Link: Hebrews 8:6-13
As Greg Koukl says, “never read a Bible verse.” Always check to see how the context gives definition to the passage.
The widest context is the Bible as a whole, so any interpretation must be consistent with the whole teachings of the Bible. The next layer of context is the testament, new or old, in which the passage appears. In this case, the interpretation must be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, but since Old Testament passages are cited, one should consider their contexts as well.
The Old Testament describes the old covenant, that is, the contract between God and Israel. The covenant promised security and worldly blessings to Israel if Israel would represent God to the world. Implied in that is that Israel would obey God’s directions. This was necessary in order to remain morally qualified to represent God.
The New Testament describes a new covenant. The new covenant removes Israel’s exclusive right to represent God, giving it to all followers of Christ. It also unveils more about God’s nature, replaces a covering of sins with an actual washing away of sins, and replaces an unstable relationship between God and a nation with a secure relationship between God and individuals.
The next layer is the audience and theme of the book or letter. Hebrews was written to — guess who? — first-century Hebrews (the ethnic group) after the Jewish establishment (their religion) had rejected and killed its Messiah and begun deadly persecution of their Messiah’s followers.
The book of Hebrews contrasts ways that the new covenant was superior to the old covenant. In fact, if you outlined the book, you would see point after point asserting how the new of-Christ faith solved problems and provided blessings that the Jewish system could not.
The final layer of context is the chapter itself. Chapter 8 can be outlined thus:
A covenant is only as good as the parties to the covenant. The fault was not in the covenant, but in Israel’s failure to fulfill it’s duties. God found fault with the people… for they did not continue in my covenant…, says the LORD (verses 8–9).
One reason the old covenant “failed” from Israel’s perspective was that it depended on — to put it in modern terms — levels of bureaucracy between God and individuals. The words of God were contained in scrolls, their distribution depended on “the experts,” and the execution of their provisions depended on corruptible men.
In contrast, under the new covenant, I (God) will put My laws into their (the people’s) minds, and I will write them (the laws) upon their hearts (verse 10). In other words, instead of needing to depend on “the experts,” individuals would be enabled to obey God on their own, and they would be accountable not for obeying the letter of the law, but rather for obeying the spirit of the law. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people makes the relationship very personal — not just a socialized, collective relationship, but rather, an intimate, one-on-one relationship.
Many “Christian” churches, including some of the largest denominations, cling to the form of the old covenant system. They insert “experts,” “prophets,” “priests,” or over-controlling pastors between members and God. A biblical, new covenant church will work hard to bring people and God into personal relationships and edify people so they can stand in that relationship without excessive reliance on the human organization.
Verse 11 needs a bit of background. Directions, such as those in Leviticus about the design of the tabernacle and the conduct of feasts and sacrifices, were highly symbolic. As verse 5 says, they served as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Many of them stand out for symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice.
This was also true of prophecies of events that were, in Old Testament times, future events, such as the two comings of Christ — first to provide redemption, and later to take delivery of that which He redeemed.
Reading the prophecies was like looking and seeing a mountain; but when you walk over to the side or walk past the mountain, you see that there were actually two mountains. Since they align in time, you could not differentiate between them. But when you have hiked past the one, you can see that one is in the past and the other is yet future.
The passage(s) cited in verse 11 compress two ages into one description. The first age (or mountain, in the last paragraph) concerns the current age, whereas the second age (the more distant mountain) concerns the age when Christ will have returned, established His reign on Earth, and re-established Israel as the center of His kingdom. In that future time, they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, ‘know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them. The relevant part is the emphasis on establishing that personal relationship between God and us without the interference of, and dependence on, an intervening human organization.
The citation in verse 12 foreshadows another passage in Hebrews. Chapter 10 explains the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the old covenant sacrifices. Whereas it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (verse 4), Christ offered one sacrifice for sins for all time (verse 12), so that by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (verse 14).
Christ does not require continuous sacrificing, as in a particular church. Their continuous sacrifice is like the flawed old testament sacrifices and makes people dependent on the organization. Christ’s sacrifice was complete and perfect. For those who trust in it, it perfects them before the great Judge, washing away all their past, present, and future sins.
(You will find a number of the ideas in chapter 8 repeated in chapter 10.)
In verse 13’s conclusion, When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. That is, the old covenant has no legal effect on anyone who enters into the new covenant.
However, although the old covenant has no legal affect on those in the new covenant, it remains useful for three things: First, through its symbolism, it confirms the new covenant. Second, the portions defining moral conduct remain useful for defining how to love one another.
Third, defining how to love one another has a darker side. It teaches us about our inability to justify ourselves before God. Many fail to grasp this lesson, but it is explicitly taught.
As Greg Koukl says, “never read a Bible verse.” Always check to see how the context gives definition to the passage.
The widest context is the Bible as a whole, so any interpretation must be consistent with the whole teachings of the Bible. The next layer of context is the testament, new or old, in which the passage appears. In this case, the interpretation must be consistent with the rest of the New Testament, but since Old Testament passages are cited, one should consider their contexts as well.
The Old Testament describes the old covenant, that is, the contract between God and Israel. The covenant promised security and worldly blessings to Israel if Israel would represent God to the world. Implied in that is that Israel would obey God’s directions. This was necessary in order to remain morally qualified to represent God.
The New Testament describes a new covenant. The new covenant removes Israel’s exclusive right to represent God, giving it to all followers of Christ. It also unveils more about God’s nature, replaces a covering of sins with an actual washing away of sins, and replaces an unstable relationship between God and a nation with a secure relationship between God and individuals.
The next layer is the audience and theme of the book or letter. Hebrews was written to — guess who? — first-century Hebrews (the ethnic group) after the Jewish establishment (their religion) had rejected and killed its Messiah and begun deadly persecution of their Messiah’s followers.
The book of Hebrews contrasts ways that the new covenant was superior to the old covenant. In fact, if you outlined the book, you would see point after point asserting how the new of-Christ faith solved problems and provided blessings that the Jewish system could not.
The final layer of context is the chapter itself. Chapter 8 can be outlined thus:
- Verses 1–7 — Christ’s role as High Priest is superior to that of the Jewish priests because He mediates a better covenant. (Mediate, in this context, means bringing two parties together to ensure that they understand and meet all the conditions of the covenant.) To discover the many reasons the new covenant is better, read the whole passage, and then read the whole book.
- Verses 8–12 — The writer supports this theme with citations from the Old Testament.
- Verse 13 — In concluding, the writer emphasizes that, when a new covenant replaces an old covenant, the old covenant becomes void. Accepting this required a major mind-change for the audience, Jewish Christians. Even for people like James, the half-brother of Jesus, and the apostle Peter, this change required many years and miraculous evidence to accept. For more details, read the books of Acts and Galatians.
A covenant is only as good as the parties to the covenant. The fault was not in the covenant, but in Israel’s failure to fulfill it’s duties. God found fault with the people… for they did not continue in my covenant…, says the LORD (verses 8–9).
One reason the old covenant “failed” from Israel’s perspective was that it depended on — to put it in modern terms — levels of bureaucracy between God and individuals. The words of God were contained in scrolls, their distribution depended on “the experts,” and the execution of their provisions depended on corruptible men.
In contrast, under the new covenant, I (God) will put My laws into their (the people’s) minds, and I will write them (the laws) upon their hearts (verse 10). In other words, instead of needing to depend on “the experts,” individuals would be enabled to obey God on their own, and they would be accountable not for obeying the letter of the law, but rather for obeying the spirit of the law. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people makes the relationship very personal — not just a socialized, collective relationship, but rather, an intimate, one-on-one relationship.
Many “Christian” churches, including some of the largest denominations, cling to the form of the old covenant system. They insert “experts,” “prophets,” “priests,” or over-controlling pastors between members and God. A biblical, new covenant church will work hard to bring people and God into personal relationships and edify people so they can stand in that relationship without excessive reliance on the human organization.
Verse 11 needs a bit of background. Directions, such as those in Leviticus about the design of the tabernacle and the conduct of feasts and sacrifices, were highly symbolic. As verse 5 says, they served as a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Many of them stand out for symbolizing Christ’s sacrifice.
This was also true of prophecies of events that were, in Old Testament times, future events, such as the two comings of Christ — first to provide redemption, and later to take delivery of that which He redeemed.
Reading the prophecies was like looking and seeing a mountain; but when you walk over to the side or walk past the mountain, you see that there were actually two mountains. Since they align in time, you could not differentiate between them. But when you have hiked past the one, you can see that one is in the past and the other is yet future.
The passage(s) cited in verse 11 compress two ages into one description. The first age (or mountain, in the last paragraph) concerns the current age, whereas the second age (the more distant mountain) concerns the age when Christ will have returned, established His reign on Earth, and re-established Israel as the center of His kingdom. In that future time, they shall not teach everyone his fellow citizen and everyone his brother, saying, ‘know the Lord,’ for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest of them. The relevant part is the emphasis on establishing that personal relationship between God and us without the interference of, and dependence on, an intervening human organization.
The citation in verse 12 foreshadows another passage in Hebrews. Chapter 10 explains the superiority of Christ’s sacrifice over the old covenant sacrifices. Whereas it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins (verse 4), Christ offered one sacrifice for sins for all time (verse 12), so that by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (verse 14).
Christ does not require continuous sacrificing, as in a particular church. Their continuous sacrifice is like the flawed old testament sacrifices and makes people dependent on the organization. Christ’s sacrifice was complete and perfect. For those who trust in it, it perfects them before the great Judge, washing away all their past, present, and future sins.
(You will find a number of the ideas in chapter 8 repeated in chapter 10.)
In verse 13’s conclusion, When He said, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear. That is, the old covenant has no legal effect on anyone who enters into the new covenant.
However, although the old covenant has no legal affect on those in the new covenant, it remains useful for three things: First, through its symbolism, it confirms the new covenant. Second, the portions defining moral conduct remain useful for defining how to love one another.
Third, defining how to love one another has a darker side. It teaches us about our inability to justify ourselves before God. Many fail to grasp this lesson, but it is explicitly taught.
- Therefore the Law [the commands in the old covenant] has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. (Galatians 3:24).
- Now we know that whatever the Law says, it speaks to those who are under the Law [those who think they are “good”], so that every mouth may be closed and all the world may become accountable to God; because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin (Romans 3:19–20).
- [A]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God… (Romans 3:23).
- He [Messiah] shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities (Isaiah 53:11).
- …being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus (Romans 3:24).
- For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8–9).
- But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace (Romans 11:6).
- Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh [that is, works of obedience]? (Galatians 3:3).
