Hebrews 8 - A Better Covenant
Welcome and Introduction
Well, welcome to The Well Community Church. I’m so glad you’re hanging out with us here this week. If we have not met, my name is Brad, and I get the privilege of handling God’s Word here together this week.
This is a unique week for us here at The Well. It was back in 2007 that we experimented with video teaching. I remember back at our old North Campus, we decided we would try this thing called video teaching. We recorded a message early in the morning and then played it at the next gathering. I was hiding in the room, wondering how it was going to go. It just so happened I said something relatively funny in the first minute or so, and I was waiting to hear if there was a laugh. Thankfully, there was a laugh! I thought to myself, I think this video teaching thing might actually work. It would create the opportunity for us, as a multi-site church, to have consistency in our teaching while still being in multiple locations and allowing for growth.
In the past, we used to drive around on a Sunday to various campuses to try to teach live in multiple places. That lasted until we brought in a potential worship leader who was coming out to interview. I was teaching at our old Southeast Campus at that point, and he was riding with me. Well, I was a little long-winded at Southeast, and I had to hustle to get back to the North Campus in time to teach. I was going down the street at about ninety miles an hour, purposely running a stop sign on my way trying to get from point A to point B. He, of course, did not take the job! We decided right then that we probably should not do that anymore.
When COVID hit, of course, everything went to video. Coming out of COVID, we simplified a bit and decided to strategically determine what would be video and what would not. So our Fig Garden campus is predominantly video, our PM gathering is predominantly video, and the Clovis campus has our theater space and venue that use video. I mention that because this weekend is a unique weekend: every campus and every gathering is on video due to a scheduling conflict related to our Biblical Studies Tour. We are on video everywhere all weekend long. So with that, I simply say: welcome to The Well. If you have your Bibles, turn to Hebrews chapter 8. And for the Clovis crowd watching this on video—which might feel new—just keep in mind that I look at the side of all your heads anyway, because you are looking at the side screens all Sunday morning as it is! For me, it’s nothing new; for you, it might actually be.
The Better Priest and the Better Shadow
By way of introduction, if you’re new here to The Well, we are in the middle of a series through the book of Hebrews. We made a disclaimer when we started this book: this is going to be a very difficult series. It is not for the faint of heart. It is not entry-level theologically. It’s a challenging book, and it has certainly lived up to that warning. But we also said it would invite us into a greater understanding of our Bibles.
If you were with us last week, it was a theologically thick message as we wrestled with Jesus being a better priesthood. Throughout these weeks, we’ve tried to take the gospel and look at it like a gem with different facets. Every week reveals something new about our Lord—something about His character, His nature, and the work of the gospel. Last week, we learned that Jesus is not like the Old Testament Levitical priests; He is someone entirely different.
If you glance at chapter 7 for a moment by way of review, how is Jesus a better priest? In verse 3, He has no beginning and no ending—He is preexistent and eternal. In verse 9, He is worthy of worship as God. In verses 14 and 15, He is not just a priest; He is both a King and a Priest. In verse 22, He is the guarantee of a better covenant. In verse 25, He always lives to intercede for us. And look at verses 26 through 28:
Hebrews 7:26-27 (NASB)
For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens; who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the [sins] of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
If you are new to the things of God and you want to know the essence of the gospel, that is it: He did something wonderful once for all when He offered up Himself.
Now we come to chapter 8, and verses 1 through 6 really build on last week’s content. In verse 1, the author writes:
Hebrews 8:1-2 (NASB)
Now the main point in what has been said [is this]: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.
The reason Jesus is a better High Priest is that He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. His work of redemption is complete, and He is interceding for us in glory. In verse 3, every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, so it is necessary for this High Priest to have something to offer as well. But recall from chapter 7, verse 27 that He offered up Himself.
Look at verses 4 and 5:
Hebrews 8:4-5 (NASB)
Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the Law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned [by God] when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, ‘SEE,’ He says, ‘THAT YOU MAKE all things ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN.’
Everything you read about in your Old Testament—every story—whispers His name. Everything in your Old Testament points like a neon sign to the person and work of Jesus Christ. The priesthood is a shadow of Him. The tabernacle is a shadow of Him. The offerings are a shadow of Him. The sacrifices are a shadow of Him.
Jesus said as much in John chapter 5 to the religious leaders who assumed they could earn the favor of God through external obedience:
John 5:39 (NASB)
’You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me;
Everything the Old Testament speaks of points to Jesus Christ. That truth is echoed on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24, when the resurrected Jesus meets with His disciples:
Luke 24:27 (NASB)
Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
Even in Acts chapter 8, when Philip shares the gospel with the Ethiopian eunuch, he opens his mouth and, beginning with the Old Testament scriptures, preaches Jesus to him. Everything in your Old Testament is a shadow of what was to come in Christ. And thankfully, according to verse 6, something has changed. We are in a completely different relationship with God because of what Christ has done for us:
Hebrews 8:6 (NASB)
But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.
Understanding Biblical Covenants
If Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant, let’s ask and answer the question: what actually is a covenant?
A covenant is a biblical term for a sacred promise—an agreement made between two parties. Think of it like a contract. It would be signified by a symbol, and it would be ratified by signing it. In the Old Testament, covenants had a seal that made them official.
There are seven biblical covenants in the Old Testament:
- The Edenic Covenant (Genesis 1–2)
- The Adamic Covenant (Genesis 3)
- The Noahic Covenant (Genesis 9)
- The Abrahamic Covenant (Genesis 12)
- The Mosaic Covenant (Exodus 19–24)
- The Davidic Covenant (2 Samuel 7)
- The New Covenant (Jeremiah 31)
These covenants reflect the very character of our God. According to Deuteronomy chapter 7, our God is a covenant-keeping God:
Deuteronomy 7:9 (NASB)
’Know therefore that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His lovingkindness to a thousandth generation with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
That phrase “lovingkindness” is the Hebrew word hesed, which means His never-ending, unchanging, covenant-keeping love.
Let’s unpack three of these covenants in increasing significance.
1. The Abrahamic Covenant
You’ll find this covenant in Genesis 12:1–3. It is significant because it is an unconditional covenant made by God to Abram and his descendants. God promises three things: land, seed (descendants), and blessing. When you consider modern-day conflicts regarding who owns the land of Israel, you can go all the way back to Genesis 12 and see the receipts. God promised to give Abram that land, and in Genesis 15, He tells him to walk the length and breadth of it because He is giving it to him.
That covenant was ratified by the “passing through of the parts.” In ancient days, they would take an animal, cut it in half, separate the parts, agree to the terms, and then both parties would walk through the middle as if to say, “May this happen to me if I do not fulfill my part of the covenant.” But what is fascinating about the Abrahamic Covenant is that God puts Abram to sleep. God passes through the parts by Himself! God was saying, “I swear by Myself. This has nothing to do with your performance. I am committing unconditionally to give you land, seed, and blessing.”
That covenant has not yet been fulfilled in totality. That is why we speak of the Jewish people as God’s chosen people—God made an unconditional, unilateral promise, and our God is a covenant-keeping God.
2. The Mosaic Covenant
The most impactful covenant in the Old Testament narrative is the Mosaic Covenant found in Exodus 19 through 24. But it is entirely different from the Abrahamic Covenant because it is not unconditional—it is conditional. God tells Moses and the people:
Exodus 19:5 (NASB)
’Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine;
It was an “if/then” covenant. If you obey, I will bless you. But if you disobey, you will experience life on your own without Me—without My blessing, leading, or influence. In Exodus 19:8, the people agreed:
Exodus 19:8 (NASB)
All the people answered together and said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do!’ And Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD.
So the Old Testament people of God were unconditionally connected to God through the Abrahamic Covenant, but conditionally connected to God’s blessing, leading, and influence through the Mosaic Covenant.
The Flaw in the Old and the Promise of the New
To understand why a new covenant was necessary, consider the story of the Old Testament. From the patriarchs in Genesis, to the slavery in Egypt, to the Exodus under Moses, to Joshua leading them into the Promised Land, the people eventually demanded a human king. They got Saul, David, and Solomon. Then the kingdom split into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The northern kingdom was assimilated by Assyria, and later, the southern kingdom was carried off into Babylonian captivity.
It was during that exile that the prophet Jeremiah wrote Jeremiah chapter 31. The problem with the Old Covenant was not God’s law; the problem was that the agent required to live it out was human flesh. There was no internal capacity to obey. It became a relentless cycle: try to obey, fail, and bring a sacrifice. For the priests, it was nonstop, day-after-day sacrifice because the people were unable to keep God’s law due to indwelling sin.
Paul highlights this reality in Romans chapter 8:
Romans 8:6-7 (NASB)
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able [to do so],
If your hope today is that you can get religiously motivated enough in your own flesh to do what the Bible asks apart from a relationship with Jesus Christ, it is a fool’s errand. You cannot. The flesh is unable to please God.
Even in the Old Testament, saints were saved by faith, but the work of the Spirit was sporadic and transient. The Spirit would come upon a person for a season and then depart. Look at David’s prayer of repentance in Psalm 51 after his sin with Bathsheba and the murder of Uriah:
Psalms 51:10-12 (NASB)
Create in me a clean heart, O God, And renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me away from Your presence And do not take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.
David asked God to create a clean heart because he couldn’t clean his own. He pleaded, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me,” because under the Old Covenant, the Spirit’s presence could depart. There was a constant longing for something permanent. Moses foretold it in Deuteronomy 30:6 when he said the Lord would one day circumcise their hearts to love Him so that they might live.
The author of Hebrews explains this tension in verse 7:
Hebrews 8:7 (NASB)
For if that first [covenant] had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.
If obedience could have been achieved by human persistence and fortitude, we wouldn’t need a new covenant. But because the Old Covenant relied on our flesh, a second was desperately needed. So the author quotes the promise God gave through Jeremiah:
Hebrews 8:8-12 (NASB)
For finding fault with them, He says, ’BEHOLD, DAYS ARE COMING, SAYS THE LORD, WHEN I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AND WITH THE HOUSE OF JUDAH; NOT LIKE THE COVENANT WHICH I MADE WITH THEIR FATHERS ON THE DAY WHEN I TOOK THEM BY THE HAND TO LEAD THEM OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT; FOR THEY DID NOT CONTINUE IN MY COVENANT, AND I DID NOT CARE FOR THEM, SAYS THE LORD. ’FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. ’AND THEY SHALL NOT TEACH EVERYONE HIS FELLOW CITIZEN, AND EVERYONE HIS BROTHER, SAYING, ‘KNOW THE LORD,’ FOR ALL WILL KNOW ME, FROM THE LEAST TO THE GREATEST OF THEM. ‘FOR I WILL BE MERCIFUL TO THEIR INIQUITIES, AND I WILL REMEMBER THEIR SINS NO MORE.’
The Nature of the New Covenant
Look at what makes this New Covenant so much better:
First, it provides an internal transformation. God says, “I will put My laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.” It is no longer an external code on tablets of stone; it is a Spirit-wrought transformation on the inside. Titus 3:5 tells us that He saved us not by deeds done in righteousness, but by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. God causes us to be born again. Our obedience is no longer about pulling ourselves up by our proverbial bootstraps—it is initiated by the Spirit within us.
Second, it is a permanent, unconditional relationship. God declares, “I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” There is no “if/then” attached. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we are positionally and permanently in Christ—fully forgiven, fully accepted, and fully loved.
Third, it offers an individual, personal knowledge of God. “All will know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.” Every believer has direct access to a personal relationship with the Holy God through Jesus Christ.
Fourth, it guarantees complete forgiveness of sins. God promises, “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.” The language literally means He will take no punitive action against us for our sins—never, ever. Chronologically, when Jesus died on the cross, all of your sins were in the future. Everything you have ever done, are doing right now, or will do tomorrow was paid for in full when He cried, “It is finished!”
Grafted In: The Scope of the Covenant
When we embrace the gospel, we become active participants in this New Covenant promised six hundred years before Christ. And wonderfully, this covenant is offered not just to Jews, but to Gentiles as well.
Romans 11 explains how non-Jewish believers fit into this promise. Paul writes:
Romans 11:17-18 (NASB)
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, [remember that] it is not you who supports the root, but the root [supports] you.
We were wild olive branches grafted into the rich root of God’s covenant promises. When the Jewish leaders largely rejected their Messiah, the gospel went out to the Gentiles. When you embrace Jesus, you inherit the blessings of the New Covenant: His abiding presence, His leading, and His Spirit.
This makes the gospel the ultimate equalizer. As Paul tells the Galatians, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female—we are all one in Christ. It does not matter what background you come from, what neighborhood you live in, what car you drive, what you wear, or the color of your skin. What defines us is that we are in Christ.
Furthermore, this covenant is unconditional and permanently secured. Ephesians 1 tells us that having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. You don’t have to plead, “God, please be with me,” because He is already with you. You don’t have to fear in moments of weakness, “Do not take Your Holy Spirit from me,” because you are permanently sealed in Christ.
The mediator of this covenant is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And the sign and seal of this covenant is His own shed blood. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup and said:
Luke 22:20 (NASB)
And in the same way [He took] the cup after they had eaten, saying, ’This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.
Conclusion and Prayer
Jesus is our better covenant. God does not love you because you are good; God loves you because you are in Jesus Christ. Full stop. You cannot be unloved by God when you make a moral mistake. God loves you in your virtue, and He loves you in your vice, because you are covered by the blood of Christ and grafted into a better covenant—inaugurated by Jesus, secured by Jesus, fulfilled by Jesus, and one day consummated by Jesus when He takes us to glory.
Let’s pray together.
Father in heaven, what a gift it is to understand the beauty of our Christ and all that You have done for us. Lord, we thank You that we don’t have to perform or behave to earn Your love. You loved us first, and You invite us to walk in obedience as a fruit of the gospel, not as a prerequisite. What a gift that Your law is written on our minds and hearts, and that You have given us the desire and capacity to love You. As we respond in worship and share communion together, remind us of the beauty of this New Covenant inaugurated through the blood of Jesus. We thank You and praise You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.