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The meat of the word, part 4

Hebrews 7:26-28 speaks of Christ and the different priestly ministry that He performs:

²⁶ For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens, ²⁷ who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because this He did once for all when He offered up Himself. ²⁸ For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, made perfect forever.

The strong meat presented here is (1) that Christ was “holy, innocent, undefiled,” though the Sanhedrin had proclaimed Him to be a blasphemer, (2) that daily sacrifices are no longer needed, (3) that Christ Himself became the true Sacrifice as the Lamb of God, (4) that Christ was “a Son” which contrasted with Adam being “formed.”

These truths are four large servings of meat, any one of which could choke the average religious Jew both then and now. It also chokes Christian Zionists who believe that the age to come will be a Jewish kingdom that has all the hallmarks of the Old Covenant. Christian Zionists try to add Jesus to Judaism, as if their Old Covenant religion would be perfect if only Jesus Christ could be its king-priest.

But Jesus was of a different priestly order with a New Covenant mission and ministry. Because He came from the tribe of Judah, He was not qualified to be the high priest of Levi/Aaron. So the idea that He could be the high priest in a future Jewish kingdom is absurd. One cannot combine the two covenants into a single ministry any more than a nation can have two constitutions.

This is one reason why the Jews today look for a different messiah. They are, at least, consistent even if wrong.

The Better Ministry

Hebrews 8 describes the ministry of Christ and how it differs from the ministry of “high priests who are weak” (Hebrews 7:28). Hebrews 8 focuses upon a ministry under the New Covenant. So Hebrews 8:6 says,

⁶ 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.

When he says, “better promises,” it implies that promises had already been made which were inferior. Those promises are recorded in Exodus 19:8,

⁸ All the people answered together and said, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do!” And Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord.

This promise “of the people” was inferior in that they were incapable of keeping their word, seeing that they had been placed under the sentence of death for Adam’s sin. Death, or mortality, made them as “weak” as their high priests—who had to make sacrifices for themselves before doing so on behalf of the congregation.

The biblical record shows that both Israel and Judah ultimately came under divine judgment, exiling them to foreign lands. Israel was taken to Assyria in 745-721 B.C., and Judah was scattered by the Romans after Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 A.D. Essentially, the Old Covenant failed to save anyone, either personally or nationally. It needed a “better covenant” to succeed.

Hebrews 8:7 says,

⁷ For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.

The author of Hebrews then presents the second covenant prophesied centuries earlier by Jeremiah after it was clear that the first covenant had utterly failed to bring forth the Kingdom of God on earth.

Jeremiah’s New Covenant

Hebrews 8:8 says,

⁸ For finding fault with them [those who had made promises to God], He says, “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.”

The prophet did not intend to limit this New Covenant to biological Israelites and Judahites. It was to be given to the world through Israel and Judah. Yet the Israelites, at least, had already been exiled and stripped of their name Israel. In exile, they were called by various nations Gamira, Gomri, Khumri, and Saka. When Judah was destroyed and the people scattered, the Jews retained their name during their exile, because they still had a visible role to play in the latter days. The fruitless fig tree of Judah had to bring forth more leaves for a season.

Hebrews 8 focuses solely upon Jeremiah, but we know that there were other Scriptures that he might have referenced. For example, Deuteronomy 29:1 records a second covenant that was given at the end of Israel’s 40-year wilderness journey. This was similar to the Abrahamic promise, in that it was the promise of God to men, rather than the promise of men to God.

The people were to gather together and hear God’s promise…

¹² that you may enter into the covenant with the Lord your God and into His oath which the Lord your God is making with you today, ¹³ in order that He may establish you today as His people and that He may be your God, just as He spoke to you and as He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This was God’s oath to them and was therefore a restatement of His promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The promise to Abraham was the New Covenant, which, as we know, actually preceded, by 430 years, the Old Covenant under Moses (Galatians 3:17).

The point is that this second covenant was not limited to those who had gathered to hear God’s oath in person. In Deuteronomy 29:14, 15 God says,

¹⁴ Now not with you alone am I making this covenant and this oath, ¹⁵ but both with those who stand here with us today in the presence of the Lord our God and with those who are not with us here today.

At that moment, mankind was divided into two groups: those physically gathered to God and those who were not there. That means God’s oath applied to everyone in the world, and this is the foundation of the restoration of all things. So this gives us additional information about the scope of the New Covenant, and it is why that covenant is not limited to biological Israelites.

The author of Hebrews continues quoting Jeremiah 31 in Hebrews 8:9-12,

⁹ 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….

Note that the New Covenant is “not like” the Old Covenant which they broke.

¹⁰ For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. 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.

The “meat” here is in the truth that the New Covenant is a better covenant. Instead of writing His laws on tablets of stone, the Spirit of God is writing His laws on our hearts and minds. Note that God did not abolish the law; He internalized it. Hence, it was no longer a matter of the flesh trying to be obedient an external command but was rather the Holy Spirit working within to change our very nature to conform to the image of God.

God’s law is an expression of His nature, and to violate the law is to sin (1 John 3:4). When His laws are fully written on our hearts, we will be sinless. Such teaching is strong meat for a Jew who remains under the Old Covenant, still striving unsuccessfully by the flesh and the will of man to be perfect. But it is also strong meat for many Christians today, especially those who think that their own vow has saved them and who also insist that the law was abolished.

As I have already shown, there was a change in the law, but it was not abolished. The only things abolished were the things that were changed, such as animal sacrifices and the priesthood.

Hebrews 8:11, 12 continues,

¹¹ 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. ¹² For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

This gives us the final outcome of the promise of God: “all will know Me.” I, as a Bible teacher, will be able to retire or to find new duties in a distant age yet to come. The New Covenant will succeed where the Old Covenant has failed. The promise of God will succeed where the promises of men have failed.

In my view, the meat of the word includes the truth that the Old Covenant is based on men’s promises to God, while the New Covenant is based on God’s promise to men. It is clear to me that men’s promises are good, even if they fail, as long as men do not base their salvation on their ability to keep their vows to God. This is the earliest revelation that God gave to me in my youth when, on account of my imperfections, I struggled to have assurance of salvation. He finally had mercy on me and set before me the examples of the missionaries and preachers that I knew, saying, “They are not perfect either.”

This simple word had an enormous impact upon me, and it changed my life forever. Even so, the unraveling of that word took many years. The revelation was incremental, but it was strong meat to me, dispensed a little at a time to prevent choking. I finally think that I am nearly ready for the ministry.