Well, let's go back to that passage
in Hebrews 8. I'm going to bring two messages
today that will sort of lay the foundation for a message I want
to bring next Lord's Day from Hebrews 13 on the everlasting
covenant. But before I deal with that message,
I've got a couple of messages I want to bring you today to
kind of pave the way for that. Look at Hebrews chapter 8, that
portion that Ron just read to us. Look at the last verse of
chapter 8. He speaks here, he says, in that
he saith, a new covenant he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth
old is ready to vanish away. Now here's my subject. Two covenants. Old and new. Two covenants. old and new. It's interesting to me as I read
through the book of Hebrews that we don't get to the word covenant
or testament, and those are virtually the same in the original. We
don't arrive at those words and the instructions of the covenants
or the testament until we get to, first of all, in the previous
chapter, Hebrews chapter seven, and then more fully in chapter
eight. And I think here's the reason
for it is because the spirit of God in leading whoever the
author is of this book This is what the Spirit is going to do.
He lays down for us this fact of the wonders and the excellence
of the Lord Jesus, and then all of the things that the Lord Jesus
is involved in for us. So it isn't any use to go into
the covenant, the new covenant, and set before us the magnificence
of the New Covenant and the failures of us under the Old Covenant,
there isn't any use in going into that until we understand
who it is who fulfills and brings to pass all the promises of the
New Covenant. And so he has laid down in the
first seven chapters the wonders of Christ Jesus, our Savior.
And of course, we know one of the key words in the book of
Hebrews is the word better. And our Lord Jesus is indeed
better. Doesn't matter who you compare
him to, he's always better. He's better than the Old Testament
prophets. He's better than the angels.
He's better than Moses. He's better than Aaron. He's
better. No matter who you compare Him
with, He's more excellent. He's got a greater name. He had
a greater work to do, the work of redemption. And in His own
person, He was much greater because He's the only one, He's the only
one who's ever been without sin. He is Himself the perfect Son
of God. And He's our representative.
Go back into the seventh chapter now, and then we'll get into
chapter eight. And as we read toward the end
of chapter number seven of Hebrews, this is what the writer is setting
before us, the superiority of Christ as our great high priest. Look how he states this. Look
in verse 22. This is the very first time in
the book of Hebrews the word testament is used. Up to this
point it hasn't been used. But he's going to use this once
in chapter number 7. And then he's going to use the
word covenant a number of times in chapter 8 and following. But
he says this, by so much was Jesus made a surety. He's a guarantor. of a better testament or a better
covenant. Now these two covenants are the
Old Covenant and the New Covenant. And our Lord Jesus is the guarantor
of the New Covenant. We'll go into the New Covenant
here in a little bit and what the New Covenant means. It means
life for us. You see, all things that God
does for us, He does for us because He ordained them in a covenant.
In fact, the only way God has ever dealt with anybody is through
a covenant. Now, there are many covenants
in the Scriptures, and I'm going to give you a number of them
this evening. But all of those covenants, they
basically set forth different facets of these two covenants,
the old covenant and then the new covenant. The new covenant
is the covenant of grace. It's the covenant of salvation.
And all things, the fulfillment of all things in the new covenant,
they are absolutely dependent upon the faithfulness of and
the mightiness of our great high priest. And so before the writer
is led of the Spirit of God to teach us about the new covenant,
about the New Testament, he is going to remind us of the wonders
of, the faithfulness of, the mightiness of that one who came
to fulfill all stipulations of the covenant. And so he says
this, look at verse 23, he says, truly there were many priests
in the Old Testament because they weren't allowed to continue
by reason of death. They died off. This was true
of the priests and the high priests. They'd have a high priest like
Aaron. He died, one of his boys took over. He died, another one
took over, those out of the tribe of Levi from then on. Okay, we'll
get to verse number 24. But this man, This man. And that is emphasized,
this man. Go down, drop down in chapter
8 in verse 3. For every high priest is ordained
to offer gifts and sacrifices, wherefore it is of necessity
that this man. Once again, he emphasizes that
the manhood of that one who is our great high priest. But he's
altogether different from Aaron. He's altogether different from
the other high priests of Israel. Because those men died and their
priesthood ended. They did not live to fulfill
whatever wishes they had, whatever dreams they had, whatever plans
they had. They died, as all men do. But this man, he's going to present
us a man who is a perfect man, who is a man who lives forever.
And though this man, this man died, bearing all of the iniquities
of God's people in his own body on the tree, though he died,
In honoring God's law and bringing in everlasting righteousness
for us, He satisfied God. Though He died, He arose. And He ever lives. He's the only
high priest we've got. We call no man on this earth
our priest. We have this man for our high
priest. This man is the one who represents
us to God. This man is the only mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. This man, he's
this man who is absolutely qualified to do business with God for us,
this man. Now watch this, verse 24 again,
chapter 7. But this man, because he continueth
ever, from everlasting to everlasting,
thou art God. We've studied in Hebrews chapter
13, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday and today and forever. So this
man, because he continueth ever, he has an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore, verse 25, he is able
also to save, he's able to save them to the uttermost, perfectly,
completely, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth
to make intercession for us. I'll tell you this portion of
Scripture. It presents to us statements about our Lord Jesus
Christ, our great high priest, and his ability to save. This
portion of Scripture is one of the sweetest and one of the most
persuasive passages to encourage us to come to Him for mercy and
for salvation. He's a man. This man. That's
what He said. This man. Very much a man. A whole man. There's never been
a man like Christ Jesus. He's the perfect man. He's the
sinless man. He's the God man. See, that's
what sets this man, this man, sets him apart from all other
men. He's God over all, blessed forever. God came down here. Great is
the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. And John said, we beheld Him.
We saw Him with our hands. We held Him. We embraced Him.
We kissed Him on the cheek. We heard Him speak. We saw Him. He's the man, Christ Jesus. This
man is also God. That's why He's highly qualified
to be our great high priest. And He has a priesthood that
lasts forever. The priesthood of the Old Testament
priests, it ended Aaron, he was a faithful high priest unto God. But his priesthood ended. It
ended when he died. And Aaron is with the Lord. He's
been with the Lord hundreds and hundreds of years. He didn't
come back from the grave. And the rest of the high priests,
they died. This high priest, he died, but
he came back. And all of the stipulations that
God laid down in the covenant of grace, the new covenant, the
New Testament, he ever lives to enforce that covenant. And
he's the one who brought to pass all the promises of the covenant
by his obedience unto God. Look at verse 26. For such an
high priest became us. What does that mean? He's suitable
for us. He's just the kind of high priest
we need. He's not beyond the reach of
ourselves. And he's touched with the feelings,
the scripture says, of our infirmities. He's the perfect high priest.
He's suitable for folks like us. He's just what we need. Well, watch this. Who is holy
and harmless. Holy. He's holy toward God. He's got to be holy. That's his
relationship with God. He's holy. Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God of hosts. Well, our great high priest,
this man, he is holy. He is holy. That's his relationship
with God. That's how he stands before God.
Always holy. And all who are in him are holy
too. He's holy. That's his relationship
with God. He's harmless. That's his relationship
to us. He's harmless. He wouldn't hurt
one of his children for nothing. He bought us. He saved us. He redeemed us. He reconciled us. He established
for us perfect righteousness. He would never hurt us. He would
never inflict upon us needless pain. You say, well, preacher, I hurt.
You mean He's hurt me? He just hurt your flesh. You
know what David said in the Psalms? It's good for me that I've been
afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes. That's what he
says in it. That I might learn thy word. But as far as our spiritual condition
is concerned, our true welfare, he's absolutely harmless. He's
never gonna hurt one of his children. And watch this. Now here's his
standing before the law of God. As far as God Himself, He's holy. As far as us, He's harmless.
What about His standing before the law of God? Undefiled. Undefiled. He could never be defiled. He's
God. He's God. And watch this, separate
from sinners. Though He was crucified between
sinners, and though he was himself the friend of sinners, he's separate
from sinners. We've gotta have a Savior who's
different from us. He's gotta be a man. He's gotta
be God. But he can't be like us as far
as any flaws. You have flaws and I have flaws
too. And we try not to mention those.
But he doesn't have any. He's separate from sinners. He's
not like you are. He doesn't think like you do.
He doesn't act like you do. He doesn't speak like you do.
And he doesn't think, act, and speak like I do. He's separate
from sinners. Oh yeah. and he's been made,
what? Higher than the heavens. By virtue
of his successful work of redemption, because he did the work that
God gave him to do, he's been made higher than the heavens.
Who needeth not daily, watch it, as those high priests to
offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins and then for the
people's, for this he did once. And I'll tell you, if you want
to do an interesting study in the book of Hebrews, look up
that word once. They offered many sacrifices
for sins. He offered one. He suffered once. He died once. Once in the end
of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. Once. You take Aaron, the great high
priest of Israel, the high priest of Israel. If somebody came to
him and said, I want you to offer up a sacrifice for me, he had
to offer up a sacrifice for himself first, and then offer up a sacrifice
for you. Why the sacrifice? Why the need
of the sacrifice? Because sin is worthy of the
penalty of death. And all the deaths of the lambs
and bullocks and turtledoves and pigeons and goats in the
Old Testament pictured the death of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. And those guys, they offered
up a sacrifice for themselves and then for others. Aaron, the day of atonement,
offered up a sacrifice for himself and then a sacrifice for others.
But this man, He didn't have to offer up sacrifice for his
own sin. He didn't have any. That's already
been established. He's undefiled. He's not defiled. Sin can't defile him. He said,
Satan, he's come to me. He didn't find anything to work
with. I tell you, if Satan comes to you, he'd find something to
work with, doesn't he? He finds some to work with, and me too.
But he came to our Lord Jesus Christ, didn't find anything
with which to work. So he didn't have to offer up
a sacrifice for himself. He had to offer up a sacrifice
for us. And the sacrifice was himself. Look at verse 28. For the law
maketh men, the high priests, which have infirmity, infirmity. Faults. Weaknesses. But the word of the oath, which
was since the law, make it the son of God, who is consecrated
for evermore. And then we get into the eighth
chapter. Notice how he says, now of the things which we have
spoken, this is the sum. What's that word? What's S-U-M? Sum. This is the sum. This is the main point. It's
like, listen up! Here's the main thing I'm telling
you. If I got your attention, of all the things that I've said,
whoever the inspired writer is, the Spirit of God laid upon the
heart of this man who wrote this scripture says of all the things
I've written to you thus far, in all the previous chapters,
here's the main point. Get it. We have such an high
priest who is set. He is set at the right hand of
the, of the majesty in the heavens. He sat there. It doesn't say
he sits there, though he does. Because as we read in chapter
number 10, when he finished that work, the father said, sit here
at my right hand, S-I-T, sit here at my right hand till I
make you into me as your footstool. But in this passage of scripture,
we have such an high priest who is set. He's in a fixed position. His exaltation can't be changed. This is set forever. It's like written in stone. It can't be changed. He's a minister
of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched
and not man. He is the true tabernacle himself. He's the tabernacle of God. Now, then we get into the covenant. Now, let me just show you, I've
already noted in verse 22 of chapter seven, the word testament.
You should underline that or highlight it anyway. Now look
at verse number six, chapter eight. But now hath he obtained
a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator
of a better covenant. We've already learned from chapter
seven, verse 22, he's the surety of a better covenant, the guarantor. He's the one that guarantees
whatever's in this covenant, whatever this covenant, this
new covenant, this covenant of grace, whatever it's all about,
he's the one that guarantees everything's gonna be fulfilled.
He's the guarantor. But now we know based on chapter
eight in verse six. He's the mediator of this covenant
as well. He's the one who makes this covenant
known to us from God, because it's God's covenant. Actually,
both the old covenant and the new covenant are God's covenants. But they're made known to us
by this man, this man, Christ Jesus. Look at verse eight. Then
he says, for finding fault with them, he saith, behold, the days
come, saith the Lord, that I'll make a new covenant, a new covenant
with the house of Israel and the house of Jacob, or Judah,
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers.
He draws a distinction. I made a covenant with their
fathers. Well, that's the old one. That's
the Old Testament. What does the word Testament
mean? And I'll go into this more fully, but you can just say covenant. So there's the Old Covenant,
the Old Testament. And then there's the New Testament,
the New Covenant. The Old Covenant is one of works. Law. Men under the law. This do and live. Disobey and
die. That's the Old. Here's the new,
by grace he is saved through faith. There's the old and the
new. So he is introducing us to this
covenant. These covenants, look again at
verse nine. Not according to the covenant that I made with
their fathers. in the day when I took them by
the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they
continue not in my covenant, and I regarded them not. I loathed
them, God said, and I neglected them because they didn't continue
in my covenant. And then verse 10, for this is
the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after
those days. Here's another covenant. I'll
put my laws into their mind, write them in their hearts. I will be to them a God and they
shall be to me a people. You'll notice there's something
about this new covenant. Everything is dependent upon
what God must do and what God will do. They shall not teach
every man his neighbor and every man his brother, saying, know
the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins
and their inequities will I remember no more. In this, in that he
said, a new covenant. He hath made the first one old. He made it old, obsolete. You don't want to have anything
to do with it. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready
to vanish away. Now, let me define covenant for
you. We'll go as far as we can this
morning. We'll pick up again this evening. Here's the word
covenant, or testament. As it is used in the Bible, can
have one of two meanings. One of two meanings, and it is
very important to distinguish the meaning of any, how it's
used in any particular portion of scripture in order to understand
that particular passage. First of all, first definition
of covenant. The word can mean the legal act
of assigning or directing, appointing the giving of goods or property
or money to another party, which we would call that a last will
and testament. That's the very first meaning
of the word testament or covenant. One person who is called the
testator is active, and he's the only
one who's active, and he decides or she decides, whichever the
case may be, what they want to happen to their estate, to their
property, to their goods, or to their money when they die. Again, I emphasize in this, the
testator is the only one who does anything, who is active in that kind of
contract. The other party is called the
beneficiary. And I suspect some of you have,
you've made out your last will and testament. You were the one
who made it out. You planned. You designated who
you wanted your worldly goods to go to. That's already settled. you know, an attorney has taken
care of it, or you've got one through mail order or whatever,
and you've made your wishes known, it has nothing to do with what
the beneficiary or the beneficiary had nothing to do with it. I'll
give you an example. Not too long ago, and it came
to a surprise to me, we were, our church was a beneficiary
in someone's last will and testament. We weren't consulted when the
plans were made, when the testament was made, the covenant was made. The person just said, 13th Street
Baptist Church, get X number of dollars. They were the only ones who were
active. That's the very first meaning
of the word in the scriptures. When they gave the money, that
was a surprise to me. I didn't know it was coming.
I don't think anybody else knew it was coming either. And we're
thankful to get it. But that, in legal terms, that's
called a unilateral contract. Unilateral. Kind of a long word,
but un means one. Lateral. What that means is it's
one-sided. It's a one-sided contract. It's
a one-sided covenant. It's where one party says, this
is what's going to happen and it's all on me. That's a covenant
of grace. That's a covenant of grace. Because
God, before He made the world, He ordained salvation. He ordained
who would be saved. He ordained who the Savior would
be. He ordained the means whereby
they would be restored to Him, delivered from their iniquities
and sin by the substitutionary work of the Savior, of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The Lord decided everything.
He decided who all the beneficiaries would be. That's called the election
of grace. That's a unilateral contract. You didn't have anything to do
with it. Neither did I. Nobody had anything
to do with it except God. Except God. You see, in a testament, the
testator is active. And the other party, the beneficiary,
is passive. You mean I get this? I didn't know I was getting anything.
Well, that's because you weren't there when the will was made
out. But you've been included in the
will. You see, that's what regeneration,
when the Spirit of God comes to us, He is really informing
us, listen, You didn't know it before, but your name was in
the will. Well, whose will? Turn over to
chapter 9, the last will and testament of the Lord Jesus.
Look at chapter 9 here. Look at verse 13. 9 and 13, for if the blood of bulls
and of goats and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean
sanctify to the purifying of the flesh, that's the way it
was in the Old Testament. He said, how much more shall the
blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself
without spot, That's a qualification of every lamb offered to God. It had to be without spot, without
blemish. Our Lord Jesus offered Himself
without spot to God. He'll purge your conscience from
dead works in order that you might serve the living God. Verse
15, and for this cause, for this reason, He is the mediator of
the New Testament, of a unilateral contract, of the New Testament,
the new covenant, the covenant of grace, that by means of death,
whose death? His death. For the redemption
of the transgressions that were under the First Testament, in
other words, we'd broken the law, they which are called might
receive the promise of the inheritance. Watch it, for where a testament
is, where there's a last will and testament, there must also
of necessity be the death of the testator. You make out your
last will and testament, you go to a lawyer and say, I want
so and so to get this, so and so to get this, whatever. All
right, that's good. It's all stamped and notarized
and all that kind of good stuff. Put in a safe deposit box. And
you die. Your wife or husband or somebody
goes to the safe deposit box and says, you know he had a last
will and testament. You pull that out. Okay, that
thing's in effect now. Our Lord Jesus, before he made
the worlds, he made his last will and testament. A unilateral
contract. The new covenant, newly revealed. He made this covenant in which
He promised blessings to all those chosen in grace before
the world began. And He promised Himself in that
covenant that He would give His life. He'd be the surety of the
New Testament. He would make sure that everything
ordained in that New Covenant comes to pass. And that required
Him to come to this world and to live and to die under the
curse of the law. Because we had broken God's law,
the old covenant. We didn't live up to our requirements. But He did. And He died in our
stead. He died in our room. He sealed that new covenant with
what? His blood. His blood. But unlike other men, he came
back from the dead to make sure his will is enforced just exactly
the way he wrote it. So that's the first meaning of
a covenant. And so He ever lives to make
intercession for us. He ever lives to make sure all
the stipulations of the covenant are taken care of. That's why
He says, look in verse 8 of chapter 8. For finding fault with them,
I'll go into that in a minute, He said, chapter 8 verse 8. Behold
the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant,
or I will consummate the new covenant. You see, when you are
born again of the Spirit of God, Christ said you must be born
again. When you're born again of the Spirit of God, when you
receive new life, this new nature, this new light that God gives
you, that was in the covenant of grace as well. And Christ
ever lives to make certain that the Spirit of God visits you
with the gospel. He'll send you a preacher. How
shall they hear without a preacher? The preacher's going to tell
you the truth. And the Spirit of God's going to take the darkness
away and give you light, take death away and give you life. And then you'll find out you're
a beneficiary of the covenant. You see, the covenant of grace,
all of the obligations of the fulfillment of that covenant,
are dependent upon God. That's what you need to see.
And that's why sinners who are brought by the Spirit of God
to Jesus Christ find exceptional rest and joy and peace. Because everything God demands
and requires is the responsibility of our Savior. We see that's
a unilateral contract. Well, then here's the second
definition of covenant. It can refer to a legal binding
agreement between two people or two parties, which requires
active participation by both of them. By both of them. And one of the
best examples I can give you is the covenant that God made
with Israel, which the writer alludes to in this 8th chapter. God said, you'll be my people. I'll give you mercies. I'll do
for you. You'll be head and shoulders
above all the nations of the earth if you obey me and keep
my commandments. And he told that to Moses. He
said, now Moses, you go and tell that to the elders of Israel. Tell them the stipulations of
this covenant. I'm going to make a covenant with them. I'm going
to enter into a covenant with them. And God says, now this is what
I'm going to do if you do what I tell you to do. Obey me. Obey me. Don't fall into idolatry. Don't be covetous. Don't kill
people. You do what I tell you to do.
Basically, if you obey me, you live. You disobey me on even
one point, you'll die. Are you willing to enter into
that kind of agreement with me, God said to Israel? So Moses
goes and tells the elders of Israel and says, this is what
God says. What do you folks think? They said, all that He demands,
we'll do. And as it were, they shook hands
with God and said, we'll enter into this covenant with you.
And the blessings of that covenant, all the promises of that covenant,
are dependent upon, number one, God keeping His word, and number
two, man keeping His word. Well, first of all, we know this,
God keeps His word. Because He's faithful and true.
He can't lie. Where's the problem? It's with
men. The problem is with men. That's
why it says here, finding fault, verse 8, finding fault with them. They couldn't keep the law. See,
the old covenant Again, disdo and live, disobey and die. Hey, we'll do that. We'll enter
into a covenant with God. Well, that requires active participation
on God's part. And you Israelites, I want you
to know, it requires active participation on your part. They said, that's
fine. We agree. Well, they broke it very quickly. Very quickly. You see, the legal
covenant, the old covenant, can I just kind of, I'll put it this
way. It means live perfectly, inwardly
and outwardly, keeping all of the precepts of God. If you want salvation by something
you do, this is what's involved. And anybody here If you seek
acceptance with God on the basis of anything you would do, be
it your Bible reading, your praying, your crying, doing good, fixing
soup for people, whatever it is, you depend upon all of these
things to put you in good standing with God, you're under the old
covenant. And that old covenant, understand
this, is a covenant of death. That's exactly what it is. And
multitudes of people today, they have no interest in and have
no knowledge in the new covenant, the covenant of grace. They're
under the old covenant and they like it that way. But what they don't know is,
it's a covenant of death. You can't live under that covenant.
You can't. This evening I'll show you what
God laid before Israel, the stipulations, and how quickly they broke. Now, which would you rather be
under? The old, which is a covenant
of death, requiring active participation by not only God, but by you. or the New Covenant, the New
Testament, which requires active participation by God only. You know what the Lord Jesus said
when he instituted that which we know to be the Lord's Supper?
He says, this is my blood of the New Testament. The New Testament. And I'm going
to give you one more verse and then I'll quit. Look at 2 Corinthians
3. So as you think about these two
covenants, just think of the new as being grace, the old as
being law keeping or works. Look what the apostle says here
in 2 Corinthians 3. Look at verse, he's already asking
the end of chapter two who's sufficient for these things.
He says this in verse five of 2 Corinthians chapter three. Not that we're sufficient of
ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency
is of God, who hath also made us able ministers of the New
Testament. That's what I'm preaching. I'm
a minister of the New Testament. I'm a preacher of the New Testament.
I'm a preacher of grace. Not work, that good works that
follow conversion because you're predestinated to perform, ordained
to perform those good works. But this salvation, it's all
of grace. Grace in the beginning and grace
in the end and grace all the way in between. But if at any
point you say, yeah, but preacher, surely I've got to do something.
Well, you're under the old covenant. And listen, if you're bound and
determined, you say, I'm sure I need to do something. You want
to do something? You've got to do it all. That's
right. You've got to do it all. That's impossible. I take grace, don't you? Grace
for me! The new covenant. Absolutely. Well, let's sing a song. Let's
sing, uh, Whiter Than Snow.