The New Covenant, Part 1

Hebrews 8:1-13

     Tonight we come, in our continuing study of Hebrews, to the eighth chapter.  And, if you have your Bible, I'd like to ask you to turn to the eighth chapter.  It's amazing to me how the Spirit of God dovetails our studies.  And, as we've been going through Acts and Hebrews, we've found ourselves being paralleled on several occasions.  And I think it's generally on those occasions that are somewhat difficult that the Spirit of God gives us kind of a double dose so that we really kind of let it sink in.

     Now, in the Book of Hebrews, as we first began its study, I mentioned to you that it is not an easy book.  There are many difficult things about the Book of Hebrews. Most of its difficulty comes from the fact that we cannot see it in the light of a Jewish mind.  We cannot see it in the context of Judaism, not really having been raised in Judaism as those to whom it was written.  Some of you who are Jewish believers, who've spent a portion of your lifetime in Judaism, find the Book of Hebrews speaking perhaps a little more directly, and at some points more clearly, to you than to Gentile believers or Jewish believers who have no religious background.

     And so we have found it somewhat difficult at certain points, and yet how the Spirit of God has thrilled us and blessed us as we have studied through particularly the last portions on the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  But as we come tonight, we want to be reminded that the theme of the epistle is the absolute sufficiency and superiority of Jesus Christ.  And the point of the letter is to tell those Jews in that community that they can put everything on Jesus Christ, that they can put all of their confidence in Him, all of their hope in Him and all of their trust in Him and drop entirely all of the old features of Judaism, for Christ is superior and He is sufficient.

     That is the message of this book, that they do not need a combination of both the old and the new, that they dare not hang on strictly to the old, but that they come to Christ, who is everything they need.  And as we have studied the comparisons in the Book of Hebrews, we have seen how the writer says that He is better than angels, that is, Jesus is, He is better than Moses, He is better than Joshua, and so forth and so on, showing that Christ is superior to all those connected with the old covenant.

     But the primary issue, and the key to the covenant, the old covenant, is the priesthood.  What dominates the Old Testament is the priesthood.  That was the agency by which God and man were brought together.  And so the priesthood becomes the key, and if Jesus is to introduce a new covenant, and if He is to be superior to all of those connected with the old, then He must be a superior priest as well. 

     And, starting from chapter 4, verse 14, the writer of Hebrews begins to talk about the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  And in verse 14, He says, "We have a great high priest, Jesus, the Son of God."  And from there He goes on, clear through 5, 6, 7, 8, even into 9 and 10, He is still talking about the priesthood of Jesus Christ.  This becomes, then, the great crux of the Book of Hebrews.  For, really, the old covenant was based upon a functioning priesthood, and so the new covenant must be based on a functioning priesthood, and if it's better, then He must be a better priest.  And so the writer belabors His point to render the fact that Jesus is a superior priest.

     Now, His priesthood is superior, primarily, as we have studied, because it is a priesthood after a different order, the order of Melchizedek, which was introduced to us at the beginning of chapter 5, in verse 6.  Now, the priesthood of Melchizedek, being a superior priesthood, and having been prophesied to occur, from the Psalms, really indicates that the old priesthood would pass away and be replaced.  If there is a superior priesthood, certainly it'll come into view at some time, and David directly prophesied that indeed it would.

     So the writer uses the argument of prophecy to prove that the old priesthood would be set aside and a new one instituted, and the new one is after the order of Melchizedek.  That is, the account of the man in Genesis 14 becomes the picture of the new priesthood.  And we saw in our study, and just a quick review, we saw that the Melchizedek priesthood was superior, first of all, because it was a priesthood forever.  There was no beginning or end.  But Aaron's was bounded by time.  The Levitical priesthood was only involved with time. 

     Secondly, the priesthood of which Jesus Christ is a priest is better because it was confirmed by an oath, and we studied the fact that when God makes an oath, that is a permanent confirmation, an eternal confirmation.  God never made an oath with the Aaronic priesthood.  It was always intended to be temporary.  Thirdly, we saw the priesthood of Jesus Christ is superior because it is a priesthood founded on personal greatness, whereas the Levitical priesthood was founded upon racial heredity. 

     Then we saw that the priesthood of Christ is better because death can't interrupt it.  Jesus Christ lives forever, whereas death kept continually interrupting the Levitical priesthood.  Those priests kept on dying all the time.  We saw not only that but that Jesus' priesthood is better because it offers one sacrifice only, not an endless repetition of sacrifices.  Next we saw that Jesus' priesthood is better because it was so pure that He needed to offer no sacrifice for His own sins, and thus it was a holy priesthood in a way that the Levitical priesthood was not, since they had to offer sacrifice for their own sins before they could do it for anybody else.

     Next we saw that it's a superior priesthood because it can take men into God's presence and anchor them there forever, something the old priesthood could not.  There was always a veil.  But in Christ, there is full access.  And then we saw lastly, as closing out chapter 7, that it is a priesthood that saves to the uttermost, totally and forever, something also Levitical priests could not do.

     And so in all of this that we've studied from chapter 4 through chapter 7, the Word of God has clearly presented to us the fact that Jesus is a priest, a high priest, superior to every other priest or high priest in the old economy.  And not only is He superior, and we don't want to get only that idea, He is not only superior and far beyond us, but, at the same time, He has been touched with the feelings of our infirmities.  He senses what we sense.  He has in all points been tempted like as we are, yet without sin.  He is compassionate and personal.  And so, though He be the superior priest, though He be loftier than any other priest who ever lived, He is, at the same time, condescending and compassionate.  That is our high priest.

     And all of that leads up to the beginning statement in chapter 8.  "Now of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum.  We have such an high priest."  That's about all He can say to wrap it up.  Such a high priest.  You know, the Bible chooses amazingly simple adjectives.  I've often thought, in I John chapter 3, verse 1, John says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us."  Now, if I was writing that, I would say, "Oh, that 'what manner.'  That doesn't even say it.  'Behold, what manner.'"  I would say, "Behold, the fantastic, unbelievable, supernatural, glorious, stupendous, monumental love."  And John says, "And I tried all that, and it all didn't make it either, so I just put, 'Behold, what manner of love.'"  See? 

     Or you go to Ephesians and he says that He has redeemed us because of His great love.  And you say, "Oh, Paul, oh, not only just great.  I mean, that, we use that so flippantly."  But when the Word of God uses a word, it means it in its purest sense.  It cannot really deal with the problem that we have through the etymological process of language where it soon deteriorates so that words that used to mean something mean nothing and we have to invent new ones. 

     "We have such an high priest," who is superior in every fashion to all the old economy.  What a message this is to the Jew.  This is Jesus Christ.  You don't need any of that stuff.  It's all second rate, second class.  "We have such an high priest," who can do everything that no other priest could ever do.

     And then He goes on to say this.  "We have such an high priest, who is seated on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens."  Down in verse 6, He says He has a more excellent ministry.  In verse 6, He has a better covenant.  In verse 6, better promises.  And then He goes on to talk about that.

     We have received the priest that is more excellent than any other.  His ministry is more excellent.  His covenant is more excellent.  His promises are more excellent.  Just think of the wonder of the Hebrews as they read this section when they received this letter.  All their lives they had, generation after generation, trusted in these priests.  They had been instructed from early childhood to venerate the Levitical system and to venerate the Aaronic priesthood.  There was nothing higher than that in their minds except God Himself.  But here comes the Word of God to them and says, "Listen, we've got a high priest to turn to now who surpasses all the others, so that all the others are replaced, not added to, but thrown aside, and Christ is substituted for them.  And a far superior priest He is."

     And the one who now comes to God must discard the entire old economy, must drop it altogether and come to Christ.  It's a similar problem, you see, to the problem of the Galatians, to whom Paul wrote and said, "Don't go back and get entangled again with the yoke of bondage that Christ released you from.  Have you begun in the Spirit?  Are you so foolish that now you're going to walk in the flesh?"  They were trying to go back to legalism.  Drop the entire old economy and come to Christ.  That's His message.

     Now, the Spirit has said very much about the priesthood of Christ, but very much more needs to be said.  It's as if 8:1 is just a peak.  We've been going up, and now we're going to hit the peak, and then we're going to come down.  And there's a lot of good stuff left.  This is just the capstone.

     Now, in this chapter, and we'll try to get through it, there are 13 verses, but we're not going to hurry too fast.  In this chapter, He gives us three more salient points indicating Jesus is a superior priest, and they are fantastically important things.  Three more points proving He is a better priest, superior:  His seat, His sanctuary and His superior covenant.  His seat, His sanctuary and His superior covenant.

     Now, I realize that to the Gentile mind, and even into my mind, were it not for the fact that I think with a Jewish mind, almost, from spending so much time thinking through the Word of God, that these things don't always just drill into us.  But let's let the Spirit of God be our teacher tonight and see what it is God would teach us.  And perhaps, if these things are not directly applicable to our problem, they shall be to those of Israel whom we are called to share Christ with.

     Now, first of all, He is a superior priest because of His seat.  I just love this.  "Now, of the things which we have spoken, this is the sum.  We have such an high priest who is seated," stop right there.  "Who is seated."  Now, your Bible might say "set," but the word means to sit down.  He is seated.  Now, that's a fantastic statement.  And just to make that statement to a Jew, a Jew would go, "Oh.  He must get up quick."  You see?  "He can't sit down."  No priest, no time ever sat down. 

     Christ has been presented as our great priest, and now He comes to the sum.  Now, I want you to watch this.  "We have spoken...this is...of all that we have spoken, this is the sum."  The Greek word means the chief point.  This is the apex.  We've said a lot of great things.  Here is the most important of all.  The most important feature about our priest is that He's sitting down.  You say, "I don't get it.  Is that so important, that He's sitting down?"  It's very important.

     The highest proof of His superiority is that He's sitting down.  He's seated.  Now, the Levitical priests never sat down.  I want you to just listen to Hebrews 10:11.  It says this.  "And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering often the same sacrifices which can never take away sins.  But this man," verse 12, "after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down."

     You see, the thing is, no priest ever finished his work.  He could never sit down.  The job was never done.  He just kept offering more and more sacrifices, because the sacrifice you offered was only as good as the time until you committed the next sin.  And it just kept going and going and going and going.  And no priest ever sat down.

     Do you know that I've studied the Tabernacle and I've studied the Temple and there aren't any seats in there?  In the holy places there's only one seat.  That's the Mercy Seat.  And no priest is going to prop himself up on the Mercy Seat.  That would be the absolute epitome of blasphemy, to jump up and sit on the Mercy Seat.  Because the Mercy Seat, you see, represented the Throne of God, and the Mercy Seat was the place where the Shekinah Glory dwelt between the wings of the cherubim.  And that's where God was.

     Now, the priests would go in there in fear and trepidation and a sense of awe once a year on the Day of Atonement and sprinkle the blood on the Mercy Seat, turn around immediately and get out of there.  That's the only time they could ever go into that place.  There was never any sitting down.  Least of all could anybody ever sit down in the only seat there, the Mercy Seat.  That was God's throne, and nobody would dare be blasphemous enough to prop himself up on God's throne and sit with God.

     And so no priest ever sat down.  But Jesus came along, offered one sacrifice, said, "That's it.  It is," what?  "Finished," and sat down.  Now, that is some kind of priest.  That is accomplishing what the entire Levitical system never could accomplish.  And that's why the writer says, "And this is the chief point.  This is the locus crucius.  This is the key.  He sat down."  What a fantastic thing it is.  He did it all in one sacrifice. 

     The writer of Hebrews says, "For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified."  In other words, He brought men unto God through one sacrifice, and it was the sacrifice of Himself.  Christ did it all.  The work is finished.  As far as your salvation is concerned, beloved, He is sitting down.  He doesn't need to move a finger.  That is finished.  There is nothing to add to it.  And people are still trying to add to the simple pure grace of God and salvation by faith, but it doesn't need anything added to it. 

     And what an especially joyous truth this could've been to the Jews who heard it.  Imagine, a final sacrifice, a finished work, so that a high priest sat down.  Fantastic.  And if that's not enough, look where He sat.  It says He sat down "on the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens."  Now, God's got a big throne.  And it's the very same throne that God is on.  It's just that He sat on the right side of God. 

     Now, you don't want to split hairs about that.  They're all one and the same anyway, so it's kind of hard to understand.  But whatever it means, it means, it's trying, by saying "the right hand," to emphasize that the right hand was always the seat of honor.  It was always the seat of exaltation, as well as the seat of power.  It signified royalty, honor, as well as power, the right arm being the symbol of power.  Jesus Christ sat down, as it were, acknowledged and exalted, made royal by God.  And God was, in effect, approving of His work. 

     But there's another marvelous thought in this.  The idea of sitting on the right hand of the throne brings to mind the expression related to the Sanhedrin.  Now, you remember that in Israel there was a ruling body of 70 men known as the Sanhedrin.  These men were responsible for making the judgments.  They were technically the Jewish house of judgment.  They were the ones who were executing justice whenever justice was being executed in the land. 

     And there were always two scribes before the judges of the Sanhedrin.  One scribe sat on the right hand, and the other scribe sat on the left hand.  And it was always the business, watch this, of the scribe who sat on the right hand to write the acquittals.  And it was always the business of the scribe on the left hand to write the condemnations.  The Bible says that Jesus came, in John, chapter 3, verse 17, not to what?  "Condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."  Hence His place is never on the left hand, but always on the right hand, where He writes the pardons for His own. 

     What is it saying to us?  It is saying that Jesus Christ has been given the place of honor.  He has been ushered into the Holy of Holies.  He has been seated with God on God's throne.  Now, to a Jew, that's very hard to handle.  To an Orthodox Jew, that smacks of terrible blasphemy. 

     But let me go a step further.  I want to tell you something else.  If that didn't blow you up, listen to this one.  Oh, do I love this.  You know the first thing I'm going to do when I get to heaven?  I'm going to get up on that throne, too.  You're saying, "Oh."  Wait a minute.  Wait a minute.  Revelation 3:21 says this.  "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne."  Aha.  See?

     You say, "What is an overcomer?"  It's one who overcomes the world.  Read I John.  "What is it that overcomes the world?  Even our," what?  "Our faith."  Those who put their faith in Jesus Christ are overcomers, and all of us who are overcomers can just get up there and crawl right up on the throne.  You see, that is something provided for us by Jesus Christ that no priest could even do himself.  And Jesus says in Revelation 3:21, "You come up on my throne as I have come up on the Father's throne." 

     Boy, that is just exciting, isn't it?  That's why the...that's what the Bible means when Paul said to the Corinthians, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit."  We're one with Jesus Christ.  Where He goes, we go.  And so it is that Jesus Christ is a priest who has every right to sit on the Mercy Seat and sit on the throne of God, and not only that, but to bring us to sit with Him there.

     Now, it's a special throne in a special place.  It's not the throne in the Temple and it's not the throne in the Tabernacle.  It's the throne of the Majesty where?  In the heavens.  Now we're getting out of the world a little bit here.  This is going past the natural course of things.  In the heavens speaks, of course, of Christ's ascension.  "Having ascended into heaven, He was seated," right?  "With the Father."  This is chapter 1, verse 3.  In chapter 4, verse 14, it says, "He passed through the heavens," and so forth.

     So Jesus Christ, having accomplished His work, finished it, passed through the heavens, the stellar heavens, atmospheric heavens, entered into God's heaven, sat on the throne.  What a high priest.  The emphasis in the Book of Hebrews is repeatedly on the fact that Christ is at the right hand of God.  And I think the purpose of it is to assure those who were deprived of the Temple services in Jerusalem that they didn't need to worry about what was going on on earth, in the shadowy realm, because they had a real priest in the real Holy of Holies in the real heaven of God who was there for them, ministering and interceding.

     So the crowning argument for the superior priesthood of Jesus Christ and His exaltation to heaven to sit with the Father.  That is the glorious sum of everything else that shows us He is indeed a superior priest.  And that leads us to the second feature of the chapter.  Not only is He superior because of His seat, but secondly because of His sanctuary.

     Since He is a superior priest who has ascended to heaven, He ministers in a superior sanctuary.  He doesn't fool around in a skin tent like the Tabernacle.  Nor does He minister in a physical building on earth.  Those temples have all crumbled long ago.  His temple is in heaven.  He ministers in the real Holy of Holies.

     Now, I want you to kind of screw your brain on a few minutes, because we're going to dig into these next few verses, and I think you'll find it exciting, and see what God wants to teach you through it.  Verse 2.  "A minister of the sanctuary."  What sanctuary?  "Even of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man."  Aha.  Now, Jesus isn't a priest in the earthly Tabernacle or the early Temple.  He is a priest in the true one, which the Lord pitched and not man.  God's got His own Holy of Holies.  He functions as a priest, but not in the earthly temple, but in the heavenly dwelling place of God.  That's where He sits.

     An interesting note comes to my mind here.  In Acts 7, isn't it verse 55, we have an occasion...some people have argued about the finished work of Christ because of Acts 7:55.  I love this.  You know, this is dear Stephen, who preached and got stoned for it.  They heard the message that he gave.  He must've been a powerful preacher.  You know, it's a wonder to me sometimes that God lets some of His most powerful preachers only live a short time.  All we know about Stephen was really one sermon. 

     "And when they heard these things, they were cut to the heart and they gnashed on him with their teeth."  He got a reaction.  Don't you like this?  Listen to this next one.  "But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus," sitting?  Jesus what?  "Standing on the right hand of God."  His redemptive work is finished.  As far as redemption is concerned, He is seated.  But every time one of His own gets into trouble, He stands up, because He has something to do.  His power and His energy is activated in the behalf of His own.  That's His mediator's work.  He is seated in His redemptive work.  He is active as our mediator.  What a tremendous promise. 

     Now back to Hebrews 8.  And it says He is a minister.  This comes from