Hebrews - Part 21 Out With The Old (Hebrews 8:6-13)

We have been discussing the supremacy of Jesus Christ for months now, and Jesus Christ's supremacy has been clearly stated to us in a number of different analogies, one of them being that he is better than angels. One of the ways he was compared was that he's the greater Moses, Moses being the great prophet of the Old Testament, Jesus surpassing Moses. The next way we noticed most clearly was that Jesus is a high priest, And he's a high priest of a completely different order than the Levitical priests.

And this is really important to understanding God's covenants. And so now we have this first century group of Christians, real believers, who didn't have the book of Hebrews. All right, so you have to assume that there was some point in time that the book of Hebrews hadn't been written. And there were people who were not recognizing the things that God had embedded into history since the beginning of time.

They were not understanding how all these things were playing out. and God gave us the book of Hebrews as a correction to some errors that those people were making, but also then to us so that we might understand better. And so although you don't have to become a Jew to become a Christian, there is usefulness in understanding the Levitical priesthood and the old covenant and the covenants in order to understand your position as a Christian. So let's read from chapter eight.

And then there's, I'm going to start in verse six. there's more than we can get through in one session here from 6 to 13, but it also comes together. So we'll probably take more than one session to look at it. My guess would be two, but I'm going to leave that open to where the Lord leads. But first, let me read from the Legacy Standard Bible, which forgive me if that's bothering you.

I keep changing versions. I do think I'm starting to become more comfortable with the Legacy Standard Bible as my normal Bible. And the only reason I think I hadn't is I really haven't been reading it very much. I still would read the ESV. And so I think I need to just dig into the LSB a lot more and try to get my mind off some of the stuff I've memorized in ESV.

But let's start in verse six. but now he that's jesus christ has obtained a more excellent ministry it says and it says by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant which has been enacted on better promises for if that first covenant had been faultless there would have been no occasion sought for a second. Now here's the large Old Testament quote from Jeremiah. For finding fault with them, he says, behold, days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete 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 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 upon their hearts I will write them. 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. So this is the argument, the end of the argument. hear about Jesus and the new covenant.

And then when you see this is actually a really good chapter break, verse nine, or verse one, chapter nine, it's going to go into describing some of the details a little bit. And so what we have to ask ourselves is a few questions that will help us understand really what kind of Christian we are, what kind of Baptist we are. One of the questions we have to ask ourselves is how many covenants are in view here and the reason we have to ask that question is that there are christians who believe there's only one covenant here and it was simply administered two different ways there are christians who believe that there was more than one covenant and that the new covenant is a distinct one is that the house of God is that the house of God is the one who gives us the promises that we promised and that it has distinct promises and not only a distinct administration of a covenant but it is a distinct covenant itself.

Answering that question will help you decide whether you're Presbyterian or Baptist. Avoiding the question altogether probably means you're an independent fundamental Baptist. And that's not where we are here. So we won't get into that. But so let's look at the text here in verse six. And there's really a main argument here.

The main argument is Jesus, the different kind of high priest than the Levitical priests. and in fact he's a better one so let's take a look at the differences in the covenants that's that's what i see is the argument here so verse six he says but now he has obtained this is jesus a more excellent ministry so jesus has obtained a better ministry than those of the Levitical priests. So the Levitical priests were ministers for the people to God. The Levitical priests brought gifts and sacrifices to God on behalf of the people.

The Levitical priests were a set-apart group of people to act as mediators between God and man. A mediator is a person that goes in between two other parties, at least two other parties, two or more parties, and mediates the discussion between them. He's the one that makes it so that the people on either side are able to talk to one another. So, for example, when people go to divorce, they oftentimes will go to mediation. when people go to buy a company from someone else, they go to mediation.

The idea of mediation is, I cannot sit down with that person directly for whatever reason and have the discussion that needs to be had and make the agreement that needs to be had. That person and I are so altogether different in some way that we need somebody to go between us who can interpret the things that one or the other of us says and then bring that interpretation to the other side and if need be soften the blow appropriately things like that in the case of God God is holy and we are unholy God is just and we are wicked and so for us to approach God it had to be mediated that means we cannot come immediately to God it must be mediated it's it's not a word we use a lot although we use the word immediate and immediately but we don't think of it I don't think as uh as the word mediate with a prefix. And so I'm just, I'm belaboring that point because it's really the key to the whole thing is that we need a mediator.

We need somebody to go between us and God. And in the old covenant, the Levitical priests performed that function as appointed by God, and they did it well. Oftentimes they didn't, but there were Levitical priests who were doing things they were reading in the scripture that they were supposed to do. This wasn't a function of people didn't do the job.

This was a function of that job wasn't intended to accomplish what salvation was intended to accomplish through Christ. So back to verse six, he says, he's 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. So the first thing I notice here is that the writer says his more excellent ministry is by as much as he is also the mediator of a better covenant.

And so we have this picture already that Jesus is the high priest who has gone into the heavens. He's exalted above the heavens. His priesthood stands as the result of his indestructible life rather than just some announcement in the earthly realm. And so his covenant that he mediates is as different and better than the covenant mediated by the old covenant priests. and so the first thing i want you to notice is this language really i don't believe leaves room for one covenant being managed two different ways okay so just the presbyterian view of things to really simplify it so if there's a presbyterian that listens it's really simplified but the presbyterian view of things is that the old covenant that moses was given when they left Egypt and he gave it to the people, that old covenant was the covenant of grace and that it was administered through the Levitical priesthood and through the law.

And in the new covenant, that's the covenant of grace, but it's being administered in a different or better way I reject that notion I will teach you that the covenant that was given to Moses in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant, is in fact a separate and distinct covenant in its substance or essence than the covenant of grace. It's not simply a different way to administer the same one. and I believe you can see that from this chapter. So he's the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

So the promises are part of the point of the covenant. So you have a covenant, you have two or more parties, there's some agreement, and on each side of that agreement, there are whatever expectations have been made. And then as the result of those expectations being met, there are promises or consequences that will be meted out. So you can have a covenant that is super one-sided, where only one side makes a promise and the other side doesn't even have to do anything.

You can also have a covenant where both sides make a promise. If you think of the word covenant a little more simply in our terms as a contract, right? I'm going to paint your house and you're going to pay me $1,200. Well, if I don't paint your house, I don't get my $1,200. If I do paint your house, you owe me the $1,200. It's really kind of that simple when you break it down real small.

And so Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant that's enacted on better promises. Now, we're going to read about these promises in in verses 8 to 12 and we'll see why they're so much better but we're not going to maybe deal with those quite so detailed today so now he says in verse 7 if the first covenant sure sounds like there's more than one if the first covenant had been faultless there would have been no occasion sought for a second. So the first covenant itself was itself not perfect.

The covenant was unable to help the people to live out what the commands of it were. There was nothing in the old covenant that actually gave people the strength of the power or really even the motivation to fulfill it. And so let's turn to Exodus 19. And I want to look at what was said here and what the people at that time said. because while we are baptists and we believe that there's an old covenant and a new covenant and those are two different things so when we say it we mean two different things when presbyterians say it they mean the same thing when some old guys that say they're baptists say it, you got to really read to figure out what they meant by it.

There's some people who I think could have more clearly communicated what they thought of these covenants at times. And we have the benefit of hundreds of years of reading about it and seeing the debates. So I understand that, you know, there's probably things we say today that sound very normal to us. And someday people looking back on what we're saying, they might think, well, why didn't they make a clearer distinction about that?

Well, it wasn't our issue, right? But look at chapter 19 of Exodus with me. In the third month, after the sons of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on this day, they came into the wilderness of Sinai. Okay, so remember in the promise from Jeremiah that was quoted in Hebrews, he's saying, I will make a new covenant with you that is not like the covenant I made with your fathers when I led them out of the land of Egypt.

So we're not talking about the covenant of works that Adam had in the garden. When he says he's making a new covenant, he's not referring back all the way to before the Exodus. So you can't make that argument you and so the idea here is is you have to find a covenant that god made with people around when he took him out of egypt that we can actually say he's comparing things to now when he says on that day i i don't think he means you know on the exact day of the that day he made a covenant i think it's talking about It was in that time there was a covenant made with these people.

He says, then they set out from Rephidim and came to the wilderness of Sinai and camped in the wilderness. And there Israel camped in front of the mountain. OK, so now this mountain, of course, is where the law is going to be given. now listen now moses went up to god and yahweh called to him from the mountain saying thus you shall say to the house of jacob and tell the sons of israel you yourselves have seen what i did to the egyptians and how i lifted you up on eagle's wings and brought you to myself so he reminds them of what he did to overpower and overcome their slave keepers.

And how he delivered them from the slavery that they were in that they were crying out for help from In verse 5 he says so now then if you will indeed listen to my voice and keep my covenant Then you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples. For all the earth is mine. So now he tells them, if. If you will listen to my voice. basically read my word and and when we tell someone you know to listen what we mean is obey he says if you'll listen to my voice and keep my covenant so if they're to keep the statutes of god they're to observe what god promises that he's going to do based on their actions And so you can read through really this whole last first five books of the Bible and you can see the various rules God gives and then the consequences for those rules.

You can see the blessings and curses promised that are based upon Israel's performance. He says, if you do those things in verse five, then you shall be my treasured possession among all the peoples for all the earth is mine. Now, what you can't miss here is that although this covenant is not the covenant of grace, the ones that the covenant that we believe we're in, this covenant that I will argue is a covenant of works.

It is a covenant of works, a covenant where you work and then you earn a reward. This covenant of work, though, is typical of the type of covenant of works that Christ would fulfill for us. So the promises that are given as the result are going to be typified or typical of the promises that we receive in the covenant of grace because Christ earned those promises for all those in the covenant of grace. and so this isn't like a this is where it gets hard the covenant is not so different that we're talking about here that it's like that's black and blue and the one we have is green and yellow they are utterly similar and it's for a reason and the reason is that the promises that Israel had made to them are the things that Jesus earned for his people and for himself because Jesus actually kept the covenant.

So there is continuity and there's discontinuity. There's a ditch on either side of the road. I hate to belabor some of these points, but I feel like it needs to be clear. If you believe the covenants are so utterly continual that there's no distinction between them, well, now you're Presbyterian. And then you're going to have to make up reasons why you want to sprinkle babies and have people in your covenant that aren't believers and things like that.

But if you separate them too much, if you make the error of suddenly having like two scriptures, and that's really the error of dispensationalism and the the modern regular Baptist kind of movement deal is that the covenant that's been made with Israel is so unrelated to the new covenant that they don't see it, you know, really the fulfillment of it. And now there's going to be people in different levels of that spectrum. So God says, you shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, verse six.

He says, these are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. When he says you shall be a kingdom of priests in a holy nation, your mind should go to first Peter, where Peter says, but you are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a chosen race of people for my own possession called out to proclaim my marvelousness basically to everyone. so when you read that the church is a holy nation the church is a royal priesthood a kingdom of priests a royal priesthood is another way of saying kingdom of priests when you read that in first peter your mind should be able to see oh this is god's way of saying the promises of this covenant were earned some other way apparently because they weren't earned by the Israelites. But these types of promises were also the ones that Jesus earned.

And so you can see how someone could start to think, well, maybe it's just one covenant. Maybe Jesus, you know, maybe it's just one thing. It's not, but I can see how it could be confusing sometimes. So Moses came and called the elders of the people, verse seven, and set before them all these words which Yahweh had commanded him and all the people answered together one of the this is one of the best best moments in history here this may have been israel's pinnacle okay and they said all that yahweh has spoken we will do well i think we know how that ends all right this was their best moment All right.

Proclaiming I'm going to do it was was their shining moment, because as we know, Israel failed to keep the commandments. Peter failed to keep his resolution, right? That, oh, even if all will leave you, Lord, I won't. I mean, the Old Testament says the shepherd will be stricken and the sheep will scatter. and Jesus quotes it and Peter says, nah, not me.

We have a lot of people. out of resolve sometimes. And I think having resolve is good. And I think if you're a man, you need to have a lot more resolve than most of us have learned to have. Maybe some of you are really good at this already. But we live in a culture where we're just taught not to have any. Where any confidence whatsoever is seen as some kind of error.

And then you go to church and people see confidence as ego all the time. And I think we do need to have some resolve. And I think we need to make some rules or guidelines. Like, yeah, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to follow the Lord the rest of my life. But I think we need to know the reality of our weakness as well.

And so, if you turn to Psalm 78, kind of a fun commentary here on things. we'll get a little more idea of what's intended with this old covenant. And what I want you to remember, the old covenant typifies exactly what Jesus would fulfill in the new covenant. That's why it existed. If God just wanted to send his son to sacrifice for people, and we were just supposed to believe it and move on without any pictures or explanation, He could have.

God did this for us. It's not like God's in heaven thinking I got to come up with a really good plan or people won't do what I say. He did this for us to boost your faith. You're supposed to read through Psalm 78, Exodus 19, Jeremiah 31, and then have Hebrews 8 put it all together. and you're supposed to have your assurance expanded. You're supposed to become utterly more worshipful of the great God that can orchestrate this in a way that even the best story writers that have ever existed couldn't do.

So turn to Psalm 78, a mascal of Asaph. He says, give ear, O my people, to my instruction. Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in a parable. I will pour forth dark sayings of old. That's Jesus speaking to you, okay?

He fulfilled this prophecy about himself. One reason why I don't mind when the New Testament quotes the Old Testament and the New Testament translates Yahweh as Lord, one reason I don't mind that, of course, because God can do what he wants, but one reason I don't minded is that it's a proclamation that when we read Yahweh in the Old Testament, that is the Lord Jesus Christ speaking. But listen, he says, and our, which we have heard and known and our fathers have recounted to us.

Okay, I'm going to pour forth the dark sayings. He says, we will not conceal them from their children, but recount to the generation to come the praises of Yahweh and his strength and his wondrous deeds that he has done. So this is what we're supposed to do. This is what Israel was supposed to do. The reason they set up the stones when they crossed the Jordan was as a reminder God delivered us across this place.

That there was a constant necessity by the people of Israel to pass down to the next generation what God had done. we have the same call it says for he established a testimony in jacob and set a law in israel which he commanded our fathers that they should teach them to their children so we're supposed to teach our children he says that the generation to come might know even the children yet to be born. Part of the reason why you exist right now is so that people who aren't even born yet might be able to benefit from the work you've done for the Lord Jesus Christ. How many people do we read and benefit from who died before ever knowing we were a blip on the map?

I mean, some of them died before the United States was discovered, right? He says that they may arise and recount them to their children. The idea is to teach these to your children, teach them to younger generations, the next generation. That they should set their confidence in God and not forget the deeds of God, but observe his commandments. And so that's the goal.

The goal is to teach them, to pass it down, that people will obey God. And he says, and not be like their fathers. A stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not prepare its heart and whose spirit was not faithful to God. We're to teach people about the errors even of the past that they might not repeat them. The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows, yet they turned back in the day of battle. they did not keep the covenant of God and refused to walk in his law all that Yahweh has spoken we will do is what they said and most of us can read you don't have to go very far after the giving of the law to find the people of Israel partying and carrying on and creating a golden calf to worship because they didn't like an invisible God.

Because the invisible God who could strike so much terror into the amazing huge empire of Egypt at the time the empire that was able to control these people for hundreds of years, the invisible God who could strike terror into that land and kill the firstborn in every home and bury all the chariots of the Egyptians, the invisible God who could do that could also take them out in a moment. and we love a God we can control in our flesh. You can turn to verse 37 now, still in Psalm 78. For their heart was not prepared to remain with him, nor were they faithful in his covenant.

But he, being compassionate, atoned for their iniquity and did not destroy them. And he abounded in turning back his anger and did not arouse all his wrath. Thus he remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that goes and does not return. So we have these hints now of the fact that even though we're covenant breakers, you can go back to Hebrews 8 now.

But we have these hints. Even though we're covenant breakers, God has a plan. and he is not going to let the weakness of our flesh derail his plan. He is going to have a kingdom of priests. He is going to have a holy nation of people called out for himself, and he is going to show us through the old covenant, the giving of the law, the Levitical priesthood in the nation of Israel, that apart from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, there is absolutely no hope whatsoever that anyone will even attempt to live by his promises.

And apart from the mediation of Christ fulfilling all of our end of this covenant for us, there's no hope that we could ever keep it even having been regenerated. we need Jesus Christ to fulfill all of the commands of God on our behalf or we're dead it's that simple so now back to Hebrews 8 verse 7 when he says for if that first covenant had been faultless I want you to think in your mind the The first covenant is that covenant that God referred to in Exodus 19. That the people of Israel were going to be given basically a list of commands to follow. And if they kept them, if they kept every one of them, including in heart, they would have legitimately earned all the promises offered.

They would have been the kingdom of priests and the holy nation that God said that he wanted. Just like Adam in the garden, had he kept the works that he was given to do, Adam would have earned eternal life for himself and his posterity. It's a legitimate covenant. but it was not faultless so how is it something God made that's legitimate but it has fault in it well God seeks the second covenant here's why look at verse 8 for finding fault with them he says and then we read the covenant well what does it mean he's finding fault with them what is the them here because i i don't see a word that it refers back to i think that the them is the people of israel with whom god found the fault with some people think it's not only israel but but the covenant also.

I questioned whether it could refer back to the promises of the old covenant, but the promises of the old covenant, and I had to ask for help with this, the promises of the old covenant are a Greek noun that was plural feminine and the them is masculine. And so I'm told that it can't be. And so we have to ask ourselves, what was he finding fault with? that is the plural them and the answer is is given by by most people i think that it's the people the people of israel who did not keep their end of the covenant the people of israel who said all that yahweh has spoken we will do they were the ones with whom there was fault the covenant itself I wouldn't call full of fault because God created it but the covenant itself was not capable of giving the people what they needed to keep it so in that sense the covenant was at fault as well it's almost like saying the law was powerless to save.

The law was weak. And Paul criticizes the law, especially in Romans, very deeply at times for its inability to motivate the law keeper to actually keep it or give him the power to keep it But the problem wasn that there was a problem with the law The problem was that the law wasn made for that purpose. It wasn't able to do that. And so in verse eight, he says, for finding fault with them, I think the people of Israel in particular who didn't keep the covenant, he says this.

Behold, look, days are coming, says Yahweh the Lord, when I'm going to complete a new covenant. So it's going to be new. It's going to be different. Jesus says this blood is the new covenant in my blood, or this cup is the new covenant in my blood. It's new. I'm going to complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. try to look at that one next week about how that really applies to all of us as well and then he says though not like the covenant which i made with their fathers i have a lot of trouble thinking well it's the same covenant i'm okay with saying there's ways that it's like it and then there's also ways it's not like it and so therefore it's not like it, at least in some concept.

I have trouble believing it's the same covenant, and God's going to say, well, it's not like it, though. He says, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in 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. He's making a new covenant that's not like that covenant, and he says, I found fault with them, for they did not continue in my covenant.

They were in the covenant. Like, they were there. In fact, a lot of people were in that covenant that fell out of the covenant. That's the nature of the old covenant. It has no power to keep you in it once you're in it. You keep yourself in it by your striving and by your effort.

And he says, and I did not care for them, says the Lord. That's an interesting line because in Jeremiah 31, there's something else there. And so we'll have to look at that later. But he says, this is the covenant I'm going to make with the house of Israel. After those days, says the Lord. So after the old covenant days, which is the days we're in now with Jesus here.

He says, I'm going to put my law into their minds and upon their hearts, I will write them. So, instead of an external law written on stone that's face to face with people that they're told to keep. He's actually just going to put it in their heart to keep it. He's going to change people's hearts in such a way that that becomes the natural way that they would want to behave rather than an external rule that they're given.

He says I'm going to be their God and they'll be my people. well, what a pleasant gift that is. Instead of not being his people, because you break the covenant, he's going to be your God, and we're going to be his people. And he says, they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother saying, know the Lord for all will know me.

Everyone in the covenant is going to know him. It's not going to be, hey, you were born here, so therefore you're in this covenant. Here's the law you got to keep. You pay your tithe over there, and it's all just one big thing. The state and the church, it's just one thing. It's a theocracy, and you're in the covenant, and here's what you're supposed to do, and then you hate it every day of your life. you enter the new covenant you will know god he will be your god you will be his people and everyone in that covenant will know him there will not be little babies that we just bring in the covenant because they were born into our family they will have to enter the covenant the same way everyone else enters through the mediation of jesus christ by faith in what he accomplished on their behalf.

One of the reasons we don't baptize and dedicate babies is Covenant Baptists. So we believe they're special. We're to pass on the word to them. We love our children, and we sincerely want them to grow up to be part of that kingdom of priests. But we don't believe that they're de facto treated as in a covenant that we believe is unbreakable and unconditional simply because they were born in their home and then god says from the least of them to the greater them they're all going to know me he says for i will be merciful to their iniquities and i'll remember their sins no more the promises of the new covenant are better promises jesus is the mediator of a better covenant verse six which has been enacted on better promises, for I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.

The old covenant, and I just lost my page, the old covenant was a covenant of works. You were being evaluated on your works. That means if you had iniquity or sin, your iniquity or your sin was what determined the outcome you were going to receive. The promise of the new covenant is that despite your iniquity, despite your sin, your ever-present sin, despite the sin you're going to go to your grave with, Jesus has already done all that was necessary to fulfill your side of the covenant.

And part of the benefit of the new covenant is that your sins will be forgiven This is a better promise Jesus is as much above the high priest and as different from the high priest and has made the high priest so obsolete in such a way that in the same way the new covenant is as different and better and has made the old covenant obsolete It all goes together. so verse 13 sums it up when he said a new covenant he has made the first one obsolete when he says he made something new he's saying the old one is obsolete it's gone it's unnecessary now it wasn't bad it wasn't evil It wasn't a problem. It wasn't a mistake. It simply has become obsolete.

Your rotary phone that you had when you were a kid is obsolete. It was the tool you needed at the time to make phone calls. Nobody's using one today. It's obsolete. It's just unnecessary because the better has come. so the author tells us whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear for us it's not as poignant maybe as it would have been to this audience because what he's telling them is all the religious duties that you're still carrying out some of which maybe you're doing with a whole heart for God you really think this is what you're supposed to do you're being faithful to what you believe God has said he's telling them you don't have to do those things anymore they're completely unnecessary and I think now that we have Hebrews it now becomes sin to carry these things on.

So if you want to go to a Roman Catholic church where they effectively just continue a modified version of the Levitical priesthood, except with bloodless sacrifices, I think you're in sin. If you want to acknowledge some other man as a particular kind of priest, a mediator between you and God when there's one mediator between man and God the man Jesus Christ I think you have a problem now if we're a kingdom of priests I agree I can go to Greg and I can say hey Greg would you pray for me because I know Greg has access to the father but I don't ask Greg to pray for me because I don't have access he's not my priest between me and God he simply is a priest. But there's a difference between the Roman Catholic Church, which, if my memory serves me correctly, when they ordain priests, they actually say to them, you are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

And I think it's blasphemy to call any man that title that Jesus himself earned. And Jesus himself had bestowed upon him. I guess in the sense he didn't earn it. This was from all beginning. He was a priest forever. And so we need to shed all pride as a result of being a Christian.

And part of that is shedding all effort that we make to come to God by our own strength, to keep his law or his covenants by our own strength, but rather we are to acknowledge that because he has added us into an unbreakable covenant, because he has regenerated us and written his law in our hearts and on our minds, now we try to obey his law out of love for him and gratitude for him, but not because we believe that that is our mediation to God, not because we believe that we're keeping the covenant that Christ kept on our behalf. So I'll stop there, and I'll open it up for questions and comments or just plain worship of Christ. Thanks, Michael.

That was pretty clear. so you think um similarly along the lines of those who are in uh messianic uh jewish congregations who still do observe the old you know the old hebrew rituals and things and practices they'd be also would they just be doing things that are unnecessary or or you think they're also in things that could be considered sinful? I think that's a good question. You have to look at the heart a little bit.

These people were being written to because they were still placing their faith here. They were still seeing that a little bit as this is what we have to do. And so like if you called me and said, hey, you wanted to have a Passover meal, I would probably have a Passover meal just for fun, just maybe remember what it is. So I've heard that there are Messianic Jews that are actually just carrying on those traditions because God gave them to the actual Jewish heritage people.

So like Jews that celebrate Purim, and they celebrate the deliverance from what was it, Assyria, that Esther won for the people. Jews that still celebrate that when the Bible says like, carry this on throughout all your generations. I can sort of... like, oh, we'll celebrate this historical event. We'll celebrate the deliverance from Egypt. But what I'd like to hope is that people would recognize that this was still just a picture of a much greater deliverance.

And I would hope that they would celebrate their deliverance from sin. I mean, I guess, let me put it real simply. Hopefully we all celebrate that weekly on the Sabbath where, you know, where we're excited every Sunday that Christ delivered us from bondage and took us and brought us into what we'll call a promised land, you know, with our, with our salvation.

And there's an already and a not yet there, but, but so I wouldn't say it's, it's totally sin if a, if somebody acknowledges some old Testament event and maybe celebrated it even the way the Bible kind of described it like that. But at the same time, I mean, really, how are you going to have a Passover meal? Right. You're going to do it by the letter.

And it's just, I don't know, it's just, it's just not what God gave us with the new covenant to, to memorialize Christ. We have the, the supper. And so I don't know, I'm, I mean, I'm half Jewish and I started reading some of the old Testament scriptures after I found out I was actually Jewish a little differently and thinking of myself as actually someone that's one of those generations of forever and, and just thinking, but none of that matters.

God doesn't see us that way. that was for a time so that we might have better understanding of things we have understanding of now because we can understand physical slavery in a place like egypt like i can understand that right now what is that oh wow that would be terrible i wouldn't want to be a slave anywhere you know but god god um delivers us from a much worse slavery and there's a verse I wanted to read. I got to remember where it was, where in the LSB, I have to look it up and all, but he says, he says he's bringing them into a new slavery. And does anybody remember where that is?

It's just a neat way of looking at it that we're slaves to Christ now. And we're not. We're not slaves to these other things anymore. Yeah so I don know if I call him a sinner because they still memorializing things but I don know If I met a Messianic Jew and they were looking for a church I say come to my Reformed Baptist church and that what I say I don't know.

It's an odd... It seems a little odd to me, but I don't know. Yeah. yeah i i have met people that call themselves like messianic jews you know like that and i've talked to people and there are people who the more i talk to them the more i hear this total focus on the forms you know a total focus on the feasts and and all the stuff that pointed to christ all the types and shadows and i just and you i have to admit i start to wonder with all of them does this guy really have faith in Christ?

I mean, I can understand the first century Jews. They didn't know yet. They were confused that faith had been granted to them. They didn't know what it was. All of a sudden, they just kind of believed something new that seemed to accord with what had always been being led up to, right? It's not like me where I had to erase everything I ever learned when I got saved.

These guys had a lot of good knowledge. In the first century, yeah, write him a 16-chapter letter, exhort him a little. eight years later or whatever destroy their temple right like make a real clear picture for them and i don't know if we have the same excuses now that guys did in the in the 50s and 60s right and so i'm trying to say that kindly i i don't want to say all your messianic friends aren't saved but i've never i haven't met too many that were uh that seemed really christian yeah you know the the um celebrations and the the things you do or whatever it's kind of um it's it's kind of a trap to get y'all excited you know or it could be a trap to be excited you know um like you know you know similarly how to how charismatics get excited about you know doing this in the spirit or whatever you know it's the same kind of exuberance that kind of misses the main point you know yes yeah i found the verse i was thinking of in exodus 12 25 we just go back to 23 says yahweh will pass through to smite the egyptians and he will see the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts and yahweh will pass over the doorway and will not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to smite you And you shall keep this event as a statute for your and your children forever. And I just think this is really neat language in the Legacy Standard Bible.

And it will be when you enter the land which Yahweh will give you, as he has promised, you shall keep this new slavery. and new is in italics i guess it just says you shall keep this slavery and it will be when your children say to you what is the meaning of this new slavery to you that you shall say it is a passover sacrifice to yahweh who passed over the houses of the sons of israel in egypt when he smote the egyptians but delivered our homes and the people bowed low and worshiped and so when you're celebrating the passover you're celebrating the entrance into the old covenant like wait a second, I was never in the old covenant, and I don't want to be. And I would have failed had I been put in it. I mean, the point was, is no matter how amazing the deliverance from Egypt was, it only took a matter of minutes before these people were complaining.

And apart from the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, we have no hope to be any different. and with the regenerating work of the Spirit, we have hoped to be different, but we're still going to fail, and so we cling to Christ, and we know that when we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and it's not because I preached at the Super Bowl, or because you gave an old lady a walk across the street, or you taught your kids a bunch of Bible verses. is none of those things are what we believe keeps us in the covenant, got us in the covenant, or earns God's favor. We believe it's Christ alone. And that's enough.

I wasn't even looking at the clock. well hopefully everybody else enjoyed that as much as as I did I thought that was really fun you did a really good job Michael oh thank you brother gotta say if you gotta pick a book that's easy I don't know Hebrews seems to teach itself it's so good it is it really is I don't know some of this This is so exciting. We should be... So if Jesus is as much more a mediator of a better covenant as he is a better high priest than the high priest of Levitical we should be as much more excited about deliverance from sin as we would be if we were delivered from like concentration camps and slavery.

You think about you'd spend the rest of your life exalting the person that delivered you. Like if you were just kidnapped for two days, you know what I'm saying if somebody took your kid and some guy went in and got your kid and brought him back you'd serve that guy the rest of your life you know what I mean yeah we wake up every morning and we have to debate whether we're going to pray or play with our phones you know what I'm saying we're weak and Christ is worthy well let me pray for us and then i'll let you guys all i know you're all probably excited to get to work on friday and stuff so father in heaven we exalt the name of jesus christ the king of kings and lord of lords and we know that through christ we have absolute confidence that we have access to you that we have fellowship with your spirit forgiveness of sins that you remember our iniquities no more. And we ask you to let those truths motivate us today and empower us to keep your law, to be sensitive to the needs of others, to be dedicated to the cause of Christ in whatever context we find ourselves.

And Lord, as we read about passing these things on to children, I pray for the children represented by this group here, that you would save our children, Lord, for we believe that for them to enter the covenant, it requires an act of God to forgive them their sins, to grant them faith in Christ, and to renew their hearts. And so we ask you to do that for our children, Lord, for the sake of your glory and for the glory of your son's name, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Amen Thanks, see you next time Alright, love you guys, thanks See you, thank you brother You're welcome Thank you for listening to Be A Berean with your host Michael Coughlin I am a writer at thingsabove.us and I also have a personal website michaelcoughlin.net You can contact me by emailing me michael at thingsabove.us I hope that you have been encouraged to search the scriptures.