References to the old covenant and new covenant in many of the New Testament epistles are primarily, if not exclusively, to be understood from an experiential perspective. The old covenant represents a rebellious or legalistic response "of the flesh" to God's covenant of grace (Gal. 4:21-31) and the new covenant represents a response of faith, a new birth "of the Spirit," resulting in a life obedience to God's covenant of grace and an eternal inheritance in the kingdom of God (Gal. 4:21-31; John 3:3-6). By God's initiating and sustaining grace, the saved of every historical era exhibited a new covenant experience.
In the book of Hebrews, however, references to the two covenants do not always follow this pattern. In Hebrews 7-10 specifically, the two covenants are primarily understood as God's progressive way of working in the two major dispensations of spiritual history-the Old Testament and New Testament eras. This discussion of Hebrews 7-10 begins with a side-by-side table comparing the two covenants, followed by a discussion of what Hebrews means by describing the second or new covenant as a "better covenant," "superior to the old one," with "better promises," "better sacrifices," and a "better hope," making the first or old covenant "obsolete" and "set aside" (7:18-22; 8:6,13; 9:23).
A. First Covenant/Old
1. Administered by human, imperfect, weak priests (7:11,28).
2. The law/regulation establishing the Aaronic/Levitical priesthood on the basis of genealogy was weak and useless, made nothing perfect, and has been changed/set aside (7:11-12, 14,18-19).
3. Aaronic/Levitical priests died and had to be succeeded. (The quality of the priestly ministry was always dependent on the character of the one in office at the time, good or bad) (7:23).
4. The high priest needed "to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people" (5:3; 7:27; 9:7).
5. Administered through "an earthly sanctuary" made "by man ... according to the pattern shown [to Moses] on the mountain"--"a copy and shadow of what is in heaven" (8:2,5; 9:1-5).
6. There was something "wrong with that first covenant," for "God found fault with the people ... 'because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them,' declares the Lord" (8:7-9).
7. "The first" covenant is "obsolete" and has been "set aside" (8:13; 10:9).
8. Made by God with Israel (8:9).
9. Made when God led Israel out of Egypt (8:9).
10. Promises: Not specified in Hebrews because the new covenant promises identified in the adjoining column are restatements of covenant promises God made to His covenant people throughout the Old Testament period (see chart 1: "The DNA of the Covenant[s]").
11. "The way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing" (9:6- 8).
12. Levitical priests entered the first compartment of the sanctuary daily, and the high priest entered the second compartment once a year, offering sacrifices that were "an annual reminder of sins" (9:6-7; 10:1-3, 11).
13. "The first covenant was not put into effect [ratified] without blood." The things pertaining to the earthly sanctuary were "purified with [animal] sacrifices." "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness" (9:16-23).
14. "The gifts and sacrifices being offered [in connection with the earthly sanctuary] were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper," but only to make each one "outwardly clean." For these gifts and sacrifices "are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings-external regulations applying until the time of the new order." "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins" (9:9,13,10; 10:4,11).
15. God had no pleasure in the animal sacrifices that were required by the law (10:5-6, 8).
16. The Old Testament believer's confession and confidence: "I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation." "[The Lord] fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them" (Ps. 13:4; 145:19).
17. "Your iniquities have separated you from your God." "Turn, turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?" (Isa. 59:2; Ezek. 33:11).
18. Appeal: "Choose life, so that you and your children may live." "Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him; let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation" (Deut. 30:19; Isa. 25:9).
B. New Covenant
1. Administered by the "Jesus Son of God," "a great high priest" who is "holy," "perfect," "seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven" (4:14; 7:26,28; 8:1).
2. Christ became a "high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek" not by genealogy but by the call and oath of God "on the basis of the power of an indestructible life." He thus became "the guarantee of a better covenant" that represents "a better hope through which we draw near to God" (6:20; 7:12-22).
3. "Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely [alternate translation, "forever," e.g., NRSV] those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them" (7:24-25).
4. Being "without sin"--"one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens"--Jesus did "not need to offer sacrifices ... for his own sins, ... He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself" (4:15; 7:26-27; 9:14).
5. "Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence" (8:1-2; 9:11,24).
6. "The covenant of which [Christ] is mediator is superior to the old one, and it is founded on better promises" (8:6).
7. "He sets aside the first to establish the second" (10:9).
8. Made by God with Israel (8:8, 10).
9. "'It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them,' declares the Lord" (8:9).
10. Promises:
a. "I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts."
b. "I will be their God, and they will be my people."
c. "No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest."
d. "I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more" (8:8-10; 10:16-17).
11. "We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body" (10:19).
12. Christ "entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (9:12,24-28).
13. "The heavenly things [were purified] with better sacrifices than these [animal sacrifices]." Christ "has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself." "And where [sins] have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin" (9:23,26; 10:18).
14. Christ "entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, having obtained eternal redemption." "The blood of Christ [will]...cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God." By His "one sacrifice he has made perfect those who are being made holy." "For this reason, Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance-now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant" (9:12,14-15; 10:10,14).
15. Christ's obedience in offering up His body was the once-for-all sanctifying sacrifice that brought an end to the sacrificing of animals under the first covenant. In so doing, Jesus "set aside the first to establish the second" (10:5-10).
16. Christ's sacrifice in history and continuing priestly ministry on our behalf should give new covenant believers confidence and assurance with God, if we hold fast our confession, trust Him who has promised, and encourage each other in love, good works, and fellowship (10:19-25).
17. Continuing in sin is no less serious now than it was under the first historical covenant (10:26-31).
18. Appeal: Endure in faith and in doing the will of God that you may receive the new covenant promise--"salvation to those who are waiting for him" (9:28; 10:32-39).
Concerning the comparative list above, the following three observations are in order:
1. Hebrews 7-10 focuses on two historical covenants divided by Jesus's victorious life and sacrificial death, and discusses the obsolete role of the ceremonial ritual system of the first covenant now that the new has come.
Even a quick reading of Hebrews 7-10 reveals that the dominant focus in these chapters is the transition from the sanctuary, priesthood, animal sacrifices, ceremonial offerings, and ritual of the historical first or old covenant to those of the new. The former were "weak," imperfect, temporary, "useless," effective only to make one "outwardly clean," but "can never take away sins" or "clear the conscience of the worshiper" (7:11,18,23,28; 8:5; 9:9,13; 10:4,11). "This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: 'See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain'" (Exod. 25:40), because the sanctuary of the first historical covenant, including its ritual and priesthood, was always and only "a copy of what is in heaven" (8:5). The first historical covenant always pointed beyond itself to spiritual realities in the heavens and to God's future invasion into history through His Messiah to make effective the salvation that covenant represented and proclaimed.
By contrast, Jesus's life in the flesh, His victory over sin and the devil, His obedience through suffering, and His once-for-all atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world initiated the historical new covenant. Jesus accomplished everything the historical old covenant represented and proclaimed but was powerless to achieve. He is "without sin," "holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens," humankind's "high priest forever ... on the basis of the power of an indestructible life," "able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them" (4:15; 6:20; 7:16,25-26). By His sacrifice "once for all by his own blood" Jesus "[does] away with sin" and "cleanse[s] our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God." He "has made perfect forever those who are being made holy," and "obtained eternal redemption" for all believers in every historical age (9:12,14,26; 10:10,14).
Phrases such as "we have been made holy" and "he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy" mean that Jesus's victorious life and atoning death made possible and brought about everything believers in every age have dreamed about and hoped for in their relationship with God. Everything the sanctuary, priests, sacrifices, and ceremonies of the historical first covenant represented and proclaimed about the salvation from sin to an eternal inheritance has been ratified and made effectual by Jesus's historical life and death.
This is the context in which Hebrews 7-10 speaks of the first historical covenant being "obsolete," "set aside," "changed" (7:11-18; 8:13). This seems quite clearly to mean that the earthly sanctuary, the priesthood, the sacrifices and ceremonies, the ritual elements of the law that pointed upward to the timeless, universal spiritual issues involved in God's saving work on humankind's behalf, and forward to the decisive role His Messiah would play in history to make it effective, have done their work and fulfilled their mission. Jesus's victorious life and atoning death have ushered in a new historical phase of God's timeless, universal covenant with humankind. In this sense, "Christ is a mediator of a new covenant" (9:15). The grace-based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing, mission-directed covenant God progressively revealed in increasing detail through the ages has entered a new and ultimate stage of revelation because the Messiah, the embodiment (literally, in-body-ment) of the covenant, has come among us and ratified the covenant with His own blood. This made the former rituals obsolete because what they symbolized had been realized in Jesus.
Some have taken the passing reference in Hebrews 9:4 to "the stone tablets of the covenant" (i.e., the Ten Commandments) to mean that the author of Hebrews taught that the Ten Commandments were included in those laws that became "obsolete" and were "set aside" and "changed" by virtue of Jesus's victorious life and atoning death. However, these interpreters do not believe that all ten have in fact been set aside. Rather, they hold that only the fourth, which specifies the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath, has been set aside. Yet it is only logical that if the Ten Commandments have indeed been declared obsolete, set aside, and changed, then all ten of the commandments should be just that--obsolete, set aside, and changed. It is hard to understand how a declaration that "the stone tablets of the covenant" have become obsolete, set aside, and changed could mean that one commandment became such while the others remained intact.
Rather, it was the Old Testament sanctuary, the priesthood based on the genealogy of Aaron and Levi, and the animal and other ritual sacrifices and offerings that became "obsolete" and were "set aside" and "changed" once Christ had come and defeated Satan where Adam failed, died as the sacrifice God had made provision for "from the creation of the world" (Rev. 13:8), and was established as humankind's high priest forever.
Hebrews 9:2-4 contains a list of articles of temple furniture that accompanied the earthly sanctuary or temple of the first historical covenant during the Old Testament period, including "the lampstand, the table and the consecrated bread...the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant." Hebrews 9:4-5 adds that the gold-covered ark placed in the Most Holy Place of the temple "contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant," and then states, "but we cannot discuss these things in detail now" (9:4-5). It is a serious mistake to interpret this passing reference to "the stone tablets of the covenant" having been kept in the ark of the covenant to mean that Jesus's victorious life and atoning death made the Ten Commandments obsolete, thereby setting them aside and changing them. James certainly didn't think they had been set aside. He quoted directly from the Ten Commandments, referring to them as integral components of "the law that gives freedom" (James 2:8-12).
In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Paul appears to have the continuing validity of the Ten Commandments in mind with his list of unrighteous acts that if persisted in will exclude one from the kingdom of God.[1] Jesus Himself didn't consider them changed. When asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?" He answered, "If you want to enter life, obey the commandments," and then quoted directly from the Ten Commandments (Matt. 19:16-19). As legalistic as these statements of James and Jesus may sound to some interpreters, they are consistent with Jesus's emphasis throughout His ministry that those who are true citizens of His eternal kingdom are those who not only hear His word but obey it (Matt. 7:24-27; John 14:15, 21). At the same time, however, Jesus never elevated obedience to the commandments to a level of importance above faith. Nor did He appeal for obedience as something that could occur apart from faith or prior to faith. Rather, He presented obedience to the commandments as it had been presented throughout God's covenantal relations with Adam's descendants, as a sure result of faith in God and a natural expression of love for God in response to His saving acts on humankind's behalf. The author of Hebrews maintained that same balanced emphasis between faith and obedience when he appealed, "Let us hold firmly to the faith we profess" in "Jesus the Son of God" as our "great high priest," "the source of eternal salvation for all who obey Him" (Heb. 4:14; 5:9; italics added).
It is often asked on what basis a distinction can be made between the ceremonial and moral law. God Himself distinguished the timeless and universal nature of His moral law when He wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger and spoke them audibly to the people (Exod. 31:18; Deut. 4:12-13). In contrast, in God's instructions to Moses regarding the earthly sanctuary and the rituals attending it, He specifically instructed him to "see that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain," which indicated that these were "a copy and shadow of what is in heaven" (Exod. 25:40; Heb. 8:5).[2] Daniel prophesied that the "cut[ting] off" of "the Anointed One" [Messiah] would "put an end to sacrifice and offering" (Dan. 9:26-27). Though the extent to which the average believers during the historical old covenant era understood that the ceremonial ritual they were familiar with would cease with the death of the Messiah is unclear, this truth was divinely revealed and prophetically anticipated.
When Moses instructed the people, "these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts," neither he nor they understood that to mean that God would write instructions on their hearts regarding the dimensions of the temple furniture, the materials and colors for the priests' garments, or the recipe for a first-fruits grain offering (Lev. 23:13). Rather, it was the moral law that was clearly in view in such passages as the following:
• "The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul...[enabling you to] obey the Lord and follow all his commands" (Deut. 30:6-7).
• "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long" (Ps. 119:97).
• "I desire to do your will, O my God. Your law is within my heart" (Ps. 40:8).
The law God promised to write on their hearts was His moral law which reflected His own character. When it was integrated into their lives it would establish them before the nations as "holy to me because I, the Lord, am holy" (Lev. 20:20). Dallas Willard observed that Jesus's own teachings continued "the long-established prophetic emphasis in Israel which always weighted the moral over the ritual. 'Behold, I would have mercy and not sacrifice' (Hos. 6:6)."[3] The distinction between the moral and ritual elements of the law, and the continuing authority of the Ten Commandments for New Testament Christians, has long been recognized in the Reformed tradition of Christianity.[4]
What must be stressed again is the clear emphasis in Hebrews 7-10 on the transitory nature of the earthly sanctuary, priesthood, and sacrifices of the historical old covenant. These ceremonial provisions continually pointed upward to eternal, heavenly realities and forward to the coming of the Messiah in history to fulfill and accomplish what the ritual elements of the first covenant proclaimed and prefigured. Now that Messiah Jesus has come in the flesh, ratifying and sealing the everlasting gospel/covenant with His own blood, the ceremonial rituals of the historical old covenant era have served their glorious purpose and need no longer be observed. They have been "change[d]," "set aside," and are "obsolete" (Heb. 7:12,18; 8:13).
2. The everlasting, new covenant gospel spans both Old and New Testament historical eras, and believers living in both eras were saved by that one unchanging gospel.
The author of Hebrews left no doubt that there is only one gospel that spanned both Old and New Testament eras. In doing this he cited Jeremiah's new covenant prophecy which defined the one timeless, universal, everlasting gospel in terms of four succinct divine promises--the core teaching and purpose of God's covenants in both historical eras. "[Promise 1] I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. [Promise 2] I will be their God and they will be my people. [Promise 3] No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. [Promise 4] For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more" (8:10-12; cf. Jer. 31:31-34).
These promises were not presented for the first time when Jesus came. They had been given repeatedly throughout the Old Testament era (see chart 1: "The DNA of the Covenant[s]"). This gospel constitutes the unifying thread of God's covenantal expressions in both Old and New Testament historical eras.
Jesus's victorious life and atoning death ratified the gospel presented in the historical first covenant and achieved in history the forgiveness promised and granted during that era. "For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance--now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant" (9:15).
This new covenant gospel is the only true gospel there has ever been. It was the gospel introduced to fallen Adam (Gen. 3:15). It was the gospel delivered to Abraham and all of his descendants who are not merely genealogical descendants but who "walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had" (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:12; Gal. 3:7-9). It was the gospel Paul preached and about which he warned, "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Gal. 1:8). It is the only gospel by which any believer in any historical age ever has been, or ever will be, saved. It is the gospel "which we [in the historical new covenant era] have had ... preached to us, just as they [in the historical old covenant era] did" (Heb. 4:2).
Note the wondrous effects this new covenant gospel achieves in the life of the believer: "a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God" (7:19); "save[d] completely" (7:25); "[sins] have been forgiven" (8:18); "consciences [cleansed] from acts that lead to death, so we may serve the living God" (9:14); "made perfect ... being made holy" (10:14); and "receive the promised inheritance" (9:15). A full salvation to be sure, including justification, sanctification, glorification, and whatever else might be conceived as a constituent of a full salvation.
Again, lest the reader of Hebrews conclude that this salvation, effected by the new covenant gospel, is limited to those living during the historical new covenant era, the author immediately presents a representative list of Old Testament believers (beginning with Abel, Adam's second child, and extending through the prophets) who experienced this full salvation, enjoying a new covenant experience while living in the old covenant historical era (11:1-40). Through the sanctuary, priesthood, and ceremonial rituals God had provided for their era. Their minds had been directed by faith to that priest who was higher than the earth and to that once-for-all sacrifice which God would provide to make atonement full and complete. They were forgiven of their sins. God counted them righteous on the basis of their faith in Him, thereby considering them perfect. God was cleansing their consciences from acts that lead to death so they could serve Him. He was writing on their hearts that sacred and holy law that He seeks to write on the hearts of His New Testament believers to make them "holy." He instilled in them the same heavenly hope enjoyed by believers in our own era. "They were longing for a better country--a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them" (11:16). They were new covenant believers living in the historical old covenant era--Old Testament examples that "[Christ] is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them" (Heb. 7:25).
3. Hebrews reveals the reality and nature of the two historical covenants, and presents the new covenant as a better covenant than the first covenant.
The fact that the gospel by which people are saved in the New Testament era is the same gospel by which they were saved during the Old must not blur the reality of the existence of the two historical covenants or the fact that the historical new covenant was a "better covenant" than the historical old covenant. It could even be said that the everlasting gospel itself became something "new" and "better" in its own right once Jesus had come among us and "shared in [our] humanity, so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death--that is, the devil" (2:14).
At that point in history when Jesus's victorious life and atoning death defeated the devil and "free[d] those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (2:15), the timeless, universal promises of the gospel, while materially the same as the promises of old, became "better promises" (8:6). The timeless, universal hope offered to humankind through the gospel, the hope "for a better country--a heavenly one" (13:16), became "a better hope" (7:19). God's covenant of redemption, the face of His everlasting covenant turned to sinful humanity, became "a better covenant" (7:22). Because Jesus had come and won, everything that ever was in God's good universe was now even better. Even those things that had remained the same since the creation of the world became "new." The decisive, in-the flesh victory of Jesus over Satan made things that have always been true even more so.
The book of Hebrews demonstrates this profound truth in several ways. For example, through the historical old covenant God offered people a real salvation, a real eternal hope that all who would turn to Him were promised they would ultimately and really receive (Deut. 30:19-20; Isa. 45:22; Heb. 11:13-16). He commissioned His new covenant people living during the historical old covenant era to share this offer of eternal salvation with the whole world (Exod. 19:5; Ps. 67:1-2; Isa. 49:3,6). Hebrews identifies Jesus as "the author of their salvation" (2:10; cf. Rev. 13:8). In other words, long before Jesus ever entered our world He authored, superintended, and administered that divine initiative of grace and promise which we call the plan of salvation. This salvation was that gospel by which believers living in the historical first or old covenant era were saved, and by which we in the historical new covenant era are saved. And yet Hebrews also says "this salvation...was first announced by the Lord," meaning, in context, first announced by Jesus when He came among us in the flesh (2:3). And again, it testifies that it was only after "he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, [that] he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him" (5:8-9).
So, as Hebrews presents it, 1) Jesus authored the gospel of salvation embedded in the historical old covenant and by which believers were saved throughout the Old Testament era; 2) but He "first announced" this salvation when He came among us in the flesh; and 3) He did not become "the source of eternal salvation" until after His obedience and death (5:3,8-9). In other words, the grace and salvation "given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time" became in some way a new and even better salvation once it was realized in Jesus's victorious life and atoning death (2 Tim. 1:9). In the same way, there is a real sense in which the covenant of redemption with its guaranteed promises and hope of salvation, first announced to Adam in Genesis 3:15 and reiterated in subsequent covenants, became a new and even better covenant with new and better promises and a new and better hope once Jesus had come and won.
Thus, God's everlasting covenant of redemption, while shedding only the ritual elements of "the first covenant" and thus remaining the same grace based, gospel-bearing, faith-inducing, mission-directed covenant first introduced to fallen Adam and progressively amplified throughout the Old Testament era, is presented in Hebrews as a historically "new covenant." Though the two historical covenants shared the same holy law which reflected the moral/spiritual character of its Giver, and though they shared the same gospel that provided forgiveness for the lawbreakers and the same promise that He would write His law in the hearts of the signatures to His covenant, they were nonetheless designated in Hebrews as "the first [or old] covenant" and "the new covenant." Jesus's incarnation and momentous, vicarious victory over Satan by His obedience, death, and resurrection at a singular point in human history made everything that came before it "old," and everything that came after it "new."
The same is true in the life of the believer. At that point when Jesus comes into someone's life, whether at a defining moment or over a period of time, life itself becomes new (2 Cor. 5:17). And it doesn't stop there. It's meant to be progressively true of even good people, obedient people, securely heaven-bound people. Through times of prayer, meditation on God's word, diligence in service, and faithfulness through trials, Jesus progressively enters the life, thereby making the believer's testimony continually new. His promises become ever more precious, the hope He offers ever more real, His grace and mercy ever more appreciated, and His covenant of love ever a greater treasure and ever new. Jesus's presence enables His covenant people to experience for themselves the reality of John's testimony: "He who has the Son has life," and has it ever new (1 John 5:12).
Notes: