Inauguration of the New Covenant

The Obsolescence of Old Technology and the Better New Covenant

I invite you to take out your Bible and turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. And we are going to read this morning in just a moment 2 Corinthians chapter 3 beginning at verse 4 and we're going to read down to verse 13.

On my way in this morning as I was sitting in my truck as I do have a 30 minute drive door to door from my house to the church door and making that drive in I am always listening to something whether it is a sermon or a podcast or a book.

Very rarely listen to music interestingly enough. But what I was noticing is that I don't remember the last time I used my radio. In fact my radio in my truck is really nothing more than an annoyance.

Because where my phone sits it happens to every once in a while when I hit a bump my phone will touch the radio and turn it on and it is inevitable that the last time it was on it was up to a thousand.

So when it turns it on it scares me because it just blasts in my ears some random channel. But it is interesting to consider that when I was a teenager and I received my first automobile a Dodge Daytona one of the first things that I did was I went out to purchase a new radio because I was so excited to have my own automobile to have my own radio and many men remember maybe ladies too you put the speakers in the back and you make it really a cool car because it has a cool sound system.

All that has gone away now. Again I don't remember the last time I purposely used my radio because when I get into my car I listen to my phone. And so this illustration is simply meant to remind us that there are times where things become obsolete and they are replaced with something else.

Now, not every time something is replaced is it replaced with something better and as I was considering this week the word new covenant I began to think of the word new and I began to think of the fact that new doesn't always mean better.

Somebody says I have a new husband that doesn't always mean better. But in the use that we will see today in the use of the new covenant the word new doesn't just mean different but it means better. In fact we are going to see today as we examine and dive deeper into the concept of the new covenant we are going to see the writer of Hebrews is going to call it a more excellent covenant.

So it's not just new it's better and just as when new technology comes along it makes the old technology obsolete and probably very few of you have an 8 track player in your.

Car.

When the new covenant came it rendered the old covenant obsolete because we have something.

Better now.

Ministers of a New Covenant in 2 Corinthians 3

So let's stand together and let's read how Paul describes this new and better covenant to us in 2 Corinthians and again he begins in chapter 3 verse 4 with where we were last week and we are going to read down to verse 13.

Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God, not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us but our sufficiency is from God who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit for the letter kills but the spirit gives life.

Now if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses face because of its glory which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory?

For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed in this case what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it.

For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will what is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to.

An end.

Let's pray.

Father, as we examine today this text and even more so Lord, dive even deeper into the idea of the new covenant and the ways in which the new covenant is better, the ways in which the new covenant has given us a better priest and better sacrifices and even better promises.

Lord, I pray that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear all that your spirit has to teach us today. I pray that you would keep me from error. I pray that you would forgive my sin. I pray that my lack would be put away and Lord that your abundance shine through.

I pray Lord that the believer in the room would understand even better today what it is in which he believes. And I pray Lord that the unbeliever would recognize the need of their heart to turn from their sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

For there is no salvation outside of him and no hope outside of his covenant. We pray all this Lord in Jesus name and for his sake, Amen. Every four years we have to sit through yet another presidential election.

And it's coming. I already begin to feel the looming pain of ads and debates which often are not real debates but just shouting fests and foolish talk. But we all know what we have to look forward to for the next coming year.

But at the end of this year, one man for better or for worse will be elected president of the United States for another year and then we will face another inauguration. Now the word inauguration simply means the instituting of something new.

It means to put something in place. It means to introduce a new term or a new idea or a new thought or in this case a new president. We're going to all look forward to the inauguration of the new president.

When I say look forward maybe I should change that. We're all going to tolerate another inauguration of the president. Well the reason why I bring up this word inauguration is because last week I gave you an outline.

If you remember I didn't finish the sermon. Last week we began to discuss the new covenant that Paul mentions here in 2 Corinthians chapter 3. And I said that I wanted to give you four aspects of the new covenant and I ended up.

Only giving you one.

I only gave you the first one. Our time was spent all last week looking at the promise of the new covenant. You'll remember we went back to Jeremiah and we saw how Jeremiah is the only place in the Old Testament where the phrase new covenant is used but it does tell us there's a promise coming and it's a promise of a new covenant.

We looked at Ezekiel and how Ezekiel talked about what was going to happen in this new covenant. God was going to take out the heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh. We went back and looked in other passages, Isaiah and Deuteronomy where it pointed us to a new promise and where God would change the hearts of his people and we even went all the way back to the garden where after the fall of man God promised that he would crush the head of the serpent through the seed of the woman.

The new covenant is a promise that goes all the way back to the beginning. And I would contend it was the very purpose of God from the beginning. To glorify himself through the work of his son Jesus Christ.

That has been the goal. That has been the telos as the word telos means. The purpose of all of history is so that when we consider Christ we consider that all things are from him and through him and to him.

To him be glory and honor forever, Amen. That is the wondrous truth of the Bible and the wondrous promise of the new covenant. Well today we are going to look at the inauguration of the new covenant. When did the new covenant begin and in what way did it begin?

And out of that what changed? Now I must say we read this morning verses 4 through 13 of 2 Corinthians and I will be making some comments as we go. But I also want to tell you that this particular section of 2 Corinthians is considered by many scholars to be one of the more difficult sections of Paul's writing and the reason being that Paul uses in this section some terms regarding the old covenant calling it a covenant of death and things like that and some people say well in other places he talks about the blessing of the law and the goodness of the law and certainly we go back to the Old Testament and it talks about the glory of the law and the law of the Lord is perfect and we see all these things praising the law and yet here he comes and calls it a ministry of death and people take great offense to Paul's words.

Also he uses an example from Exodus 34 where he talks about Moses putting the veil over his face and he seems to draw a much different application from that than what we find in the text in Exodus 34.

In fact Paul's application seems somewhat unique and almost as if he is imposing upon Exodus 34 something that's not there and so we have to consider that. So as I said there's a lot in this text that in the weeks ahead we're going to expound on and I'm not going to finish today either just so you know because I've just been considering how important the new covenant is and if I spent the rest of this year preaching on the new covenant and what it means and what it brings and the changes that we have and the blessings that it beholds that we would never once have wasted a moment because the new covenant is worthy of our time.

So what I wanted to do again looking at today and I will be examining a few things that Paul said here but I want to look at this question and that is the question of when did the inauguration of the new covenant take place and you know the word testament also means covenant so I could have said that I could have said the inauguration of the new testament but what do we think when we think new testament?

We think the new testament scriptures and of course we should because the new testament scriptures are scripture and they're important but when we think new covenant we don't think when did the new testament come?

The new testament writings actually did not begin until somewhere in the late forties not nineteen forties I know some of you remember that but the first forties the early early forties and in that first century the first writings were written by the apostle Paul they were written somewhere in the late forties forty eight forty nine somewhere we would imagine and it was probably either Paul's letter to Galatians to the Galatians or Paul's letter to Thessalonica that was first I contend it was Galatians.

Some scholars think it was the letter to Thessalonica which was first and we'll we get to heaven we'll ask him but I don't think anybody's going to really care but I care now because I have a reason why I think Galatians was first.

Galatians is Paul's treatment arguing against the Judaizers. The Judaizers were the ones who were claiming that if you are a Christian you have to bring in the old covenant ceremonial law and you must apply it within the new covenant context.

And if you're not circumcised you have to be circumcised. And if you're not living according to the dietary restrictions you have to live according to the dietary restrictions. And if you're not obeying all of the Mosaic law if you're not taking the old covenant and applying it to the new covenant then you are not pleasing God.

Paul calls that a false gospel. In fact the very first thing he says in Galatians is that they have fallen prey to a false gospel. And he says there is no other gospel. He says there's one gospel. And if any man comes to you and preaches another gospel contrary to the one that I have preached to you let him be anathema which means to be cut off or accursed.

He says if anyone comes even an angel from heaven comes preaching another gospel let him be accursed. Well I believe Paul is dealing with a very similar situation in 2 Corinthians. As I said last week Paul is here defending his ministry as a servant or a mediator or a minister of the new covenant.

He compares himself to Moses who was the minister of the old covenant. Moses brought a law written on stone. I bring a law written on hearts. Moses brought a ministry of death. You know what happened when the people of God made the golden calf.

There was death that happened as a result and out of that flowed death. How long did the death last. Why did they spend 40 years in the wilderness beloved. It was so that every person who was above the age of 20 would be would die.

No person other than Joshua and Caleb who were above the age of 20. When the spies went in and spied out Canaan and they came back. What did they say. Oh we can't go there. They're giants. We're like worms in their eyes.

We're you know we can't go. Joshua and Caleb said no we can go. And after that God's judgment was leveled and not one lived. Who was over 20 years old. The next. In fact that's what Deuteronomy is written for.

Deuteronomy was written the word Deuteronomos. Deuteronomos means law. Deuteronomy means second or the second giving. And so Deuteronomy means the second giving of the law. Why is there need to be a second giving of the law.

Because it's a different generation. Because the first generation is gone. Deuteronomy is Moses giving the law again to the generation that's about to go in and receive the promise. Because the first generation is dead.

So Paul in his writing and that's why I say this part's a little difficult because he begins to describe the two covenants. Because this was a ministry of death. We have the ministry of life. This was a ministry of the letter.

We have the spirit. And Paul's making a distinguish or distinguishing rather between the old and the new but not in any way to say the old was wrong. And not really to say that the old was bad but more so to say that the old has served its purpose and has come to an end.

That's the key to this. He doesn't argue from the bad to the good. He argues from the good to the better. He said if there was glory in the old covenant if there was glory in the covenant which brought death how much more glory will there be in the covenant which brings life by the spirit.

See it's a it's not a bad to good. It's a good to better or a great to greatest. From one glory to a greater glory. Paul is describing here. But when did that glory come. When did the glorious new covenant have its inauguration.

The New Covenant Inaugurated at the Cross of Christ

Well unlike the presidential inauguration there was not a time of national solemnity where everyone came together and recognized the change. There was not a brass band which came together and played hail to the chief.

There was not a gathering of dignitaries leaders but rather it happened in a quiet upper room as Jesus sat with his apostles celebrating his final Passover with them on the night before he went to the cross.

So if you have your Bibles turn with me now to the gospel of Luke and find your place at Luke chapter 22 and go to verse 14. Now it's interesting that outside of Paul Luke is the only one who uses the word new covenant in Jesus' institution of the table.

You can go back and look in Matthew and Mark and John you won't find the phrase. You'll find the same idea but again this phrase new covenant does not come up a lot but when it does it's hugely important.

And Luke's gospel is the one that records for us Jesus using the phrase new covenant notice what it says beginning in verse 17. I'm sorry 14 and when the hour came he reclined at table and the apostles with him and he said to them I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer now keep in mind the apostles still don't know about what's going to happen the next day.

Jesus knows he's been telling them I'm going to be taken by sinful men. I'm going to be crucified I'm going to die and on the third day I'm going to rise. He's told them that many times and yet they are still in ignorant denial but he says I earnestly desire to eat this Passover with you before I suffer for I tell you I will not eat it and I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God and he took a cup and when he had given thanks he said take this and divide it among yourselves for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes and he took the bread and when he had given thanks he broke it and gave it to them saying this is my body which is given for you do this in remembrance of me and likewise the cup after they had eaten saying this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

We can stop there. Notice what Jesus did. He took the bread and he gave it to them. Notice what Jesus says. He says this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Now right away we have to begin to ask some questions.

First of all the question of what is the new covenant we have established last week the new covenant was the promise that was given in the old covenant that God was going to bring a change in the hearts of his people.

You will remember they taking out the heart of stone putting in the heart of flesh not every man will have to tell his brother know the Lord for they shall all know me and their sins would be forgiven.

Their sins would be forgiven. Well I am convinced that the hearers of Jesus probably understood something about what Jeremiah had written. They probably understood something about the promise of this coming new covenant but it likely struck their ears very powerfully when Jesus picked up the cup and by the way if you have ever been a part of a Seder there are several cups throughout the meal.

There is the cup of blessing and there are different times where wine is drunk and while you drink the wine there are prayers that go along with it. So this would have been a cup at a certain portion in the meal he picked up that cup which they had been using for something else and he gave it new meaning and he says this cup is the new covenant in my blood.

It is funny how that word is often becomes a point of contention. You ever talk to a Lutheran about Jesus' body and blood on the table you will find out that they are very convinced that that word is pregnant with meaning because Lutherans believe that the bread becomes the body literally and the cup becomes the blood literally.

Even though when I say literally even literally is not literal but it is a very interesting belief. They believe Christ is over, under, around and through the elements. That is the phrase that they use.

That he is present in the elements is the term that they use and they base that on the fact that Jesus said this is my body. So they take the word is and they fill that word is with meaning. Well I only bring that up because when we come here to verse 20 it says that the cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.

It is the new covenant in my blood. Is this when the new covenant is inaugurated? Well let me say this about that. The inauguration of the new covenant comes with the sacrifice of Christ and this cup points to Christ's toward that sacrifice.

So the new covenant which brings about the change of heart, the new administration of the spirit and the forgiveness of sins would actually come when Jesus Christ hung between heaven and earth cries out after having been fixed to the tree and he cries out it is finished.

What is finished? The covenant has been inaugurated. And we know that based on what he says. He says this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in what? In my blood. In my blood. You see the inauguration of the new covenant comes in the blood of Christ.

Now with that having been said, what happened when Jesus was on that cross? From a celestial perspective God is pouring out his wrath on Christ. For what purpose and to what end? Why does God pour out his wrath on his son?

Because the wrath that had been stored for our sin, and I'll make it very personal, the wrath that had been stored for my sin needed to be propitiated. The Bible says that Jesus died as a propitiation for sin.

What does the word propitiation mean? It means satisfaction. It means God whose anger burns against sin, whose wrath is inflamed towards sin must be satisfied. And so as Jesus is on the cross and we have all seen the passion of the Christ, well maybe not all of us, but many of us have seen in the film where Jesus is beaten mercilessly with the flog and as that flog tore the flesh from his body we know all how the anguish must have been and must have.

And then we see him, the cross being placed upon his shoulder where he had to carry it through the town and up the hill and we know that that cross beam was so heavy and so un, let's say, it was so rough, I was trying to say, it was so rough that it was completely unsanded.

Certainly they didn't sand the cross beam before they laid it across his back. So the open wounds of his back having been laid a rough piece of wood across his shoulders and here he's dragging it to the point where he drops it, he can't go anymore, a siren of siren has forced to come and carry the cross the rest of the way.

Christ is then laid on this wood. He is fastened to it with nails that pierce his hands and his feet. He is then lifted up and dropped in a hole in the ground where the weight of his body would pull against those nails and the entire weight of all of his flesh would pull down and crush into his lungs and he would begin to asphyxiate and death on the cross is death by asphyxiation which would last sometimes days because a man could push up on the nail in his feet and take a breath.

That's horrible, but that is not, beloved, the cup that Jesus asked to be removed on the night before the cross. Remember when Jesus was in the garden and he said, Father, if there be any other way, take this cup from me.

The cup was a symbol in the Old Testament of God's wrath which was poured out in times of judgment. And so when Jesus said, take this cup from me, he's not talking in that moment about the wrath of the Jewish Sanhedrin.

He's not talking about the wrath of Pilate or the foolishness of Herod and his cohort. He's not afraid of the nails. He doesn't sweat drops of blood because of asphyxiation. But he knows in a few moments, a few hours, he would be enduring the wrath of God for your sin.

Jesus had no sin of his own from the moment of infancy, from the moment of conception, he had no sin. And he never once sinned in thought, word or deed. I take up all the truths of the Bible. That's the one that just flummoxes me the most because I can't imagine being Jesus's brother or being Jesus's earthly father.

To have a son who never fails. To have a son who never curses. To have a son who never lies and never steals or never cheats. This is who Jesus is. He is the God man. He's the perfect man. He is the one who did not sin in thought, word or deed.

And now he has been treated as a criminal. And those who come against him have to come with him with accusations which are false because he is truly blameless. And the blameless one is placed upon the cross and hung between heaven and earth to receive in himself the wrath of God.

He cries out, Eloi, Eloi, laima sabachthani, which means my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? By the way, not because God had left him in that moment. I don't believe that's the right understanding, but rather he's quoting from the Psalms, a psalm which begins with separation but ends with vindication.

Keep in mind. But yet he cries out in the midst of his suffering as he receives. The punishment of God, and then he says that word, many of us know the Greek of this has been talked about many times in many sermons, the word to tell us die, which is the Greek word, it is a transactional word, which means it is finished.

More rightly put, it means paid in full. So when he says it is finished. And he hangs his head and the Bible says that Jesus said before this, no man taketh my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.

What does it say? He he did what no man ever did before after he gave up his ghost. As the King James says, he didn't he did not die at their hands. Were it his will, he could still be hanging there. I don't know.

I don't think it would be his will. But the point is, Jesus gave up the ghost and in that moment. Gave himself as the propitiatory substitute. For all who would ever believe in him. And beloved, what happened in the temple?

What happened in the temple when that moment came? The veil, by the way, the veil, which, according to tradition, was as thick as a man's hand. You think of a piece of cloth, usually not being very thick.

But the veil of the temple, which was not one that would be subject to the rending of a man who came in and aggressively pulled at it any more than you or I could rip apart a leather jacket for the strength of the material would be too much for our hands.

It says that that veil, which if you remember, separated the holy place from the sanctum sanctorum or the holy of holies and the holy of holies, which was only allowed to be entered into once per year, only allowed to be entered into by the high priest who, when he entered into it, had to himself perform sacrifices on his own behalf, cleanse himself before he could even go into that space within the temple.

That place within the temple was then opened and the Bible says the curtain, the veil, was torn from top to bottom. Again, indicating it was not done by the hands of a man because men would not be able to reach up that high and would not have the strength to tear the veil apart.

But this is why I contend that this is the inauguration of the new covenant, because while the new covenant was not, I'm sorry, the inauguration was not accompanied by the type of fanfare that inauguration of a president or the inauguration of some other public figure may be today.

They didn't have a chorus of brass instruments and they didn't have dignitaries and they didn't have all these things. What they did have is they had the God of the universe who was indicating what had just happened by his own entrance into this moment and tearing the veil apart.

As if he were saying the old is over. The old is done. This has now reached its point of completion. In the text in 2nd Corinthians, it uses the word fading away, speaking of the glory of the old covenant.

That is really not a good translation. Because it's not as if the glory, and it's speaking about the glory on Moses's face, but Paul's obviously applying it to the glory of the Old Testament, which would come to an end, the glory of the old covenant, which would come to the end.

And what it's saying there is not that it faded over time, but that it came to an end. There was an ending point. There was a point at which it stopped and gave way to the new. And what point did it stop and give way to the new?

When Jesus Christ died, that veil was torn. And so we see again in Luke when he says, poured out for you, when talking about the cup, this cup is poured out for you, the new covenant in my blood. So here we have a visual, if this is helpful.

From the old covenant to the new. We have the old covenant under which Jesus was in his earthly life. You realize Jesus lived under the old covenant, right? Jesus fulfilled the whole old covenant. In Matthew chapter 5, he says, I've not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law.

And he fulfilled every single law that was required. Again, flummoxed how that could be, but he did it. And in his 33 years of life, he, and I know, I know you probably got confused this thing because it says AD 30, Jesus was not born on year one or year zero.

He was probably born a few years before, but Jesus, when he was born, he spent his life. That's the green. The life of Christ is lived under the old covenant. And as he's living under the old covenant, he's fulfilling every law that is required so that when he dies on the cross, he does not die for his sins, but he dies for our sins.

The cross comes and we might could argue, and maybe you may come to me later and want to make this argument. Understand. I'm not intentionally leaving this out. You may argue that the new covenant is, is inaugurated in the death barrel and resurrection of Christ.

So it would have been over three days. I'm not going to argue with you. If you want to, if you want to include that, certainly Paul includes that as the gospel, but it is the blood that he says in Luke 22 is the new covenant.

It's the new covenant in my blood. So that's where I make and the tearing of the veil and all of the other things. This is how I'm reaching my conclusion that this is the inauguration of the new covenant because it is on that cross where Jesus died, that the wrath of God was satisfied, right?

On every, or every sin on him was laid. And Paul says he has taken our judgment, our legal writ of just judgment, and he has nailed it to what? The cross. So Christ in the cross is the fulfillment of the old covenant and he is the inauguration of the new covenant.

And the new covenant is inaugurated. However, one says, well, what happens to the old at this point? Well, beloved, the old covenant ends. It's over. The old covenant is done. That's why I have little stops on.

The old covenant ends. When does it end? It ends at the cross. But that doesn't mean people didn't keep trying to maintain it. And what happened over the next generation? People kept coming to the temple.

People kept offering sacrifices. People kept doing the things that the law required. People kept administrating the old covenant. And they did that for 40 years. But Jesus made a prophecy. When Jesus was prophesying what often is referred to as end time prophecies, by the way, Brother Andy mentioned already, our conference this year is on end times.

Y 'all did it. Y 'all asked for it. A lot of people want to know about end time stuff. They want to know what we teach. Well, now you're going to know if you haven't already known. But one of the things we do believe is we believe not everything Jesus mentioned when he prophesied was about our future.

Some of the things Jesus prophesied are now in our past. That's where the word preterism comes from. When Andy said it this morning, if that word was maybe new to you or confusing to you, the word preterism means to come before.

And it is the idea that there were prophecies that Jesus made that were in their future, but are now in our past. And one of the prophecies that Jesus made was this generation will not pass away until these things are complete.

Now I tell you what, every dispensationalist in the world tries to twist that up, down, left, right to make that something in the future. To make that something about, well, the generation means Christians.

Nowhere else in the Bible can you make that argument. They say, well, that generation refers to every generation of believers. Can't find that argument either. Jesus is specifically giving a time frame.

And his time frame is from now, this generation, from this point, this generation will not pass away until these things have taken place. And what's he talking about? The destruction of the temple. Beloved, this is one of the greatest fulfilled prophecies, if you read it right.

Because this is one of the times where Jesus said something was going to happen. And boy, howdy, did it not happen in spades. It happened in the most powerful way possible. As Titus rolls into Jerusalem, destroys everything, melting even the very gold out of the walls themselves.

Because that's the marking, AD 70, right there. AD 70 is the fall of Jerusalem. And I want to say this, that's not the inauguration of the new covenant. But that is the final death knell in the old. You see?

See, the old ends when Christ comes. The old ends when that veil is rent. The old is no longer relevant in the economy of God. But it will limp along for a generation. It will limp along until God says, you've come this far and no more.

And that's what happened. The old covenant limped along for 40 years. In fact, I want to show you something if you'll just very quickly turn over to Hebrews chapter eight. I want to show you something in Hebrews eight.

In Hebrews eight, Paul says, and I hear Bible pages turning, go to verse six, and then we're gonna look at verse 13. We're not going to read in between because in between is simply a quotation of Jeremiah 31.

And we read that last week. But in fact, it is the longest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament is the quotation of the new covenant from Jeremiah. But notice what he says in verse six, Hebrews eight, verse six, he says, But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it's enacted on better promises.

Don't forget it now. As I said all the time, I know it's a little funny, but it's true as the Papa John's covenant, better priesthood, better sacrifices, new covenant is the best. It's much better. And that's what it says.