MARGIE LITTELL WITH COLLEEN TINKER
Let’s investigate Jesus’s New Covenant. It is explained so well in the letter to the Hebrews. While we don’t know who wrote Hebrews, we can appreciate the tenderness and kindness with which the author explains the New Covenant.
Ironically, Adventist churches participate in a service that uses the symbols of the new covenant four times a year! Yet in general, Adventists do not experience the finished work of the Lord Jesus of which the symbols of the Lord’s Supper are intended to remind us. In other words, Adventists in general use the symbols of the new covenant without actually having entered it!
Jeremiah foretells the new covenant and tells us it is different from the old covenant given at Mt. Sinai. Here is what he says:
“Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD (Jer. 31:31-32).
So how is this new covenant DIFFERENT? The Old Covenant given at Mt. Sinai to the nation of Israel had these words:
So he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did not eat bread or drink water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments (Exodus 34:28).
We see here that the Ten Commandments were the very words of the old covenant. They cannot be the words of the new covenant because the new covenant is different. It is not the same covenant.
In fact, we learn even more specifically in Hebrews 7 that the old covenant, the “law”, was given to people on the basis of the levitical priesthood. That is very significant; people couldn’t even receive access to the law—to observe it or to claim it as their moral authority—if they were not under the ministration of the levitical priesthood!
In other words, the old covenant could not be separated from all the rituals which the levites had to perform: the sacrifices, the cleansing, the offering of the blood of animals, and so forth. Here is what Hebrews 7:11 says:
Now 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?
Jesus’s new covenant requires new words: new “commandments”. The old words were insufficient for the new covenant because the new covenant was not administered on the basis of the levitical priesthood with its animal sacrifices and rituals. Hebrews 7:12 tells us this fact specifically:
For when the priesthood is changed, of necessity there takes place a change of law also.
In other words, the new covenant comes to us on the basis of a new kind of priesthood: the priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek—the king and priest of Salem in Genesis 14 to whom Abraham paid tithe. He was a priest and king BEFORE there was a nation of Israel—before Sinai—before the law was given! Jesus’s priesthood is not based on the old covenant words. It is in the order of Melchizedek whose priesthood was not based on the law. This new covenant requires new words—new commandments.
Hebrews 10:8–10 explains how Jesus’ personal sacrifice is the basis of the new covenant law:
After saying above, “SACRIFICES AND OFFERINGS AND WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND [sacrifices] FOR SIN YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, NOR HAVE YOU TAKEN PLEASURE [in them]” (which are offered according to the Law), then He said, “BEHOLD, I HAVE COME TO DO YOUR WILL.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second. By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
The New Covenant was ratified by Jesus’s Blood—not by animal blood offered by sinful levitical priests. In fact, Jesus stressed that His own blood is the basis of the new covenant. He made sure that His Jewish disciples—and all of us gentiles who are grafted into God’s promises given to Abraham on the basis of our trusting His descendant, the Lord Jesus—would understand that the new covenant does not have the same commands as the old. Look at these promises God gave us:
And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave [it] to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Mat .26:27-28).
And He said to them, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many” (Mark 14:24)
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” (Luke 22:20).
Hebrews is such a kind and loving letter, and it is written to the same people who wanted the Romans to murder Jesus over issues regarding Mt. Sinai’s Covenant Law. We know their rage was real, and it contained two facts at its core. We find these reasons for their murderous rage in John 5:16–18:
For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.
The context of this verse is Jesus’ healing of the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. He commanded the man to stand up and to carry his pallet and to walk away from the portico where he lay beside the pool.
Jesus actually broke the Sabbath by commanding the man to carry a load—but He did not sin because He was fulfilling the shadow of the Sabbath. He was demonstrating that He was over the Sabbath, and the Sabbath was not an authority over Him. He was the Messiah who had the authority and power to demonstrate His fulfillment of the Sabbath shadow to Israel—and revealing His identity as the Lord over the Sabbath and as God the Son was incontrovertible proof that He was the One whom the prophecies foretold.
The Pharisees were enraged; Jesus’s power and authority threatened them and their clutch on the Jews, and instead of repenting and believing, they wanted Him dead!
The writer of Hebrews wrote just a few years later to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem this reminder of the reality of the new covenant they had entered on the basis of Jesus’ blood. No longer are believers bound to the law of the old covenant that was given with the symbols of God’s judgment: fire, darkness, gloom, and storm. Now they are living on a new mountain with new promises—with no fragile human promises involved but with the promises of God Himself!
For you have not come to [a mountain] that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind, and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which [sound was such that] those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them. For they could not bear the command, “IF EVEN A BEAST TOUCHES THE MOUNTAIN, IT WILL BE STONED.”
And so terrible was the sight, [that] Moses said, “I AM FULL OF FEAR and trembling.” But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of [the] righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than [the blood] of Abel (Heb. 12:18-24).
Notice that last sentence: the blood of Jesus speaks better—it provides better words and better commandments—than did the old covenant! Jesus’s blood is the last word about our sin; when we trust Jesus, we are cleansed from all our sin!
Now God’s own morality and righteousness are credited to us (Phil 3:9). When we are transferred to the kingdom of the Beloved Son (Col 1:13), we are under a completely new system of government. We are now under the new covenant in Jesus’s blood, and we are kept safe in His righteousness on the basis of His better promises and His finished atonement.
If you have not trusted Him, now is the time. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31). †
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