The New Covenant, Part 1 – Hebrews 8:6-13

Hebrews 8 and the Promise of a Better Covenant

And turn now, please, to Hebrews chapter eight. Hebrews chapter eight, and we're gonna read together verse six and verse seven of Hebrews eight. We're gonna be reading more of Hebrews eight here a little bit later, but we're gonna begin by reading verses six and seven, and then we'll pray together.

Hebrews chapter eight, verse six. But now he has obtained a more excellent ministry by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

Let's bow together. Our Father, we are a redeemed people who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ and indwelt by the spirit of our God, and we pray that you would grant the illuminating ministry of the Holy Spirit to us this morning as we look at your word and consider some difficult aspects of it.

Help us to be thoughtful, to considerate, loving, and we pray that through this you would grant us understanding. It is in the light of your word that we see truth, and we ask that you would help us to arrive at a right understanding of truth, and you would speak to us today through your word for Christ's sake, and in his name we pray, amen.

Why the New Covenant Becomes a Major Theological Battleground

Well, we come to today one of the most hotly contested and divisive subjects in New Testament theology. It is widely debated. There is a voluminous amount of writing that has been done on this subject, and controversy and heated arguments and dispassionateness and church splits, and that is the subject of the New Covenant, and this passage in Hebrews chapter eight is the central battleground of any conversation that we might have over the nature and the extent of the New Covenant and its relationship with the Old Covenant.

We all confess in some way and to some degree our inclusion in or our recognition of the New Covenant when we gather around the Lord's table together and we eat the bread and we drink the cup, and I hold it up and I say this is the New Covenant.

In my blood as often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of me and we drink that cup, we are at least at that moment in some way acknowledging our inclusion in that covenant or at least the initiation of that covenant or the recognition of that New Covenant, and maybe most of us probably don't even understand what it means to be in that New Covenant and what the implications of that covenant are, but our recognition of the initiation of that covenant comes at least once a month when we partake of the Lord's Supper together.

It was inevitable that the subject of the New Covenant would come up if you had been following the argument of Hebrews chapter seven over the course of the last several months, because in Hebrews chapter seven, the author has made the argument that the Old Testament promised a new priesthood.

Melchizedek, a New Priesthood, and a Change in Law

In Psalm 110 verse four, the Lord has sworn and he will not change his mind, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. That was the promise made 500 years after the initiation and the establishment of the old priesthood, the Aaronic priesthood.

Five centuries after the establishment of that, the Old Testament promised that a new priesthood would come and then the author made the case that the Old Testament promised a new priest would arise, not according to the order of Aaron, but after the order of Melchizedek.

And then the author made the case that this change in priesthood has necessitated a change in law. All of that Old Testament law that regulated the old priesthood, if the priesthood has changed and a new priest has come, that tells us something about the Old Testament law, all of that that regulated the old priesthood, something has changed in our relationship to that.

And then the author made the case that the Old Testament sacrifices could never take away sins. They could never perfect the worshiper, they could never cleanse our conscience, they could never pay the full price for sin, all they could do was cover over sins until a full payment could be made.

Then the author made the case that Jesus is that new priest, he is part of that new priesthood, and his sacrifice did what all of the Old Testament sacrifices could never do. And then the author made the case that that old tabernacle, which was the central location for all of the old priesthood, for all the old priesthood, and the central location for all the work that the old priest did, and that place where all the sacrifices were made, that tabernacle was nothing more than a mere copy of heavenly realities.

The true tabernacle is in heaven. And then he made the case that Jesus is the priest who is of that priesthood, who has offered that sacrifice, and now he ministers in the heavenly tabernacle, which is exceedingly beyond and better than the earthly tabernacle.

And so if you followed all of that argument up till now, the question you would be asking is, if all of these things associated with the old covenant, the tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priesthood, and the high priest, and the intercession, all of those things that are associated with that old system, if all of that has been fulfilled in Jesus, and he has superseded all of those things, and he is superior to all of that, then that would raise for us a key question.

What is our relationship to that old system? What has become of that old system? Is it still in play? Is it still in effect? Is God still honoring that in some way? Does he work through both of these?

Has he set it aside? Has he set aside all of it? Has he set aside part of it? Does he intend for us to keep some of it? What is our relationship to that? What is our relationship to the old covenant? What do we have to do with it?

What has become of it, and how are we related to it? That is the subject of our text here in Hebrews chapter eight, and it is going to be the subject of our attention for the next number of weeks. Today, we're gonna do something a little bit different.

Well, maybe this isn't all that different. I guess it is kind of. We're gonna do something a little bit different, and that is that I'm only gonna give us an introduction. Actually, it's the first part of an introduction to this subject of the new covenant.

Okay, I didn't wanna get your hopes up. Like, you get one week and we're done. This is the first part of our introduction to this idea of the new covenant. There is a lot of groundwork that needs to be laid here, and you're gonna see why here in just a moment.

There is a difficulty in preaching messages like this and in tackling a subject like this, and the difficulty is this. The difficulty is falling into one of two ditches. On the one hand, I don't wanna fall into the ditch where we breeze over the subject of the new covenant in such a shallow way that we keep everybody engaged and able to understand it on sort of a shallow level, but we get to the end of it, and people who are familiar with the New Testament, Old Testament distinction, new covenant, old covenant, and all the issues that surround that, that they say to themselves, yeah, I really didn't learn anything new.

Jim didn't answer any of my questions. He didn't really address any of my concerns. On the other hand, the other ditch would be to get so far afield into the weeds of our discussion on the new covenant that there are people here who say to themselves, I've been here for three or four weeks, and to be honest with you, I don't understand a thing Jim said.

I don't understand why any of these issues are important. I think that there's some bloke on the other side of the sanctuary, some Theo nerd, who happened to be into it and understand all of that, but for me, I might as well have stayed home for the last three weeks and baked bagels.

I would have been better off doing that than attending this, because I don't get any of it. I want to stay somewhere in the middle of that. In the process, we may veer dangerously close to one of those two ditches, but I'm going to endeavor to not fall into either one of them, okay?

There is a ton of stuff that is associated with the new covenant that divides Christians and Christianity, and our passage here in Hebrews chapter eight is key to this, and we're going to go into some of the issues, and you're going to realize as we walk through this today, you're going to realize, okay, this is connected to all of these other areas of theology, and you'll see how here in just a second.

Hebrews 8 as the Center of the New Covenant Debate

Hebrews chapter eight, we are there. We read verses six and seven. Our passage here in Hebrews is key. You'll notice in verse six, the author makes reference to Jesus having obtained a more excellent ministry as much as he is the mediator of a better covenant, and then in verse seven, if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second covenant, then he contrasts the first covenant with the second covenant when he says in verse eight, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant, and that introduces us to the subject of the new covenant.

You'll notice verses eight through verse 12 of chapter eight are an extended quotation. They are an extended quotation from Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 to 34, and you're gonna hear me repeat Jeremiah 31, which we read at the beginning of our service.

You're gonna hear me repeat that so often in the next few weeks that you're gonna know instantly when I say to you, where is the place in the Old Testament where the new covenant was promised, you're gonna be able to say Jeremiah 31.

Jeremiah 31, 31. If you can remember, Jeremiah 31, 31, you can get Jeremiah 31, 31 engraved in your brain because you hear it so often that you'll know this is the place in the Old Testament where the new covenant is promised.

Verse eight mentions a new covenant with the house of Israel, and verse 13 references a new covenant. When he said, verse 13, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete, but whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.

So there is a contrast here between an old covenant and a new covenant. Which of the old covenants is meant? We're gonna get into that in just a second. Actually, we're gonna get into that probably next week.

Which of the old covenants is meant? It's the Mosaic covenant.

Okay, I'll just spoil it.

I'll give you the spoiler here at the beginning. It's the Mosaic covenant that he's talking about, which is the first covenant. There is a second covenant, which is this new covenant mentioned where? In Jeremiah 31, 31.

See, he really is too slow on that. Interestingly, Jeremiah 31 is the only place in the Old Testament where the words new covenant are mentioned. Jeremiah 31, verse 31, is the only place in the Old Testament where a new covenant is mentioned, where the words new covenant are mentioned.

Though there are other passages in the Old Testament that describe realities of the new covenant. For instance, Ezekiel 36 speaks of God taking out a heart of stone and giving us a heart of flesh. That's a new covenant reality.

Now, Ezekiel doesn't use the terms new covenant, quote unquote, but he's describing a new covenant reality. I would argue that there are tons of promises made to the nation of Israel, which are to be fulfilled as part of the new covenant.

So though Jeremiah 31, 31 is the only place where the terms new covenant are mentioned, it is not the only place in the Old Testament where new covenant realities, new covenant promises are made or where new covenant ideas are described.

Likewise, in Hebrews chapter eight, Hebrews chapter eight is the only place in the New Testament where Jeremiah 31, 31 is quoted at length. Even though Hebrews chapter eight is obviously not the only place in the New Testament where the new covenant is described.

But it is the only place where Jeremiah 31 is quoted at length and described. So therefore, that makes Hebrews chapter eight the intersection of the new covenant. The place in the New Testament where Jeremiah 31, 31 is mentioned and Jeremiah 31, 31 is the only place in the Old Testament where it is mentioned.

And these two things come together in Hebrews chapter eight. That makes Hebrews chapter eight really the battleground for this subject of the new covenant. We should have seen that there was going to be a discussion of the new covenant coming because the author has hinted to this on a number of occasions.

Let me remind you of what we covered in Hebrews chapter seven, a couple of the key verses. Hebrews 7, 11, if perfection was through the 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?

See what the author said? If perfection could come through that priesthood, there would have not been a need for another. But there is need for another. And so if the Old Testament priesthood has been changed in some way because it is associated with the Old Covenant and we have a new priest then we ought to expect a what?

A new covenant. Also Hebrews chapter seven verse 12, for when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of the law also, designating a change of relationship to that which regulated the Old Covenant.

Hebrews 7, 19, 18 and 19, for on the one hand there is the setting aside of a former covenant, that is the former, remember the former covenant? There's the setting aside of that because of its weakness and uselessness for the law made nothing perfect.

And on the other hand, there is the bringing in of a better hope. See this has been, the author has been alluding to this contrast all the way through chapter seven as he's been describing the setting aside of something old and the bringing in of something new.

He's been hinting at this all the way through till he gets to chapter eight where he quotes what? Jeremiah 31, 31, see you guys are just too slow on this. About the new covenant. In Hebrews 7, 22, so much the more also, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.

The author has been hinting to this all the way, hinting at this all the way through. Here are the theological issues related to the new covenant in Hebrews chapter eight and there are a lot of them because really the issues that swirl around our understanding of the new covenant, the issues at the heart of that are the issues that define the distinction between dispensationalism and covenant theology.

Dispensationalism, Covenant Theology, and the New Covenant

Dispensationalism and covenant theology. Now if you've been here for a while, we've discussed this at some length in adult Sunday school class. You've heard me talk about this on previous occasions. Hebrews chapter eight is the key issue between dispensationalists and covenant theologians.

Covenant theology would say that there is a covenant made between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit through which all of the other covenants, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the new covenant, et cetera, all of those issue through that and they're really one long, they're all parts of one overarching covenant that God is intending to keep and these other covenants serve to be the expression by which God sort of works out his will, his redemptive plan in human history.

A dispensationalist would say that God gives different covenants at different periods of time to different individuals that have various and different promises and that some of these covenants overlap, some of these covenants intertie with each other or are dependent upon one another, but ultimately God is the one who fulfills all of the terms of all of these various covenants that he has made.

This is also the difference, dispensationalists and covenant theologians would differ over the issue of infant baptism, for instance. The issue of infant baptism, whether we baptize infants as a sign of the covenant or whether we just baptize believers who have professed and given evidence of a saving faith in Jesus Christ, which who we baptize and why we baptize them and how we baptize them, all of that comes back to our understanding of the new covenant.

The covenantalist would say we baptize children because they're part of the covenant community and they don't need to be believers and they don't need to express faith in Christ, we baptize them as an act of, a symbol of our faith and trust and our belief that they are part of the covenant community, that their parents are believers and so they are under that new covenant and they would say that you don't even have to be a believer to be under the new covenant, but you do have to be a believer to be in the new covenant.

You can be under its auspices, you can be part of the covenant, the new covenant community, without actually being a recipient of the blessing of forgiveness in the new covenant promises. Eschatology and the difference in different eschatological camps comes down to this, whether you are a postmillennialist or an amillennialist or a premillennialist comes down to how you approach the promises of the covenants given to Abraham and to the church.

If you're an amillennialist, then you believe that there is no millennium to come, that the thousand years in Revelation 20 are not really to be taken literally and there's going to be no physical, actual reign of the Lord Jesus Christ on this earth.

If you're a postmillennialist, then you would believe that we are in the kingdom in some way now that Christ is reigning from the throne of David in heaven, that's his seat at the right hand of the Father, and that he is exercising that rule and reign amongst us and that Satan is in some sense bound even today and that our goal as the church is to Christianize the entire world and to usher in the second coming of Jesus Christ and that he is coming post after this millennial reign of Jesus.

If you are a historic, futuristic premillennialist, not historic premillennialist, a futuristic premillennialist as I am, then you would believe that there is yet future, a kingdom that God has promised to the Jews that he will oversee and overrule from Jerusalem when Jesus takes his throne there.

He will set up and establish that kingdom and he will rule and reign for a thousand years as mentioned in Revelation chapter 20. Now whether you are a post, awe, or premillennialist is going to come down to how you interpret the promises given to the children of Israel and the church and who it is that is the beneficiaries of the new covenant described here.

So you can see that all of these issues that tend to divide us as Christians, as brothers and sisters in Christ, it all comes back to how do you understand this new covenant? Is the church and Israel the same entity or are these separate people groups?

Has the church become the New Testament Israel and was Israel the Old Testament church? Are these synonymous in some sense or are these two separate and distinct peoples with two separate and distinct plans in the purposes of God?

Has a church replaced Israel and are these separate people? Are we in the kingdom now? Is the kingdom future? Is there going to be a kingdom at all? What do we do with the passages that deal with national Israel?

What do we do with the passages that deal with the church? Does God have a future for Israel or has it been replaced and superseded by someone and something else? All of these questions come back to what you believe and teach and think about the new covenant.

So you see all these intramural discussions that we have about infant baptism and who partakes of the Lord's Supper and whether Israel and the church are the same entity and where we're all gonna be and how the kingdom is gonna come and future Israel and Israel and the church and all these little squabbles that we have within Christianity over those things.

Those are the battles raging out in the hills but the main battleground really is over this issue of the new covenant and the nature of covenants itself. That's really the core of it. So here are the key questions that we're gonna cover in the weeks ahead.

This is gonna sound daunting but it won't be as we work our way through it. So don't get scared away just by these questions but here are the questions we're gonna cover, we need to cover. What is a covenant?

What is a covenant? Who creates it and how? And don't try writing this down because this list is too long and I'm not going over it slowly. You can go back and get the recording later on if you really think you need to write this down but I don't think you will.

What is a covenant? Who creates it and how? What constitutes a covenant? How long does a covenant last? How many covenants are there? You've heard me mention the Abrahamic covenant and the Mosaic covenant and the New Covenant and the Davidic covenant even as we've been going through the book of Hebrews.

Those are the four that I've mentioned. Are those the only four or are there more? More covenants than just that. With whom are the various covenants made and with whom is the New Covenant made? Are we in the New Covenant now?

Is there more than one New Covenant? One for the church and one for Israel. So two New Covenants. Is there one or two New Covenants? What are the terms of the New Covenant? Have the terms of the New Covenant been fulfilled?

Are the terms of the New Covenant being fulfilled or are we waiting for the fulfillment of the New Covenant in the future? Those are all key issues. How many covenants are still in force? How many of them still need to be fulfilled?

How are the covenants fulfilled? Are they fulfilled literally or are they fulfilled spiritually? And I think the key issue or the key question at the heart of this is this. Does God make literal promises to one group of people, say, the descendants of Abraham, and then fulfill them spiritually in a different sense to a different group of people, say, Gentiles?

That's the key issue. And really, I think what is the key issue at the heart of all of this discussion. Now, I know, and again, I'm just all laying groundwork here and I'm just meandering through all of this, but I gotta get this stuff out of the way, okay?

I know that there are people here who are going to disagree with me on the nature and the subject of the new covenant and the timing of the millennium or the nature of the millennium and the reign of Christ, et cetera.

Let me make something clear, and I speak on behalf of all the elders when I say this. This is not a heresy, orthodoxy issue, the disagreement on this. It is not a heresy, orthodoxy issue. And we have, even in our own time, a great example of how Christians ought to treat this issue and still be brothers and sisters in Christ between two men whom most of us know and whom most of us love and would respect.

And that would be John MacArthur and R .C. Sproul. Now, those two men, R .C. Sproul's gone home to be with the Lord. Those two men are brothers. They're both believers. We have benefited from the ministries of both of those men, whether you recognize it or not.

If you benefit from my ministry, you have benefited from their ministry because they have been influential in me and in shaping who I am. I love R .C. Sproul. We disagree with it. R .C. Sproul would be a covenant theologian.

He would have been an amillennialist. He wouldn't have agreed with us on eschatology, and he would have baptized babies. I would never baptize a baby. I wouldn't have anything to do with that. I don't believe in amillennialism, but R .C. Sproul is our brother in Christ, and I believe that he is with the Lord in glory right now, enjoying his eternal reward, and I look forward to spending eternity with him.

But we would have disagreed on this issue. On the other side of that debate would be John MacArthur, who is a futuristic premillennialist, dispensationalist, just as I am and as many of you are. And John MacArthur would not baptize a baby.

He believes in cradle baptism, not pado-baptism. Pado-baptism being infant baptism, cradle baptism being, meaning that we baptize based upon a creed or a profession of a creed in faith in Jesus Christ.

We baptize believers.

So John MacArthur would be on the other side of that. Now those two men, MacArthur and Sproul, they both have flourishing ministries that the Lord has blessed. The Lord blessed their teaching. We have used R .C. Sproul's videos here in our church on various occasions.

We love these two men. They ministered together. They were good friends. John MacArthur preached at R .C. Sproul's funeral. Did a magnificent job. Those two men are brothers in Christ, and they love one another.

That is the type of attitude that we ought to have amongst those of us who disagree. Being a non-millennialist or a post-millennialist on this issue, or if you believe in covenant theology and you really wish Jim would start baptizing babies because you want to have some or you've had some and you're tired of doing it in the bathtub at home, if that's your perspective, then I just want you to know that doesn't not keep you from being a member of Kootenai Community Church or from serving in various capacities here or from being a blessing with other people in this body or from being recognized as our brother or our sister in Jesus Christ.

This is not a heresy slash orthodoxy issue. We can disagree on this, and we can do so in love. I know that many people, well, everybody here is gonna be in probably in one of these three camps. You're either a committed, futuristic, pre-millennialist, dispensationalist, or some shade of that, and there's like 50 camps in that group, but you're either in that group and you're firmly committed to that because you've heard everything on the issues, you've read, you've understood it, you know what the issues are, and you've come to that conclusion.

So you're firmly in that camp. That's great, that's where I'm at. Glad to have you there. Or you're in the other camp on the other side of it, and you're not that. You're a covenant, you're in the covenant, or you were raised that way, you've really never studied it that way, but you're kind of in the covenant of baptizing babies on post-millennialist camp.

Excuse me.

I hope to move you from one to the other. Okay, and in the meantime, we're gonna go through a middle group. In between this are people like, I don't even know what he's talking about. And so far, this has been 30 minutes of completely wasted time because all this stuff has gone over my head and it doesn't make any sense to me.

Okay, so if you're in that middle group that I'm hoping to educate you and move you at least ever so slightly toward my perspective over here. Hold on a second. This is what teaching twice on a Sunday morning will do.

Now, we have people in our congregation who are from the all-millennialist, post-millennialist covenant of pedal baptist camp because our church is attractive to those kinds of people. And I'm thankful for that.

And I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. And here's why our church is attractive to those kinds of people. We get a lot of people from that background,.

That perspective.

And here's why. Because we believe in the reformed doctrines of the Protestant Reformation concerning soteriology, salvation. We believe and preach the sovereignty of God. We believe and preach justification by faith and faith alone.

We believe and preach those doctrines which are the hinge upon which the Reformation door turned. And because we take Scripture seriously and because we are expository in our preaching approach and because we have a high view of God and a high view of Scripture, this church is attractive to people who come out of reformed churches who have that high view of God and high view of Scripture in far greater number than dispensationalist churches do.

Dispensationalist churches are far too often, not exclusively or completely, but far too often characterized by a whole bunch of things that we would reject. We do not believe in the continuation of charismatic gifts.

A lot of dispensationalist churches do. We don't believe that there are people in our midst who are hearing the voice of God and God is whispering in your ear and you're getting continual revelation. We don't believe that.

We don't bind Satan, rebuke the demons, do exorcisms, cancel generational curses. We don't do any of that. We don't do altar calls and decisions and come forward and rededicate your life and all of that stuff.

We don't have high-pressure sales tactics after a gospel message on a Sunday morning. We don't do any of those things. All of those things typically characterize dispensational churches. They don't characterize this dispensational church, but they typically do others.

So people come here and they're like, wow, that's a breath of fresh air. And I understand why, because we don't get into all of that nonsense. We reject all that nonsense that by and large, writ large, characterizes so many churches that would be of our particular theological persuasion on those issues.

I had one post-millennial friend. He's still a friend of mine today. We were sitting down and chatting about theology and where I was at on some of these issues, and we got through a whole bunch of the stuff that I just mentioned, not to mention elder rule.

We're not a congregation-ruled church or ruled by deacons or one pope pastor at the top or whatever it is. We don't have that structure. We have more of a reformed Presbyterian structure. And so after going through all these issues, he said, you're unlike any other dispensationalist.

I've ever met.

And I said, that's unfortunate. And I understand that's unfortunate, but because of what we do and how we do it, we attract a lot of people from a reformed perspective. And I welcome that, and I'm fine with that.

Some people have to close, plug their nose while they hear some of the other stuff that I teach because they don't necessarily like the fact that I'm not an infant Baptist or that I'm a premillennialist, and I understand that.

I see some of you doing this with your nose when I had to preach some of that stuff, and that's fine. You're welcome. Listen, if this weren't a game in town for me, I would find a church that believed what I did about the doctrines of soteriology, and I would hold my nose during the infant baptisms and the Lord's Supper.

I would get that, but I could fellowship with those people and love them.

I'd be fine with that.

Not one last thing, but the next thing. I want you to know that I am going to seek to be as fair as I can possibly be in my assessment of those who are on the other side of this. By being fair in my assessment of those who are on the other side of this, I do not mean that I don't have a position on it, nor do I mean that I'm not gonna take a position on it, and I'm not gonna try and walk some imaginary road down the middle on this issue, where the people in the covenant camp would say, yeah, Jim agrees with me, and that sounds really good.

We can get along. And the people in the dispensationalist camp say, yeah, Jim agrees with me, and we can get along. I'm not gonna try and take some middle-of-the-road approach to this. I'm convinced of my perspective.

I'm going to argue for my perspective, and you can reject it. That's fine. We can be brothers and sisters in the Lord. Well, you can be my sister. I'm not gonna be your sister in the Lord, but we can be family in the Lord.

We can be family in the Lord and disagree over this issue, and it's not gonna hurt us. But we are gonna think through some of these issues clearly in the weeks ahead. And because I'm gonna be fair, it doesn't mean that I'm not gonna argue aggressively.

For my position.

I will argue aggressively for my position, but I will argue aggressively and graciously, I hope, for my position. And if at any time in going through this, you feel or sense that I'm not being gracious, please understand that that is not in any way my tone.

Okay, and if you know me, then you know that I would not die over this issue and risk our fellowship or our unity or our love for one another over this issue. It's not worth that. It just isn't worth that.

That doesn't mean I'm gonna not hold my position. I'll argue it aggressively.

The New Covenant in Hebrews 8 and the New Testament

All right.

Now, there are some New Testament references to the new covenant that I wanna introduce you to before we wrap it up today.

Okay.

Oh, let me go through. Let's read through together Hebrews chapter eight, beginning at verse seven. I wanna read through this quotation from Jeremiah. The author here does not quote everything that we read at the beginning of the service, but he does here quote Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34.

Beginning at verse seven, for if that first covenant, which was the Mosaic covenant, had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second. For finding fault with them, he says, here's the quotation from Jeremiah.

Behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will effect a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 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.

For they did not continue in my covenant and I did not care for them, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. Now, he begins to describe the terms of the new covenant or some of the promises of the new covenant in verse nine or verse 10.

After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their minds and I will write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, know the Lord, for all will know me from the least to the greatest of them.

For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. That's the completion of the quotation from Jeremiah. Look at verse 13. And when he said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete.

But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. And then we get into chapter nine, which we won't read, but in chapter nine, there is this contrast between various elements of the old covenant that the author is making.

Now, I mentioned that this is the only place where Jeremiah 31 is quoted at length. It's not the only place where the terms new covenant appear in scripture. Let me give you a few of those. Luke, there are six.

Actually, there are six places in the New Testament where the term new covenant, the words new covenant are used, six places. I'll give you the first three of them outside of the book of Hebrews. Luke chapter 22, verse 20.

And in the same way, he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, this cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. Paul quotes that in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, which we quote before our communion services.

1 Corinthians 11, 25, in the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. And then it is used in 2 Corinthians 3, verse six, where Paul is describing the character or the nature, the spirit of his ministry.