  Sam Walton’s company now profits from one-seventh of the retail spending in our entire country.  And the Willow Creek model of church growth only applies the same cut-throat corporate model to the evangelical church wherever possible.

Now, with that economic model of contemporary capitalism laid out before you, I hope that you can understand that most of the essential principles of Capitalism, while still admired, practiced and profited from – these do indeed serve in the once popular Mom and Pop business climate as well as in the corporate structure now so widely admired and emulated.  The essential difference is in how the various enterprises are administered and how the laws affect, regulate and prosper the various aspects of both economies: new and old.  While I have a strong prejudice in this matter, I will not elaborate on the benefits or value of the two models.  The point I want to make is that Capitalism remains pretty much what it always was, but in the modern era it has radically been altered, re-engineered and administered in a quite different centralized way.

Development:  Now, for those very comfortable in these thoroughly modern times, let me say that the New Administration of the biblical covenant seems to be almost an exactly opposite in its developmental strategies moving from Old to New.  The social cohesion of the Old Covenant families, tribes and nations seemingly always deteriorated from dry rot at the highest levels and spread out from there to infect the whole of the covenant people.  This opinion is very similar to what we all experienced during the nineties when the perverted escapades in the White House trickled down to infect almost the whole social establishment.

But still, the Law of God – once known and applied could and did transform the holy nation again and again.  Revival occurred within the corporate covenant as it was popularly known and understood more than several times.  The national hopes were renewed from generation to generation – even while dismal failure in obedience was widely and sadly known throughout the whole family of God.  And yet, the spiritual aspects of the covenant not only provided salvation for the people of Judah, but also former Israelites, Philistines, Edomites, Moabites and members from other surrounding tribes and nations too: all of whom came to a saving knowledge of Judah’s great God, Lord and King.

In all of this, I am only hinting at the full knowledge which we have in the light of Christ, as John Brown acknowledges:  “the kind of knowledge which is the peculiar glory of the New Covenant is a kind of knowledge which cannot be communicated by brother teaching brother, but comes directly from Him – the Great Teacher, whose grand characteristic is this, that whom He teaches, He makes apt to learn.”

In the book of Ezekiel, the prophet used a tornado like image to demonstrate the movement of wheels within wheels, whereby the will and purpose of the Almighty and Powerful Lord of Lords and King of Kings accomplished His perfect and providential will.  So it is on the personal level as well as the international and heavenly level, and I might add – so has it always been.  Jeremiah, in our passage today is simply announcing that, that spiritual experience which once appeared to be familial, tribal and national must one day be realized for what it always had been: a personal experience of the only Lord and Creator over all the universe.

The old understanding of the corporate nature must go out of fashion along with the shadow sacrifices which must have a new and better accounting in and through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Commentator Raymond Brown acknowledges the radical transformation of the covenant relationship in the work of Jesus Christ.  “The words (beginning in verse six – thirteen) introduce the prospect of a completely different kind of relationship.  Something dramatically new has happened in Jesus.”

John Brown explains that:  “the Apostle shows clearly, from the passage which he quotes from the prophecy of Jeremiah, that God, plainly intimating the imperfection of the ‘first covenant,’ had declared that He would establish a new and perfect covenant; and by the enumeration of the blessings promised in that covenant, he shows that it is indeed ‘a better covenant, established in reference to better promises.’”

John Owen brings us to the heart of the argument in the context of this dramatic announcement of a new and better covenant.  In verse thirteen, “the apostle makes a special inference from one of Jeremiah’s words to strengthen his main argument.  The Hebrews were convinced that no matter what sort of new covenant was promised, the first one should continue in force, which meant that the church was obliged to carry out all its institutions of worship.  This was the heart of the disagreement between the apostle and the Hebrews.  The apostle knew that the conviction the Hebrews held would destroy the faith of the Gospel and ruin their own souls.  So he presses home his arguments about the ending of the first covenant.  In this verse he drives home a new argument to demonstrate the necessity and certainty of the abolition of the old covenant.”

Application:  Unfortunately, as we know all to well in our day and time, the glorious gospel of grace is regularly misplaced in every kind of cultic fascination of living a life to please the Lord and Savior.  This fascination starts out humbly enough – but over and over in the history of the church any overtures that plead the benefits of ongoing obedience eventually end up in some form of works righteousness, as if obedience pleases well enough to warrant the grace originally received.  “What shall we do” to be saved, is the echo of the adherents who came to the Apostles in the first season of Pentecost after the resurrection.    The Apostles quickly responded and invited members of the crowd to:  “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”    (Acts 2: 38)  Here was and is the application of Jeremiah’s prophecy of the new birth, described best and aptly by the Apostle John.

Now, as we work towards a conclusion in this sermon, let us close with several essential points taken from Raymond Brown’s assessment of the book of Hebrews.  First, of all – drawing from the text before us he tells us that: “the old covenant is regarded as imperfect, powerless and obsolete.”

We begin this assessment of the old covenant by considering its imperfection.  In Hebrews 8: 7 we read “for if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second.”  Now we must understand from the Apostle’s understanding, that the moral law has not been suspended, only “the ceremonial laws of Judaism about sacrifices, lustrations and the like have all been superseded by Christ.”  The shadow world of types pointing to the Messiah, have all been diminished in and through the bright intensity of the greater and better light that was Christ.

Also, we must note from Jeremiah’s text in (Hebrews 8: 9): “they did not continue in my covenant” Here is an admission that the old covenant in and of itself was powerless in providing man any ability to “meet its requirements.”  Every week this summer, I am responsible for sharing the basic laws and rules of the road to my future driving students.  But, even though we repeatedly emphasis that belts and bags can save lives, still we loose people who should have learned better.  Just two weeks ago, a young man who had finished the twenty-four hours of class time – was killed in an accident before he could complete the eight hours of driving time.  The reason:  he was not wearing his seat belt.  Neither did the Israelites take seriously the laws of our God and king.  Why?  Because:  “The old law was but a signpost to direct man; the new covenant supplies the power to make the journey.”

Finally in this first regard, the Apostle writes succinctly in verse thirteen:  “In speaking of a new covenant he treats the first as obsolete.”  In spite of our mounting Air Force fire control managers on horseback in Afghanistan only two years ago, the glory days of horse cavalry are obsolete.  In fact, the new smart technology turns almost every army in the world but half a dozen as nothing more than glorified boy scouts!  So it goes in many and different fields of endeavor, and so it was accomplished as well in the revealed theology of God’s revelation.  The New Covenant in Christ supersedes the shadows, patterns and types of the Old

On a more positive note: Secondly, Raymond Brown outlines “five features of Jeremiah’s new covenant [which] are worthy of special note.  The blessings of the better covenant are conciliatory, inward, universal, and generous and assured.”

It is conciliatory in that both Israel and Judah are included, Dr Brown cites another commentator by the name of Hughes who writes: “Bringing together, ‘those who had been divided by bitterness and hostility’, it symbolized the reconciliation effected under the better covenant by Christ.”

It is “inward” in the sense that the New Covenant is written in our minds and hearts, which is so much better than the memorization encouraged of the Old Covenant.  I am reminded of on Nikita Khrushchev who was known as a youth to have memorized numerous chapters of the scriptures, all for the rewards of chocolate candy.  Then as an adult, he became known as one of the butchers of the Ukraine when six million peasant farmers were cleansed from the new state farms.  In the Old Covenant, the commandments were etched in the stone tablets, Brown encourages us that “the new is within us; it forms part of our very souls.”

It is “universal,” no longer is the covenant the exclusive possession of the hereditary heirs of Abraham, now it is for the nations and peoples of all kinds, rich and poor, great and small – members of every tribe and nation.  Truly the New Covenant Church is catholic in this sense, reaching to the ends of the earth and back again.

It is “generous” because the God of heaven and earth declares “I will be merciful toward their iniquities.”  The New Covenant promises the forgiveness of sins F.F. Bruce observes: “the blotting out of His people’s sins is essential to this new relationship into which God calls them with Himself.”  While this is not a new revelation in the scriptures, “now the assurance of forgiveness of sins is written into the very terms of the covenant in the most unqualified fashion.”

Finally, the New Covenant is “assured.”  “The old covenant was naturally limited, temporary and partial, but the new covenant is unrestricted in its power, eternal in its duration and complete in its effects,” Raymond Brown encourages us.  “All the tentativeness and hesitancy of the earlier days have gone.  Man can now be sure:  “All shall know me.”  To that, all I can add is the grace of the Father, who has first known us and through the power of His Holy Spirit brought us to His One and only Son – that thereby His broken body and spilled blood has redeemed us – we who like the ancients, were lost and without hope – until He made Himself known.  Blessed be the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  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:  Commentary on the Book of Hebrews.
The Holy Bible:  English Standard Version.
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