Hebrews 8:7-13 (HCSB)
For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion for a second one. But finding fault with His people, He say
Look, the days are coming, says the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah—
not like the covenant
that I made with their ancestors
on the day I took them by their hands
to lead them out of the land of Egypt.
I disregarded them, says the Lord,
because they did not continue in My covenant.
But 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 write them on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be My people.
And each person will not teach his fellow citizen,
and each his brother, saying, “Know the Lord,”
because they will all know Me,
from the least to the greatest of them.
For I will be merciful to their wrongdoing,
and I will never again remember their sins.
By saying, a new covenant, He has declared that the first is old. And what is old and aging is about to disappear.
The writer of Hebrews brings one more conclusive proof to the argument of God forming a new high priesthood through Jesus and establishing a New Covenant with Him as its cornerstone: God’s own word through the prophet Jeremiah (31:31-34).
He begins by pointing out that if the Old Covenant had been perfect, as the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the teachers of the law believed, then a New Covenant would not have been seen as necessary or promised by God. But God did promise a New Covenant, and as part of that promise, He clearly pointed out ways in which the Old Covenant had failed – ways that the New Covenant would fix.
The key failing of the Old Covenant, the reason it had to be replaced by a better one, was that one of the participants to the covenant, the people of Israel, had failed to keep their obligations under it. They had broken it. And not once and lightly, but repeatedly and seriously over the centuries. They had worshiped other gods, engaged in all manner of sinful behavior, represented God badly before the world, and rejected His overarching mission to bless and save the world through them. Instead, they tried to hoard His blessings for themselves.
God showed Jeremiah the New Covenant that He was preparing for the people who would serve Him. This would not be a covenant carved in hard and immutable stone, but engraved onto transformed hearts, so that its requirements would not be forgotten, but internalized, so that those requirements could mold and shape both attitudes and actions. It would not be a covenant limited to a single people group tucked away into a small country. Instead, it would be a covenant that would be embraced by people and people groups all around the world. And it would be able to erase the sins of those who would embrace it, cleansing their souls and transforming their lives, so that they could live forever in God’s presence.
Of course, by establishing a New Covenant, that necessarily meant that the Old Covenant would instantly become obsolete. Thus, the writer argues, it would make absolutely no sense for those who have found salvation under the New Covenant to turn back to the obsolete covenant, which was already aging, and would soon disappear entirely.
Father, sadly it is very much a part of human nature to hold on to the familiar, the comfortable, even when it is entirely outmoded. But Your promise in Your word is not to preserve the old and traditional, but to make all things new (Revelation 21:5). You are not just the God of the past or the present, You are the God of the future as well. Lord, help us not to hold so tightly to the traditions of the past, many of which are outmoded or no longer effective, but keep us in step with the new things that You are doing, with the ways in which You are making all things new right now. Amen.