Better Promises Better Covenant

The Reading of Jeremiah’s Promise of a New Covenant

I would ask you to please stand for the reading of God's word. The Old Testament reading this morning is Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34, and that's on page 660 in your pew bibles. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.

My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares.

The Lord.

I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they all shall know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

Galatians 3 and the Law as Guardian Until Christ

The New Testament reading is in Galatians chapter 3, starting in verse 19. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

But the scripture imprisoned everything under the law, under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian, for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

You may be seated.

Hebrews 8 and the Better Covenant Mediated by Christ

Would you take your Bibles now and let's turn to Hebrews chapter 8, Hebrews chapter 8. I'm going to read this entire chapter, our text for today is verses 7 -13, but you follow as I read this chapter.

Now the point in what we are saying is this, we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.

For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law.

They serve a copy, a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.

But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

For he finds fault with them when he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them up out of the land of Egypt.

For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares.

The Lord.

For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,.

Declares the Lord.

I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

Let's pray.

Father, as we do always in our worship service now, we ask that you would open the text of.

Scripture to us.

It is your living word. Can speak to us. It can speak to each one of us in the way that you have appointed. And so we pray. Make us listeners. Help us to heed your word and to change our thinking, the way we do things, our words in accordance with what we learn today.

Help us now, we pray in Jesus name.

Amen.

Why the Old Covenant Was Faulty and Temporary

Let's imagine something right now. You're excited because you're headed to Columbus to sign a contract with the Columbus Clippers. You've made it to the AAA, the highest point in the minor league system, and it's a typical minor league contract.

Your contract says that Columbus will pay you $700 a week for playing for them. However, even when you sign the contract, it doesn't mean you're going to get the $700 because you have to make it through spring training and get added to the team before you get the promised $700 a week.

Now again, imagine a few years later, you're going to Cleveland to sign a major league contract. And as soon as the ink is on that contract, you are guaranteed a minimum salary of $507 ,500. And you will get that amount whether or not you play.

And you'll get that amount even if for some reason they cut you from the team. You're guaranteed that amount of money. Now I don't know about you, but a major league contract seems better to me than a minor league contract.

And I don't see how I would possibly be tempted to go back and play under the minor league contract.

All right?

I don't know that I would be tempted. Now remember, in our text, in the book that we're studying, our pastor writes to people tempted to go back to living under the old covenant.

Okay?

They're tempted to go back and live under that old covenant. And here in Hebrews, he seeks to convince you that the new covenant that Jesus introduces, that Jesus mediates, far surpasses the old covenant under which they used to live.

Now a covenant is like a contract. It's an agreement that governs the relationship between the parties. So when you sign with the Clippers, they promise to pay you $700 a week if you make the team. And you got to play for them to get your $700.

When you sign with Cleveland, they promise to pay you $570 ,000 a year, even if you sit on the bench. Even if you sit on the bench the entire season, you're going to get that money. That governs your relationship to the team.

Now God relates to humanity by means of covenant, like the covenant he made at Sinai with Israel. That covenant had many stipulations, laws, requirements, blessings, and curses. And that's what governed the relationship between God and his people.

For example, let me give you one example. You read this in Deuteronomy chapter 28. But if you will, here's part of the covenant that governs their relationship. But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God, or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.

Curse shall you be in the city and curse shall you be in the field. Curse shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Curse shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, the increase of your herds and the young of your flocks.

Curse shall you be when you come in and curse shall you be when you go out. So here's the covenant that governs their relationship. If you don't obey me, then I will make it so you don't have food, children, crops.

I'll curse you in every way you can think of. On the other hand, God also said this, and if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.

Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. So you see, this covenant promised curses for disobedience and blessings for obedience to the commands of God.

Now, of course, those covenant requirements cover not just those things that covered it covered the sacrifices that you offered and how to do it and and who could do it. It's it. It covered the high priest and how he was supposed to operate and how he was supposed to do things.

And if you didn't do it that way, there would be curses. If you did do it the way God said there would be blessings. And so now he makes the case for a new covenant. It's called new because it replaces the old one.

It's the covenant that Jesus mediates. We just read it's a covenant that's founded on better promises, which we just read. And this better covenant now governs the relationship between God and his people.

Now, remember. Let's get the big picture. He is persuading you, seeking to persuade you that Jesus is your greatest and your only hope and that to and that you must not abandon your hope in Jesus. And he's saying here, don't abandon your hope in Jesus because he mediates a better covenant that's enacted on better promises.

So here's what he's saying. You're tempted to abandon Jesus. The cost is getting very high to follow him or the pressure is on or we're just you're just drifting away. And he's saying to you, don't abandon Jesus because he brings with him a better covenant, a better covenant on better promises.

Well, let's look at what he has to say this morning. Let's try to understand this difference between that old covenant and this new covenant. What's the difference? Why is this one better than that one?

All right.

So the first thing he tells you to do is to recognize that the old covenant was faulty. That's what he says here. For if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.

Now, the old covenant he mentions here, he calls the first covenant. Now, there were covenants that preceded the ones he's talking about. For example, the covenant that God made with Noah. I was reminded of that covenant the other day as Beck and I were returning home from Michigan.

And I looked off to the east and I could see this gigantic rainbow, just this huge, really long rainbow. And it reminded me, aha, there's the covenant sign from God that he'll never destroy the earth with a flood again.

So there was a covenant made with Noah long before a covenant made with Moses. We call the covenant made with Israel at Sinai, the Sinaitic covenant or the Mosaic covenant. That's the covenant he's talking about.

And we know that because in verse nine, he says, this covenant was made when they came out of Egypt. That's obviously the covenant God made with Israel at Sinai through Moses. So he's talking here, this first covenant he's talking about is the Mosaic or the Sinaitic covenant.

Now, what do we know about that? That old covenant was faulty because it was inadequate. It was inadequate. If the old covenant was adequate for us, we'd have no occasion to look for another. If it was everything it needed to be, we wouldn't look for another one.

If it could do the job of meeting our greatest need, there would be no need for another one. But it didn't meet our greatest need, right? It wasn't adequate for that job. Now, when I graduated from seminary, we went to Iowa.

My wife suggested to me that my education wasn't complete until I experienced harvest. And so I did go to Iowa expecting to be snapped up in a few months by a church, which didn't happen for another four years.

That's another story. But while I was there, I farmed with a friend of mine by the name of Mike. Now, Mike and I worked 1 ,200 acres at the time. Now, if Mike was only farming a few acres, the A10, the John Deere A10 would have been adequate.

The A10 was what we called a two-popper. It was just this, you know, you'd start this thing up, right? And it would go, it's only a two-cylinder job. It was not much, but it was a big thing in its day.

But the more the acreage grew and the more Mike's boss wanted more money, right, the A10 was not going to do it. There was more acreage. There was a lot heavier machinery. A10 was not going to get the job done.

We had to go to a 40 -20. I spent all my time in that 40 -20, John Deere 40 -20, okay? You know what the A10 did? The A10 ran the auger that put the grain up into the bins. That's all we used that old tractor for.

We hooked the power PTO onto the auger, and it was just good enough for taking the grain up. That's what we used the A10 for. That's all it was good for by that time. Same thing is true of this covenant.

It was inadequate. It couldn't accomplish our greatest need. Now, remember that our writer has already said to us in chapter 7, verse 11. Remember what he said? He said this, Now, if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood, for under it the people received the law, what further need would there have been for another priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek rather than one named after the order of Aaron?

So, see what he said? If it could perfect us, we would need another covenant. No one changed. No one experienced transformation of heart or forgiveness through that old covenant. Even after living for centuries under that old covenant.

Here, listen to another thing that God said in this covenant. Again, from Deuteronomy 28. Listen to what it says. The Lord will establish you as a people holy, H-O-L-Y, holy to himself, as he has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways.

And all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. But that never happened under that covenant. They never gained the reputation of a people holy to the Lord as a people who lived under Yahuwah's name.

And everyone knew it.

They never accomplished that.

Why?

Because they didn't obey. They did not obey. It never happened. It proved inadequate to accomplish that purpose. Now, that doesn't mean that something was wrong with God's law or with his covenant. It doesn't mean that it was wrong.

In fact, what does he go on to say? For he finds fault with what? With them. The problem wasn't in the covenant itself. The problem was in the people. That's where the problem was. So the old covenant was faulty because of its rebellious covenant partners, the people of Israel.

There's God in this covenant and Israel in this covenant, and the problem was them. They were rebellious. God found fault with his covenant partners, and so he had to institute. He promised them, I'm going to institute a new covenant.

Verse 8, for he finds fault with them when he says, and then tells them what they did wrong and what he was going to do in a new covenant. Now, at this point, our writer, our pastor friend, begins quoting, you know, quoting, loosely quoting Jeremiah 31, which you heard this morning.

He brings it up and says, here's why I'm telling you what I'm telling you, because this is what God said in the Old Testament. Already in the Old Testament, he was saying that. The very fact that God promised a new covenant says that there was something wrong with you.

The spiritual state of Israel, their constant, consistent, ongoing, disobedient to the covenant commands proves the necessity of a new one, a new covenant. So he's not making up an idea of a new covenant here.

He's not saying, so here's the idea that I've come up with. He's saying, even in the Old Testament, it was recognized that a new one was necessary. Now, what you have to see is just how bad these covenant partners were, just how bad and rebellious that Israel was.

Notice what he said. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them up out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.

Now, here's how bad the rebellion was. God took Israel by the hand and led them away from the horrific, dangerous, cruel Egypt, land of Egypt, like a big, protective papa, right? He was like this big, protective daddy.

And he took them by the hand, and he led them out. And it even gets greater when you think about how he did it. He just sent 10 plagues. He had them backed up right against the Red Sea, and he split it, and they walked across on dry ground.

He was like this big, protective father who leads them by the hand. But guess what? The covenant he made with them came after he marvelously, graciously liberated his people from the Egyptians. He graciously did that.

And how did they repay that grace and mercy? What does it say? They did not continue in the covenant. They did not obey the covenant stipulations. Now, he's talking about century after century after century of disobedience to the covenantal terms.

Sometimes. You know, you know what, when people say to you, yeah, the God of the Old Testament's this mean old thing, just look, you know how long he put up with their disobedience? Century after century after century, he forbade that, constantly calling them to repentance, and they would not listen.

His gracious work of deliverance was not enough to move them to obedience. Consider this. The blessings and the cursings of that covenant did not move them to obedience. You know what, let me challenge you, particularly in Deuteronomy 28 and 29.

You'll go back, and you look at the blessings and the cursings. When you read the blessings that God promised for obedience, I'm not kidding you. You read those, and it looks like, it almost looks like you'd expect the new earth to look like.

I mean, he just, the blessings that he promises them are literally stunning. When you read them, it's like, wow, I would have loved to live in that. It's stunning what he promised to them. Unbelievable prosperity, it's like paradise when you read the promise of the blessings.

And when you read the curses for disobedience, such as the utter defeat and humiliation they would experience before other nations, the unfruitful wombs, you won't have children. Not only that, but if you do have children, and he describes that I will bring nations against you that will lay siege to your cities that will be so horrible that you will even eat your own children.

That's how bad it's going to be.

Right?

He talks about drought and famine and bloodshed. I mean, it looks like hell on earth when you read the curses. You would think that was such unbelievably wonderful promises and incredibly dire threats that these people would obey, but they did not.

They did not. And so what happened? Our text says God showed no concern for them. That is to say, he brought down those horrific curses on their heads. You want to read about that? You read the book of Jeremiah.

You read the book of Lamentations. You will see the absolute horror of what God did because of their nearly thousand years of disobedience. In 722 BC, the northern nation of Israel wiped off the map. 586 BC, the kingdom of Judah ceases to exist as a nation when Nebuchadnezzar comes in.

No nation. They're gone. All the curses. And when he was writing this, they were suffering under the heel of the Roman Empire. The curses were on them. All of that rebellion reflected the inadequacies and the limitations of the old covenant.

That is to say, it could only command obedience, but it could not empower obedience. Let me say that again. It could command obedience, but it did not empower obedience. Even with all those dire threats and unbelievably wonderful blessings, not even that could move the hearts of these people to obedience.

They knew what the covenant said, but they could not obey it, and they would not obey it. Now, here's the last thing. That old covenant was faulty because it's temporary. It says that in verse 13. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.

And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. The fact that God spoke of a new covenant proves that the old covenant would be obsolete. Planned obsolescence, if you will. God intended it to be only temporary.

All the way back in Jeremiah's day, the Old Testament announced that the Sinaitic Covenant, the framework that governed God's relationship with his people, was destined to be discarded. So for all those reasons, that old covenant is faulty.

It's not as good as the new covenant because the new covenant comes with better promises. And he says, recognize that the new covenant is better. It's better. Now, a quick word about those who receive this new covenant, very quickly.

Says he promises this to the houses of Israel and Judah. There's a whole lot we could go into. This could take four sermons about how that's meant for us today. It wasn't just meant for Jewish people.

It's meant for you sitting here today. And I could go into all kinds of things about how, because of Jesus, fulfilling everything that Israel's supposed to do, and by faith, we're connected to Jesus, and we are now the people of God, not Jewish people, but anybody who believes in Christ.

Do that all out. But all's I'm gonna say is this, simply this. On the night that Jesus instituted the Lord's table, what did he say? This cup is the new covenant in my blood. And he was saying that as he instituted the table for all of the disciples of Jesus that would come later.

And so this new covenant, this new covenant, is the covenant that governs the relationship that you here have with God. We are under the new covenant. It is our covenant. Now, remember what our pastor writer implies earlier, that what replaces the old will somehow perfect the people of God.

He implies that in chapter seven, verse 11. The old one could not perfect the people of God. So he implies the new one can. And then he's also just said that it's enacted on better promises. So what are those promises that makes this new covenant better?

Let's look at four that he lists here, four promises that helps us recognize that the new covenant is better. The new covenant promises you power to obey God. The new covenant promises you power to obey God.

Last part of verse 10. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. I'll put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts. In the old covenant, God inscribed his law on tablets of stone.

They were external to the people of God. But even though the Israelites knew the law, it did not give them any inclination to obey that law.

None.

Here's the law, obey. But no inclination to obey it, right? The prophet Jeremiah, who brought the promise of a new covenant, also declared that the Lord would punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh.

All who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart. See, that's the problem. The law was there, but the heart was not.

The heart did not want to obey. They could obey the law, kind of, but they didn't want to obey the law. Many years ago, Beck and I were visiting Lydia and Lee Parker.

At their house.

And it was a number of months after Henry was born, okay? So we're all sitting there having a nice conversation. Henry, Henry's sitting, like, right in the middle of us. He's sitting up. He's able to sit up and crawl at this point.

I've told you this story before, I think. Maybe, not all of you. But Henry suddenly gets it in his head. He crawls over to the light socket, and he's about ready to, you know,.

Like all little kids are.

Experiment. And his dad walks over, picks him up, and says, no, Henry, and puts him down with his back to the socket. Henry sits there for a little bit, and he turns around and crawls right back to that light socket.

His dad picks him up again and says, Henry, no, sets him down, back to the socket. Henry turns around, and he goes right back. His dad picks him up, spanks him, brings the full force of the law on his bottom, and sets him down with his back to the socket.

You know what Henry did? This is what he did. I'll never forget it. He went like this. He didn't go to the socket, but his heart wanted to go to the socket. You see? The law kept him from going there, but he still wanted to go there, right?

See, the law could tell you something. It could control your behavior, but it never changes your heart. Never changes your heart. But the new covenant, on the other hand, brings with it the power to obey, because God now writes the law on your heart.

So now there's an external commandment. Jesus says, for example, love your enemies. Written on my heart is that same commandment. There's a resonance that happens there. Now I want to do the will of God.

I want to do that. You see that? He inscribes the law on your heart. In the new covenant, God has remedied that fatal flaw of an uncircumcised heart, an unregenerated heart. He's now given us new hearts with the law written on it so that we want to obey whatever Jesus commands.

We want to obey that. We now delight to do the will of God. We want to do it, and we delight when we do obey. This new covenant actually empowers our obedience. That's what's different. We're under this covenant that now everybody who's under this covenant is empowered now to obey, who wants now to obey whatever God says.

Notice what else. The new covenant promises you an unbreakable bond between you and God. He says to them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Now God promised Abraham that he would be God to him and to his offspring. This becomes a kind of shorthand way of talking about what comes in the covenants. I'll be your God, and you'll be my people.

Look over at Genesis 17. Genesis chapter 17, verse seven. Again, this is the renewal of the covenant with Abraham, third time the covenant's brought up, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout the generations for an everlasting covenant to be God to you until your offspring after you.

So he says, I'm gonna be your God, and your offspring will be my people.

All right?

Now, that's repeated several times in the Old Testament, but let's just look at one other time found in Leviticus 26. Leviticus 26. Verse three, if you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, then I will give you your rains in their season, the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and so on, and then he promises all these things.

Just look at verse 12, and I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people. At this point in the Mosaic covenant, God says, all right, I'll be your God and you'll be my people.

What?

If you obey. If you obey. But now under the new covenant, right, I'll be your God and you'll be my people because of what Jesus did. Not because of our obedience, but because of his. Now God is our God and we are his people, not on the basis of how we've obeyed, but on the basis of how Jesus obeyed and the sacrifice that he made.

And so God now says under this new covenant, I'm gonna be your God and you'll be my people. It's unbreakable. It's not gonna ever break off.

All right?

Third thing, verse 11, the new covenant promises you personal knowledge of God. Now that doesn't mean, and he says, you won't need someone to teach you about God. He's not saying, so there aren't gonna be any teachers.

I mean, that's silly because we have a teacher right now telling us that this is the case. All right, doesn't mean that. But it means remember how it was under the old covenant. What did it take to become part of the covenant people of God?

Circumcision. Became part of the people of God. That means every person in Israel was, if we wanna use the word, saved.

Right? No!

No, most were not. Some were. Some knew God and most did not. You see? Being part of the covenant people in the old covenant did not mean that you would know God, that you would know him personally.

Right?

You had, in fact, what you had were the priests who mediated the knowledge of God to you. Here's the difference. The priests would mediate the knowledge of God because they were the ones who taught the law.

They were the ones who could take, represent you in God's presence. They were the one who mediated. You don't need a mediator now. You can have experiential knowledge of God. Remember what Jeremiah said.

Thus says the Lord, "'Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, "'let not the mighty man boast in his might, "'let not the rich man boast in his riches, "'but let him who boasts in this "'that he understands and knows me.'".

It's not talking about knows about, but knows me. And so under the new covenant, everybody under the new covenant, from the greatest to the least, everybody under the new covenant knows God. Doesn't need someone to go after him and tell him all these things so that you know about God.

You actually know God from the least to the greatest. So it's not most know, but some don't know. All of those, all of you who are in the new covenant.

Know God, every one of you.

And then the last thing promise, the new covenant promises you complete forgiveness. "'For I'll be merciful toward their iniquities "'and I will remember their sins no more.'". The word merciful is interesting.

It's not the normal word for mercy. The normal word for mercy has the idea of compassion or pity. If I have mercy on you, I'm acting towards you because of my compassion, okay? That's not the word he used.

This is the word that's part of a word group from which we get propitiation. That is to say God's wrath has been turned aside so he'll be merciful, right? And a sacrifice has been made. His wrath has been appeased and turned away because of a sacrifice that deals with your sin.

And that is so effective that I will remember your sins no more. Now listen to me carefully. God does not have spiritual amnesia. God does know every sin that you have committed, that you are committing, and that you will commit.

He knows it all. He's omniscient. He can't forget. But he's not talking about forgetting. He's talking about not remembering. And there is a difference. There is a difference, okay? Forgetting is like, yeah, you know, I had history in high school but I just can't remember when the War of 1812 started.

Right?

That's something that you passively forget. You forget. That's not what he's talking about. He's saying God chooses to not remember. That is to say God makes a promise that I will not bring your sins up to use against you ever.

He goes on record with a promise. I will not recall your sins. I will not unearth the bones of your sins and beat you over the head with them. I promise never to bring them up to use against you ever.

That's the promise. God promises to not remember. Isn't that interesting? Under the old covenant,.

God was always bringing it back up.

Because the sacrifices back then could only assuage. On the day of atonement, God's wrath was assaged for one more year. He wasn't gonna wipe them out, right? And yet had to be propitiated again and again and again.