The I Will Covenant, Hebrews 8:8-13
8:8-13 Words of Jeremiah: approximately 600 B.C. he prophesied Israel’s failure to keep the commandments. Jeremiah 31:31-34 encouraged Israel to believe from the heart.
The Lord promised that there would be a day when Israel would obey because of the new covenant. Mount Sinai was an "if ye" covenant, but the New Testament is an "I will" covenant.
8:8 ...I will make a new covenant..
8:10 ...I
will make with the house of Israel after those days
...I
will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts
...I will
be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness...will I remember no more.
The Lord will perfect or accomplish His covenant (13:20). Jeremiah reminded Israel that God would provide a new covenant, making the old covenant obsolete.
The new covenant made five characteristics
*Written on their minds and hearts, not table of stone, Heb. 8:10 "I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts"
*A new relationship to Jehovah, Heb. 8:10 "and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:"
*A new function and outreach program, Heb. 8:11 "for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest."
*A new cleansing power, Heb. 8:12 "For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more."
Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. I Cor. 3:13
How is this possible?
*Brought about by perfect sacrifice of Christ
Heb 7:27 Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.
Heb 9:26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
Heb 10:12 But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God;
*Freed from those burdensome rites and ceremonies (the law),
Heb 7:12 For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.
Heb 7:16 Who is made, not after the law of a carnal commandment, but after the power of an endless life.
Heb 7:19 For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.
Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
*Extended to all men
Heb 2:9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
*Never to be abolished, Jeremiah 31:31-40
Heb 13:20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant
8:13 "waxeth old is ready to vanish" - though the covenant is not totally fulfilled, Christ’s death has initiated its benefits for today for those who will some day share its ultimate blessings.