Year 2, Week 49, Day 5 Bible Reading Observations

Year 2, Week 49, Day 5

I have a brief observation for today’s reading of Hebrews 5-8.

Today’s reading covers four additional chapters of Hebrews. The Book of Hebrews does not indicate its human author, but this important Book exhorts believers to not turn from Christ, even as it is filled with reasons for the surpassing worth of Jesus and His superiority to the Old Covenant. Hebrews 5, which begins a focus on the superior priesthood of Jesus: “So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek” (Hebrews 5:5-6). Jesus is a Great High Priest, not after the Levitical priesthood of Aaron, but after Melchizedek, the mysterious King of Salem. Hebrew 6, as well as the last half of chapter 5, interrupts the focus on the superior priesthood of Jesus, and issues the third of the five warnings that run through Hebrews: “Though we speak in this way, yet in your case, beloved, we feel sure of better things—things that belong to salvation” (Hebrew 6:9). Even though the third warning addresses a dull sluggishness toward the Word. In such a condition, they would be unable to understand further truth about Jesus, the writer speaks to them with confidence and endearment. Hebrews 7 resumes the focus on the superior priesthood of Jesus: “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” (Hebrews 7:23-24). After having focused on the superior priesthood of Jesus, Hebrews 8 shifts to a slightly new focus as it begins exploring the superior sacrifice work of Jesus in the heavenly sanctuary: “Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man” (Hebrews 8:1-2).

One of the things that struck me from today’s reading was the superiority of the covenant that Jesus established: “But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second” (Hebrews 8:6-7). The faultiness of the first covenant warranted the need for a second covenant. The first covenant revealed perfection but it was not designed to perfect a people and thus, was unable to accomplish the fullness of relationship that God ultimately desired with His people. The superiority of the new covenant shows the obsolescence of the old covenant: “In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away” (Hebrews 8:13). The two covenants will not legally coexist. The old is going away in light of the arrival of the new covenant. Clearly a change in the course of the things pertaining to redemption has taken place in Christ. It has always been a part of God’s plans to put into place the preparatory, provisional covenant with Israel, commonly known as the Mosaic Covenant. The temporary nature of the Mosaic Covenant is consistent with the testimony of the Old Testament prophets who underscored that God would do something new.

Hebrews 8:8-12 is a full quote of Jeremiah 31:31-34. This quotation, which is the longest single Old Testament quotation found anywhere in the New Testament, is so vital to the writer of Hebrews that he will use a part of it again in Hebrews 10:15-17. In its original context, Jeremiah 31 is in the sections of prophecies that provided hope to Israel while in exile. The Lord would deliver them from their exile and restore them to their homeland. Their mourning would be turned to joy, and instead of sorrow, the Lord would give them gladness and comfort (Jeremiah 31:13). Jeremiah 31:31-34 as it is used in Hebrews 8 contains not only a negative critique of the old covenant, but also the “better promises” contained in the new. The first part of the quote announces a new covenant, “Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (8:8), while also distinguishing it from the old covenant: “not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt” (8:9). Just as the Exodus from Egypt was the foundation of the old covenant, so Christ’s death and exaltation are the foundation of the new covenant. The problem with the old covenant was the people with whom God had entered into the covenant. God found fault with them. While Israel said with their lips, “All the words that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 24:3), they never were loyal from the heart: “For they did not continue in my covenant” (Hebrews 8:9). The instructions: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5-6), were never taken to heart. So, Jeremiah charged, “The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron; with a point of diamond it is engraved on the tablet of their heart” (Jeremiah 17:1). The old covenant demanded heart change, but it was never able to do so.

Hebrews quotes the final parts of Jeremiah 31:31-34 as an explanation of the “better promises.” First, the new covenant provisions include the implantation of God’s law in His peoples’ hearts: “I will put my laws into their minds, and write them on their hearts” (8:10). The internalization of God’s law describes a radically new obedience from the heart that characterizes new covenant people (See also Ezekiel 11:19-20; 36:26-27). Another aspect of the new covenant is the radically new relationship that God’s people will experience with God: “I will be their God, and they shall be my people” (Hebrews 8:10). While this expression runs throughout the Scripture (Exodus 6:7; 29:45; Leviticus 26:12; Deuteronomy 26:17-18; 2 Corinthians 6:16; and Revelation 21:3), the new covenant casts it with not only a deeper level of experiential knowledge but also a broader number within the covenant: “they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.” (Hebrews 8:11). Everyone in the new covenant will truly know and trust the Lord in distinction to the old covenant which was composed of some members who knew about the Lord, but did not truly know Him or His ways.

What struck you in today’s reading? What questions were prompted from today’s reading?

Pastor Joe