Welcome to Reign of Grace. This
program is brought to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries,
an outreach ministry of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany,
Georgia. It is our pleasure and privilege
to present to you the gospel message of the sovereign grace
and glory of God in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that today's program
will be a blessing to you. Thank you for listening. And
now for today's program. Welcome to our program today.
I'm glad you could join us. If you'd like to follow along
in your Bibles, I'm going to preach today from the book of
Hebrews, chapter 8. And my plan is, in the next few
weeks, I'm going to take you through a journey through Hebrews
8, 9, and 10. And the first message here in
Hebrews 8, the title is, A New and Better Covenant. a new and
better covenant and it begins in Hebrews 8 and verse 1 where
the writer of Hebrews is inspired by the Holy Spirit he says, and
some people believe that was the Apostle Paul and that's fine,
this is God's Word not Paul's Word or John's Word or Peter's
Word, it's God's Word and in Hebrews 8.1 he says, now of the
things which we have spoken that is up to this point in the first
seven chapters of the book of Hebrews. Now of the things which
we have spoken, this is the sum. This is the conclusion. This
is the summation. And he says, we have such an
high priest who is set on the right hand of the throne of the
majesty in the heavens. Verse two, a minister of the
sanctuary and of the true tabernacle. Now that's important. not the
old tabernacle, but a true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not
man. Now, before I go any further,
let me say this, in the first seven chapters, and of course
you know the original manuscripts of these letters, we're not divided
into verses and chapters, I'm glad they are, because it helps
us to find where we want to go, but the first part of the book
of Hebrews, is showing in its major theme that we who are saved
by the grace of God in and by the Lord Jesus Christ have it
so much better, infinitely better, spiritually better, eternally
better than what the nation Israel had under the old covenant law,
the law of Moses. And so, the way that the writer
goes about this, as the Holy Spirit inspired him, was he shows
that Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the glory of his person and
the power of his finished work as the surety, the substitute,
the redeemer, and the mediator, intercessor, and preserver of
his people, is better than anything that they had under the Old Covenant.
So much better. Christ is better than angels.
He says that. Angels were ministering spirits
under the Old Covenant. Well, Christ is better. Angels
are creatures. Christ is the infinite Son of
God who was made flesh, incarnate, and tabernacled among His people. And he sits now as the true tabernacle
in heaven. That's the place where God reveals
himself and where sinners come to meet God in Christ. So he's
so much better. And then Christ is a better high
priest than any of those earthly high priests that came in the
line of Aaron, the line of Levi. Christ wasn't even in the family
of Levi or Aaron. He was from the tribe of Judah,
the kingly tribe. So Christ is better. Those men,
they were sinners, and when they offered the blood of animals,
they offered for their own sins plus the sins of the people.
But Christ had no sins. He came into the very presence
of God, not an earthly tabernacle, but an earthly holy of holies,
but into the very presence of God Himself, God the Father,
bearing the sins of His sheep as they were imputed, charged,
accounted to Him. And he drank damnation dry and
secured the salvation of his people. And that's so much better.
And we need to understand that. You know, the Bible is a book
of covenants. Our God is a covenant God. And
I've spoken of this in our programs about the nature of the covenants. There's basically two types of
covenants. There's a bilateral covenant,
which depends upon conditions that are placed upon two parties,
that's bilateral. And so there are promises made
and it's conditioned on both, bilateral. And that's the way
the old covenant was. That old covenant was made with
the Hebrew children. as God brought them out of Egypt
and gathered them at the foot of Mount Sinai, and Moses went
up and he received the law. Now he received the Ten Commandments,
the tablets of stone, but he also received the whole law,
the Levitical law, the dietary laws, the laws of the priesthood
and the sacrifices, civil laws. The Ten Commandments form the
basis of the moral law. And that covenant was made between
God and the nation, the physical ethnic nation of the Hebrew children,
which later became Israel. And it was a bilateral covenant.
Now, God choosing them as a nation to be his covenant people, and
bringing them out of Egypt, and giving them the promised land.
Now that was not conditioned on them. That was the terms of
another covenant that God made with Abraham. And that was not
a bilateral covenant. That was a unilateral covenant. In other words, the promises
and the conditions that would put those promises in effect
was not on both God and Abraham. It was only upon God. And Abraham
was the recipient. It was a unilateral covenant.
God made promises and he gave them freely and unconditionally
to Abraham. And he told Abraham, he said,
I'll give you this land. Abraham personally didn't receive
the land, but his ancestors did. The main promise that was given
to Abraham was the promise of the Messiah that would come through
his line. and that's the seed of Abraham.
We can talk about that another time, but we'll be talking about
Christ always. Anyway, God choosing the nation
and bringing them out of Egypt and giving them the land and
protecting them for 1,500 years, that was unconditional, a unilateral
covenant made by God to Abraham. But now their prosperity, when
the old covenant, what it's called, the Mosaic Law that was given
to the Hebrew children on Mount Sinai, That was a bilateral covenant
conditioned on their obedience, which would include the leaders
of the nation, later on the king, and all the people in the majority,
keeping the law as given them by Moses. And of course, their
prosperity in the land, their keeping the land, that was given. And so, that was given upon their
condition of keeping the commandments. But they failed. And that covenant,
that old covenant, that Law of Moses, which involved the earthly
priesthood, the sacrifice of earthly animals, earthly lambs
and bullocks, and other animals for different purposes, the Levitical
priesthood, the earthly tabernacle, which later on became the temple,
that whole covenant was set up by God as a temporal, which means
physical, and temporary covenant that was intended to last for
a certain period of time and then it would be over. And the
time that it was given, it was given to the Hebrew children
through Moses on Mount Sinai, and it lasted for about 1,500
years until the Messiah would come, the Christ would come. And over in Hebrews chapter nine,
That time is called the time of reformation. Look at verse
10 of Hebrews chapter nine. We'll be getting to this, talking
about that old covenant which stood only in meats and drinks. That's the dietary laws, you
see. Diverse washings, ceremonial washings, carnal ordinances,
physical ordinances, all right? Imposed on them, that is actually
forced on them, until the time of reformation. the time of change. And what was that time of change?
Hebrews 9-11 tells us, but Christ being come and high priest of
good things to come by a greater and more perfect tabernacle,
which not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building.
So in other words, that old covenant in which the Jews were chosen,
the Hebrew children, Israel was chosen by God to be his instruments
for 1,500 years through which he would bring the Messiah through
according to the flesh. Christ was born a Jew in his
humanity. And when the Messiah would come
into the world, Christ came into the world and do his work, then
that covenant would be abolished by way of fulfillment and it
would be replaced with the new covenant, a new and better covenant. And that new covenant is the
covenant of grace, which concerns salvation, not of the physical
Jews. They were God's people for a
temporary period of time, not spiritually and eternally now,
but only for a period of time, 1,500 years, until the Messiah
would come through them. and they are no longer God's
chosen people. God's chosen people now is spiritual
Israel. And it really always has been
that way as far as salvation and eternal life has come. And
so what the writer of Hebrews is saying here in Hebrews 8,
now of the things which we have spoken, verse one, this is the
son, we have such an high priest who is set on the right hand
of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Now who is this
high priest? That's Christ. He is the one
true high priest of God's spiritual Israel. The elect of God, the
church made up both of Jews and Gentiles chosen by God and given
life and is evidenced by their believing the gospel. And that's
what this is talking about. Those high priests that came
from the line of Aaron, as I said, they were physical men, they
were temporary, they lived, they died, and they were sinners. Many of them were disobedient,
but their office, the office of high priest pictured and typified
and prophesied of the one true great high priest, which is Christ. And so, we have such a high priest. Oh, what a high priest. This
is a high priest who is none other than God manifest in the
flesh. And he's set on the right hand
of the throne of the majesties in the heavens. Why is he set? He's set there, S-E-T. He's seated,
but he's set. He can't be moved. Now those
other high priests down through the ages of the 1500 years, they
never sat down because their work was never finished. I'm
talking about in the ceremonies. But their work was never finished.
But Christ, when he performed his office of high priest and
as substitute and surety and redeemer of his people, he cried
out, it is finished. And he sat down. because the
work was done. And this new covenant, now that's
what he's talking about here as we go through. Verse eight
will tell us about that. The days come, saith the Lord,
when I'll make a new covenant. Now I want you to understand,
this may seem a little confusing, but I'm trying to make it as
clear as I can. The old covenant is called the
first covenant here. The first. In fact, later on
he talks about, he says, he taketh away the first that he may establish
the second. The first there is the old covenant
in time. And the second is the new covenant
in time. But that old covenant came before
the new covenant in time. But the new covenant, which is
a covenant that concerns salvation as accomplished in time, for
his people in the Lord Jesus Christ. The new covenant itself
is an offshoot of an everlasting covenant that is eternal and
has never had a beginning nor an end. It's called the everlasting
covenant of grace. And it was the covenant of salvation,
the covenant of redemption, the covenant of grace. And that covenant
of grace is not a bilateral covenant. It's not God will do this for
you if you will do your part, like that bilateral covenant.
If it were, we'd all fail, just like the Jews failed under the
old covenant. Don't ever get the impression that if you lived
as a Jew under the old covenant, you'd have been better than them.
You're a sinner. I'm a sinner. And anytime you
see a bilateral covenant in the scriptures, it's to show man's
sinfulness. Why was the Old Covenant given?
Why was the Law of Moses given? It was given because of the transgression
where sin abounded, you see. And that's why it was given.
It was given to show them the impossibility of salvation by
their works. So thank God that salvation is
not according to the terms of that Old Covenant. We'd all be
lost. We'd all be condemned. We'd all
fail, just like Israel, the physical nation Israel failed. And we
see later on, as God finished that covenant, was finished with
them, he destroyed them, he scattered them. And I know people today
have the idea, oh, well, God's gonna bring them back and they're
still God's chosen people. No, they're not. And I know that
offends most people. But let me show you that in the
scripture. Look back at Romans chapter two.
The Apostle Paul is talking about this in Romans chapter 2. And
listen to what he says in verse 28. Now, what he's doing in the
first couple of chapters here in Romans, he's bringing in the
whole human race to be sinners who deserve nothing but death
and hell. Condemnation. That's what he
says. And he summarizes that in chapter
3. But look at Romans 2, 28 and
29. He says, for he is not a Jew
which is one outwardly, that's talking about physical, neither
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh. Remember,
the Jews called themselves the circumcision because the males
were circumcised. They represented the whole family.
But look at verse 29. But he is a Jew which is one
inwardly, And circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit,
not in the letter, whose praise is not of men, but of God. The
word Jew comes from the tribe of Judah, which means praise
God. And what he's simply saying here
is that the true spiritual Jew is a person who's saved by the
grace of God and praises God truly, not just with their lips,
and not with physical things like the blood of animals and
physical tabernacles, but they've been circumcised in the heart,
and that's the new birth. The cutting away the filth of
the flesh, that's repentance of dead works and idolatry, and
bringing a sinner to believe in Christ. Well, look over at
Romans chapter nine now. Here's a further proof of it.
One of the questions that came up with believers back then and
believers today, is if you go back to passages like Isaiah
45, for example, where God promised to save all Israel, and God did
promise to save all Israel, but not all national, physical Israel. He promised to save all spiritual
Israel. Now, where do I get off saying
that? Well, look at Romans 9 and verse 6. Now, if God promised
to save all Israel, and the majority of that physical nation perished
in unbelief, which Hebrews 3 tells us, and other passages, then
what's wrong? Was God's Word not good enough? Was He not powerful enough? Was
he not knowledgeable enough? Did he not foresee every obstacle
or remove those obstacles or provide all the means? And the
Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he says this in
verse 6 of Romans 9. He says, The fact that physical Israel,
the majority, now there was a remnant of true believers, even every
generation of that nation for 1,500 years, but they were in
the minority. They were a remnant. Isaiah said
that in Isaiah chapter one. He said, except the Lord of Sabaoth
had left us a seed, we'd all perish just like Sodom and Gomorrah.
The remnant of grace is what it's called. They were not saved
according to the terms of the old covenant, but they were saved
according to the terms of the everlasting covenant of grace.
So he says, verse six of Romans nine, not as though the word
of God had taken none effect, for they are not all Israel,
which are of Israel. They are not all spiritual Israel,
which are of that physical nation, Verse seven, neither because
they are the seed of Abraham are they all children. Just because
they're physically descended from Abraham, that doesn't mean
they're all children of God. But in Isaac shall thy seed be
called. Well, what's the significance
of Isaac? It was through, God promised Abraham that the Messiah
would come through his line. And it was specifically through
the miracle child of Isaac, who was born out of due time when
Abraham and Sarah were way past the age of childbearing. Ishmael
was not the child of promise, Isaac was. And so he says in
verse eight, he says, that is, they which are the children of
the flesh, physical Israel, these are not the children of God,
spiritually, but the children of the promise. are counted for
the seed. Now, what is the promise? Salvation
conditioned on Christ, who fulfilled those conditions and secured
the salvation of all of his people, none of them who are deserving
of salvation. It's grace. Salvation by grace. Do you believe the promise? God
promises to save sinners based upon the merits of the obedience
unto death of Christ as our surety, our substitute, our redeemer,
based on His blood, the blood of the everlasting covenant,
not animal blood, say, that brought the ceremonial atonement that
lasted for that time, but the true Lamb of God, based on His
blood, the forgiveness of all my sins through His blood, and
His blood alone, not from what I do, or what I think, or what
I decide, but Him, conditioned on Him, and His righteousness
imputed, charged, accounted to me, to justify me before God. Now the summation of that in
Hebrews 8.1 is we have such a high priest who is set on the right
hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens. Look at verse
two, a minister of the sanctuary. The sanctuary there is that special
set apart place where God meets with sinners on the basis of
the blood and righteousness of Christ. The true tabernacle,
and what is the true tabernacle? Well, John 1.14 says, the word
was made flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt is tabernacled. Christ is the true tabernacle. He's God manifest in the flesh.
And it says, which the Lord pitched and not man made of the Lord.
Christ, his deity in his deity had no beginning and no end,
but his humanity without sin was created in the womb of the
virgin by the Holy Spirit. which he united himself to, and
look at verse three. He says, for every high priest
is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices. That's what the high
priest did back in the old covenant. Wherefore, it is of necessity
that this man, or this person, Jesus, have somewhat also to
offer. Christ, as the great high priest
of his people, he didn't go to the Father empty-handed. He had
to offer something, a gift. Verse four, for if he were on
earth, he should not be a priest saying that there are priests
that offer gifts according to the law. If Christ were a physical
high priest on earth, it would be wrong for him to be a high
priest because he didn't come through the line of Aaron and
Levi. See? He came through the tribe
of Judah, the kingly tribe. But his priesthood transcended
the physical priesthood. In fact, the writer of Hebrews
makes that argument back in Hebrews chapter six and seven, talking
about a man named Melchizedek, who was a high priest, not outside
the line of Aaron, even before, during Abraham's time. And that
Melchizedek was a better type and picture of the priesthood
of Christ. So Christ was a priest, not according
to the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek. And
so he wasn't a priest according to the old covenant law, because
the priest in the old covenant law had to come from Aaron and
Levi. And he says in verse five, now
listen to this. Those priests under the Old Covenant
law, they served according to the law, who serve unto the example
and shadow of heavenly things. They weren't eternal high priests.
They were just examples and shadows, pictures, types. As Moses was
admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle,
for see, saith he, that thou make all things according to
the pattern showed to thee in the mount. That tabernacle. was made according to the pattern
that God gave Moses to be a shadow, a picture, a prophecy of something
way better, the true tabernacle, which is Christ the Lord. And
so verse six says, but now hath he obtained a more excellent
ministry. That's Christ. Oh, his ministry
is more excellent than anything that Moses could have done or
any of the priests of Aaron. By how much also he is the mediator
of a better covenant, a new and better covenant. That's what
we're talking about, a testament, which was established upon better
promises. Under the old covenant, the physical
nation of Israel, they were promised prosperity and safety in the
land, the physical land of Canaan. But all that was temporary. But
now under the new covenant, The new and better covenant, God's
people, spiritual Israel, are promised an eternal kingdom,
an eternal inheritance, eternal salvation through the blood and
righteousness of Jesus Christ. A new and better covenant, you
see. A covenant of grace that reigns
through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. That is not temporary, but eternal. and everlasting. I hope you'll
join us next week for another message from God's Word. We are glad you could join us
for another edition of Reign of Grace. This program is brought
to you by Reign of Grace Media Ministries, an outreach ministry
of Eager Avenue Grace Church in Albany, Georgia. To receive
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today and may the Lord be with you.