Sermon: Baptism - The New Covenant Part 2

Hebrews 8 and the New Covenant as the Key to Baptism

As we announced, turn with me to Hebrews chapter 8. We will be concluding our series on baptism in the not-too-distant future. I could actually foresee a single sermon after this, but maybe not. We'll see.

It would be a Durbinian-ly long sermon, and Durbinian-ly long is really long, as we all know. So, we will see. But we have been working through the subject of baptism rather fully, and last week we began looking at the subject of the new covenant.

Why? Because the primary issue between ourselves and our dear brothers in Christ, and sisters in Christ, of course, in the Presbyterian world and in the broader Reformed world, has to do with the nature of what are called covenant signs and what the new covenant itself is, and how a person is a member in the new covenant.

Much of the debate is about the relationship between old covenant, new covenant, the old ways, the new ways, and of course, as some of you who have done much reading this field knows, you get into Adamic covenants and Noahic covenants and the Abrahamic covenants, and the reality is you get into a lot of terminology that isn't found in the New Testament and isn't found in Scripture in any type of explicit way, and so it can get very, very complicated, and so you have arguments about, well, in this particular covenant you had a sign given to the young people, and so if you have a continuity of covenants, then that means there needs to continue to be signs given to the young people, and yet there were earlier covenants where there wasn't a sign given to the younger people, and how does the covenant of grace relate to all these other covenants, and how is all that related to the new covenant?

Because the church, when we partake of the Lord's Supper, when we drink of the cup, what is Jesus' words? This is the blood of what? The blood of the new covenant. The blood of the new covenant, and so we have a new covenant in our day, and yet there are arguments, some people, honestly, on the other side will say the new covenant is not yet fully established, it will not really be fully established until the final days, and it's something that's growing, and there's a lot of discussion and a lot of debate, and honestly, if you're just a person who feels like you have nothing to do in life, get on Facebook, find a baptism debate sub-board, and you will never see the light of day again, I assure you.

So we have all of these types of things in front of us, and so last week we started looking at the concept of the new covenant, and what I said was, in essence, this to me is the issue. There are other people that think there are more important aspects, but to me this is simply the real issue.

If the new covenant is as we see it explained in Hebrews chapter 8, then the signs of the new covenant must be consistent with the nature of the new covenant, and all the arguments about, well, you know, do you want to be the guy that had to explain to the Jewish people who were converting to Christ that, yeah, under the old covenant, my children were in the covenant by the covenant signs, but now they get excluded.

And on this very stage, I remember it, in 1995, I remember a well-known Reformed theologian and historian on the Presbyterian side in a debate on this subject literally, in his closing arguments, arguing, pulling, tugging at the heartstrings about, but what about the children?

What about the children? And I go, I understand that works for a lot of people, but we're talking about the Bible, we're talking about the new covenant, and the Bible happens to be pretty clear about what the new covenant's all about, and that's where we've got to take our stand if we are going to be consistent with the page of the scripture itself.

And so we looked at the new covenant sort of generally in Hebrews. We touched lightly on chapter 8, but we sort of jumped over it, mentioned a few things in it, jumped over it just to see where its place was, but we said last week we're going to, we need to do a deep dive.

John Owen on the Differences Between the Old and New Covenant

Now, let me recommend to you, if you want to do further reading on this, years ago when I preached the book of Hebrews at the Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church, I think I did at least three different sermons on Hebrews chapter 8, and in one of them I read all 17 points from John Owen on the differences between the old and new covenant, and they are brilliant.

I came this close to asking that we stick them in the bulletin, but I didn't think we'd have 47 pages in the bulletin to really to devote to that, so I didn't, but I would highly recommend to you Hebrews.

The Hebrews commentary from John Owen was his magnum opus. It was his greatest work, and it was done at the end of his life, not the beginning of his life. Most people don't realize his book, which many of us have read, The Death of Death and the Death of Christ, was done in his 20s.

Can you imagine writing something like that in your 20s? He obviously was not playing video games, but anyway, and that's probably why we don't have many John Owens these days, but this is at the end of his life.

This is as a mature theologian, and those 17 points laying out the differences between the old and new covenants highly recommend to you the reading of that material. So Hebrews chapter 8. Now the main point, that's important to catch, the main point of what has been said is this.

We have, please notice, we have, not will have, not had, we have right now such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

Now remember, what's Hebrews about? There's nothing to go back to. There's nothing to go back to. These Hebrew Christians are being tempted to go back. You have the beautiful temple. You've just, you've just joined this strange little cult.

Nothing's ever going to come of it. Come back, and this is an epistle that says there's nothing to come back to, because you see, we have a high priest. They had a high priest, but they already knew that their high priest was controlled by Rome.

Rome had removed high priests and installed other high priests, and there, that was a great degradation of the Jewish people when Rome did those things. We have such a high priest who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

The old high priest goes in, goes out, goes in, goes out. Not our high priest. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle.

Not that golden building, which Jesus himself said was going to be destroyed in a very short period of time in this generation, but in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices, so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.

Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to law. Again, clear evidence to me. This is written before AD 70. The sacrifices are continuing on.

Jerusalem still stands. Who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. So they're being told, come, come back to what? A copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. We have something greater. Just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle for sea, he says that to make all things according to the pattern which is shown you on the mountain.

But now he, Jesus, has obtained a more excellent ministry. There's something to go back to. He has obtained, has obtained, not will someday obtain, has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also, he is not will be, is also the mediator of a better covenant.

Come back to the old covenant. But wait a minute. We have a better covenant and we have a mediator of a better covenant who is at the right hand of the Father and it has been enacted on better promises.

Now we live as Reformed Baptists, as we're generally called, in a in-between place where we recognize the continuity of covenantal theology. We recognize that God has dealt with his people in a covenantal fashion from the beginning.

And we are not amongst those who draw this, that create this chasm and say, oh no, you've got this dispensation, that dispensation, that dispensation, everything's different and you're saved in a different way, and so on and so forth.

No, we recognize the covenant of grace. We know that God has been acting this way all along. And yet we resist the argumentation that says, and so we look at the old covenant and because it did things in certain ways, we need to continue doing that in the new covenant.

And we go, no, we need to look at the new covenant documents and we need to allow, as everyone must, a certain level of continuity and discontinuity. But when you come to Hebrews, the discontinuity is not a division.

It is found in the word better, better, or here, more excellent. He's obtained a more excellent ministry. There is a ministry under the old covenant. It was ordained by God, but he has obtained a more excellent ministry now.

He is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. If you have a more excellent ministry, a better covenant, better promises, and if you have, in fact, a better mediator, then don't you think that is going to have some type of impact upon how that covenant is administered in our day and in the church?

I think it does, and we're going to see exactly why. Now, verse 7, this is where we need to dig in. For if that first covenant had been faultless, which is what they're being called back to, come back, come back, come back, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

For finding fault with them, he says. Now, you will recognize we read from Jeremiah chapter 31, and so we have read this section almost. As you're going to see, there is one place of variation that I will point out to you, but notice in verse 8, for finding fault with them.

Now, there's a textual variant there, and you know me, I have to mention these things because I'm weird, but I also don't want you to ever be tripped up in discussions of these things because it wasn't mentioned to you.

There are some manuscripts that say, for finding fault with it, and what would the it be? The first covenant. This uses the plural, so this would be those who were not faithful to the old covenant. Now, some people made arguments that this is a major difference.

I don't think once we read the application that it is a huge difference, but there is, the context is finding fault, and the assertion has already been made. If that first covenant had been faultless, so the whole point in quoting from Jeremiah chapter 31 is to say, hey, Jeremiah chapter 31 says God is going to establish a new covenant.

He's the one that established the old one, so if he's going to establish a second one, then obviously it had some type of a fault in it, and as we're going to see, part of the quote-unquote fault is taken care of in the new covenant, and we're going to see what it is here in just a moment.

For finding fault with them, he says, behold, days are coming, says Yahweh, says Yahweh, when I will enact or bring about or effect a new covenant. Now, when I provide an extended translation there, I'm looking at the language as it's found in the Greek New Testament, but this is a quotation from the Greek Septuagint, from the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which would be the translation available to the vast majority of people outside of Israel at this time in the first century, and it is interesting to me to catch hold of what is said in these words, because the argument of the book of Hebrews is we have this new covenant.

This is what Christ has accomplished, and that's central to his whole argument about not going back, and that's why there are some people who try to say, well, you know, someday we'll have it. No, I say to you, if you put the new covenant into the future, if you say that it is only partially enforced at this point in time, you have destroyed the entire apologetic argument of the book of Hebrews.

You really have, because the whole point is there's nothing to go back to, because we have this. Not some generation way down the road may have it. You end up destroying the argument and the application it would have had to its original audience.

It's very, very important, and so notice he says, I will affect, I will bring about. God is doing this. He will actually establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. He will do it, and it's called a new covenant, something that they did not possess at this point in time, a new covenant that God will establish at a particular point in time.

He's going to accomplish it, but verse 9, oh my, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers. No matter what you do, no matter how you spin it, that's discontinuity. That's some level of discontinuity.

It's the same God. It's the same God acting in grace and in covenantal fashion. Okay, there's your continuity, but goodness, you have to let the words of scripture be the words of scripture, and when it says not like the covenant which I made with them, that's discontinuity no matter how you slice it.

Not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt. Now, there's a lot of discussion as to, well, exactly how does that work?

Are we talking here about Passover? Are we talking about being baptized into Moses in the Red Sea? Well, it's all of it, really. It's all of those were pictures of a greater fulfillment that would come, obviously, but whatever this new covenant is, it's not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

Well, why isn't it like that? Well, here's the explanation. For they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For they did not continue in my covenant. There's something about that covenant that allowed certain people in that covenant not to keep it.

They did not continue in that covenant. The whole history of Israel has been a history of apostasy, apostasy, apostasy, over and over and over again. You send the judges. You send the prophets. You send people to take over, and they languish, and then they call out, but it's only for a certain time.

And it's always a mixed covenant. You've got faithful kings. You've got unfaithful kings. You've got faithful prophets. You've got unfaithful prophets. And they all have the covenant signs. They're all circumcised.

They're all going to the temple. And you've got people standing there at the temple, and some of them are really worshiping Yahweh, and some of them are the next Thursday, they're going to be up at the Asherim, and they're going to be worshiping Baal.

Huh. For they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. Now, did anyone notice something there? Let's see how closely you were listening when Jeremiah 31 was read from the pulpit only a few minutes ago.

Hmm. Because if you were listening really carefully, or if you're turning back right now going, I better find this before he looks at me, like I'm looking at Daniel right now. So do you know what? Do you know what?

Oh, no, you're not, see. See, you don't want me to do this to you. But Daniel sits in the front row, so he's begging for it. What do you want? When you're my age, I can see you. After about that row there, you could, you could stick your tongue out at me, and I'm like, well, whatever, I don't know.

But see, I can see you. So there you know. What's the difference? Turn back to Jeremiah chapter 31. Here's our textual variant. Oh, I already mentioned one of them to you. This is the big one. This is an important one.

What does it say in Jeremiah chapter 31? It doesn't say, I did not care for them, says the Lord. It says, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord. Well, it says Yahweh in both places, actually. I did not care for them, though I was a husband to them.

Hmm. Now, I'll be perfectly honest with you. In most seminaries and Bible colleges, the advice that would be given to a young fledgling minister would be, don't even mention it. Just hope no one notices.

And when that one guy, and there always is that one guy, we've got about five of those guys, actually. But there's always that one guy that's going to come up after the service and go, hey, pastor, did you notice?

And you're like, don't tell anybody else. You're not supposed to talk about things like this during the course of a sermon because it's too complicated. You'll bother somebody. I'd rather bother you by mentioning it from up here than have an atheist or a Mormon or a Muslim bother you by pointing it out to you, and we didn't point it out to you in here first.

This is the place to deal with it, not out there. See what I mean? Now, when you look at the difference between those two statements, I did not care for them, says the Lord, or though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, that seems to be communicating two completely different things.

One being, well, I was a husband to them. I was faithful. I was constantly calling them back and so on and so forth, right? And if it says I did not care for them, then that's just the opposite. Well, which statement is more consistent with the argument that is being made here in Hebrews chapter 8?

First of all, the first thing to ask is, how does the author that is giving us this material, how's he understanding it? Because this is in the same verse where it's just said, for finding fault with them, he says, and the fault is their unfaithfulness.

This old covenant doesn't change hearts. I'm not saying that hearts weren't changed under the old covenant. They were, but not by the actual action of the old covenant itself. So that would be consistent with the arguments being made.

Now, before you get too bent out of shape, the difference in Hebrew between these two statements would be the difference between these two words, ba 'al, ga 'al, ba 'al, ga 'al. You know what ba 'al is, right?

Baal. You're used to, that's how we massacre it in English. The Baals, you've read about the Baals, ba 'al in Hebrew. Ba 'al simply means Lord. That's one way of using it. It's not the normal term that would necessarily use, like Adonai or something like that.

But Lord, it's a powerful figure. And so the Baals. But it could also mean Lord as in husband. So the difference is one letter. And if you've ever looked at Hebrew, ga 'al, by the way, means to not care for, to despise.

And so if you've looked at a bait and a gimel, those are the two letters that are different, they are very similar to one another. They're very similar to one another. So at some point in the history of the transmission of the Hebrew text, a textual variant came into existence at this point.

And ba 'al became what we would call the majority reading, became enshrined in what is called the Masoretic Hebrew text, which is what is generally translated in the English Bibles in the Old Testament.

The Greek Septuagint was translated from another stream of the Masoretic manuscripts, and that stream had ga 'al. Now, this is a huge topic that we could spend an entire sermon on if we want to talk about Old Testament textual criticism and manuscript traditions that existed in the first century.

And there are books on these subjects, but to be honest with you, to really master most of them, you have to minimally be able to read two, three, sometimes four languages. There are none that I am aware of, to be perfectly honest with you, that are meant for the layperson.

I've just, I've just never seen one. It's a challenging area of study, to put it mildly. Let me boil it all down to you. If it ends up making a difference in the argument of the New Testament text, then we have to go with what the Holy Spirit gives us in the New Testament when there is a variant between that and what is translated in the Old Testament.

Because remember, when you're reading anything, when you're reading Jeremiah chapter 31, you are reading an English translation of the Hebrew text. But the editors of whatever translation, if you're reading the ESV, I can tell you exactly which Hebrew text they used.

It's called Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. But the editors of that text had Hebrew manuscripts in front of them, and they made choices as to what the reading was going to be. That's why you have those teeny tiny little footnotes down at the bottom of the page or in the margin that say some manuscripts say this or some manuscripts say that.

And so when you look at a critical edition of the Hebrew Testament, it's going to talk about textual variants there, and it's going to give you the various manuscripts that read certain things. And the editors have to make a decision as to what they're going to use, and then the translation committee might translate just that, or they might go ahead and translate a variant.

Sometimes they will do things like that. Thankfully, they're very open about it. That's why you have notes in your Bible. That's a good thing to have. Some people don't like the notes in the Bible. I don't want to know about that stuff.

Well, it's better to know about it than to not know about it because people can come along and throw these things out at you. So be aware of the fact that there is a variant there, and it raises interesting questions that we have to think about that force us to go back to that time period and understand that there were certain Hebrew manuscripts, for example, in Psalm 22 that said, they pierced my hands and my feet, and other Hebrew manuscripts that said, like a lion.

And Jewish apologists and anti-missionaries know that, and they will throw it at you in a second. So it's good to know these things. You might say, ah, it sounds like a lot of stuff to study. Trust me, in comparison to most of the stuff that some of you guys learn every time a new version of your favorite video game comes out, it's not all that tough.

We just think that it is because, what? Oh, that would be a real challenge. Well, it is a challenge, but man, it's really important to know. Far more important than whatever the update in your video game is.

So, I did not care for them, says the Lord. They did not continue my covenant. I did not care for them, says the Lord. There's something about the old covenant that did not result in a proper relationship between God and his people.

And wow, where would we find out about that? Well, I'd say it starts in Exodus and goes to Malachi. Right? How many times? What's the Old Testament about? God dealing with rebellious people over and over and over again.

Hmm. Okay, so for this, verse 10, is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days. So here's this second one. Here's this new one, this new covenant, and it's established by God.

And if you don't see, by the way, the continuity, the continuation of the house of Israel with God's people today, if you don't see that we are the true Israel that worship God in spirit and truth, there are those who will actually tell you that Hebrews chapter 8 has nothing to do with us today.

It only has to do with Israel, which leaves the book of Hebrews completely out in the wilderness as far as having any relevance to us. But here's the new covenant. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds.

Well, now come on. Haven't we read Psalm 119? Isn't that a beautiful Psalm? I mean, sometime when we want to make sure that Jeff can only have five minutes to preach just to see what that would look like, because I think it'd be fun to watch personally, we will have the deacons read Psalm 119 before the last hymn.

Elliot will fall asleep during that period of time because it's too long, and it's huge, and it's sort of repetitive. But you don't think that the author of Psalm 119 loved God's law? Well, he did. Well, he did.

But there were a lot of people in Israel that didn't love God's law. So there was this mixture, and some people experienced that love of God's law and of his word. Some people did not. That resulted in a problem.

In this new covenant, I will put my laws into their minds. Where were the laws under the old covenant? Etched on stone, right? On the tablets. There's going to be an internal writing. Well, so it says, I will write them on their hearts.

Wow, this is an internal covenant. Minds and hearts. God's laws becoming something that's a delight and not something that's a burden. I'll put my laws in their minds. I will write them on their hearts.

That requires, well, think about it. What's another prophetic picture of regeneration? I will take out a heart of stone, and I'll give them a heart of flesh. I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts.

It'll be something they love. Now, some people would say, yeah, I mean, this is a completely different set of laws. The God of the Old Testament, God, completely different people, right? The things that pleased God in the Old Testament don't please God anymore.

No, no. No one reading Jeremiah would have come up with that. Everybody reading Jeremiah initially would have recognized, yeah, one of the biggest problems we have is that the people of Israel have God's law, and they hate it.

They know what God's law says about purity of worship, and yet they're always going off to worship Baal. They're going up to the high places. They're putting together the worship of other gods with the worship of Yahweh.

So, the law is outside them. It's not in their minds. It's not written on their hearts. So, there's something new here. This is internal. So, if you're in the New Covenant, God puts law into your mind.

He writes on your hearts that law, and I will be their God. Well, come on. Wasn't Yahweh the God of the people of Israel? Well, ask yourself the question. Isn't that the whole point of what the prophets were saying?

If Yahweh is your God, then why are you doing what you're doing? Why are you behaving the way you're behaving? Why are you treating the poor the way you're treating the poor? Why are you engaging in this false religious work?

Why are you chasing off after the gods of the world? If He's truly your God, you defame His name by calling Him your God. But when His laws are in your mind, written on your heart, then He is your God, because that's the expression of His holy desire, and it's now your desire to honor those things and to live in that way.

And so, He's truly your God. He's truly your God. I will be their God, and they shall be my people. That was the external call. When you read Moses, God says, if you'll do this, I will be your God, and you will be my people, and you shall live.

Read the blessings and the curses, Deuteronomy 28 and 29. That was the external call. But what you discover is the necessity of internal change, of regeneration, and the Old Covenant didn't bring that about by its very nature.

By its very nature. And so, yes, verse 11, but don't jump up. I think it would probably be best to wait toward the end of verse 11, okay? Or you're just going to be trying to listen to the sermon back there, and trust me, the sound is not good.

Now notice, and they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, know the Lord. Think about that. Think about that. They shall not do this. That had to happen under the Old Covenant.

That was what the priests were supposed to do. Even though the Scriptures tell us that a lot of times the priests didn't know them either. So you can't exactly teach someone to know someone you don't actually know.

But in the New Covenant, that idea of having a priest class that would teach others to know the Lord, that's not there. They shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen, and everyone his brother, saying, know the Lord.

Well, why not? You mean there's not going to be a preaching? No, that's not what it's saying. It's one thing to increase in your knowledge of who God is. We are to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But the assumption is that you know Jesus Christ before you can grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. What's so new about the New Covenant? For all will know me from the least to the greatest of them.

And that is what you do not have at any point in time in the history of the people of Israel under the Old Covenant. You always have unbelievers. You always have people who do not know. And that's why there has to be know the Lord.

Here are the Lord's statutes. Here they are on the stone tablets. Know the Lord. But in the New Covenant that God establishes, they will all know me from the least to the greatest of them. It's not just a certain class.

It's not the super spiritual. If you're in the New Covenant, you know God. And he is the one that's brought that about. Because how do you know him? He's written his law upon your heart. He is the one that establishes this covenant.

For all will know me from the least to the greatest of them. In the New Covenant, if someone's in it, they know God. You do not operate on the idea that you can be in the New Covenant and hopefully someday will come to know God.

That's the Old Covenant. That's the old way. For all will know me from the least to the greatest of them. No classifications. The young child that's in the New Covenant that knows God. The old person in the New Covenant that knows God.

Everyone in between. It is definitional of the New Covenant to know God. The idea of unknowing New Covenant believers, it's not in Hebrews 8. It's not in Hebrews 8. And so there's chapter, there's verse 11.

We're done with verse 11. So if you're going to be baptized this evening, now would be the time to be heading that direction. If you're not, we're not done yet. Hold on. Are we really suggesting, are we really suggesting that the New Covenant is so grand, is so divine that everyone in it knows God truly from the least to the greatest of them?

And this is salvific. The New Covenant is truly salvific. Well, how could it be any other way? What is, how did Jesus describe the New Covenant? This is the blood of the, what? Of the New Covenant. The blood that He shed.

We believe that Christ's death saves those for whom it is made. And here in verse 12, for I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. Here is the promise of forgiveness of sins.

Whatever this New Covenant is and whatever ground it has been based upon, it actually brings about forgiveness of sins. I will remember their sins no more. Hmm. Sounds a little bit like Psalm 32. Remember Psalm 32 and how it gets quoted in Romans chapter four, where Paul says, David speaks the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works.

And then he quotes the Psalm 32 and it's all about non-imputation of sin. I will be merciful to their iniquities. I'll remember their sins no more. This is what the New Covenant is. And all of those from the least to the greatest of them experience this merciful forgiveness.

Their iniquities have been forgiven. Their sins, God will remember no more. Now you say, yeah, that's what our Bibles say too. You seem to be emphasizing this strongly. There's a reason for that. The New Covenant is not like the Old Covenant.

That's what it says right there. The Old Covenant contained promises and God by his Spirit had his elect people. And those elect people experienced the presence of the Holy Spirit. We know David did. He experienced conviction of sin.

And there are people who loved God's law. And we recognize that God did not leave himself. He was merciful to many, many people during that period. But the thing that stands out in the history of Israel is how many were uncircumcised of heart, even though they were circumcised of body.

And how many bore the covenant signs in ignorance of the covenant God. And this brought great disrepute upon the proclamation, the name of Yahweh. Here are the people of Yahweh. And look how easily they fall into idolatry.

Here are the people of Yahweh, but they ignore his law. My name is defamed amongst the nations because of you. Isn't that what God said to his people? Yes, it is. And that's why there needs to be a New Covenant.

And it needs to be a covenant that actually affects and brings about a fundamental change in the people themselves. And that's exactly what we have. We can teach about God. But in the New Covenant, we're teaching people who already know God to know Him better and more deeply and make application.

They all will know me from the least to the greatest of them. And I will be merciful to their iniquities. I'll remember their sins no more. Therefore, the question is, if baptism and the Lord's Supper are the signs of this New Covenant, if they are meant to illustrate this New Covenant.

And they do, beautifully. Here is the representation of the blood that is shed that establishes that New Covenant. It's the blood of the New Covenant. That's what it represents. Jesus sheds that blood.

We drink the wine as a representation of that. It reminds us of what He did. The fulfillment, the accomplishment that is His. The broken body. That's why He can be merciful to our iniquities. That's why He can remember our sins no more.