SPEAKER_00: Paul says this.
SPEAKER_00: The point in what we are saying is this we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.
SPEAKER_00: For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
SPEAKER_00: They serve as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.
SPEAKER_00: For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, See that ye make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old, as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.
SPEAKER_00: For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second.
SPEAKER_00: For he finds fault with them when he says, Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: For they did not continue in my covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I will put my laws into their minds, I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
SPEAKER_00: They shall not teach each other, one his neighbor, and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful towards their iniquities, I will remember their sins no more.
SPEAKER_00: In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete, and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
SPEAKER_00: The Greek language has three different words for new.
SPEAKER_00: They would all get translated into English new.
SPEAKER_00: And the three different words mean different things.
SPEAKER_00: And naos means new as in like a replacement for something.
SPEAKER_00: So I just opened this Coke Zero.
SPEAKER_00: It's not I have a chemical addiction to Coke Zero.
SPEAKER_00: I know the first stage of dealing with an addiction is recognizing what it is.
SPEAKER_00: So I recognize my dependency on Coke Zero, and I opened a new one tonight.
SPEAKER_00: It's new because it's a contrast with the one I had this afternoon.
SPEAKER_00: It's a totally different one.
SPEAKER_00: It's a new one.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the word new means here.
SPEAKER_00: When you find the word new in the New Testament in relationship to usually foods, new bread or new leaven in 2 Corinthians, new wine, even, that's that word, naos, new.
SPEAKER_00: It's not uh you know, new is out of the blue, it's new because it's you just opened it, it's brand new to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's one word for the word new.
SPEAKER_00: Another word for new in Greek is kinos.
SPEAKER_00: And kynos is new as in you haven't seen it before.
SPEAKER_00: It's a new in substance.
SPEAKER_00: So this Coke Zero is the new re-engineered Coke zero, which I think is a moral travesty, and I want a congressional investigation, but they have they've done it.
SPEAKER_00: Even says, now more delicious on the side.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: Now more delicious.
SPEAKER_00: I'm skeptical when something has to tell you that it tastes good.
SPEAKER_00: That's I'm skeptical about it.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a new design, new flavoring, new engineering to it.
SPEAKER_00: So it is new.
SPEAKER_00: This can is new in two ways.
SPEAKER_00: It's new because it is the replacement for the one earlier.
SPEAKER_00: It's also new because it is newly engineered.
SPEAKER_00: Hasn't been experienced before.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, that's a mediocre cook zero.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to leave it there to remind me of those two words for new, or remind you as you look over my shoulder.
SPEAKER_00: There's a couple Bible passages that use both of those terms.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus, for example, says nobody would take new wine, that's the word for naos, new wine, it's a new vintage of wine, and put it into old wineskins.
SPEAKER_00: Because the old wineskins, you know, the wineskins are elastic and they've absorbed and the pressure has been released from them.
SPEAKER_00: If you put new wineskins in it, it still's got to ferment and and change.
SPEAKER_00: It would burst an old wine if you put old wineskin if you put new wine into it.
SPEAKER_00: So rather you take a new wineskin, and that's the word kinos.
SPEAKER_00: You would invent a new wineskin, whole cloth.
SPEAKER_00: A brand new wineskin for new wine.
SPEAKER_00: Now it's the same word new in English in both of those places, but it's not at all the same kind of new.
SPEAKER_00: In English, we kind of lack that distinction.
SPEAKER_00: And so I have an analogy for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you upgrade your iPhone, you get like a newer, a newer model of iPhone.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just kind of the new iPhone.
SPEAKER_00: Like the camera is like 4% better.
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: Definitely worth a thousand bucks.
SPEAKER_00: You know, say you have a car that you drive into the ground, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I think of the car that I had when I was in seminary.
SPEAKER_00: This it was it was called Bob the Tomato because it looked like a tomato.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a car from the 70s, and it was a lovely car uh when I got it, but it was like my car for driving around LA all through seminary, and I drove that thing into the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it literally got hit by a flood.
SPEAKER_00: Uh a water retention uh dam broke and water flooded the street, and my car had water in its headlights and water in its engine.
SPEAKER_00: I got it towed to Grace Church and just sat in the parking lot with the hood open in Grace Church for like three weeks, drying out.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor MacArthur kept looking at it, just shaking his head.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually I drained the water from the headlights.
SPEAKER_00: That car never resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: And it was replaced with a new car.
SPEAKER_00: The first new car I ever had in my life.
SPEAKER_00: My dad works in the car business, and he uh was kind of against new cars, just on general principle, because of the way the value dropped.
SPEAKER_00: But he wanted me when I graduated seminary to have my first new car.
SPEAKER_00: And so he bought me a new car.
SPEAKER_00: It was new, not like the old one.
SPEAKER_00: It was not merely a replacement.
SPEAKER_00: It was new in kind, it was new in quantity, it like actually, or in quality, it actually got me places on time.
SPEAKER_00: It was new from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: It was resurrected, kind of new.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to keep that distinction in your mind as we work ourselves through Hebrews chapter 8 tonight, because Hebrews chapter 8 is going to end with the word new down in verse 13 and speaking of a new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is worth you asking as we go through Hebrews chapter 8 tonight, working our way to verse 13, what kind of new are we talking about here?
SPEAKER_00: Are we talking merely about an upgrade from the old iPhone to the new iPhone?
SPEAKER_00: Are we talking merely about new, like you had a Coke Zero this afternoon, now there's a new one?
SPEAKER_00: Or are we talking about a fundamentally new covenant, like you got a new car to replace the broken down one?
SPEAKER_00: Or Coke Zero has been re-engineered kind of new.
SPEAKER_00: You want to think through as you're reading through this, what kind of new are we talking about?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you an outline as we go through this to help you see this.
SPEAKER_00: We have five improvements in the upgrade here.
SPEAKER_00: Five improvements in the upgrade that we're gonna see in Hebrews chapter eight.
SPEAKER_00: And the first of those improvements we find in verses one and two, the location of this new promise, this new covenant, the location is new between the new and the old.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 8, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: The point in what we were saying is this, and Paul is summarizing all of chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: When you talk about the priest Melchizedek, you can get stuck in the Melchizedekian swamp once you start going down Melchizedek theology, and there are people that fall into a swamp of Melchizedek and never emerge.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is summing up chapter 7 for us, with chapter 8, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: The point of what he was saying in chapter 7 is this we have a high priest, one who's seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He is describing a contrast between the Levitical priesthood that's given in the Torah and the Melchizedekian priesthood.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, Paul's point, is he is a priest like Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: He is in that sense a new kind of priest.
SPEAKER_00: He is not a priest like from the tribe of Levi, from the family of Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: He's not from that genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: He's different than that.
SPEAKER_00: And the point of that is he's different because, look at verse 8, chapter 8, verse 1, he is seated at the right hand of the throne in the majesty of the majesty in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus right now, Paul's point is, is seated in heaven right now.
SPEAKER_00: This is a contrast between the priests of the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant, of course, is the law given by God through Moses to Israel to regulate the lives of the lives of the Israelites from the time they received the law at the beginning of the wilderness wanderings to the 40 years of the wilderness wanderings into Israel, and it was to be a schoolmaster that would watch over them until the Savior came.
SPEAKER_00: The law was the tutor.
SPEAKER_00: It was the law that was supposed to teach them their own sin, break them down, and lead them to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's the old covenant law.
SPEAKER_00: It regulated how they lived.
SPEAKER_00: It had the moral commands, the Ten Commandments, of course, are part of that.
SPEAKER_00: It was essentially the first five books of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: That's the law that was given to Israel.
SPEAKER_00: That law describes the priesthood, making the tribe of Levi, one of the tribes of Israel, a priestly family, a priestly tribe, the high priest being Aaron, of course, and it would be his descendants that would function in that capacity.
SPEAKER_00: That's the old covenant law.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus comes around and launches the New Testament, Jesus comes as the Messiah, the one sent from heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_00: When he comes, he comes with a newness to him, bringing a new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: So the question is, is this new covenant that Jesus brings, is it merely an upgrade of the old covenant or is a fundamental renewal of it?
SPEAKER_00: And the first place we see this distinction is right here.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is seated in heaven at the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now you are supposed to contrast in your mind what happened to the old covenant priests.
SPEAKER_00: Did any of them ever go into heaven?
SPEAKER_00: Not while they were priests, not while they were ministering, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00: This is all described in detail in chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: There's all these regulations in Hebrews 9 of what the high priest did.
SPEAKER_00: Look at Hebrews 9, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: There was a tent that was prepared, and there's a lampstand, and there's a table, and there's a bread of the presence, and it's called the holy place, and there's a second curtain with a second section called the Most Holy Place.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 4 of Hebrews 9, there's the golden altar of incense, the ark of the covenant covered in all sides with gold.
SPEAKER_00: It's the golden urn, it's holding the manna, and Aaron's staff that budded, the tablets of the covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Above them, you got the angels looking down, all you know, angry, overshadowing the mercy seats.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, of these things we can't speak in detail.
SPEAKER_00: I love it when Paul says that after describing things in detail.
SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the imagery, the landscape there of the Holy of Holies.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll notice what is missing is a chair.
SPEAKER_00: There's no place to sit.
SPEAKER_00: The priest is not hanging out in there.
SPEAKER_00: The priest goes in, ministers, and gets out of town while he has his life with him.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of urgency to it.
SPEAKER_00: The priest did not have unfettered access to God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: He would walk.
SPEAKER_00: Originally, remember the law originally describes a tent.
SPEAKER_00: And the tent is a great translation.
SPEAKER_00: It was portable.
SPEAKER_00: People would break it down, pack it up, the priest would carry it, and they'd reset it up.
SPEAKER_00: Had flimsy sides to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a tent.
SPEAKER_00: The tent of meeting was called the tent of meeting because Moses went in there to meet with Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: The high priest could go in there, but once a year, eventually they make a temple which takes the place of the tent.
SPEAKER_00: But even the temple is on earth and it's got all these regulations to it.
SPEAKER_00: It is very much localized, and the priests don't have unfettered access to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's on earth.
SPEAKER_00: It gets destroyed, but you can get on an airplane.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, I know, Pastor Steve's going this week.
SPEAKER_00: You can get on a plane and fly to the Middle East, get off in Tel Aviv, take your bus all the way up to Jerusalem and go to where the temple used to be.
SPEAKER_00: There's even a tunnel underground.
SPEAKER_00: You can find one of the old rocks.
SPEAKER_00: Cool cornerstone of the old temple sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: And you can go see it.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way the old covenant priests ministered.
SPEAKER_00: Very localized, transient, temporary, with no access to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with Jesus in chapter 8, verse 1, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He's already up there.
SPEAKER_00: Look at chapter 8, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He's a minister in the holy places in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.
SPEAKER_00: So if Jesus is a high priest, that means he has access to the tent of meeting because he meets with God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't just have access to the tent of meeting, he's got a way better tent in heaven where he sits down in God's presence always and forever.
SPEAKER_00: He's the eternally begotten Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: He's the very image of God.
SPEAKER_00: He has the fullness of deity dwells in him.
SPEAKER_00: He is the eternal Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, he has access to God.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need the code to get into the tent.
SPEAKER_00: It's his tent.
SPEAKER_00: Where God dwells, Jesus dwells because Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the image here.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see just the fundamental distinction between this and the promises of the Old Covenant?
SPEAKER_00: The Old Covenant priests went to work every Sabbath.
SPEAKER_00: They sacrificed the Passover lambs every year.
SPEAKER_00: They separated the scapegoat every year.
SPEAKER_00: They did this, the same sacrifices over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: They never rested.
SPEAKER_00: There was no rest for these priests.
SPEAKER_00: It was constant work.
SPEAKER_00: Sabbath was the day of rest, and that was the busiest day for the priests.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says that in Matthew 12.
SPEAKER_00: The priests worked on the Sabbath, and yet they're faultless.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with Jesus who rests, who sits down in God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews begins that way in Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3, describing Jesus as the very image of God.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to flip there, I can read it for you.
SPEAKER_00: It's the very beginning of Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 1 verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: He's the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature.
SPEAKER_00: He upholds the universe by the word of his power.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's lofty language.
SPEAKER_00: He's the very image of God, the radiance of his nature, and all things are held together by him.
SPEAKER_00: Next sentence.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast.
SPEAKER_00: He's holding the whole universe together, but he's not sweating.
SPEAKER_00: He's holding all things together because he's the radiance of God, the image of God, and he's sitting down because his work is complete.
SPEAKER_00: It describes in verse 2 a tent made in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The true tent that the Lord set up.
SPEAKER_00: It's an interesting turn of phrase there.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord set it up.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried to set up a tent?
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried and quit?
SPEAKER_00: That's a very common experience.
SPEAKER_00: You're like halfway through and you're like, oh this is I have a bed, I have a mortgage, I don't need to camp, forget this.
SPEAKER_00: They were packing up the tent and moving it around the wilderness repeatedly.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas God sets up a tent that's his own very presence.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about the throne room of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Not made with hands.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a pretty severe contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Not man.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord set it up the last phrase in verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: Not man.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get much more of a contrast than that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's another way of saying it.
SPEAKER_00: The tent that the high priest ministered in in the Old Testament was part of creation.
SPEAKER_00: The tent that Jesus ministers in is not part of creation.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very fundamental distinction.
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, the location.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice is distinct.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice of the old covenant priests were external to themselves.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: Thus, it's necessary for the priest to also have something to offer.
SPEAKER_00: The priest has to have the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: If the priest shows up to work and there's no lamb or goat or ram or bull, that priest is what you would call unemployed.
SPEAKER_00: He's there for the purpose of offering the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: People have got to, the worshippers have got to bring the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The priest has to receive it.
SPEAKER_00: The priest then offers the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: These old covenant priests were practically butchers.
SPEAKER_00: When you read the description of the sacrifices in Exodus and Leviticus, there is blood all over the place.
SPEAKER_00: They're cutting these animals open.
SPEAKER_00: They're taking out the kidneys and the entrails and all that.
SPEAKER_00: They're burning the guts in one dish and offering the ashes there.
SPEAKER_00: They're putting the kidney and the uh the livers and those kind of liver and the those kind of organs in another dish and they're burning those ashes there.
SPEAKER_00: They're taking the meat, they have the wave offering, you know, they take the the loin of the animal and they wave that above their head.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is there is blood everywhere in this.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of work.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that the priest is laboring at the sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice is external to himself.
SPEAKER_00: Someone has to bring it to him, and they can't just bring anything.
SPEAKER_00: Can't show up with a rabbit as your sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: You can't show up with a cat as your sacrifice, although some of you might be tempted to.
SPEAKER_00: It's very prescribed.
SPEAKER_00: You bring this animal or that animal for this sin or that sin.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, it's appointed, verse 3, for the priest to do this.
SPEAKER_00: It is necessary, verse 3 says.
SPEAKER_00: They have to do this.
SPEAKER_00: No sacrifice, no offering, no forgiveness of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Without the shedding of blood, it is impossible to have the forgiveness of sins, and so the priest is dependent upon somebody providing a sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: And you want to go big picture here.
SPEAKER_00: The priest isn't just dependent upon the worshipper providing a sacrifice, the priest is dependent upon the existence of animals.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just trace that logic out for a second.
SPEAKER_00: If God didn't make animals, there would be no sacrifices for sins.
SPEAKER_00: The very first animal death, of course, was an animal put to death by the Lord to cover Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: They had tried fig leaves, God makes them animal skins.
SPEAKER_00: On the ark.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Noah didn't just bring pairs of animals, he brought groups of animals so that he could sacrifice them when he got off.
SPEAKER_00: Animals were designed by God for sacrifice for sin.
SPEAKER_00: So this is more than just like a semantic point here when I say the priests are dependent upon God making animals for sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: It's a very real point that you should consider.
SPEAKER_00: That God had to actually make animals in order for the priests to make sacrifices.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be in contrast with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't need an animal to sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, if he were on earth, he wouldn't be a priest at all.
SPEAKER_00: Since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, if Jesus was just confined to his human identity, his human nature, he wouldn't be a priest.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's from the wrong tribe.
SPEAKER_00: He's from the tribe of Judah.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't priests.
SPEAKER_00: So a part of verse 4 is just saying, listen, if we're just talking, if Jesus is a human, and that's all, just his human nature born to Joseph, there's no there's no priestly ministry for him.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a priest.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a more complicated part of this in that if his priesthood stretches back to Melchizedek, which is the point of chapter 7, it's before Aaron.
SPEAKER_00: Melchizedek was on the earth before Aaron, before Moses, before Levi was even born, Melchizedek was a priest.
SPEAKER_00: So where did Melchizedek's priesthood come from?
SPEAKER_00: Well, it comes from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is like the Melchizedek priesthood in that his priesthood originates in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: When did it originate?
SPEAKER_00: This is a very important question.
SPEAKER_00: When did Jesus become a priest?
SPEAKER_00: He became a priest when he was appointed by God, and this happens before creation.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 110, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh declares to the Savior, you are a priest forever, in accordance with Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: So there is a declaration by God before time, the Father to the Son, the Son will be a priest forever.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus was a priest before creation.
SPEAKER_00: Which, if you're tracking with the logic here, that means Jesus was a priest.
SPEAKER_00: Before animals were made.
SPEAKER_00: That's not just a secondary point.
SPEAKER_00: It gets to the nature of his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: If you have to have the animal to be the priest, and Jesus is a priest before there are animals, then in what sense is he a priest?
SPEAKER_00: If the priest is offering sacrifices, what sacrifice does Jesus have to offer?
SPEAKER_00: And the point is that he offers himself.
SPEAKER_00: The sacrifice is required.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus offers himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he brings to God.
SPEAKER_00: His very own body, his own life.
SPEAKER_00: This is a fundamentally different and a new sacrifice over the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was the animals, Jesus comes, he himself is the Passover lamb.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a better sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: Number three, the execution.
SPEAKER_00: The execution of this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 4, or sorry, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Those things serve as a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things.
SPEAKER_00: When Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying, See to it that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't really know what that means when Yahweh tells Moses you have to follow the pattern.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if Moses had a vision.
SPEAKER_00: Some commentators say Moses had a vision of what the tabernacle was supposed to look like.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if the pattern is what's described in the law, because the law does have pretty uh express measurements and descriptions of what the temple should be like.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I don't know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: If it was a vision he saw, or if God is using the word vision here to describe the law that he had.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, Moses didn't wasn't his own architect.
SPEAKER_00: Moses didn't design the building himself.
SPEAKER_00: Moses didn't say, I'd be good for, I'd like the drape to be over here, and I'd like it to be this color, and I'd like pomegranates over there.
SPEAKER_00: Moses didn't get to make those decisions.
SPEAKER_00: There was a pattern that was before Moses, so everything in the tent is copied off of something that preexisted the law.
SPEAKER_00: And that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: If the building's pattern, you know, if a building is going to be built after something, the plans are before the building.
SPEAKER_00: So the point here is that the old covenant law is a pattern of something.
SPEAKER_00: It's pointing at something that is before it.
SPEAKER_00: And it's pointing at something that's after it, that's obvious.
SPEAKER_00: It's pointing to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant law points forward to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But when Jesus comes, notice that Jesus doesn't come merely as the one that is expanding the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't come merely as the one who's kind of taking over the old covenant and filling, you know, coloring it in, although he does do that.
SPEAKER_00: He does give the color and bring the old covenant to life.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not merely what he's doing.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming as the one who is before the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: He is what the old covenant was copied off of.
SPEAKER_00: So in that sense, Jesus is not merely the expansion, he is the pattern itself.
SPEAKER_00: He is what the whole thing was designed off of.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you in the mountain.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Moses was commanded.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is the original.
SPEAKER_00: He is not part of creation.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's better than the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Number four, the result that the new covenant brings.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Because the covenant that Christ mediates is better because it's enacted on better promises.
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of the thrust where Paul's going here.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is better than the old for all the reasons I gave you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I gave you three reasons already.
SPEAKER_00: It's, you know, in heaven, it's Jesus Himself, He's the original.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the here's the real, here's the real heart of the issue here.
SPEAKER_00: That the new covenant is better than the old because it has better promises than the old covenant has.
SPEAKER_00: So what promises does the old covenant have?
SPEAKER_00: When Paul says that, what is he talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think he's talking about the failure that is embedded in the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That the old covenant cannot change the human heart.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant can convict you of sin.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant can break you down, it can constrain sin in the world.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you follow the old covenant, it'll reign in murderers, it'll reign in evildoers.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant can do good things, it can watch over Israel until the Savior comes.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's not saying the old covenant is worthless or that it is, you know, totally broken, but he is saying it has some pretty serious faults to it.
SPEAKER_00: And the word fault is the word that Paul uses himself.
SPEAKER_00: He describes them as faults.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: He finds fault with them when he says the following.
SPEAKER_00: Or verse 7.
SPEAKER_00: If the first covenant had been faultless, there'd be no occasion to look for a second.
SPEAKER_00: So fault is the word that Paul uses.
SPEAKER_00: Paul's saying the old covenant had faults with it.
SPEAKER_00: There were things that were wrong with it.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he's not laying moral blame on the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant wasn't morally bad.
SPEAKER_00: Paul answers that in Romans.
SPEAKER_00: Was the old covenant sinful or wrong?
SPEAKER_00: Of course not, because it broke you and prepared you for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It showed you that you were a sinner.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant accomplished all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: But think about the nature of the things that it accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: It showed you how wrong you were, but it couldn't fix you.
SPEAKER_00: I love James's illustration, which Paul also uses in 1 Corinthians of the law as a mirror.
SPEAKER_00: It can show you how disheveled you are.
SPEAKER_00: It can show you that you need to shave, but you cannot shave using only the mirror.
SPEAKER_00: You can't take it off and rub it against your face to shave.
SPEAKER_00: You can look in the mirror like, oh, I need to fix my hair.
SPEAKER_00: I need to straighten my hair.
SPEAKER_00: But you cannot use the mirror to straighten your hair.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the law would do.
SPEAKER_00: And in some sense, that is a fault with the law.
SPEAKER_00: It's not made to do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not designed to do that.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't promise to do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key point.
SPEAKER_00: The law does not promise to shave you.
SPEAKER_00: The law doesn't promise to straighten out your hair, or more to the point, the law doesn't promise to regenerate you.
SPEAKER_00: The law doesn't promise to forgive you your sins.
SPEAKER_00: The law doesn't promise to make a people that transcend every tribe and nation and language that bring the gospel globally.
SPEAKER_00: The law doesn't promise that.
SPEAKER_00: The closest it gets is Deuteronomy 4.
SPEAKER_00: If you keep the law, the nations will come.
SPEAKER_00: But do you see the condition in it?
SPEAKER_00: If you keep the law, they couldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00: So you say, oh, the law is wrong because it said it would happen.
SPEAKER_00: No, the law didn't say that would happen.
SPEAKER_00: The law said if you keep it, that will happen.
SPEAKER_00: But the law didn't promise they would keep it.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with the new covenant promises.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, let's look at the failure of the Old Testament law in verse 8, the faults in it.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: This is quoting Jeremiah here.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 36, 26 is going to come in a minute, but this is Jeremiah 31.
SPEAKER_00: The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah, not like the covenant I made with their fathers.
SPEAKER_00: So notice there's a contrast here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a newness to the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it's called the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: On the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: So this is talking about the first time the law came to Moses.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be like that covenant.
SPEAKER_00: They did not continue in my covenant.
SPEAKER_00: It says.
SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah 31, 32 renders it this way.
SPEAKER_00: They left me even though I was a husband to them.
SPEAKER_00: Paul, I think, is using the Septuagint here, which renders it a little bit differently.
SPEAKER_00: But if you were to flip back, you don't need to do it tonight, but if you were to flip back in your own Bible and read it, what Jeremiah is saying, God is saying through Jeremiah, is they left me.
SPEAKER_00: I was married to them, they divorced me.
SPEAKER_00: That's the severity of the language that's used in Jeremiah.
SPEAKER_00: We had a marriage relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Yahweh and Israel had a marriage relationship, and Israel divorced God.
SPEAKER_00: And left.
SPEAKER_00: I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's what happens with Israel under the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: They got to the point where Yahweh said, I don't care about them any longer.
SPEAKER_00: We looked about that language in Psalm 89.
SPEAKER_00: In Psalm 89, the psalmist says, God, your covenant will not fail.
SPEAKER_00: The Davidic covenant will not fail.
SPEAKER_00: It will not fail.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never leave your people.
SPEAKER_00: And then towards the end of Psalm 89, but you left us.
SPEAKER_00: We understand when you zoom out that the Davidic covenant embeds these messianic promises inside of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: So the Savior does come through Israel, even though Israel divorced the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fault of the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: It ends up creating distance between Yahweh and Israel, not proximity.
SPEAKER_00: It separates them.
SPEAKER_00: They fail.
SPEAKER_00: Now the law itself didn't fail, of course, because it wasn't designed to regenerate them.
SPEAKER_00: What a contrast with the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Look down at verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: I will be merciful towards their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.
SPEAKER_00: In the new covenant, God forgives.
SPEAKER_00: In the new covenant, the sin is taken away.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant exposed, the new covenant covers.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant condemns, the new covenant through Christ forgives.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fundamental difference.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant fails, the new covenant accomplishes what it was designed to do, namely bringing forgiveness through Jesus Christ our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That's forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: The contrast from verse 6 is that the old covenant was temporary, the new covenant is eternal, the old covenant failed to bring forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant does indeed bring forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: And then finally, the scope.
SPEAKER_00: The scope of the two covenants.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: This is a covenant I'll make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I will put my law into their minds.
SPEAKER_00: I will write them on their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: I will be their God.
SPEAKER_00: They will be my people.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a much more personal, intimate, internal scope than the old covenant was, which was general.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant governs the ungovernable.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant governs all who were circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: So not all who were regenerate, all who were Israelites, the old covenant governs.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was not designed to be a guide for a covenant-keeping community.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was designed to regulate a bunch of recalcitrant sinners.
SPEAKER_00: So when you read the old covenant, you think, man, these guys don't, these guys don't seem like believers.
SPEAKER_00: Bingo.
SPEAKER_00: You read through 2 Kings, you're like, man, each one of these guys, it's like a clown car of chaos here.
SPEAKER_00: Each one is worse than the one before.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a fault of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Whereas the new covenant comes, the new covenant comes to believers.
SPEAKER_00: We're believers through the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant transforms the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant couldn't do this.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was trying to corral people and guard them and, you know, punish evil and wickedness and structure society.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant comes and changes you from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is writing the law on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant couldn't write the law on the heart.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses comes down the mountain with the old covenant written in stone tablets.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites are worshiping a golden calf.
SPEAKER_00: Moses breaks the tablets of stone and quits.
SPEAKER_00: Turns into his two weeks' notice.
SPEAKER_00: God tells Moses, you can't quit, but also rewrite the law.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever tried writing anything in stone?
SPEAKER_00: I can't imagine it being easy.
SPEAKER_00: Probably even harder than like installing a Microsoft Word update on a Windows computer.
SPEAKER_00: But Moses had to do it twice.
SPEAKER_00: Writing it in stone.
SPEAKER_00: And no matter how difficult it was to write it in stone, it couldn't be written on the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is not written on stone, it's written on hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So the stone is on the outside, tries to compel you, but can't really shepherd the heart.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant is on the inside and works through your motivations and your desires, causing you to love the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: So the new covenant, you love the Lord, you want to obey.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant, most of the people under the old covenant, and definitely the word most is intentional, most of the people under the old covenant did not want to obey it.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to.
SPEAKER_00: Remember when there was like a big deal in American society about the Ten Commandments on courtroom walls?
SPEAKER_00: You know, Alabama passed constitutional amendments, banning it, and then in favor of it, and you know, they repealed the judge, it put them up on the wall anyway, and he puts a commandment, it's like fine, I can't put on the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Put a massive, you know, two-story model of it out in the courtyard.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole thing is just like a political argument of impotency.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I get that in a courtroom you're dealing with people who have committed crimes, and so maybe there's a function of the Ten Commandments in the law constraining them, but the whole point of wanting something carved in stone to govern society is absurd because that's not what it was designed to do.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant, meanwhile, comes inside of you.
SPEAKER_00: The law is written on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's not on the wall, it's on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's not in a monument in the courtyard, it's on your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that drives you to obey because you want to.
SPEAKER_00: You're regenerate, you desire to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Stone is changed to flesh, external, changed to internal.
SPEAKER_00: Moses went to the tent of meeting, came out, put a veil over his face because the glory faded.
SPEAKER_00: You through the law have an increase in glory.
SPEAKER_00: Through the gospel, have an increase in glory.
SPEAKER_00: So Moses had to hide the decrease in glory.
SPEAKER_00: The law gives you an increase in glory.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel gives you an increase, increasing glory the rest of your life.
SPEAKER_00: The more you learn about Jesus, the more the glory of Christ radiates and resonates from your life.
SPEAKER_00: It increases, increases, increases all the way to heaven where the law decreased, decreased, decreased.
SPEAKER_00: What an absolute contrast.
SPEAKER_00: And this gets to probably the most significant distinction between the old and the new covenants.
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant was designed to govern people that did not bow their knee of their heart to Yahweh.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected him and rebelled.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant, every member of the new covenant, every member of the new covenant has the law of God written on his or her heart.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone.
SPEAKER_00: You won't have to say, you won't have to teach each other.
SPEAKER_00: John says it that way.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to teach each other.
SPEAKER_00: You won't need a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: Because you have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And people get confused and say, Oh, what do we pay you for then?
SPEAKER_00: The point is not that you don't need teachers to teach or preachers to preach.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that every member of the new covenant has the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, has access to the spiritual truths of God in a way that is distinct from the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Mark 2.21, no one saws a piece of unshrunk cloth in an old garment, because if he does, the patch tears away.
SPEAKER_00: You wash your jacket, wash your jacket, the cotton shrinks, you tear your elbow.
SPEAKER_00: What are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00: You buy a brand new piece of cloth and sew it on?
SPEAKER_00: Well then the cloth will shrink and it'll rip the jacket.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point in Mark 2, verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: And there he uses the word new for the Kinos one.
SPEAKER_00: You need something that is brand new.
SPEAKER_00: That's not like the old.
SPEAKER_00: I said there's three words used in the New Testament for the word new, and I gave you two of them, but the third one is the word that often gets just translated regeneration.
SPEAKER_00: It means new from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: It means, in fact, a few places it's used in the New Testament, it's used in three or four places.
SPEAKER_00: That's usually how it's translated.
SPEAKER_00: One place is translated new in Titus, but the rest of the places is translated regenerated, given new life.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not new chronologically, it's not new in kind, it's new life from the inside out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the mystery of the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: The new covenant comes to the world.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like the old covenant that God gave to the Israelites in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like that covenant for at least five different ways.
SPEAKER_00: And I would go so far as to say it's kind of really absurd and missing the point of Hebrews 8 to see the new covenant merely as an expansion or an outgrowth of the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: Just a fuller review of it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: They're both covenants, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: They both come from God, I guess.
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: But the goal of it, the purpose of it, the scope of it, the result of it, the execution of it, the sacrifice of it, the location of it are all just fundamentally different.
SPEAKER_00: And the way you partake of the new covenant is through regeneration, it's through faith in the high priest.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 of Hebrews 8, it ends on a super ominous note.
SPEAKER_00: And speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the language of expansion.
SPEAKER_00: What is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.
SPEAKER_00: What does he mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: Ready to vanish away.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a reference, a prophecy of the temple.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself said it.
SPEAKER_00: So this would not be a shocking revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself said it in Mark 12, Mark 13.
SPEAKER_00: These stones are coming down, not two stones will be left on another.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be the day of your visitation.
SPEAKER_00: You will be weeping, you will be in distress.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be God's judgment on the house of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: When that happens, where do you turn?
SPEAKER_00: The old covenant system is gone.
SPEAKER_00: I mentioned you can get on a plane to fly to Israel and go see the temple.
SPEAKER_00: You see stones there.
SPEAKER_00: Ain't no Levites there anymore.
SPEAKER_00: There's not sacrifices being offered there.
SPEAKER_00: It's gone.
SPEAKER_00: So where do you turn?
SPEAKER_00: You have to turn to Christ, recognize that He is the priest appointed from before the foundation of time, the Lamb of God slain before the foundations of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're thankful that you are our high priest.
SPEAKER_00: You bring new life in a new way.
SPEAKER_00: It's a new people through your new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: You're a new priest, not like the priests in the old covenant.
SPEAKER_00: You give us new uh signs, baptism instead of circumcision, communion instead of Passover.
SPEAKER_00: You give us a new fellowship, a new brotherhood in the church.
SPEAKER_00: Not like the fellowship in the old covenant, but a fellowship that is more rich and pure.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for the grace that you've shown us in Christ and how you use that to bind us together heart to heart, soul to soul, so that we can worship and honor you.
SPEAKER_00: We give you thanks for these truths in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word for Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, DC area, I would love to see you at Emanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to tms.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.