The New Covenant is Here!—Hebrews 8 | 52

Colleen and Nikki continue their discussion through the book of Hebrews. They talk about the beginning of the New Covenant—it’s really better. Transcription by Gwen Billington.

 

Colleen:  Welcome to Former Adventist podcast.  I’m Colleen Tinker.

Nikki:  And I’m Nikki Stevenson.

Colleen:  Thanks for joining us again as we walk through Hebrews 8 today.  This is the most amazing chapter in Hebrews, where the author clearly explains that Jesus made the Old Covenant obsolete, and there is a new one.  There’s also some interesting stuff that I think has intertwined with our Adventist teaching that we’re going to unpack in the first six verses, where it talks about the copy of the sanctuary that Moses built, the copy of the heavenly.  We learned that in a specific way as Adventists, but it’s not exactly what the Bible says.  So we’re going to look at that.  But before we do, if you have questions or comments, please feel free to write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com.  You can go to proclamationmagazine.com, and you can subscribe to the magazine, you can sign up for the weekly emails, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Instagram, and wherever you listen to podcasts, please write us a review and rate our program, and you can also make donations for Life Assurance Ministries at proclamationmagazine.com.  So, Nikki, before we actually get into Hebrews 8, I want to ask you, how did you understand this business about Moses having a pattern of heavenly things?  How did you understand that?  Because Hebrews 8 actually talks about that, and Adventists use that as proof that there’s a heavenly sanctuary.

Nikki:  Well, you know, before we started this chapter, or preparing for this podcast, I wrote to you and told you I was a little concerned about knowing how to talk about this because I had always understood that Moses had a copy of something real in heaven, of a real, physical place.

Colleen:  Yeah, I did too.

Nikki:  And I knew, when I came to faith and I began to learn Scripture, I understood that we had a very physical understanding of the world and the things of God, and I knew that that wasn’t right, but I didn’t necessarily know what to do with these kinds of verses early on.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  And so I would just sort of go past them and lean on what I did understand and sort of just dismiss the stuff that I wasn’t clear on.

Colleen:  Right.

Nikki:  But I knew when I read this, preparing for the podcast, that this was something I was going to have to really look into and press into because the thing that they succeed at in Adventism is taking truth and redefining it and twisting it into something else.  So because of my past view of this, I was actually a little bit concerned about knowing how to talk about this for the podcast.  These things go deep –

Colleen:  They do.

Nikki:  – and I’ve been out ten years.  And you can know that something you once believed was wrong and still bump into these passages and go, “Wait, but what about that?”  And that was sort of where I was coming into this.

Colleen:  I was the same, although I had somewhat worked it out a little bit more.  But this time, for the first time, I saw in a new way that the patterns that Moses was given were physical patterns for an earthly tabernacle, but what they were representing was not a literal, physical thing in heaven, but actual functions, spiritual functions that Jesus Himself did.  Every piece of those patterns that God gave Moses were shadows of the Lord Jesus and what He would do, and they were spiritual realities.  But before we talk more about that, why don’t we just read those six verses so people can track with us and understand what we’re saying.  Again, you who are listening, I invite you to get out your Bibles and follow along.  We’re reading from the NASB, but any good translation will do, and it will tell you the truth.  Do you mind reading Hebrews 8:1-6?

Nikki:  “Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens, a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.  For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.  Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, ‘See,’ He says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.’  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.”

Colleen:  I think it’s just worth summarizing where we’ve been, because the author starts verse 1 of this chapter by saying – and again, in the original it was not divided into chapters.  This chapter break is artificial, but the words are consistent.  “Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest.”  The main point is the entire summary of what the author has gone through in chapter 7.  So, Nikki, just quickly, kind of thumbnail sketches, what did we learn in chapter 7 about the ministry of Jesus?

Nikki:  Well, He’s a priest after the order of Melchizedek, not after the Levitical priesthood.  And we learned that where there is a change in the priesthood, there is also necessarily a change in the law as well.

Colleen:  A Melchizedekian priest is different from a Levitical priest for a lot of reasons, but one of which is Melchizedek did not come from a tribe.  The Levitical priests had to have a genetic legacy from Aaron’s son Levi in order to serve in the temple.  There was nobody allowed to serve the function of a Levitical priest without a Levitical heritage, and Jesus did not have a Levitical heritage, so He was absolutely unable to do the functions of a Levitical priest because He was of what tribe?

Nikki:  He was the tribe of Judah.

Colleen:  Exactly!  He was from the royal tribe.  And yet here He is as a priest.  That’s the significance of His being in the order of Melchizedek because Melchizedek, who met Abraham, was the king of Salem and a priest of God Most High.  He was a king and priest, and Melchizedek preceded the law.  He was not designated under the law, as the Levitical priests were.  So all of that the author went through in so much detail, and now, in chapter 8, he says, now, remember all that.  The main point of all of this detail is: We have a high priest who has done what, Nikki?

Nikki:  We have a high priest who has sat at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in the heavens.

Colleen:  He has sat down.  And what does being a seated high priest mean?

Nikki:  His work is complete.  His atonement was completed.  And I just want to mention too, when we talk about we have such a high priest, he’s also just described in chapters 5 and 6 that He is a sympathetic high priest and that He is pulling us home.

Colleen:  His work on earth is done.  His atonement is done.  What He is doing now is preserving us and bringing us home and interceding for us, which does not mean applying His blood, as Adventism taught us.  His blood is shed.  His atonement is finished.  He’s not up there tossing His blood around.

Nikki:  And we see that in Hebrews chapter 1, that after making purification for sins He sat down at the right hand of the heavenly Father on high.

Colleen:  Great point.  He’s summarizing everything that’s gone before:  Jesus is greater than everything in the law, every symbol, every priest, every angel, and He has sat down at the throne, the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven, who is God the Father.  And now, in verse 2 he expands even a little bit more about Jesus’ ministry.  He is a true ministry where?

Nikki:  In the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

Colleen:  And right there we come to the first place where Adventism uses Hebrews 8 to prove that there’s a literal building called the tabernacle in heaven.  Did you understand that there was a real, literal building in heaven, Nikki?

Nikki:  I thought there was.  I thought that was what we believed.  I shared with you before, for me so much of what I believed was just gathered by my collection of asking Adventists, “Hey, what do we believe about this, what do we believe about that?”  And I understood that we believed that there was a tabernacle in heaven.

Colleen:  I remember that in my Bible classes that very verse was used to show us that there was a true, literal tabernacle in heaven.  Let’s go on.  Verse 3, “For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices; so it is necessary that this high priest also have something to offer.”  So what’s the comparison being made here?  What is the author saying?  What is he saying about Jesus?

Nikki:  Jesus was offered as our sacrifice.

Colleen:  Every high priest on earth had to offer both gifts and sacrifices.  And why did He have to do that?  Why did the high priest – and the author of Hebrews has explained this in the previous chapter – why did the high priest have to offer sacrifices?  It was not just for the people but also for whom?

Nikki:  For themselves.

Colleen:  Because they were sinners.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  So every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts – you know, Israel had all those gifts.  They had the gifts of first fruits, they had thankfulness gifts, they had gifts and sacrifices that they had to offer, and the high priest had to take sacrifices on behalf of the nation and gifts on behalf of the nation and offer them.  But he also had to offer them on behalf of himself.  “So it is necessary that this high priest” – meaning whom?

Nikki:  Jesus.

Colleen:  – “also have something to offer.”  We know, and even as an Adventist I was told, “Yes, He offered Himself,” so that made sense to me.  But I thought that all of this was relating somehow to a literal building up in the sky somewhere.  Now in verse 4, there was another verse here that caused me some cognitive dissonance.  I was never completely sure how to understand all of this.  Read 4 again, Nikki.

Nikki:  “Now if He were on earth, He would not be a priest at all, since there are those who offer the gifts according to the law.”

Colleen:  Now, what is that saying?  What is the author of Hebrews actually saying there?

Nikki:  Well, they already had a Levitical priesthood.  They didn’t need a new priesthood.  They had someone covering that, and so if Jesus had been here, He wouldn’t have even qualified to be a part of the Levitical priesthood.  There would be no need.

Colleen:  Exactly.  And the Levitical priests offered those gifts.  They had those Levitical priests, but they offered them on what authority?  I find this really interesting, and as an Adventist I never quite wrapped my head around this.  A Levitical priest offered sacrifices and gifts on what basis?

Nikki:  According to the law.

Colleen:  The law dictated what those priests did.  It wasn’t that they were just summarily told to offer gifts.  God gave them the law, and the law dictated what the priests’ job was, and Jesus wouldn’t have even qualified for that if He’d been on earth.  And now in verse 5, what does it say about those Levitical priests?

Nikki:  They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things.

Colleen:  Now, there’s where I got really confused and thoughts, well, you know, the Adventists are probably right.  If those Levitical priests are serving a copy and shadow of heavenly things, then Moses was given a pattern, so there must be a building, and the rest of the verse sort of made me thing, that’s probably true.  So what did the rest of the verse say?

Nikki:  It says, “Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, ‘See,’ He says, ‘that you make all things according to the pattern which was shown you on the mountain.'”

Colleen:  Did you ever read that verse?

Nikki:  I don’t know if I – I’m pretty sure I read Hebrews as an Adventist.

Colleen:  Uh-huh.

Nikki:  I mean, I know I didn’t understand it because if I had, I would have left.  But I know that I did read in the Old Testament, I did read about all of that when I tried to read through the Bible, and all of the very specific details on how it had to be constructed.

Colleen:  And there could be no deviation, even in measurements.

Nikki:  Right.

Colleen:  We all figured that there was a literal building that he was copying.  Here is the next verse, which sort of brings to light something that my Adventist thought never even imagined, and I don’t remember Adventism ever explaining verse 6 to me.  Go ahead and read verse 6, and then we’re going to go back and talk about the implications of thinking there’s a physical building in heaven.  Go ahead and read 6, Nikki.

Nikki:  “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.”

Colleen:  Did you understand that?

Nikki:  [Laughter.]  As an Adventist?

Colleen:  Yeah!

Nikki:  No.

Colleen:  I didn’t either.  It was very confusing to me.  I figured somewhere along the way that better promises must have been Jesus was better than I was, Jesus was better than Israel, but how on earth did I understand Jesus to have a more excellent ministry because He’s a mediator of a better covenant?  I was taught that there’s only one covenant that’s just expressed in different ways.  So it was all very metaphorical, very shadowy, very allegorical, and I just sort of glazed over and didn’t understand that verse at all.  Nikki, when we were talking before, you told me that as you read this you started realizing the implication of the horrendous travesty of the Adventist doctrine that there is a literal sanctuary in heaven when you were reading this.  You went and looked up the fundamental belief on the Investigative Judgment.  Talk about what you saw there.

Nikki:  Well, let me just say, before I looked up the fundamental belief, I remembered we had talked several months back about this moment in 1844 where Jesus allegedly went into the Most Holy Place, and I was thinking about the Adventist teaching on the Investigative Judgment, on the 2300-day prophecy, and it hit me that they placed Jesus on a throne next to the Father in a throne room outside of the Most Holy Place, and I was suddenly struck by the fact that it was not the presence of God that caused the place to be holy to the Adventists, it was the presence of the law.  If you have the Father and the Son anywhere that isn’t considered the Most Holy Place, that means something else is more holy than they are.

Colleen:  That’s a great point.

Nikki:  Ellen White had a vision where she saw – this is in the Great Controversy – she saw the Son sitting on a throne next to the Father, and there were people all around and they were praying.  And suddenly the Father got up and went into the Most Holy Place, and Jesus stood up, and He told the people, “I have to follow my Father.  You stay here.  Keep your garments clean until I come back, and we’ll have the wedding supper.”  And so then Jesus then goes into the Most Holy Place.  That means that they were not in the Most Holy Place beforehand.  So now they’ve deified the law.  And I remember hearing that in pre-creation history they had the Ark of the Covenant, they had the Ten Commandments, and I believe I understand that Satan, Lucifer, was the one who guarded the Ten Commandments.  I might have that wrong, but I think that’s how I understood it.  And so this is an eternal thing that’s just super-holy, I guess.  So up until 1844, it wasn’t the Father and the Son that determined the holiness of a location.  Now, for a Christian, when we think about the Most Holy Place, we think the presence of God, and we understand that when Christ ascended and went to go sit by the Father, He ascended into the Most Holy Place.

Colleen:  You know, that is so interesting, Nikki.  It again takes me back to the prayer garden at Andrews University, that in physical structures has worked out the Adventist view of salvation, where you go down the seven steps of creation, and mind you there are only six days of creation, but they have the seven because they have to have the Sabbath being created in there.  You go to the cross, you see above the cross, “I will come again,” and then reflected in the granite stone behind the cross you see the law, and you turn, and you walk across the garden, and mind you, that path is walking on a cement cross embedded in the floor of that garden, and as you walk on it, the cross is upside down, and you walk straight into a large Ten Commandments, and the garden legend says that is the heart of God.  You walk into the heart of God in the Ten Commandments.  That’s where you find God.  So, in fact, in Adventist belief the Ten Commandments is the ultimate holiness.  God is not the ultimate holiness, Jesus is not the ultimate holiness.  As we talked about this before this podcast, Nikki, we both found ourselves becoming so outraged at what Adventism has done to Jesus!

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  Now, here’s the deal, this cannot be talking about a physical tabernacle like Adventism says it is because everything about the tabernacle system that God gave Moses, that Israel performed, was representing Jesus Himself and the spiritual functions His life, death, burial, and resurrection accomplished.  There was nothing about it that was foreshadowing something physical.  It was foreshadowing atonement, reconciliation, the curse of sin, the destruction of sin by the death of Jesus, justification of all who believe, resurrection life, as we believe and are given resurrection life in our literal spirits, which are born dead.  Everything that this represented is spiritual, and on top of that Jesus said, in John 4:24 and 25, “God is spirit.”  God, who is spirit, does not have a physical sanctuary.  And I looked up in the book Seventh-day Adventists Believe, which is an explanation of all of their 28 fundamental beliefs, and in the chapter on the Investigative Judgment, it had some really interesting statements that relate to this.  One of the things is found on page 353, and it says, “It is clear therefore that the Scriptures present the heavenly sanctuary as a real place” – and they quote Hebrews 8:2, they refer us to Hebrews 8:2 – “not a metaphor or abstraction.  The heavenly sanctuary is the primary dwelling place of God.”  You know, that could not be more wrong.  When Solomon dedicated the temple, we have it in 1 Kings 8:27 and 2 Chronicles 6:18, and it says, “God cannot be contained in a sanctuary or a building,” and then two other brief comments that on this side of things I am so horrified at what they said, This book also says that in heaven, in the heavenly sanctuary, it says, “Jesus, no longer the Lamb, ministers as a priest.”  Well, in Revelation John sees the Lamb bearing the marks of slaughter sitting on the throne.  Jesus will always be the Lamb that was slain.  He is slain from the foundation of the world.  And for them to say He’s no longer the Lamb is to actually discredit what the Bible itself says.  And then, one more thing, it also says, “The Levitical priesthood illustrates the saving ministry Christ has carried on since His death.  Our high priest serving at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven functions as a minister of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected and not man.”  The Levitical priesthood is not the example of Jesus’ ministry.  I can’t even imagine that Adventists have used that idea and used Hebrews 8 as an explanation for this idea because Hebrews 5, 6, and 7 make a very big deal about the fact that Jesus is not a Levitical priest, and He’s of the order of Melchizedek, and this chapter does not even mention that.  They compare Him to the Levitical priest, and that’s why all their books have Him dressed like a Levitical priest.  This is not the biblical Jesus.

Nikki:  No.  Nor is a biblical mission that they’ve given Him.

Colleen:  No.

Nikki:  And I would just like to add, if you’re listening and you don’t have an Adventist background, please lean into this podcast because this right here is the seat of Adventism.  This is what causes it to exist at all, and they’ll admit to you that their sanctuary doctrine is what holds them together.  It was the saving face of their failed date-setting, and it is everything to them.  It’s what makes them unique, and it’s also what alters so much about who they say God is, who man is, and what the purpose of all of this is.  While it might sound confusing to people who don’t understand this, really, please pay attention, because they want you to believe that they’re just like you, they just have a few differences, and the differences, though they’re veiled in Christian language and they’re “supported” – air quotes – with Scripture, they’re actually really dark, and you need to see them.  One of the examples they do this is they will say, “Oh, I believe that Jesus died for my sins,” and I did that as well.  I would say, “He died on the cross.”  If someone said, “What was the gospel?”  “He died on the cross to save me from my sins.”  And that would sound very Christian to somebody without a trained ear or someone who didn’t understand an Adventist background.  But what I understood that to mean is that He did phase 1.

Colleen:  Yes!

Nikki:  He came, He was the sacrifice, and now in phase 2 He ascends, and He goes up and He starts applying blood to heaven.  I’m not going to give that backstory to a Christian.  I’m not going to explain all that because as an Adventist I don’t even understand that that’s all that different from what they believe.  So I’m going to sound Christian.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  I’m going to sound like I understand the gospel, but there’s this whole second phase to His ministry that is – it’s anti-scriptural, it’s not real.  Fundamental belief #24 says, “In 1844 at the end of the prophetic period of 2300 days” – that’s referring to Daniel – “He entered the second and last phase of His atoning ministry.”  You hear that’s the second and last phase.  There’s no “It is finished” in Adventism.

Colleen:  That’s right.

Nikki:  There is more to do.

Colleen:  And it also is really important to notice that what this means – and any Adventist will tell you – they cannotknow for sure that they’re saved until Jesus comes again because the judgment isn’t until He comes again.  Jesus’ atonement in Adventism was not completed at the cross.  They will say, “Oh, His sacrifice was completed, His sacrifice was sufficient,” but they will say He is continuing the atonement in heaven.  They completely redefine His intercession in heaven and say that He’s up there applying His blood to confessed sins.  No!  When people trust Him, He justifies them, makes them new, gives them a new birth, indwells them with the Holy Spirit, and they are counted righteous, hidden with Christ in God, but in Adventism that’s not the case.  Because they have a physical worldview, they don’tunderstand that people are born with spirits that are dead in sin and need to be brought to life.  They believe that sin is ultimately physical and decisional, mental, and genetic, and they do not understand that they need to be spiritually reborn.  So their atonement is ongoing, and Nikki, just talk a little bit about the horrific ending to this doctrine, at the end of this horrible judgment.  What happens?

Nikki:  Oh, this is so terrible.  So you have this false ministry, this fake tabernacle, and it’s bookended.  On the one hand you have failed date-setting, which Ellen White blamed God for, and then on the other end you have Satan as the final sin-bearer for “true Christians.”  So all of these sins are now placed on this scapegoat, they’re placed on Satan, who bears away our sins.  Jesus was just transporting them to a different location ultimately.  I mean, I didn’t understand that as an Adventist, but that is what the doctrine teaches, and Adventists need to know that.  If you don’t know that about Adventism, you need to know that that is the church that you’re supporting.  You need to look into that because that’s dark heresy.

Colleen:  Satan never, ever bears any part of human sin.  We bear our own sin or Jesus bears our sin.  Satan is notpunished for our sin.  He’s not punished as the cause of our sin.  He is punished for his own sin.  And we’re not told Satan’s story.  We just know that the Bible says that the Lake of Fire was prepared for the devil and his angels.  But Adventism says that Jesus, our Lord Jesus, places the sins of the saved on Satan, who bears them into the Lake of Fire, where he is punished for causing them, and some of Ellen White’s quotes actually say he is punished for them.  This is satanic heresy, and you need to see that.

Nikki:  And can I just say, I have had conversations with Adventists who have said, “Look, I’m not a bad person.  I’ve kept the commandments.  I live a good life.  I’m responsible.”  And I know as an Adventist I believed that anytime that I sinned it was because I was being deceived by Satan, he was influencing me, and what I want you to know is that Adventist doctrine allows you to roll off the responsibility of your sin onto Satan, and you need to know, we are born depraved, we’re born in sin, by nature objects of wrath, not because of anything that we’ve done, because of what we are, and because of what we are, we do bad things.  Even the things we don’t think are bad are often sin.  And we are responsible for that.  That is not on Satan, that is on us, and that’s why we need a Savior.

Colleen:  That’s why we need a Savior who had no sin, who was born spiritually alive and never had to be born again, a Savior who took the punishment, not just a representative punishment, but He took the punishment for the sins of all of us, and He was separated from the Father as the thing that God hated before He died in our place.  But then His sacrifice was sufficient, and He rose from death, evidence that His sacrifice was sufficient, and we can now freely approach the Father in repentance and in joyful worship because that veil was torn, and His blood is our new and living way.  Satan is not in the picture of our ultimate salvation anywhere.

Nikki:  No, he’s not.  And like we’ve already read in Hebrews, we can come into the throne room boldly, and you need to know, if you don’t know already, that throne room is the Holy of Holies.  It is the Most Holy Place, because that is where God is.

Colleen:  Why don’t we go through the rest of the chapter of Hebrews 8.  This is the most exciting thing, which I simply couldn’t see as an Adventist, even though I know I read it.  But what this is saying is amazing.  And let me just say, before we read verses 7 through 13, the author of Hebrews spends most of this time literally quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34, where God gave Jeremiah a prophecy, a prophecy of a New Covenant which He was establishing with His people.  And here we see in Hebrews 8 that God faithfully is keeping His promise, His unconditional covenant which He declared to Jeremiah all those hundreds of years before, who was one of the exiles during the Babylonian exile.  They were all separated from each other, separated from the land of Israel, and God said, “I am making a New Covenant,” and here the author quotes that.  So let’s read it.  It’s an amazing promise.

Nikki:  “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.  For finding fault with them, 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; 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 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.’  When He said, ‘A New Covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.  But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”

Colleen:  How amazing.  Let’s look at this verse by verse.  In verse 7 it says “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion sought for a second.”  So when he says that “first covenant,” he’s referring to something that he knows his readers will understand.  What has he just been describing in those first six verses?

Nikki:  He’s been talking about the priesthood.  He’s been talking about the Levitical priesthood and the priestly work of Christ.  So he clearly has the Mosaic covenant in mind.

Colleen:  Exactly.  And we learned in Hebrews 7 that the Mosaic covenant was based on the Levitical priesthood, that if the Levites are priests, then the law that goes with that is the Mosaic Law, but if there’s a new priesthood, there’s a new law.  In this chapter he is contrasting the first covenant, the Mosaic covenant, with its priesthood, with a NewCovenant, with a new priesthood.  It actually says something really amazing that as an Adventist I just didn’t know what to do with, so I just kind of went past it.  What does he say about the first covenant in verse 7?

Nikki:  He says that it’s not faultless.

Colleen:  If it had been faultless, there wouldn’t have been a need for a New Covenant, but we all know, now that we’re looking at Scripture with open eyes, there is a different covenant.  So he’s clearly saying that the law God gave to Israel had faults.  There was something wrong with that first covenant, with that Mosaic covenant.  And then in 8 we find a little bit more specifically how that fault is defined.  What does it say here, for finding fault with whom?

Nikki:  Israel.

Colleen:  You know, this reminds me of Romans 8 – is it 2, Nikki?

Nikki:  It says, “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”  That’s in the first part of Romans chapter 8.  Yeah, I was thinking that too.  The law was perfect, but it was weakened by the flesh, and the fault he’s finding is with the flesh, for finding fault with them.

Colleen:  It wasn’t that they didn’t try hard enough.  Maybe they didn’t, but that isn’t the point.  Because there were people in the Old Covenant who loved and honored God: Moses, Daniel, David.  There were many, but still, finding fault with them, their flesh was weak.  Their flesh was sinful.  Their spirits were sinful.  Their spirits were not alive with the new birth, so they couldn’t keep God’s law the way it was intended to be kept.  So knowing that, knowing that that first covenant had flaws, the first covenant was never intended to make these people holy.  It was intended to point out their sin and to give them a shadow of the atonement that he was going to provide for them in Jesus.  And “finding fault with them, He said” – and here comes the beginning of his quote of God’s New Covenant promise, His unconditional promise.  What does this first verse of the New Covenant promise say?  God says, “days are coming when I will do” what?

Nikki:  “When I will effect a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”

Colleen:  In its first iteration, when God gave this promise to Jeremiah, who were the recipients of this promise?

Nikki:  It was Israel and the house of Judah.

Colleen:  And it’s interesting because when God gave this promise to Jeremiah, Judah was exiled, they weren’t in their homeland, there was no temple, they were subjects of Babylon, and Israel had all but disappeared.  The northern ten tribes had disappeared into the Assyrian exile years before.  And they’ve never been regathered, but here God promises, “I will effect a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”  And then what does He say about it in verse 9?  He’s very specific.  This really puts the lie to what we learned as Adventists.

Nikki:  He says it’s “not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand” –

Colleen:  Yeah!

Nikki:  – “to lead them out of the land of Egypt.”  This is not like the Mosaic covenant.  This is like something else.  [Laughter.]  This is new.

Colleen:  It’s something new.  [Laughter.]

Nikki:  And as an Adventist, I thought it was exactly like the Mosaic covenant, it was enhancing it, it was –

Colleen:  That’s what I thought.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  And the Mosaic covenant included God saying, “I will bless you for obedience, and I will curse you for disobedience,” and all the Israelites said what?

Nikki:  “All that you say, we will do.”

Colleen:  And that’s what I thought it was always like.  I really believed that even whatever the New Covenant was, it was just a restatement of the covenant Israel had and that I had to obey and that if I didn’t, I would be cursed.  So I believed I had to keep the Sabbath, I believed I had to guard those edges, I believed I really needed to give up meat, but for sure never let pork pass my lips.  I believed all those rules I was taught and that that was my part in keeping the covenant.  But this says it’s not like that.

Nikki:  Yeah.

Colleen:  It’s not like that at all.

Nikki:  And if you’ve been following along with our study in the covenants, you’ve heard us talk about conditional and unconditional covenants, and just reading through this quote, there are no conditions here.

Colleen:  None.  He’s talking, in fact, to Jeremiah when Israel is being punished for severe apostasy.  They went into Babylonian captivity only after years and years of failing to honor God and of even offering their children to Chemosh. They had been in unbelievable apostasy.  And while they’re being punished for that, God makes this promise.  It’s an amazing thing.  It’s unconditional.  And He says, “They did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says the Lord.”  In other words, He stopped sending them the blessings they had come to depend on.  You know, as they were wandering in the wilderness, they received manna.  They received manna for 40 years, until they harvested the first crop in the Promised Land.  Their shoes did not wear out in the wilderness.  He fought their enemies, He defeated their enemies, one nation at a time, He took care of them, He brought them into the land, He blessed their crops, and He did what He had said in His covenant:  He would send them rain, He would cause their flocks to be fertile, He would expand them.  But if they disobeyed, they would have drought, they would have no crops.  And finally their apostasy became so severe that He stopped providing what they needed.  He didn’t stop loving them.  We find that very clearly in Romans 9 through 11.  And we see that even here, while they’re being punished for the most incredible apostasy you can imagine, He’s saying, “I am making a New Covenant,” one that doesn’t depend on their intentions and promises.  And then in verse 10 He explains this covenant a little bit more.  What does He say this New Covenant will look like? What will He do?

Nikki:   He said, “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.'”  So it’s completely different.

Colleen:  He unilaterally is doing this.  He is going to do this.  So when it says, “I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts,” that’s an interesting phrase because it’s two things.  “Minds” imply cognition and knowledge, and “hearts” suggest emotion and commitment.  He’s saying He will put His laws into their minds and hearts.  How do you understand that, Nikki?  As an Adventist what did you think that meant?

Nikki:  Well, I thought that meant the Decalogue.  I mean, whenever I read “law,” I thought “Decalogue.”  Whenever I read “commandment,” I thought “Decalogue.”  Actually, as a parent it makes me think about my kids, watching them grow up, and we will have a set of rules that they’ll keep, with all kinds of questions about why we have the rules.  They don’t understand them, it’s a nuisance, it’s frustrating to them.  And as they get older and they begin to understand the purpose behind them, we see them owning some of those things that are important to us, and I’m not saying how God does this, but it’s what it makes me think about, the change in me, going from what I was supposed to do, a checklist, and when I was born again, that’s all I want to do, I just want to please the Lord.

Colleen:  And it’s interesting too that this never says, “I will put the law, the Torah, into their hearts.”

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  His laws are much more than the Torah, much more than the Decalogue.  And what He’s not articulating to Jeremiah, because Jeremiah was in the Old Covenant, but what we know on this side of the cross, God puts His laws into our minds and hearts by giving us new minds and hearts when we trust Jesus.  He literally brings us to life spiritually, and He literally indwells us so that the lawgiver Himself is in us, not just an external list of rules.  As an Adventist, I didn’t have any way to understand that.  I only thought, “Okay, He’s making us convinced of the Decalogue so that we just do it without thinking.”  No!  He Himself is in us, the lawgiver is giving us the will of God in our heart.  And I think it’s also interesting that when He says He will write His laws on our hearts, He will be what?

Nikki:  “And I will be their God.”

Colleen:  “And they will be” –

Nikki:  “My people.”

Colleen:  And this is something that is beyond keeping a law and minding the minutia.  This is something that happens because He Himself gives us Himself.  We know that now.  It’s a new promise that did not explain the Mosaic covenant.  And then in 11 what does He say?

Nikki:  “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.”

Colleen:  Now, as a Christian in the New Covenant, Nikki, how do you understand this now?

Nikki:  The way I understand it is that this is applied to those who are in the New Covenant.  This is not all humanity.  I’ve heard people say, you know, “I have my own relationship with God, don’t talk to me about your God of the Bible.”  I don’t think that’s what this is.  This is not universalism.  This is those who are inside His New Covenant will know Him, and we know Him through the new birth.  People can question my salvation, but I know my God, and my God knows me.  That is something that cannot be taken from us.  And it also does away with the hierarchy within various priestly orders that claim to be Christian.  There is no pope, there is no priest that I have to go through to mediate between me and God.  That’s done away with.  I go directly to God, to the throne room, as we have read in Hebrews, because I am His, and like He says, “They shall be my people,” so He will be our God.  He gives Himself to us, but He also takes us for His possession.

Colleen:  And then in verse 12, “I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.”  This is stated in the Old Testament as a promise.  Tell me what that means to you on this side of the cross, Nikki.

Nikki:  This is just showing that when we’re in this New Covenant, we’re in this new relationship with Him, He has forgiven our sins.  It says that He’s separated them as far as the east is from the west.

Colleen:  Um-hmm.

Nikki:  He’s still omniscient, but He chooses not to hold our sins against us, and He’s merciful to us.

Colleen:  Now, I think it’s worth mentioning at this point, this is a promise that God made to Israel, to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah, but in His amazing grace, God has revealed that this promise applies to Gentiles who believe as well.

Nikki:  Um-hmm.

Colleen:  That was always promised.  The Old Testament also promised that Gentiles would come to know Him.  But it wasn’t until Jesus ascended, poured out the Holy Spirit, and the gospel was taken to the Gentiles through the Apostle Paul that we understood more fully how Gentiles who believe in Jesus are grafted in to this covenant.  Romans 9 through 11 is quite explicit in talking about how God has not forgotten His people Israel, He will keep His promises to them, but the unnatural branches have been grafted in to the olive tree of God’s purposes, and we who believe partake of this promise, even ahead of the fullness of Israel.  It’s an amazing thing that God has done.  So while this is a promise to Israel that will be kept on their behalf, as we learn from Paul, this is something that applies to all who believe, and this is also explained in more detail in the book of Galatians and in Ephesians.  It is Jesus who destroyed that wall of hostility, which was the law, that divided Jews and Gentiles, and now Jesus is the way we’re reconciled to God.  There’s nothing between us and God because of Jesus, and when we trust Him, these promises of the New Covenant become ours in Him.  So then we have this last verse of the chapter, which is so clear and so amazing, and I have no clue how I dealt with this an Adventist because I don’t remember.  [Laughter.]  Could you read it, Nikki?

Nikki:  Um-hmm.  “When He said, ‘A New Covenant,’ He has made the first obsolete.  But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”

Colleen:  Here he is saying that when God said He would give a New Covenant, He’s made the first one obsolete.  And I wondered for a long time what that last sentence meant, “Whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.”  Do you have any idea what he meant by that, Nikki?

Nikki:  Well, it seems to me that it’s explaining what happens to the things that are becoming obsolete.  In the sentence before that, he says that He has made the first obsolete.  It doesn’t say that it is becoming obsolete.  So He has made it obsolete; therefore, it is ready to disappear.

Colleen:  It’s important, I think, to remember – it’s helped me understand this – to remember that the author is writing to believing Jews before the destruction of Jerusalem.  The temple – although the curtain was ripped, the temple was still standing, and Levitical priests – well, they might not have all been Levitical at that point, because the priesthood had been so corrupted by first century – but priests were still offering sacrifices, and all of the feast days were being observed, but Jesus had already come, and that veil had been ripped.  So he is reminding his audience that it’s obsolete, Jesus has come, Jesus has finished His work, and all the symbols of the Old Covenant that were still physically in place were about to disappear, and they did disappear in AD 70 when Titus destroyed Jerusalem.  The temple was totallydestroyed.  The fires were so hot the gold on the inside of the temple ran down the rocks, and it was gone.  There has not been a temple for Judaism since AD 70, and we’re left with Jesus alone.

Nikki:  So, I remember when I first read this, just after leaving Adventism, I was so excited, because I had heard that we were in a New Covenant and the first one had passed away, and you know, it’s one thing to hear people tell you that, it’s another thing to see it in the Bible, and so when I got to this part, I was so eager to read chapter 9, and I really hope the listeners will follow us to chapter 9 because one of the arguments that was made very often, when I would have these conversations with the Adventist people that I was trying to talk to, trying to show what I understood to be true, they would say, “Well, the Old Covenant, you can kind of cut it up into pieces, and you did have stuff that was made obsolete.  Some of the stuff really was, you know, nailed to the cross, but some of it wasn’t.  The Decalogue wasn’t because the Decalogue was inside the ark, and there were all of these other things outside of the ark, those were the ones that were made obsolete.”  And so that was the Adventist worldview, and I kind of had that in the back of my head as read this.  But Hebrews chapter 9 is going to destroy that argument.  I love Hebrews.

Colleen:  I do too.  Do I have a favorite book?  I’m not sure, but Hebrews would be in the running.

Nikki:  Hebrews broke a lot of shackles for me.

Colleen:  It did for me too.  Well, if you have not understood and trusted Jesus’ finished work and understood that He really has instituted a New Covenant, that His resurrection life gives our spirits, which are dead in sin by nature, new life when we trust Him, that His blood has covered our sins and opened a new and living way to the Father, if you have not trusted Him, we ask you to really seriously consider that.  Think of what He did, admit that you’re a sinner that cannot save yourself and you need Him.  Trust Him, and let Him be the new and living way, His blood, His sacrifice, His life be your sacrifice and life, and your assurance of salvation.  So thank you for sticking with us through Hebrews 8.  Join us again next week when we start talking about Hebrews 9.  It is interesting that Hebrews 9 is the chapter that convinced Desmond Ford there was no Investigative Judgment.  So stick with us, follow along, and thanks for coming on this journey with us through Hebrews.

Nikki:  Bye.