Jesus and the Better Covenant

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the Apostle Paul said, �But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn�t for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we�re called by the Divine Trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her King.

Here�s our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth. And these phones, these headphones, seem loud to me. Usually what happens when Pastor Steve is in, Tuesday guy, I turn down the headphone volume because he doesn�t like to hear himself so loudly.

But I do. I like to hear myself loudly. I don�t like to hear Steve loudly, but I like to hear me loudly. Anyway, we have a little slogan around here, �Always Biblical, Always Provocative, Always in that Order.

That�s what I�m trying to get you to do, is to think biblically and critically. Understand, as a Berean, can you imagine that discernment is something that is both commanded, 1 Thessalonians 5, and commended, Acts chapter 17.

Remember the Bereans. So, everything I say, you should ask yourself the question, does that match up with Scripture? On this show, I like to talk about Jesus a lot because He never compromised. I like to talk about the atoning work of Christ because at Calvary, none of the attributes of God were compromised.

They were all on vivid display from His holiness to His grace, and that�s why we�re called No Compromise Radio. And in light of that, I don�t really want to compromise. I�m sure I do. I�m sure I do more often than I want to, but I don�t want to.

And when I do, I don�t like it. And if I knew where my theology was wrong, I would correct it, right? That�s the old R .C. Sproul thing. No man can have more than 80 of his theology, you know, correct or his grammar.

And he said, �If I knew where I was wrong, I would change it. And isn�t that where we all are? Except now, R .C.�s theology is perfect. I won�t make any comments about preterism or infant baptism or anything like that.

I really have a lot of respect for what the Lord did through R .C. Sproul. My question today on No Compromise Radio is simple. Where is Jesus now? Oh, I guess I could ask another question. What is Jesus doing now?

Maybe the answer to the first question, some people might say in a knee-jerk fashion, �He�s in my heart. Others might say, �Well, He�s walking with me and talking with me along life�s narrow way. Maybe others would say, �His image is in a pancake or a waffle someplace.

Where is Jesus now? Well, some might give me the retort that He�s in the Eucharist, He�s in the communion wafer and communion cup. Well, I have great news today. It might not seem like great news to start, but I have great news, that Jesus�s body is not here.

Jesus�s body is not here. Now, how is that great news? If He�s not here, then where is He? Where is Jesus? The answer, friends, is that He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in heaven. That�s good news.

I could go so far to say you don�t want Jesus here in a body. When we think about Jesus and His ascension, this is part of, this is the capstone of, this is the pinnacle of His life and His obedience to the Father, both in life and in death, and then He�s raised from the dead, and then He�s ascended, and the book of Hebrews talks regularly about the Father�s great pleasure in the Son�s work, and therefore the Son is exalted, and He sits in the heavens, right?

He doesn�t stand to do more sacrifices. He might stand to do other things, and we�ll talk about that later today, our next show. But He, at the place of honor and dignity and authority and power, the right hand, He sits, seated at the right hand.

And I could go so far to say that if He�s not there, then no one�s saved. If He�s not there, then you�re not saved. And when we say Christ is risen and ascended, it�s not just a slogan. Excuse me, even back to the Apostles� Creed, it says, �On the third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven and sits on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. I like the next line, too. �From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead, the living and the dead. Remember Jesus said in John 14, �You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you.

If you love me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. So, where is Jesus? Jesus is in heaven. His body is in heaven. What did Paul say in Philippians 1?

�My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. He wasn�t on earth, Jesus wasn�t on earth, and Paul wanted to go be with Jesus. He said later in chapter 3 of Philippians,. �But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to be subject, even to subject all things to Himself.

We�re waiting, didn�t you notice the text? �And from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus. If He�s here in a body, we�re not waiting for Him, right? There�s going to be some, there�s going to be no eager anticipation of His return if He�s already here.

And even the word �return�, we�re waiting for the Lord�s return. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5, �We�re home from the body, we�re away from the Lord. Right? He�s talking about the Lord Jesus. So, Jesus is absent on earth in terms of His body because He has a body and He�s in heaven at the right hand.

He�s the ascended priest, He�s the completing sacrifice priest, He�s the perfect sacrifice, He�s the ascended King, He rules and has authority and has power and has dominion like Daniel 7, verses 13 and 14.

Now, if you say, �Well, that�s no good, He�s far away from us. You need to keep thinking. He�s absent from us, but He�s present with the Father, and I think that should encourage you, especially in light of what we�re going to talk about with His interceding work.

And He�s promised to take us, the Son has, where He is. One day we�ll be with Him. The Christian life is one of many things, including waiting for the Lord Jesus to return, longing to be reunited with Him, longing to see Him for the first time for those of us who never have because we�re walking by faith and not by sight.

Now, I would not deny that the Lord Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit, right? We�re not talking about His body, though. Galatians 2 .20, �I�ve been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

His Christ�s body isn�t in you. I mean, how would that actually work? Paul says in Ephesians 3 that, �Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Romans 8, �Christ is in you. Jesus, when He ascends into heaven, says to the disciples, and of course it�s true for us, �Behold, I am with you� what?

�Always, even to the end of the age. He is in us and with us through the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He, the Holy Spirit, dwells in our hearts, and the Father was pleased to have the Son give us the Holy Spirit.

You can think of John 16 if you would like. We are not orphans, and we long for that day, but yet we long for the day where we could see Christ face to face. Now, the book of Hebrews is going to help us understand that Jesus not being here on earth is a good thing, that we�re glad that He�s in heaven because He is in fact interceding for us.

Now, before we get there, just to catch everybody up in Hebrews, and what I�ve been doing a lot at No Compromise Radio is kind of practice my sermons on you guys. You�re the guinea pigs. Welcome to No Compromise Guinea Pig Radio.

Why do guinea pigs always get the short end of the proverbial scalpel or needle? Injections. What I�m trying to do is, since No Compromise Radio is a hobby, when I�m thinking about a passage and I�m writing a sermon, I don�t write them out via manuscript or anything, but I�m just putting thoughts down and cutting and pasting commentaries and dwelling and thinking about things and chewing on them, then if I look at my notes, it seems by the end of the week to be pretty good in terms of flow and all that.

I mean, not every week, but in my mind, I�m striving for, �Oh, this seems to have a good flow, good purpose, seems simple, even though it might be a complex idea. Melchizedek, for instance. And it looks good on paper.

Then when you start preaching, then you think, �Well, this is not coming out as good as I�d like it to come out. In the old days when we had two services, the first service was more energetic but not as polished because I knew, �Oh, that seemed to be good on my notes, but the way I delivered it or my personal way that I described it wasn�t very good.

I mean, the text is good, and I want to try to stay close to the text. When I critique people�s sermons, I mean, I try not to always critique, but when I do that for the seminary, for Master�s Seminary, I want people who are preaching, the pastors, to say regularly, �Oh, look at that verse.

Do you see that verse? Here�s what the Bible says here. Because that�s the only inspired part of the message. That�s the only true God-breathed part, right? He uses fallible people, but I want to have a lot of the Bible.

See the Bible. Look at the Bible. There was a time that people didn�t have a Bible in their hands, and now we�ve got tons of them, so I want you to see in your own Bible what I�m talking about. Well, when I�m practicing preaching, sometimes when I was younger, I would come in and practice in the pulpit the message, or I would practice maybe there�s painters in the sanctuary or something, so the sanctuary I would preach in my study, you know, there�s a file cabinet I used to have.

Remember those things? Remember? If you�re over 50, you know what a file cabinet is? You put files in a cabinet and I�m not talking about software a real file cabinet. Remember they had kind of triple-decker ones, and if you pulled the top out without the bottom full, you know, tip over, and industrial gray or brown or beige.

Well, now what I do is I talk about that message out loud, not in a preaching form or preaching cadence, but just talking about it out loud, and then it formulates in my mind, �Oh, I think I can describe that.

I think I do know what the passage is talking about. I think I can not enunciate, but I can, well, I can just teach what that passage says and means. And that�s what we�re doing. In the book of Hebrews, everything�s about Jesus, the high priest, right?

Jesus is prophet, priest, and king, and this particular book, the book of Hebrews, this sermon, this epistle, this sermon epistle, this epistle sermon, this sermonic epistle, this epistletory sermon, it is focused on the person and work of Christ Jesus, and where we are now in chapter 7, he�s trying to compare Levitical priests and the priesthood of Jesus.

Now, the Jews that received this, and even Gentiles that were influenced by Judaism, they would immediately say, �Well, the Levitical priests, Levitical priests, Levitical priests and they would go back to the Mosaic law, and of course, that law was good, but it was just temporary, and the writer�s trying to get you to see the comparison between priest back in those days and Jesus, the high priest.

While Jesus might not come from the tribe of Levi, he comes from the tribe of Judah, yet he is a priest after the order of Melchizedek. There�s a greater priest who�s going to come, right? You�ve got Leviticus and Exodus, and even in Deuteronomy, the priesthood, and what they�re supposed to do and who they are, yet later on in Psalm 110, there�s another priesthood that�s talked about.

If the Levitical priests were so great, then why would there be another one talked about later if the Levitical priests were the end-all of everything? And the writer, I almost said Paul, I hope it was, I mean, is, I�m not really sure, so the writer of Hebrews says that the priesthood of Jesus Christ is superior to the priest of Judaism because it lets you draw near, Hebrews 7, 19.

You can draw near to God, and you can think about all the barriers and essentially no trespassing signs on your way to the Holy of Holies, even if you�re the high priest. If you�re not the high priest, there�s no way you�re getting in, yet we, through Christ� high priestly work, can draw near.

And not only that, his priesthood, Christ�s priesthood, is superior to the priest of Judaism because there was an oath involved. There�s no oath involved if you�re a priest, a Levitical priest. Your dad was a priest.

You turned 30. You�re a priest. It�s hereditary. It is DNA-based. It is not based on how good you are or how righteous you are or qualified or skilled. You�re a skilled, you know, carpenter, therefore you get to take over your father�s shop, no longer an apprentice.

It had nothing to do with that. And there was no oath of office, right? You have an oath of office for the president or to become a citizen or to be in the military, a Hippocratic oath for the medical doctors, right?

I think they even have one similar for vets. Is it summarized by Duno Arm? I think part of the Hippocratic oath that was rewritten by that lady, I think at Tufts, the modern one we have is something like, �We won�t play God as doctors.

That�s interesting. But there�s an oath involved. And the oath that�s talked about in chapter 7, verse 20, oath, oath, oath, and the oath is by the one, the father, who it says, �The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind.

You are a priest forever. This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. And therefore, God�s oath, standing behind Jesus as the guarantee of the covenant. And all that should lead you to really trust in the Lord, to really rely on Him, to have a hearty trust on this great priest who�s the guarantee.

He�s the mediator who guarantees. He�s the one that we can look to to know for sure that all this is reliable and the covenant�s going to be fulfilled, and we have a guarantee. We have kind of a down payment, don�t we, in the personal work of the Lord Jesus.

You can really trust this permanent agreement and arrangement. It will happen. It�s like kind of a bondsman, right, posting bail for someone, guaranteeing the person who�s accused or indicted that they will appear in the court of law.

And we have a risen Savior with five wounds, right, there are five wounds in His body, His hand, hands slash wrists, feet, feet slash, you know, ankle area, and then the side wound where He was punctured by the spear.

He�s the one who�s the representative to God, and He meets all the terms that the Lord God the Father has required in the annals of salvation, in the history of salvation. Jesus says, �My people will fulfill everything you�ve required, Father, in me, and also I�m going to represent who God is right?

So it�s twofold. One writer said, �Jesus stands as a continuing guarantor, and that in two directions. He guarantees to men that God will fulfill His covenant of forgiveness, and He guarantees to God that those who are in Him are acceptable.

How great is that? It�s a legal term, �guarantor, guarantee that was used for dowry, marriage type of Sure it is. The Father, as one commentator said, because of Jesus the guarantor is good for it, right?

The legal payment, it�s paid, and this is so much better covenant than the divinical priest. If you are in any system where there�s priest sacerdotal background involvement, this is a better priest here.

He is not like Adam. Jesus is not like Adam who passes the buck and who dogs responsibility. Here Jesus assumes responsibility, and He will fulfill this, and He will make sure with better sacrifices, better covenants, better promises, that the debt is paid for, and He is able therefore to be our mediator.

And not only that, you see another word in 622 that He�s the covenant. He�s not the covenant, but it talks about a covenant. He�s a covenant, and He�s not a covenant. He�s the guarantor of a better covenant, and when you think of the word covenant, I think 16 more times in the book of Hebrews.

This is the first time it�s in the book of Hebrews in 722, but it�s going to show up a lot. It�s almost like He�s been waiting to talk about this subject, covenant, and this better covenant, and we�re going to get into that in chapter 8 too with this Jeremiah 31 new covenant, right?

There�s lots of covenants in the Bible, covenant of redemption, covenant of works, covenant of grace, covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Davidic covenant. New covenant is what we�re talking about now. Well, this word covenant, sometimes people think it�s an agreement.

If you wanted a definition of covenant, some people think this was more like a word testament, like the last will and testament. People talk about treaties between parties that are binding, that one fixes upon the other.

Art and Gingrich, they did a lexicon, a Greek lexicon that we used a lot back in seminary especially. It says this about covenant, �Another essential characteristic of a testament is retained namely that it is the declaration of one person�s will, not the result of an agreement between two parties like a compact or contract.

This is without doubt one of the main reasons why the Septuagint rendered Berit� I don�t know what it�s saying here for this word, I think, oh, the Septuagint rendered Berit for covenant. �In the covenants of God, it was God alone who set the conditions.

Well, when we think about covenant, we�re going to look at that a little bit more as time goes on in our series. But we�re talking about the climax of what�s going on here into the covenant, a better covenant, and security of the salvation.

Let�s just make it simple. Your salvation, how secure is it? And do you have to keep it? If so, how are you doing? If you have to keep it, to what degree do you need to keep it? How much effort do you need?

How much achievement do you need? How many works do you need? How many good deeds do you need, and how often do you need them? And the list could go on and on and on with the questions. Here this is something that God has done, and God has guaranteed it with this great high priest.

There�s a guarantee, and there�s a covenant. There�s a quote in one commentary that says this of a covenant, �A free manifestation of divine love, institutionalized in an economy, whose stability and consummation are guaranteed by a cultic ratification, the sacrificial death of Christ, and whose aim is to make men live in communion with God, to impart to them the treasure of grace and the heavenly inheritance.

This covenant, however you define it, whatever nuances you give in the definition, is better. It�s better than the covenant God made with the Israelites at Mount Sinai. Who was the mediator back on that mountain?

It wasn�t the Lord Jesus. It was Moses. Who would you rather have as a mediator, Moses or Jesus? I mean, Moses was great even in chapter 5. Chapter 3, we talked about how great Moses was, and the writer of this epistle is not even dogging Moses for any of Moses� sins.

But here, because of the work of Christ, because of His great atoning work, He guarantees this covenant of God is going to be completed, right? And this should cause us to be praising Him. Now, the last thing that�s going on here, and this is what I wanted to get to today, but it took a long time to get there, is the priesthood of Jesus is superior to the priesthood of Judaism because Jesus�s priesthood is permanent.

It�s permanent. Yeah, you can have better access, yeah, there�s the oath involved, and now you can always have access. I mean, it�s one thing, can I get in? How often can I get in, and what will I hear when I get in?

And that�s what�s going on with one sentence in the Greek, Hebrews 7, 23, 24, and 25, is one lengthy sentence, as one commentator says. �The former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but He holds His priesthood permanently because He continues forever.

Consequently, He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. The eternal work of Christ Jesus. Death can�t stop His ministry.

The high priest�s ministry stopped Jesus�s ministry. After He died, He�s been raised from the dead. It doesn�t stop. And that�s what we�re going to look at next time at No Compromise Radio, Hebrews 7, 23, 24, and 25, one simple, life-changing sentence.

If you�d like to write me, info at nocompromiseradio .com. The other thing you can do for me is, I�m having trouble with my Patreon account, and if you are a regular giver, would you email me? Because I can�t figure out who you are.

My email is mike at nocompromiseradio .com, because I just need to know who you are, and that would help out. You�d probably listen if you�re a giver. If you don�t, then you�re just in perpetuity helping.

Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth, No Compromise Radio. Tell your friends. Tell your friends about No Compromise Radio and the great high priestly work of Jesus in the book of Hebrews. So, your assignment class today is to read the book of Hebrews, especially chapter 7.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God�s Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at 6. We�re right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.