Hebrews 8:6-12 – The New Covenant: God’s Grace Personified

The Lexham Bible Dictionary defines the new covenant as a covenant between God and his people that is anticipated in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. The heart and soul of the new covenant is the single, overarching promise of God with His people. A promise in which God says, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

But how is the new covenant new? If we have seen that God’s grace was already being displayed in the old covenants, is that grace somehow different in the new covenant? What are we to understand about the new covenant?

Our hope is that over the past five weeks, we have not only explained the contents of the old covenants but have shown how those covenants related to one another and how they contained promises, prophecies, sacrifices, as well as other types and ordinances that foreshadowed the One who would fulfill them and who would inaugurate the new covenant. All of this is ultimately fulfilled in Christ. Put simply, Jesus Christ is the new covenant.

In Hebrews 8:6-12, the writer of Hebrews tells us about the new covenant and how God’s grace is most clearly, fully, and perfectly displayed through Christ. And I want us to look at some of the characteristics of the new covenant that are shown in this passage. You can see them printed in the WG on page 6. What we see is that through Christ, God graciously establishes the new covenant, and God graciously redeems His covenant people.

Let’s look at these together now. First look at verses 6-7. The writer of Hebrews points out that Jesus has inaugurated a new covenant. He is the mediator of the new covenant it says there. And notice the adjectives used in these verses. The writer says Jesus’ ministry is more excellent, the covenant He mediates is better, and the promises are better. So, what does it mean to say that Christ’s ministry is more excellent just as the covenant He mediates is better?

We certainly would not say that there were not true believers under the Old Testament. Did not the old covenant offer the same promises of eternal life as the new? The answer is yes. So, what is the difference? The promises of the new covenant are not better because they are different but rather because of the manner in which they are given to us. John Calvin reminds us that although the salvation promised to old covenant and new covenant believers is the same, the old covenant saints did not enjoy the same clarity of revelation that we do. As the author of Hebrews reminded us at the opening of his letter, the believers of old had revelation in the prophets but we have revelation in the Son, who is the “exact imprint” of God’s nature.

Pastor and theologian O Palmer Robertson says this about the relationship between the old covenant and the new. He says, “The ultimate purpose of the old covenant finds realization in the new covenant. The intended goals of the two covenants correspond. By redemption, the original purposes of creation are achieved - or even excelled.”

God’s purpose from the beginning has been to have worshippers for Himself. That is why He created Adam and Eve and why He ordained that they “be fruitful and multiply”. In the garden and in their original state, Adam and Eve had the ability to obey God or disobey God. When they disobeyed, the curse of sin followed. Every natural born person after that could only disobey God. So, without some kind of provision from God, man could not be redeemed. Man could not worship God properly. That is why God had to provide the Savior, Jesus Christ. And from what we understand about salvation as taught in Scripture, those who trust in Christ are completely redeemed and saved, and they can never be lost. That includes those believers in the Old Testament who had faith in what God provided throughout the course of redemptive history and what He would ultimately provide in Jesus.

That’s why Robertson also points out that, “Each of the shadowy, prophetic administrations of the old covenant finds its fulfillment in Christ, the personal embodiment of the new covenant. In Him is found the fulfillment of all God's covenant purposes. As fulfiller of all the messianic promises, he achieves in himself the essence of the covenantal principle: ‘I shall be your God and you shall be my people.’ He may be seen as the Christ who consummates the covenant.”

I think the idea of a shadow is helpful in understanding this relationship between the old and the new covenants. I saw a video the other day of a cat chasing a person’s shadow. Maybe you have a cat that likes to do that. A cat sitting in or chasing its owner’s shadow is not the same as the cat sitting in the owner's lap, “connected” as it were to the owner. That being said, the cat can know where the owner is by following its shadow.

Though the shadow is not the actual thing, it is a copy of the thing. The shadow can be followed, and is always connected or pointing to the object creating it. In that same way, the administrations of God's grace in the old covenant were shadows. As such, they pointed to the ultimate expression of God's grace, Jesus. And so they (He) could be followed. God’s people under the old covenant could have faith in the One from which the shadow was produced. At the same time, you can understand how “possessing” the actual object itself is better than its shadow. The shadow cannot reveal all the details of the object. It cannot reveal all the colors in the object. The object itself gives the clearest representation of what the object is, the shadow does not. It is the same with Jesus. His being born and the ministry of his life, and even his death and resurrection, are the fullest and clearest expression of God's grace.

That why the writer of Hebrews says that the ministry of Jesus was more excellent just as the covenant He mediates is better.  The redemption that was promised in the OT by faith in who the types and shadows pointed to, came in the incarnation of Jesus. Or to put it another way, Jesus personified God’s grace, grace that was displayed from the beginning but was established or consummated in Jesus.

Jesus is the promised Redeemer. He is the promised seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. Jesus is the sacrifice God offered to cover the shame of His people. Jesus is the protection from destruction that God promised to Noah. Only through Jesus Is the remnant, the true children of Abraham, the true Israel, established. Jesus is the righteousness of God. He is the perfect keeper of God's law. He is the promised king, the true and final king, from the line of David who rules with all authority and power.

Do you know Christ? All those who by faith put their trust in Christ, will receive the promises, the blessings of the covenants. All the promises of God find their yes and amen in Jesus. If you are born again, if your life has been buried with Christ and raised with Him, be encouraged today. You are the remnant. You are a son or daughter of God. All the promises are yours through Christ, not because of your good works but because of God’s grace. If you have never trusted in Christ, today can be the day you turn to Him in faith. All the promises of the covenants can be yours.

In the second part of our passage, verses 8-12, the writer of Hebrews quotes a passage from the book of the OT prophet Jeremiah. In this passage, God was speaking through Jeremiah to tell the people of the coming of the new covenant. The promise of a new covenant focuses on the spiritual relationship between God and his people. It begins with the phrase “Behold the days are coming” which refers to a future time period when God will act to restore the fortunes of his people. In the description of the new covenant that Jeremiah provides, we see the way that this new covenant is “better” than the previous one. Or to put it another way, through Jeremiah, God describes the “benefits” of the new covenant promises.

The first thing we see is God says that He will put His law into the hearts of His people. This means that the new covenant will involve internal realities that have to do with a change of heart. The new covenant has a unique feature in its power to transform its participants from within their hearts. This uniqueness sets the new covenant apart from the previous covenantal dealings of God with his people. It expands or adds to, but does not eliminate, the external substance of the old covenant.

In the old covenant, the law (written on the stone tablets from Mt. Sinai) was placed inside the ark of the covenant. In the New Covenant, Jeremiah says, it’ll be written within the hearts of God’s people. What does that mean? Well, it’s the law that’s written in our hearts, so it doesn’t mean that the law changes. Author and theologian Sinclair Ferguson puts it this way. He says, “What God is saying is that through the Spirit’s ministry, what was written originally into Adam’s heart—the instinct, the desire, the power to live in fellowship with God—that will be rewritten into the hearts of believers. The law itself—the law that was hidden in the ark of the covenant—couldn’t do that.”

Paul makes that point in Romans 8:3-4. He says there that the Spirit, working within us, accomplished what the written law couldn’t do because of our sinfulness. And the result is that the righteous requirements of the law begin to be fulfilled in us as we walk according to the Spirit.

Another commentator puts it this way: “The difference between the two consists merely in this: that the will of God as expressed in the law under the old covenant was presented externally to the people, while under the new covenant it is to become an internal principle of life.” To be sure, the old covenant also expected a change of heart. The law of God was to be in the heart of the old covenant participants. However, only in the new covenant is provision made for God himself to write His law in the human heart, which happens by the Holy Spirit.

Did anyone in here ever have an Etch-a-Sketch? Remember those things? Some of you may be too young to remember but it was a little handheld, rectangular, plastic device that had a “screen” with little knobs in the two bottom corners. You could twist the knobs, and it would make a line on the screen. I’m still not sure how it worked exactly. Regardless, you could write or draw things on it. If you got really good, you could even make circles! Normally, whatever you wrote would stay there on the screen until what? You shook it. You only had to give it a good hard shake and the screen would be clear. It was so frustrating when you would try to show someone what you drew and, on the way to show them, you got bumped or accidently dropped it and what you wrote would get messed up.

God writes His law on the heart of believers in the new covenant. How? John 1:1 says in the beginning was the “Word” and the “Word” was with God. The Word John is referring to is Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of the Word. The Word contains the law. So, when we trust in Jesus, He takes residence in us via the Holy Spirit. 1 Peter 1:3 says of Christians, “23 You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;” The “Word” or “Law” is in our hearts. But unlike the etch-a-sketch, Jesus can never be taken away from us or leave us. Therefore, God’s word can never be taken from us. It is there to direct us how we might glorify and enjoy God.

So that is the first difference we see in Jeremiah’s passage. In verse 11 he also says that under the new covenant no one would teach his neighbor or his brother to know the Lord. The most natural interpretation in context would point to the fact that the new covenant situation would be one in which the need for people to mediate the covenant would disappear. We see throughout the administration of the old covenant, the need for a mediator. The primary example we see of this in the OT is Moses. We see this indicated in Deuteronomy 4, that he was the teacher of God’s people – a type of mediator. In addition, the Levites, the priests and the prophets were presented in the old covenant Scriptures as the teachers of God's people. These people held the office of covenant mediator.

But under the new covenant, no mediator would be necessary for the communication of the will of God to his people. From the smallest to the greatest, all would know the Lord, immediately (without mediation). The immediate knowledge of God established a oneness between God and his people. This oneness was at the heart of God’s covenant with His people. That oneness was interrupted by the entrance of sin and had to be reconstituted through God’s grace.

Grace comes through a relationship with Christ, and there is no longer need for an external mediator. The mediator lives in the heart of the believer. In Galatians 3:20, the apostle Paul writes, “5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” which indicates that this covenant of oneness is achieved in the person of Jesus Christ.

If you have ever played the “telephone game”, you understand how much better it is to communicate directly with someone, rather than hearing from one person, who heard from another, who heard the message from the original person. Now, I’m not implying that God’s use of mediators in the old covenant produced errors. I just mean that direct contact with the messenger is more effective. Even more so when the messenger lives in you.

The third thing we see that redemption in the new covenant brings is the one-time forgiveness of sin for believers. This fits with the final promise seen in verse 12 that emphasizes the forgiveness of God’s people’s sins and that He will remember their sin no more.

In the old covenant, animal sacrifice and shedding of blood was required for forgiveness of sin. However, theses sacrifices were temporary. They did not provide eternal forgiveness. But they did demonstrate the faith required to experience cleansing. Robertson writes that “the constant renewal of sacrifices for sins under the old covenant gave clear indication of the fact that sin was not actually removed but was only passed over.” But unlike the blood involved in the sacrifices in the Old Testament, the blood of Christ has the power to remove sin completely and provide an eternal redemption.

The new covenant promised in the Old Testament, the covenant that would mean the sins of God’s people would be remembered no more, was inaugurated by Jesus. His blood, “poured out for many” on the cross, brings forgiveness—forever—to all those who come to Him in repentance and faith.

Would you count yourself in that number? Have you entered into this covenant with God? God says that through Christ, He will be merciful toward all your iniquities and remember your sins no more.

All the Old Testament covenants point us to the person and work of Christ. He is the one who establishes the new covenant where all the covenant promises of God are fulfilled in Him. He sits at the right hand of the father directing the course of history for the benefit of his people. Nothing can hinder his work on our behalf, and we have the assurance that we are his. One day we will experience the full benefits of our salvation, to which all the different aspects of the covenant point, when he comes to establish the fullness of his Kingdom.

Both the covenant of works and the covenant of grace have the goal of eternal life. That life is obtained by someone's obedience to the law of God. Adam's disobedience led to the imputation of his sin to his descendants, making it impossible for any natural descendant of Adam to keep perfectly the law of God. The second Adam (Jesus) must fulfill this obligation as part of his defeat of the seed of the serpent.

The writer of Hebrews describes Jesus as “the guarantor of a better covenant . . . able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him.” Friends, we need Christ. We need the grace of God that is experienced only through Christ. If you have not surrendered to Christ, would you do that today? You can experience the promises of the covenants through Him. If you are a believer, know that all the covenantal promises are yours through Christ. Rejoice in that reality. May the grace of God, personified in Christ, be the foundation for our response of unreserved, total, joyful obedience to the Lord.

Let’s pray.

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