In With The New, Part 2 – Hebrews 7:15-22

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The Promises of the New Covenant, Part 3 – Hebrews 8:12

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We turn now to Hebrews chapter seven. Hebrews chapter seven.

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I'm gonna read a larger context in Hebrews seven beginning at verse 11. And we'll read through the end of verse 22.

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Hebrews chapter seven. Beginning verse 11. Now if perfection was through the

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Levitical priesthood, for on the basis of it the people received the law, what further need was there for another priest to arise according to the order of Melchizedek and not be designated according to the order of Aaron?

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For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also. For the one concerning whom these things are spoken belongs to another tribe from which no one has officiated at the altar.

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For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.

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And this is clearer still. If another priest arises according to the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become such not on the basis of a law of physical requirement but according to the power of an indestructible life.

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For it is attested of him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. For on the one hand, there is a setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness, for the law made nothing perfect.

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And on the other hand, there is a bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. And inasmuch as it was not without an oath, for they indeed became priests without an oath, but he with an oath through the one who said to him, the

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Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. So much the more also

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Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. Let's pray together. Our Father, we would ask that you would attend the preaching of your word and our study of your word today with the power of your spirit to help us to understand it and to see the glories of Christ and what you have provided for your people through him and in him.

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And may the result of this be our desire and longing to obey your word and to glory in the great security that we have in Jesus Christ, our

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Lord, in whose name we pray, amen. Well, if you woke up this morning wondering to yourself, how much longer is

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Jim gonna be talking about Melchizedek? If you woke up this morning with fond memories of our time in Ecclesiastes and thought to yourself,

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I sure do hope that this section on Melchizedek is coming to a close sometime soon. If that was your thought when you woke up this morning, then

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I have some good news for you. The passage that we just read and the passage that is our focus for this morning contains the last mention of Melchizedek in the book of Hebrews.

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In fact, it's the last mention of Melchizedek in the New Testament because he is not mentioned anywhere else in the

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New Testament, save only here in the book of Hebrews. So that is our passage this morning, the one that we just read.

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And that doesn't mean, just because we're covering the last mention of Melchizedek doesn't mean that I'm never gonna say his name again.

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And don't kind of get your hopes up regarding that because I can always just say his name, Melchizedek. I can just drop it sometime like I drop the word

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Ecclesiastes from time to time just to remind you that things have been worse in the past than they are today. And things are getting better because we've done with Ecclesiastes.

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So I could just say Melchizedek sometime in the future or as we're going through the priesthood of Jesus and the functions of the priesthood of Jesus Christ in Hebrews 7, 8, 9, and 10, this section in Hebrews that deals with that, we may have to refer back to Melchizedek a couple of times to remind ourselves of some of the things that we covered.

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But it is to say that we have reached in Hebrews a transition point, at least in concerning the priesthood of Jesus where the author is no longer laying the foundation of who

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Melchizedek is and tying him to Jesus, having established that Jesus is a priest, that he's been appointed as a priest, and that the priesthood to which he has been appointed is outside of the law and outside of the

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Levitical priesthood. It's a higher and greater and better priesthood, one like Melchizedek possessed. Having established that, he now sort of transitions to demonstrate to us the superiority of Christ's priesthood over the

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Levitical priesthood and over the Old Testament, the Old Covenant and the Old Testament economy. And so he's established that in the first half of the chapter, and now he is kind of transitioning and he is now lauding the glories of it, the supremacy of it, the betterness of the covenant that we have in the

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New Covenant, and the betterness of the work that Jesus has done compared to the Old Testament Levitical priesthood.

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And so last week, we looked at five comparisons, and I just stated five comparisons that are in our passage, beginning in verse 15 through verse 22 that we read through.

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There were five comparisons there between Jesus and the Levitical priests, and we covered two of them last week.

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We're covering the next three today. The first two was that Jesus possesses a better priesthood, that of Melchizedek, superior to Abraham, superior, therefore, to Levi, who was in the loins of Abraham.

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He possesses a better priesthood. He also possesses that priesthood based upon better qualifications, not outward physical qualifications that have to do with physical defects and bodily descent and genealogy, et cetera.

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He possesses his priesthood because he possesses an indestructible life. It is by virtue of who he is as the

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God -man, by virtue of his righteousness, and who he is innately that he is able to possess this.

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We worship and love and are served by a priest who rose from the dead to possess his priesthood.

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So better priesthood, better qualifications, and now today we're looking at the last three of these. He has received a better commission in verse 17.

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He has done a better work in drawing us near, and he has initiated a better covenant. Better priesthood, better qualifications, a better commission or calling to appointment to his priesthood, a better work, and initiated a better covenant.

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So let's begin with he has received a better commission. Look at verse 17. For it is attested of him, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Now there is something of an emphasis in verse 17. It is attested of him. Now there's a contrast between him, who is

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Jesus, of whom this is said. There's a contrast between him and the Levitical priests. The author is intending for us to recognize and to see that.

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The priests possess their priesthood by means of the law of bodily descent. But in contrast to them, it is said of Jesus, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Is it attested of him, this, but not the Old Testament priests. The Old Testament priests were never appointed in that way, but directly by fiat from God.

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The Old Testament priests possess their priesthood on the basis of the law. Jesus possesses his because the Father has appointed it and said of him, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Now, this is not where this verse comes from. You probably recognize this from the scripture reading in Psalm 110.

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Psalm 110 is significant because it is recognized by everybody as a messianic psalm, written by David, to whom

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God had promised that a descendant of his would sit upon his throne and rule in his kingdom forever. Promised to David, David wrote that, and in Psalm 110,

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David describes that king and describes his rule. He says, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies. This is what

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Yahweh, the Father, says to the divine Son, the Messiah, the Son of David. He says to him,

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Jesus Christ, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet, and you will rule in the midst of your enemies.

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That is God's promise to him. Well, David, in describing that king and his rule and his destruction of the nations and his rule over the peoples, in describing that,

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David then goes on to say, the Lord has said also to my Lord, this one who will rule, you are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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And it is in Psalm 110 that we are told that this Messiah would be both king and priest, and that's the connection with Melchizedek.

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He would be a priest who sits on his throne, Psalm 110 being the only other place in the Old Testament where Melchizedek is mentioned.

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So a messianic psalm where the Father, we have this dialogue between the Father and the Son, where the

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Father is ordaining and appointing the Son to be both king and a priest forever on his throne, according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Now, could any Old Testament priest make that claim? Could any Old Testament priest, any of them, say that they had been appointed by God?

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Really, only one of them could make that claim, and not really in the same sense, and that would be Aaron, because he was specifically chosen, right?

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God said to Moses, you set aside Aaron and his sons, they will serve as priest to me and the tribe of Levi. They were appointed in priesthood in that way, but from Aaron all the way forward, it was all based upon the law of physical requirements and the law of bodily descent and genealogy, but no priest, no priest in the

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Old Testament other than Aaron, and in a totally different sense, could ever say that the Lord has directly appointed me as a priest, but the

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Messiah can say that. Jesus can say that. If you ask an Old Testament priest, how did you become a priest? You know what their answer would be?

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I was born a Levite, and I had no physical disqualifications. That's a pretty low bar, isn't it?

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If you said, Jim, how did you become a pastor? I was born in the church, and I'm the best looking guy in the congregation, and they made me a pastor.

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That's the lowest possible bar, but if you say of the Lord Jesus Christ, how did he become our high priest?

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Well, he has been appointed directly by Yahweh, not on the basis of the law of physical requirements and genealogical descent, and not because he has no physical disqualifications.

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Those have nothing to do with it. He has been appointed our high priest because he rose from the dead to possess his priesthood, and he possesses an indestructible life, and he lives forever, and because he is infinitely righteous, and infinitely good, and infinitely pure, and because he possesses the divine nature, he is able to serve as that high priest.

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They're totally different requirements. No priest could ever say they were appointed directly by God in that way, but the

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Lord has said of him, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. And notice the duration of this.

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It's certainly intended that we take notice of the fact that he is a priest forever. That's the point of the emphasis of this passage, because you'll notice in verse 16, he describes the indestructible life that the

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Lord Jesus possesses, and in verse 23 in the, this is on my next page, maybe not on your next page, but in verse 23, he begins to make much of the fact that Jesus serves forever.

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Those other priests, they died, and they went on, and there was a succession of them, but it is not so with the Lord Jesus. He possesses his priesthood forever, but there's no provision made anywhere in scripture for anybody to take his place when he is done, because he is never done.

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He will serve in that office forever, unlike all of his Old Testament priests. And notice the mention of an oath.

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It is attested of him, and it is attested of him on the basis of an oath, which he mentions down in verse 20 and 21.

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Skip down there for a second. We'll get back to verses 18 and 19 here in a moment, but look at verse 20. Inasmuch as it was not without an oath, for they indeed became priests without an oath, but he, that is the

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Lord Jesus, with an oath, through the one, the Father, who said to him, the Lord Jesus Christ, the

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Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever. So he makes much of the oath that accompanied that, and that's a more, that's a fuller description or a fuller quotation from Psalm 110 that we have earlier.

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You're a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. But then later in the passage, verses 20 and 21, he makes mention of the fact that the

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Lord Jesus Christ was given this commission, a greater commission, on the basis of an oath.

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But no Old Testament priest was ever sworn that their priesthood will last forever, or that they would possess their office forever.

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Aaron and his descendants were never told that that priesthood would be an eternal priesthood that would never end.

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In fact, everything about that priesthood was intended to come to an end. It could never take away sin, the perpetual nature of the sacrifices that they had to be offered over and over again, that the priest died and had to be replaced, that they had to be, that the sacrifices could not remove sin, they couldn't clear guilt, they couldn't fully make the sinner righteous, they couldn't change his heart, they couldn't perfect him in any way.

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All of that indicated that that priesthood would come to an end, but not so with the priesthood that the Lord Jesus Christ possesses.

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As our high priest, it is attested of him you are a priest forever. And God has sworn this with an oath.

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Now what is the purpose of the oath? This is not the first time in scripture that we run across the idea of an oath of God.

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In fact, it's not the first time in Hebrews. You may remember back in chapter six, the Lord describes this, or the author describes another oath that the

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Lord took. I want you to zip back to Hebrews chapter six for a moment. Look at verse 17. This is connected because he is talking here about an oath made to Abraham.

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Who met Abraham in Genesis 14? Melchizedek, Melchizedek met Abraham. So there are two

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O's that are mentioned here in chapter six and seven. Look at chapter six, verse 17. In the same way

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God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of his purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

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Now there is mention of a hope in chapter seven, our passage. There is mention of an oath in our passage, chapter seven, that deals with the

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Lord Jesus Christ. There is mention in chapter six of both an oath and a hope that we have.

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And there is a connection here. The oath is given to Abraham in chapter six. The oath is given to the Lord Jesus Christ in chapter seven.

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Abraham and Melchizedek, of course, met each other in Genesis chapter 14. And so why is the oath given in chapter six?

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We saw when we looked at the oath back then that the Lord makes an oath or he swears, not for his sake, not because we are to understand that what he says under oath is truer or more reliable or more trustworthy than anything else that he has said.

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The Lord doesn't make oaths or swear in that sense for our sake or for his sake. He does it for our sake, so that we might understand that what he is saying is true and trustworthy and reliable.

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It's God's way of underlining and putting in bold print, as it were, a promise that he has made. So it's not for our sake, because no single word of God can be more true or more reliable than any other word of God.

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Since it is impossible for God to lie, everything he says is trustworthy and reliable and true. And none of his words can fail or not come to pass.

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So why does he make an oath? It's to remind us, hey, what I'm saying here is very, very important and significant.

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And in chapter six, you remember the context had to do with our security in Christ. The oath that was made to Abraham, I will bless you.

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And we saw at the end of chapter six that the author's intention there is to remind us that as the heirs of Abraham, we are heirs of that promise.

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And the only way that we can fail to be saved is if God were to break his promise to Abraham.

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But God cannot break his promise to Abraham. And since God cannot break his promise to Abraham, it must certainly come to pass. And if it must certainly come to pass, then he will bless those who have faith in him.

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And that's us. And so we are secure because of the oath of God to Abraham. Now, the oath of God to Abraham is in itself enough to secure our salvation everlastingly without fail, that one oath.

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But the oath of God to the Lord Jesus Christ concerning the priesthood that he possesses is also by itself enough to secure our salvation everlastingly and without fail.

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And what is the purpose of an oath? He says in chapter six, verse 18, if you're still there, so that we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us.

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It is to remind us of our security and to encourage us in that security so that we may have confidence and be encouraged to take hold of it and to trust him and to rest in that security.

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For God has made an oath. Look at verse 19 and 20 of chapter six. This hope we have is an anchor for the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil.

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Where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us, having become a high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

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Now the second oath also secures a hope. And by the way, it's the same hope. The author here in chapter seven, back to chapter seven, verse 18 and 19, sorry, 20 and 21.

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This oath that the Lord has sworn concerning Christ that he will not change his mind, you are a priest forever, that oath also secures our hope.

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And it's the same hope and it's the same security secured and guaranteed by the same oath.

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God made an oath to Abraham. God has made an oath to Christ. Those two oaths God has made, it is impossible for him to lie.

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And for one who has placed their faith in Jesus Christ and been saved, for that person to perish everlastingly would be for God to break two oaths.

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One to Jesus and one to Abraham. What are the chances of that happening? It cannot happen.

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So the author is encouraging us, we are secure. Thus we have this better hope.

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And notice the text in verse 21 where it says the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind. That's the author's way in Hebrews and in Psalm 110 of saying, if you think that the

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Lord is going to go back on his oath, he will not change his mind. If you're a first century

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Jew and you're wondering, what are the chances now that having appointed Jesus as our high priest, according to the order of Melchizedek, that the

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Lord is gonna go back and revisit some of these animal sacrifices and use those. Maybe I can have this both ways.

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Maybe I can trust in Jesus as my high priest and also be over here involved in the animal sacrifices and all the smells and bells and the whistles and all the good stuff that was part of the old covenant.

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The Lord has established Christ as a high priest and he is not changing his mind. The author is saying you cannot go back to that.

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That holds no power. The Lord is not at some point in the future going to swivel back and revisit the

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Old Testament sacrifices and let's say, let's give those a run again. He has forever put those behind him. He is not honoring the work that they did.

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He is not honoring the symbolism of it. He is not honoring the functioning of that priesthood. There is nothing about it. It has all been set aside, taken out of the way.

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It has been put aside in order that he may establish that which is new. And with the establishing of a new priesthood, there is, in the words of chapter seven, verses 11 and 12, also a change of law that necessitated by it.

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All the law which regulated that priesthood, it has all been set aside. It has all been done away with.

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It's been made new. It's been replaced entirely by a brand new covenant. He will not change his mind.

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So he has received a better commission, a commission by an oath. This has secured our hope. Second, notice that he has performed a better work.

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This is in verses 18 and 19. For on the one hand, there is the setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness for the law made nothing perfect.

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And on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope through which we draw near to God. There's two things here.

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The setting aside of a former commandment and the bringing in of a new hope. One thing has been set aside.

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Something else has come in and has replaced it. It is the bringing in of a better hope.

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That word set aside was a legal word, and I think that he uses a legal term because he's talking about the law in verse nine.

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The law could make nothing, 19. The law has made nothing perfect. It is a legal word that describes the abrogation of something, the annulling of a treaty or a promise, the abrogating of a law or a regulation, or the removing of one's name from a contract or a covenant.

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So in the context here, the argument that the author is making is not that the Old Testament law and the old covenant with the sacrifices and the priesthood and everything that regulated the nation of Israel and their relationship with God, he's not saying that it's just simply been set aside like you might set aside a cup of coffee and return to it later on.

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It has been canceled, abrogated, replaced, set aside.

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It's gone. It's been entirely replaced, not in the sense that something new has been added and made it better, but in the sense that it has been done away with entirely and something new, something entirely different has taken its place.

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It has been set aside. And what commandment is it that has been set aside? It's not the 10 commandments, remember? It's not the moral law of God.

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We talked about that a couple of weeks ago. What is the commandment? It is all of the law that regulated that relationship with Israel, the priesthood, the feasts, the sacrifices, the ceremonies, all of the accoutrements, that's a fun word to say.

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It's all of the accoutrements that attended the old covenant and the Old Testament sacrifices and the feasts and everything, everything that pertained to the

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Mosaic law, not the moral law, the Mosaic law, the relationship that God had with Israel and everything that mediated that, all of that has been set aside and abrogated and totally annulled.

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And why has it been set aside? Look at verse 18. There's the setting aside of a former commandment because of its weakness and uselessness.

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See, that Levitical system could not perfect the worshiper. He's returning back again to what he said in verse 11.

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If perfection could come by the Levitical priesthood, then there would have been no need to appoint a new priest. And so here he says it again.

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The law could not perfect the worshiper. The law could not bring you near to God. It could not. It could not take away your sin.

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It can only cover it. The law could not perfect you. It can only demonstrate and highlight your imperfection. The law could not save you.

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It couldn't redeem you. It couldn't change your heart. Couldn't do any of that. In fact, no Jew could ever approach the temple and offer an animal and then think to himself, by that one sacrifice,

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I have been brought near to God forever and no further sacrifice is necessary. Because if the Jew went home and came back the next week, guess what he had to bring?

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Another animal sacrifice. Why? Why wasn't the last one enough? The last one could never be enough.

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No last one could be enough. There was always another sacrifice. No Jew could ever say they had been brought near and perfected, but in the work of Christ, we have been brought near.

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We have been perfected in that sense. We have reached that state of maturity, the goal for which salvation and redemption was accomplished.

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We have been brought near to God, right into his very presence. In the coming of Christ, we are ushered into a brand new hope by which we draw near to God.

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Now the Old Testament law could not do that because it was weak and useless. That's not to say that the Old Testament law and the book of Leviticus and the priesthood and the sacrifices, that's not to say that it was evil or that it was bad.

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Is the law good? Paul says, yeah, the law is good. The law is good to do what the law was intended to do, but was the law intended to save us?

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It couldn't do that. So in that which it could not do, it was weak and useless.

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But in that in which it was intended to do, it was powerful and useful. Paul describes the weakness of the law in Romans chapter eight, verse three, when he says the law, what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh,

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God did, sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as an offering for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

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What the law could not do and that it was weak because of the flesh, God did in sending his own son. Galatians chapter four, verse nine,

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Paul says, now you have come to know God or rather to be known by God. How is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things to which you desire to be enslaved all over again?

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What was he saying to the Galatians? You've been set free and you have Jesus Christ as your high priest and you have salvation in him and now you want to, having started on that and received all the blessings that are in Jesus Christ, you want to turn back again to the weak and worthless and elemental shadows of the

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Old Testament? It was weak and useless, it could not perfect the worshiper. And what we have in Jesus Christ is we have been brought near by the blood of Christ and in that sense, we have been perfected.

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The law was never intended to be a means of salvation and that was a designed weakness. It was a designed weakness.

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It couldn't perfect us, it just showed us our imperfection. We read the Old Testament law and we see, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt honor your mother and your father.

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You shouldn't covet, you shouldn't lie, you shouldn't lust, you shouldn't commit adultery, you must honor the Lord your

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God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. We read that law and it crushes us because the law does not enable us to fulfill those commandments.

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The law only shows us that we have broken that commandment. And so the law is not intended to bring us salvation, it's weak and useless to do that, but to show us our need for a salvation, to show us our need for a savior, it is powerful and useful to that end, when it accomplishes what

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God intended it to accomplish. It wasn't intended to accomplish salvation, it was intended to show us our need for salvation.

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And what was necessary to accomplish our salvation? The shedding of innocent blood in the place of the guilty sinners.

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That's what was necessary and the law demonstrated that. And instead of having to offer a new sacrifice week after week, year after year, continually for our entire lives,

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Christ has by his one sacrifice brought us something different, a better hope. And the word hope in scripture doesn't mean something we wish for like wishful thinking, it refers to something that we have with certainty, it's that which we have placed our hope in, that which is certain and secure, that is what our hope is.

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And now we have received through the gospel a better hope. He has brought us near, verse 19 says, there is the bringing in after the

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Old Testament and that old law has been replaced, there is the bringing in of a better hope, through which we draw near to God.

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And that is the access that we have in Jesus Christ and that is what is far, far better. He has done a better work than all of his

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Old Testament sacrifices. He has brought us near, he has drawn us near, he has given us that bold access to the throne of grace that we have, that was in the scripture that was up on the screen before the service.

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We draw near and we draw near with boldness. For all of our sin has been taken out of the way and now there is nothing between us and the righteous father, his righteousness is not a terror to us anymore, his holiness does not cause us to tremble anymore.

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Now we have been brought near as children and we're heirs of the covenant and heirs of the kingdom and we're adopted into his family and we call him father, he calls us sons and daughters, we call each other brethren.

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We've been brought near and all of the sin and the guilt and the iniquity that separated us from God has been taken out of the way and now we are reconciled to God and made righteous in his sight.

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That is something different than what any of the Old Testament sacrifices could do. They could accomplish none of that. But by one sacrifice,

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Hebrews 10 says, in that one sacrifice, Christ has perfected forever those who draw near to God through him.

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We've been made perfect. Not morally perfect that we don't sin, that's not what's being described, but that accomplished redemption has taken place because of what

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Christ has done. We have a better hope. And lastly, he has initiated for us a better covenant.

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He has received a better commission, it is attested of him, you're a priest forever. He's done a better work of drawing us near and giving us a better hope.

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And lastly, he has initiated a better covenant. Look at Hebrews chapter seven, verse 22. So much the more also,

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Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. Now, that's the second half of a sentence that begins in verse 20.

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I want you to look at verse 20, 21, and 22. You'll notice that 21 is sort of a long parenthetical statement that's sort of inserted in the middle of the sentence.

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Read verse 20. In as much as it was not without an oath, parentheses, for they indeed became priests without an oath but he with an oath through the one who said to him, the

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Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, you are a priest forever, close parentheses. So much the more also, Jesus has become a guarantee of a better covenant.

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So if you take out that parenthetical statement, which we already kind of explained what the author is talking about there with an oath and the reliability of it and how it gives us a hope and certainty, et cetera, because of that oath that he referred to back in chapter six.

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If we take that out and we just read verse 20 and skip down and read verse 22, you'll see the entire sentence sort of in a much more condensed thing, what the author is saying.

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Read verse 20. In as much as it was not without an oath, so much the more also, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

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That's what happens when you put them together. See, I still don't exactly get what he's talking about there.

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Verse 20, in as much as it was not without an oath, so much the more, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

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Here's what he's saying. Well first, just as in as much as it was not without an oath, that's a double negative way of saying what?

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It was with an oath, right? You think what would have been better if he would have just said it was with an oath but he says it was not without an oath.

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So it was not without an oath which means it was with an oath. So let's read it that way. In as much as Jesus being appointed as a high priest was with an oath from God, to that same extent, to that degree, he has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

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That's the idea. The oath that appointed him as high priest, to the extent that that oath secures anything, to that same extent, he has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

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Just as it was with an oath that God secured Jesus Christ as our high priest, so he has become the guarantee of that better covenant.

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In other words, the same oath that secures him as our high priest, is the same oath that secures that you and I will receive all of the blessings of the new covenant.

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The author is simply saying, if the high priesthood of Jesus Christ is utterly and completely secure, so is your receipt of all of the blessings of the new covenant.

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To that same degree, the blessings of the new covenant are guaranteed to become yours. That is a huge promise.

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The oath of God has secured both of that, both of those. And in introducing the idea of a better covenant, the author obviously wants us to understand that the old covenant, again, has been taken out of the way and done away with.

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Look down, if you will, at chapter eight, which we'll get to here in some, look down at chapter eight, beginning in verse seven.

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For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

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Look at chapter eight, verse 13. And when he said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete.

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But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.

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Now what has become of the first covenant? If that first covenant made with Israel and the nation, the priests, the sacrifices and all that, if that were faultless, if there was nothing wrong with that,

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God wouldn't have made a second covenant. He wouldn't have sent Jesus. But there obviously was something wrong with that. What was it? The law couldn't perfect a worshiper.

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Those things couldn't take away sin. And when he says the first covenant, he is obviously intending for us to focus on the second covenant, and the second covenant having come in makes the first covenant obsolete.

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The first covenant has passed away. It has become entirely obsolete. This mention of covenant here in chapter seven, verse 22, this is the first of 22 references to covenant or testament in the book of Hebrews.

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So if you thought we talked a lot about Melchizedek, listen, by the time we get through chapter nine of Hebrews, we're going to have exhausted the topic of covenant.

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And this is gonna get to the heart of a distinction between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

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Now, if those two terms scare you, or if you know nothing about those two terms, or that's just a blank slate to you, then don't worry.

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By the time we get through the end of chapter nine, you're gonna know covenant as well as you know Melchizedek. And you might be thinking,

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I'm not even sure really I know Melchizedek, and thanks for trying. When we get to the end of chapter nine, we're gonna have exhausted the subject of covenant and have to look at the distinction between covenant theology and dispensationalism.

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And some of the issues that we're talking about today kind of gets right to the heart of that. What I want you to see at this point is what has become of the

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Old Testament. It has not been expanded upon. It has not been added to. It has not been polished up.

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It has not been sort of gussied up or improved in any way. The new covenant has come, and it has replaced entirely that old covenant.

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And it has replaced it not in the sense that it has finally fulfilled it and filled in all the cracks.

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It has replaced it in the sense that the old one is completely done away with, and something new has been established to take its place.

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The old covenant has been abrogated, annulled, done away with, replaced.

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It is gone. We are not in any sense under that old covenant. Not in any sense.

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Therefore, we do not seek to take elements of the old covenant and drag them into the new covenant.

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We don't look at infant circumcision and say, well, then we'll baptize infants. We don't look at the

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Passover and say, well, therefore, we'll celebrate communion. We don't look at the old covenant and say, what elements of those can we

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Christianize and add the name of Jesus to it and make it part of the new covenant. That's not our goal.

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Our goal is not to honor or to seek after or to go into that old covenant at all.

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It has been annulled, canceled, done away with. It's gone. Therefore, we're not seeking to eat like Jews, celebrate feasts and festivals like Jews, baptize our infants like Jews.

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We're not seeking to circumcise our kids like Jews or dress like Jews or smell like Jews or walk like Jews or worship like Jews.

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We're not seeking to do any of that, why? That covenant is gone. So the goal of us in the church in the new covenant is not to look at that and long for and pine for those days and say, how much can we make our

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New Testament life just like the Old Testament Jews? That is not a question we can ever ask.

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And there are people in churches, messianic Jews, they call them, some people who just, they wanna celebrate the

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Seder and they wanna celebrate the Passover and the Feast of Booths and they wanna call God Yahweh all the time and Yeshua and they wanna just Jewish up everything that they do.

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Look, I'm not anti -Semitic, I love the Jewish people. That's not what this is about. That covenant was made with them and it is gone.

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We don't pursue it. We're not baptizing our infants to fulfill the

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Old Testament command to circumcise infants, we're not doing that. We don't take those elements of the old covenant and drag them into the new and say, let's

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Christianize them and make that part of our life. Everything about that old covenant, again, we're not talking about the moral law of God.

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Everything about that old covenant is gone. We're not chasing after that. What we have been given in Jesus Christ is far, far better.

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He is the guarantee of a better covenant. It's a different covenant and it's a better covenant because what we have in Jesus Christ is far superior to anything the

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Jews ever hoped to have under that old economy of animal sacrifices and a covenant made with a nation.

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What we have is far superior to that. He is the guarantee of a better covenant. This is the last thing

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I want you to notice about our text before we're done and that is the word guarantee and what it means. The word guarantee is a word, a guarantee is a word that referred to, it's a word attached to the idea of covenant in both the

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Old Testament and in the New Testament. So in a covenant, when two parties would agree to an arrangement and these two parties would make a deal, there was usually some sort of a debt or obligation on behalf of both of these two parties that would enter into this legal relationship, a legal covenant.

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The guarantee was the pledger who stood as surety between these two parties and the guarantee of a covenant was usually somebody who, on behalf of somebody else who entered into that covenant, he would be surety that the terms agreed to by one of those parties, sometimes both of those parties, would be met.

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So when I go down and I cosign a loan for one of my children on a car that they buy,

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I become the surety, I become the guarantee. Something happens to them, that car is mine. Now some of them drive nicer cars than I do, which is fine.

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You can only hope that something happens to them, that they can't make their payments and that I have to repossess the vehicle. So I become the surety, the guarantee that the obligations that they have to the lending agency will be met.

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A guarantee or a pledger is the word that is used here of Jesus. By the oath of God, he has become the pledger who steps in between these two parties to secure and guarantee this better covenant.

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Now in the case of the covenant, the new covenant that God makes with us, his people, there are obligations and debts, as it were, on both sides of this ledger between these two parties.

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But notice that the text does not say that Jesus becomes our guarantee specifically or that he is the guarantee for the

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Father that his promises will be met. Why is it not specified on whose behalf he is the guarantee?

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Because he is the guarantee for both parties. On our behalf, he stands on our side and he pledges himself and all that he has, all his righteousness, to cover our debts.

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What are our debts? We have violated the law and we stood condemned and the wrath of God hung over our head like the sword of Damocles, threatening to come down upon us at any moment.

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Justly and righteously so, we stood under the wrath of God with a weight of sin that we could not bear, a price that we could not pay, a debt that we owed but we had no means of paying whatsoever because we had no righteousness and we were sinners, we were unrighteous before God, all of our iniquity and all of our sin was over top of us and we were justly condemned.

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The Lord Jesus Christ, on our behalf, has secured the payment that we owe to God's righteousness, to his justice.

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So the just payment for our sin has been taken out of the way, it has been done, it has been paid in full.

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So he has secured, on our behalf, our righteousness. What does God demand of us?

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Righteousness. We've been forgiven and all of our sin taken away and we have been imputed his righteousness.

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So he's the guarantee of what we owe to divine justice for he has paid the debt and made us righteous so that we can stand faultless before his throne.

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That's justification. But he also stands as the guarantee that the promises made in the new covenant will become ours.

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What has God promised us in the new covenant? A new heart, a new life, eternity with him, a room in his house, in his presence forevermore, all of the blessings that are ours in Jesus Christ, our election, our sanctification, our security, our justification, our righteousness, everything that God has pledged to his people by choosing them in Christ before the foundation of the world,

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Jesus Christ is the one himself who stands in to guarantee that you and I will inherit all of the blessings of the new covenant.

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For both parties, he is the guarantee. He has paid our debt and he is the promise that the father will give to us everything he has promised to us.

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Now here's the kicker. He is the guarantee of the new covenant as long as he lives.

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As long as Jesus Christ is our high priest, he has secured that. How long is that?

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You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. You see why the emphasis is on forever in the passage?

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As long as Jesus Christ lives, he secures your salvation. As long as Jesus Christ lives and serves you as your high priest, you are secure in him and nothing can alter his purposes concerning you.

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Nothing can. You are as safe and secure because of his work, because of his oath and as long as he lives and he lives forever, you're secure.

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As long as he is your high priest and he serves forever, then the covenant that God has made with you is firm and it is established and it is secure.

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If you are in Jesus Christ, you are as secure as you can possibly be and you are secure only as long as he serves as your high priest, as your intercessor and is the guarantee of your covenant.

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And how long is that? It is forever and ever and ever. That is God's promise, that is his oath. And listen,

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Christian, if you perish, God has violated his word and Christ has failed to guarantee the new covenant will be yours.

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That's how secure you are. Some people read through the book of Hebrews and they read the warning passages, all the threats to the false believers and they say,

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I don't know how you Christians can believe that you are eternally secure when you read those warning passages. And I read the rest of the book of Hebrews and I say,

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I don't know how you can think that you can perish when you read the rest of the book of Hebrews. Every argument from every text is about how much better and more secure what we have in Jesus Christ is.

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So why would you wanna go back to the old covenant? What do you have there? There was nothing there for you. What you have in Jesus Christ is far superior.

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Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the mercy that you have shown in saving a people for yourself and securing our salvation everlastingly because of what your son has done.

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We pray that you would encourage us and encourage our hearts together again at just how secure we are in Jesus Christ and just how glorious it is to be in the new covenant, secured by him, saved by him, and to have the righteousness that we need to stand faultless before your throne.

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May you continue to strengthen us and encourage us in that conviction and may we live lives that are honoring to Jesus Christ and are a reflection of just how glorious a truth it is to be yours and to be called by your name.

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Thank you for this high priest who serves forever, who lives forever, who has an indestructible life, and who is the guarantee to us of the better covenant.

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Thank you that he has paid our debt and thank you that he has promised and secured everything that you have given to us.

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We thank you for him and for his righteousness, for his righteous life, and for his righteous death. And we ask these things and thank you for these things in the name of Christ our