For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.
For finding fault with them, he said, “Behold, the days come”, says the Lord, “that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they didn’t continue in my covenant, and I disregarded 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 mind, I will also write them on their heart. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
They will not teach every man his fellow citizen, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all will know me, from their least to their greatest.
For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more.”
In that he says, “A new covenant”, he has made the first old. But that which is becoming old and grows aged is near to vanishing away.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 7. For if that first, etc. He confirms what…
7. For if that first, etc. He confirms what he had said of the excellency of the covenant which God has made with us through Christ; and he confirms it on this ground, because the covenant of the Law was neither valid nor permanent; for if nothing was wanting in it, why was another substituted for it? But another has been substituted; and from this it is evident that the old covenant was not in every respect perfect. To prove this he adduces the testimony of Jeremiah, which we shall presently examine.
But it seems hardly consistent to say, that after having said that no place would have been sought for the second covenant, had the first been faultless, he should then say that the people were at fault, and that for this cause the new covenant was introduced as a remedy; and thus it appears unjust, that if the blame was in the people it should be transferred to God’s covenant. Then the argument seems not valid, for though God might have a hundred times blamed the people, yet the covenant could not on that account be deemed faulty. The answer to this objection may be easily given. Though the crime of violating the covenant was justly imputed to the people, who had through their own perfidy departed from God, yet the weakness of the covenant is also pointed out, because it was not written in their hearts. Then, to render it perfect and valid, God declares that it needed an amendment. It was not, therefore, without reason that the Apostle contended that a place was to be sought for a second.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 13 He proveth by the testimony of Jeremiah, that there…
He proveth by the testimony of Jeremiah, that there is a second Testament or covenant, and therefore that the first was not perfect.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–13 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless,…
7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.
Ver. 7. Had been faultless] Such as had not been weak and unprofitable, Heb 7:18; see the note there. If the people could have performed it, and have been perfected by it. If it could have conveyed grace, as Heb 8:10. The law may chain up the wolf, the gospel only changeth him; the one stops the stream, the other heals the fountain; the one restrains the practice, the other renews the principles. God therefore gave the law after the promise, Gal 3:19, to advance the promise.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7–13 This proves the gospel covenant better than the Mosaical,…
This proves the gospel covenant better than the Mosaical, for if it had not, there would have been no second.
For if that first covenant had been faultless: that first covenant, of which Moses was the mediator, as to the administration of it, (as to the matter of it, it was the same from Adam throughout all ages), was faulty; not because God made it, though it was a less perfect good than what succeeded it; it was able to save those who would rightly use it, and come unto Christ by it, Gal 3:24; but accidentally, by reason of the priests’ faults, and people’s sinfulness, it became wholly ineffectual to them for saving them; therefore the blame and fault of it is charged on them, Heb 8:8.
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Then should no place have been sought for the second: the question here is vehemently assertive; if that covenant in its Mosaical administration had reached effectually its end, brought all that were under it to Christ, to be saved by him, no place nor room was there, that then being so perfect, for another to succeed it, God would have rested there; but his excellent wisdom and counsel determined to put in being the second, and to set it in the place of the first, that was faulty, and which was to be abrogated by it, Gal 3:21.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv7, 10, 11, 12, 13 Observe here, 1. What is charged on the first…
Observe here, 1. What is charged on the first covenant, and that is faultiness: By which we are not to understand any sinful faultiness, but defectiveness and imperfection only: For it was not faulty in the matter and substance of it, as it was instituted and ordained by God, but therefore called faulty because it was obscure, was not so surely ratified, and not attended with that virtue, power, and efficacy, which the new covenant is accompanied with.
Observe, 2. Wherein consisteth that defectiveness and imperfection of the first covenant which is here complained of, namely,
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1. In its inability to justify and save us, because of our inability, through the weakness of the flesh, to answer the demands of it, Rom 8:3. The law was not properly weak to us, but we were weak to that.
2. The legal covenant required exact obedience, but afforded no spiritual assistance for the performance of what is required: But the covenant of grace, the new covenant, is called a ministration of the Spirit: and under the gospel we are said not to serve in the oldness of the latter, but in the newness of the spirit.
Now, says the apostle, ver. . Almighty God finding fault with the Jews for the breach of the former covenant, declared by the prophet Jeremiah, Jer 31:31. That the covenant he would make with all true Israelites for time to come, should not be like that which he made with their fathers in Egypt, which they continued not in the observation of, (wanting those assistances from the Holy Spirit to enable them thereunto, which are procured for us by Christ); and accordingly, I regarded them not, saith the Lord, but gave them up for their sins, into the hands of their enemies.
Observe, lastly, How Almighty God makes the imperfection of the old covenant, and the Israelites instability therein, the reason of his making a new covenant with us, in which grace and assistance is offered to enable us to obey and persevere in obedience: Finding fault with them; that is, for the breach of the former, he saith, Behold the days come that I will make a new covenant with them.
From the whole, Note, 1. That the grace and glory of the new covenant are much set off and manifested by comparing it with the old.
Note, 2. That nothing but effectual grace from Christ will secure our covenant-obedience one moment: What greater motives, or stronger outward obligations to obedience could any people under heaven have, than the Israelites had? But they quickly turned out of the way: therefore, in the new covenant, is this grace promised in a peculiar manner, as we shall see in the next verse.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–13 For if that first covenant had been faultless,.... Not…
For if that first covenant had been faultless,.... Not the covenant of works; that was made in paradise, this on Mount Sinai; that was made with Adam and his posterity, this with the Jews only; that had no mediator, this had one, Moses; that was not dedicated with blood, this was; that had no forgiveness of sin in it, this had; under that saints are not, but they were under this; to be under that was no privilege, but to be under this it was, as to the Israelites, who on this account were preferable to all other nations: nor is the pure covenant of grace as administered under the Gospel, meant; for though that was first made, yet is the second in administration; that includes the elect of God among the Gentiles, this only the Jews; that is made only with them, and is made known to them whom God calls by his grace in time, this was made with good and bad; that was of pure grace, this required works in order to life and the enjoyment of its blessings; that is an everlasting covenant, this is done away; and the one is manifestly distinguished from the other in this chapter: but the covenant here designed is the covenant of grace, as administered under the legal dispensation, and which was a typical one; the people with whom it was made were typical of the true Israel of God; the blessings promised in it were shadows of good things to come; the works it required were typical of Christ's obedience to the law, in the room and stead of his people, by which he fulfilled it; the sacrifices on which it was established were types of the sacrifice and death of Christ; the mediator of it. Moses, was a type of Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant; and it was confirmed by the blood of beasts, which was typical of the blood of Christ: this covenant was not "faultless", but was faulty or blameworthy; not that there was anything sinful and criminal in it, but it was deficient; there was a weakness in it; its sacrifices could not make men perfect, nor take away sin; there wanted a larger supply of the grace of the Spirit to write the law of God upon the heart, and to enable men to keep it; there was not in it so full a revelation of the mind and will of God, and of his love and grace, as has since been made; nor did it exhibit a free and full pardon for all sins, unclogged of every condition; the persons that were under it were faulty; hence it follows, that God found fault with them, they could not answer the requirements and end of it: had it been faultless,
then should no place have been sought for the second; the covenant of grace unveiled in the Gospel dispensation, called the better testament, the better covenant, and the new covenant; in order to, introduce which, the first was removed, that this might succeed it; just as because there was no perfection by the Levitical priesthood, it became necessary that another priest should arise, of another order.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv7–13 For if the first had been faultless - If…
For if the first had been faultless - If that dispensation had answered all God's designs and man's wants, if it had not been weak and unprofitable unable to make anything perfect, no place would have been for a second.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7–13 Verse 7. If that first had been faultless] This…
Verse 7. If that first had been faultless] This is nearly the same argument with that in Heb 7:11. The simple meaning is: If the first covenant had made a provision for and actually conferred pardon and purity, and given a title to eternal life, then there could have been no need for a second; but the first covenant did not give these things, therefore a second was necessary; and the covenant that gives these things is the Christian covenant.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv8, 10, 11, 13 Heb 8:8-9. For — In this verse the apostle…
Heb 8:8-9. For — In this verse the apostle enters upon the proof of his argument proposed in that foregoing, namely, that the first covenant was not faultless, or every way sufficient for the end God had in view, because there was cause for the introduction of another. For finding fault with them — Namely, the people; he saith, Behold the days come, &c. — This is translated by Grotius and others, Finding fault, he saith to them, and understood of finding fault with the former covenant. But it seems much more proper to understand it of God’s finding fault with the Jews, (as he evidently does in the words preceding those here quoted, Jer 31:29-30,) for using the proverb, against which he expresses so much displeasure, in Eze 18:2. And in the words themselves he also finds fault with them for breaking this covenant, though he had, with so much tender care, brought them out of Egypt. It is true, the first covenant was not every way perfect with respect to God’s general end toward his church; yet it may not be proper to say that God complained of it; whereas God, in this testimony, actually complains of the people that they brake his covenant, and expresses his indignation thereon, saying, I regarded them not. He saith — By the Prophet Jeremiah, in that celebrated text, which undoubtedly refers to the gospel dispensation; Behold — As if he had said, Because the covenant, which they were under before, was not the means of reforming them, but, notwithstanding it, they were rebellious still; therefore the days come — Namely, of the gospel; when I will make a new covenant — Not new in regard of the substance of it, but the manner of its dispensation; 1st, Being ratified by the death of Christ; 2d, Freed from the burdensome rites and ceremonies of the law; 3d, Containing a more full and clear revelation of the mysteries of religion, and a more perfect description of it as spiritual, and having its seat chiefly in men’s hearts; 4th, Attended with larger influences of the Spirit; 5th, Extended to all men; 6th, Never to be abolished. With the house of Israel and with the house of Judah — That is, with the whole Jewish nation, including descendants from both these houses. For although the houses of Israel and Judah had existed separately, the one from the other, from the time of the first Jeroboam, yet after the captivity of the ten tribes, who composed the house of Israel, such of them as joined themselves to the house of Judah, were so mixed with them as not to be distinguished from them. Not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers — But differing from it in the circumstances above mentioned, and in others declared afterward; when I took them by the hand — With the care and tenderness of a parent; or manifested my infinite condescension and almighty power in their deliverance; because they continued not — Or, in which covenant of mine they did not continue; while their deliverance was fresh in their memory they obeyed, but presently after they shook off the yoke, and did not abide by the terms of the covenant. And I regarded them not — Greek, καγω ημελησα αυτων, I neglected them. So that the covenant was soon entirely broken. The passage here quoted stands thus in Jeremiah, Which my covenant they brake, though I was a husband to them, saith the Lord. The apostle’s translation of it is that of the LXX. And to reconcile it with the Hebrew text, Pocock (in his Miscel., chap. 1) observes, that in the eastern languages, letters of the same organ, as they are called, being often interchanged, the Hebrew word, בעל, bagnal, to be a husband, is the same with the Arabic word, בהל, bahal, which signifies to refuse, despise, nauseate. So that the Hebrew clause will bear to be translated as the apostle and the LXX. have done, I neglected them, I nauseated them. See note on Jer 31:31, &c.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7–13 For if that first covenant had been faultless -…
For if that first covenant had been faultless - see the note on Heb 7:11. It is implied here that God had said that that covenant was not perfect or faultless. The meaning is not that that first covenant made under Moses had any real faults - or inculcated what was wrong, but that it did not contain the ample provision for the pardon of sin and the salvation of the soul which was desirable. It was merely “preparatory” to the gospel.
Then should no place have been sought for the second - There could not have been - inasmuch as in that case it would have been impossible to have bettered it, and any change would have been only for the worse.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 10, 11, 13 For if that first testament had been faultless: if…
For if that first testament had been faultless: if it had not been imperfect, and all those sacrifices and ceremonies insufficient for the justification, salvation, and redemption of mankind, there would have been no need of a second. (Witham)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv7–13 Same reasoning as in Heb 7:11.
Same reasoning as in Heb 7:11.
faultless--perfect in all its parts, so as not to be found fault with as wanting anything which ought to be there: answering all the purposes of a law. The law in its morality was blameless (Greek, "amomos"); but in saving us it was defective, and so not faultless (Greek, "amemptos").
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should no place have been sought--as it has to be now; and as it is sought in the prophecy (Heb 8:8-11). The old covenant would have anticipated all man's wants, so as to give no occasion for seeking something more perfectly adequate. Compare on the phrase "place . . . sought," Heb 12:17.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv7–13 7. That first covenant, however the Hebrews may honour…
7. That first covenant, however the Hebrews may honour and cling to it, was by its own Old Testament prophetic confession a defective one. No place, or room, would have been recognised for a second, if the first had been faultless.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–13 7. if that first covenant had been faultless] Whereas…
7. if that first covenant had been faultless] Whereas it was as he has said “weak” and “unprofitable” and “earthly” (Heb_7:18). The difference between the writer’s treatment of the relation between Christianity and Judaism and St Paul’s mode of dealing with the same subject consists in this:—to St Paul the contrast between the Law and the Gospel was that between the Letter and the Spirit, between bondage and freedom, between Works and Faith, between Command and Promise, between threatening and mercy. All these polemical elements disappear almost entirely from the Epistle to the Hebrews, which regards the two dispensations as furnishing a contrast between Type and Reality. This was the more possible to Apollos because he regards Judaism not so much in the light of a Law as in the light of a Priesthood and a system of worship. Like those who had been initiated into the ancient mysteries the Christian convert from Judaism could say ἔφυγον κακὸν εὗρον ἄμεινον—“I fled the bad, I found the better;” not that Judaism was in any sense intrinsically and inherently “bad” (Rom_7:12), but that it became so when it was preferred to something so much more divine.
7–13. Threefold superiority of the New to the Old Covenant, as prophesied by Jeremiah; being a proof that the “promises” of the New Covenant are “better”
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv7–13 (7) For the second.—Rather, for a second. This verse…
(7) For the second.—Rather, for a second. This verse connects itself with the words, “a better covenant” in Heb_8:6. The form of expression used clearly points to the intended inference—that covenant was faulty, and a place was sought for a second; this makes plain the connection with Heb_8:8. The failure of the first covenant was manifest (Heb_7:11; Heb_7:18) to God, who, whilst the first still existed, “sought” and found place for a second.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 10, 11, 13 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then…
For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for a second. "For" introduces this sentence as a reason for what has been already said; i.e. for a better covenant having been spoken of. The expression might be objected to by Hebrew readers as implying imperfection in the original Divine covenant. "Nay," says the writer, "it was imperfect, it was not faultless; for prophecy itself declares this." Should it be further objected that in the prophecy it is not the old covenant itself that is found fault with, but the people for not observing it, the answer would be that the remedy for their non-observance being the substitution of a new one that would answer its purpose better, some imperfection in the old one is implied. This is indeed the very point of this verse. If it be asked, further, how faultiness in the old covenant is compatible with the view of its Divine origin, the answer is abundantly supplied in St. Paul"s Epistles. His position constantly is that the Mosaic Law, though in itself "holy, just, and true," and adequate to its purpose, was still imperfect as a means of justification. It was but a temporary dispensation, with a purpose of its own, intervening between the original promise to Abraham and the fulfillment of that promise in Christ. Thus it is no derogation to itself or to its Author to charge it with "weakness and unprofitableness" for a purpose it was never meant to answer.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv7, 8, 10 If that first covenant had been faultless
Heb_8:7
If that first covenant had been faultless
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The imperfection of the first covenant
Observe here
1.
What is charged on the first covenant, and that is faultiness, by which we are not to understand any sinful faultiness, but defectiveness and imperfection only; for it was not faulty in the matter and substance of it, as it was instituted and ordained by God, but therefore called faulty because it was obscure, was not so surely ratified, and not attended with that virtue, power, and efficacy which the new covenant is accompanied with.
2. Wherein consisteth that defectiveness and imperfection of the first covenant which is here complained of.
(1) In its ability to justify and save us, because of our inability, through the weakness of the flesh, to answer the demands of it (Rom_8:3). The law was not properly weak to us, bat we were weak to that.
(2) The legal covenant required exact obedience, but afforded no spiritual assistance for the performance of what is required: but the covenant of grace, the new covenant, is called a ministration of the Spirit; and under the gospel we are said not to serve in the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the Spirit. Now, says the apostle (Heb_8:8), Almighty God finding fault with the Jews for the breach of the former covenant, declared by the prophet Jeremiah (Jer_31:31), that the covenant He would make with all true Israelites for time to come should vet be like that which He made with their fathers in Egypt, which they continued not in the observation of (wanting those assistances from the Holy Spirit to enable them thereunto, which are procured for us by Christ); accordingly I regarded them not, saith the Lord, but gave them up for their sins into the hands of their enemies.
3. How Almighty God makes the imperfection of the old covenant, and the Israelites instability therein, the reason of His making a new covenant with us, in which grace and assistance is offered to enable us to obey and persevere in obedience.
From the whole note
1. That the grace and glory of the new covenant are much set off and manifested by comparing it with the old.
2. That nothing but effectual grace from Christ will secure our covenant obedience one moment: what greater motives or stronger outward obligations to obedience could any people under heaven have than the Israelites had? But they quickly turned out of the way; therefore, in the new covenant, is this grace promised in a peculiar manner. (W. Burkitt, M. A.)
The two covenants
A covenant is properly an agreement between two parties, who bind themselves by certain conditions with the view of attaining some object. A covenant may be between equals, as that between Abraham and Abimelech (Gen_21:32), or between parties of whom one is superior to the other, as that between Joshua and the Gibeonites (Jos_9:1-27.). The covenant relation between God and men is of the latter kind, for God imposes the covenant (Heb_8:8-10). None the less both parties lay themselves under obligations and contemplate an object by the covenant. A covenant between God and men cannot possibly have any other meaning than that He will be their God and they His people Heb_8:10). The Epistle contemplates religion or the relation of God and men under this aspect of a covenant. It distinguishes two covenants, that made at Sinai (Heb_8:9), and that made through Christ (Heb_9:15). The former is called the first covenant Heb_8:7; Heb_9:1; Heb_9:18); it is not named the old covenant, although it is said that God, in announcing a new covenant, has made the first old Heb_8:13). The latter is called a seceded (Heb_8:7), a better (Heb_7:22; Heb_8:6), a new as having different contents Heb_8:8; Heb_9:15), and also new as being recent (Heb_12:24), and an eternal covenant (Heb_13:20, comp. Heb_7:22). The first covenant was not faultless--so mildly does the author express Himself (Heb_8:7); the second is enacted upon better promises (Heb_8:6; Heb_8:10-12). The Epistle does not speak of a covenant with Abraham, as the Pauline epistles do (Gal_3:15; Gal_3:17); it knows of promises to Abraham (Heb_6:13; Heb_7:6), which the first covenant was ineffectual to realise (Heb_11:39), which, however, are realised through the second (Heb_9:15). The covenant relation is not its own end. It is rather a relation within which the people are being matured for that final blessedness which God has destined for them. No doubt this maturing of them always more fully realises the covenant relation, and this of itself is a great and blessed end. But it is chiefly regarded as the means to that which lies beyond, which is the bringing of the people to a sphere of existence that shall fully correspond to their capacities and needs. This end is variously described: it is inheriting the promises (Heb_6:12), or receiving the promise of the eternal inheritance (Heb_9:15); reaching the heavenly country Heb_11:16), or the city that hath the foundations (Heb_11:10); or, receiving the kingdom that cannot be shaken (Heb_12:28); or entering into the rest of God (Heb_3:4); or, having the world to come ,put into subjection to them (Heb_2:5, &c.). The covenants are means adopted for realising promises and gracious purposes, the announcement of which was prior to both of them. The new covenant is only a more effectual means of accomplishing the same object pursued in the first. A covenant between God and men is a state of relation in which He is their God and they His people. By being His people is meant that they are dedicated to His service (Heb_9:14). that they ale His worshipping people. And the means by which they are translated into this relation of fit worshippers is important. The term that expresses this change is sanctify (Heb_2:11; Heb_10:10; Heb_10:29; Heb_13:12). Having a conscience defiled by sin, they felt debarred from free access to God so as to serve Heb_9:9; Heb_9:14; Heb_10:2; Heb_10:22), and for the same reason of their defilement God could not permit Himself to be approached. This defilement of sin is purified away by sacrifice, the blood of which is the blood of the covenant (Heb_9:14; Heb_9:18; Heb_10:29; Heb_13:20), and thus the people are sanctified for the service of God. As the end had in view and the covenant itself, which is the means towards it, are alike due to the grace of Heb_2:9), the sacrifice which effects the sanctification of the people is no less an institution of His provision. Though within the covenant, the people are not supposed to be sinless. They err and are out of the way; they are compassed with infirmity and labour under various ignorances (Heb_5:2; Heb_7:28; Heb_9:7 : comp. Heb_4:15). Such errors, though sins and transgressions (Heb_9:15), and interruptions of the covenant relation, are not absolutely incompatible with its maintenance, provided they are taken away. A means of removing such sins of infirmity was provided in the sacrificial system. This is the meaning of this system. It was appointed of God for removing sins committed within the covenant. The Epistle does not speculate how it is that men in covenant still continue to sin; it accepts the fact without referring it to any principle such as the flesh of St. Paul. Its distinction of sins of infirmity and wilful sins is unknown to the latter apostle, to whom all sins are deadly and infer the curse (Gal_3:10). This is revolved in His mode of regarding the law as a commandment of works to be obeyed in order to justification. Any transgression of it is its breach in principle, and makes an end of all pretensions on mans part to be righteous before God. The condition of the continuance of the covenant was the keeping of the law. But here a double defect manifested itself in the first covenant. On the one hand, the people abode not in it (Heb_8:9), and on the other hand, its institutions could not remove the transgressions done under it Heb_9:15; Heb_10:4). In the new covenant God promises to write His law on the peoples heart (Heb_8:10), as on the other hand the death of Christ redeems the transgressions under the first covenant Heb_9:15), and God remembers them no more (Heb
10:17). Though in the new covenant the law be written on the peoples heart, their wills are still practically regarded as mutable; they may sin wilfully (Heb_10:26), and fall away from the living God Heb_3:12), and they need all the safeguards which their own patient endurance (Heb_6:12), the example of those who have gone before (Heb_6:12; Heb_12:1; Heb_13:7), mutual exhortation Heb_3:13; Heb_10:24), memory of past attainments (Heb_10:32, &c.), and the throne of grace (Heb_2:18; Heb_4:14; Heb_7:23-25) can afford, to enable them to hold fast the beginning of their confidence from unto the end. Thus the first covenant failed, and God caused to arise upon the people the light of the promise of a new covenant. The first covenant indeed was conscious of its own Imperfection; hence it gave forth fro,, within itself the promise of another priest (Psa_110:4; Heb_7:14), of a better sacrifice (Psa_40:7; Heb_9:23; Heb_10:9), and even of a new covenant (Jer_31:31; Heb_8:8). The structure of the Tabernacle was a perpetual witness to the inability of its ministry to open the way for the worshippers into the presence of God, a witness borne by the Holy Ghost (Heb_9:8). And the very continual repetition of the sacrifices year by year was a constant remembrance of sin, and proclamation of their inefficacy to take it Heb_10:3). The Epistle is a detailed contrast between the two covenants showing that in all those points where the first failed the second realises the purpose of the covenant. That which gives eternal validity or absoluteness to the new covenant is the person, the Son of God, who in all points carries it through--who reveals, mediates, and sustains it. As initiating the covenant through His blood (Heb_9:20; Heb_10:29), He is the mediator of a new covenant (Heb_9:15); and as sitting at the right hand of God, before His face, for ever, as high-priestly representative of the people, He is the surety of it (Heb_7:22). the Old Testament holy places and all the vessels of the ministry were made according to the pattern showed in the mount (Heb_8:5), and are thus the copies of the things in the heavens (Heb_9:23). Again, the law had a shadow of the good things that were to come (Heb_10:1; Heb_10:9; Heb_10:11). Thus the first covenant lay, as a sphere of dim representations, between two regions filled with realities--heaven, the region of the true things themselves, on the one side, and the new covenant, realising the very image of the good things that were to come, on the other. These two regions correspond to one another (Heb_12:22). Yet the first covenant having a shadow of the good things that were to come was in truth the introduction of the new covenant, though in a shadowy form. Hence the second covenant, though called new, is new only in a modified sense. The promises on which it was enacted are virtually nothing more than the promise truly to realise the great objects aimed at in the first covenant (see Heb_8:6). It contemplates the same end with the first, the bringing of men into the rest of God and the promised inheritance Heb_9:15; Heb_4:3). And it was made with the same persons as the first. These are the people (Heb_2:17; Heb_13:12), the people of God Heb_4:9, comp. Heb_7:27), or, the seed of Abraham Heb_2:16). It is by no means easy to understand what is said in the Epistle in regard to the relations of the two covenants. Two points may be alluded to.
1. The author speaks in a very disparaging way of the Old Testament sacrifices, saying that they could never take away sins (Heb_10:11), nor perfect those offering them as to the conscience (Heb_9:9; Heb_10:1; Heb_01:2), and that they were carnal ordinances and useless Heb_7:18): His language implies that Old Testament saints were burdened with a conscience of sin (Heb_9:9; Heb_9:14; Heb_10:2; Heb_10:22), consequently that they were oppressed by the sense of the inefficacy of their sacrifices to remove sin, from which it seems to follow that they ha.! no clear light as to any connection of these sacrifices with another the virtue of which they conveyed. To the same effect is the view that the transgressions under the first covenant were left outstanding and only removed by the sacrifice of Christ (Heb_9:15). All this, however, bears directly only on the question before him of the value of the Old Testament sacrifices in themselves, and whether they effected a true objective atonement. Old Testament saints felt they could not do so, and hence they were burdened with a sense of sin which, among ether things, manifested itself in a bondage from the fear of death (Heb_2:15).
2. Again, when the author says that blood of bulls could never take away Heb_10:4), and on the other hand that it sanctified in reference to the purity of the flesh (Heb_9:13), it is certainly very far from being his intention to draw a distinction between one class of offences called sins to which the Old Testament sacrifices were inapplicable, and another class that might be named ceremonial defilements which they did remove, and so to erect a general theory of the Old Testament constitution to the effect that it consisted of two spheres, one of ceremonial observances and external government, within which sacrifices had a real validity, and another the sphere of true spiritual relations to God, within which they had no force. The sacrifices were offered for sins Heb_5:1; Heb_5:3; Heb_9:7; Heb_10:8; Heb_1:11), and if they could have effected the purpose for which they were offered, the worshipper would have had no more conscience of sins (Heb_10:2), a condition which the offering of Christ brings about (Heb_9:14; Heb_10:17). The Old Testament sacrifices could not go further than to purify the flesh. (A. B.Davidson, LL. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv7–13 7. For if that first covenant. The covenant of…
7. For if that first covenant. The covenant of Sinai, the Law of Moses, the Old Testament. It was faulty and could not make men perfect. See note on chapter 7:18.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v7 Heb_8:7. Faultless.—Not merely “free from defect,” but “incomplete,” unable…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Heb_8:7. Faultless.—Not merely “free from defect,” but “incomplete,” unable fully to meet man’s case. The old system was complete enough for its limited sphere and purpose: fault was found with its limitations. No place have been sought.—There would have been no occasion for introducing another. The ground would have been covered. It may be said, Why then did not God make Judaism fully efficient? The answer may be given in the words of St. Paul, “That is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.” The spiritual always has to be prepared for.
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Heb_8:8. He saith.—See Jer_31:31-34. I will make.—Lit. “I will cut”; cutting a covenant was a familiar phrase, referring to the custom of slaying victims at the sealing of a covenant.
Heb_8:9. Not according to.—But different from; having a different central idea. The proved infirmity of men called for some alteration of the covenant terms. They needed to be dealt with in another way.
Heb_8:10. Covenant, etc.—This is the term of the new covenant; in it God undertook to inspire hearts, and not merely to guide conduct. Into their mind.—Deeply infix. This is fulfilled in Christ. His love is the best of all persuasions to righteousness. Contrast “law” and “love” as motive-powers; or obedience rendered from “fear” or from “affection.” Notice how fully the writer brings out the moral value of the Redeemer’s work.
Heb_8:11. Not teach, etc.—This describes generally the contrast between the time when a difficult law covered conduct, and the time when the love of Christ constrained. We need not press this beyond the proprieties of the figure. See Isa_54:13.
Heb_8:13. A new.—The writer fixes attention on this word. It involved the former covenant taking its place among things old and done with. If the new has come, and it is manifestly a fuller display of the Divine love and power, then the old is superseded. It is ready to vanish like a shadow. Let it go. Ready to vanish away.—Lit. “Now that which is becoming antiquated, and waxing aged, is near obliteration.” R.V. “But that which is becoming old, and waxeth aged, is nigh unto vanishing away.” “What is very old is near dissolution.” Observe that this writer could not have thus expressed himself after the final Roman siege of Jerusalem, which resulted in the sweeping away of the formal Mosaic system.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Heb_8:7-13
The Spirituality of the New Covenant.—Here is an important fact, which the Jewish Christians are called to face. They boasted of the old covenant. They clung to it tenaciously. They were even tempted by the bigoted party to return to their older form of allegiance to it; and yet their own Scriptures declared that God was dissatisfied with it, and with what had been accomplished by means of it, and had promised to establish with His people a new and better covenant. Already this writer had spoken of the older covenant as “weak, unprofitable, and earthly” (Heb_7:18). It is a great addition to his argument to be able to add, that Scripture declares God Himself to have been dissatisfied with its working. In support of his position the passage Jer_31:31-34 is quoted. There is an important difference between the way in which the old system is dealt with in this epistle and in the recognised Pauline epistles. “To St. Paul the contrast between the law and the gospel was that between the letter and the spirit, between bondage and freedom, between works and faith, between command and promise, between threatening and mercy. All these polemical elements disappear almost entirely from the epistle to the Hebrews, which regards the two dispensations as furnishing a contrast between type and reality. This was the more possible to Apollos (if he was the writer), because he regards Judaism not so much in the light of a law as in the light of a priesthood, and a system of worship.” In three respects, according to the promise given to Jeremiah, the new covenant would be better than the old. And each respect is an advantage on the spiritual side.
I. The laws of the new covenant were to be written on men’s hearts.—The laws of the old covenant were engraven on stone slabs, or written in books, to be read by men’s eyes; and a thousand things would blind them to, or hinder them from, reading and obeying. And the obedience offered to outward and written law need only be formal and perfunctory. In the new covenant God’s laws get into man’s will through man’s love. The persuasion of “I ought” is changed into the sweet constraint of “I wish to.” Christ, the ministrant of the new covenant, gets His power in men’s hearts, and sways motives and will to an obedience which is a holy joy.
II. The privileges of the new covenant will be universally enjoyed.—A covenant that is spiritual is free from all local, national, or race restrictions. It is something for man as a spiritual being, and therefore something for universal man. Exclusiveness was characteristic of the Mosaic dispensation; it was a necessary feature, because the covenant was formal, and the terms purely material privilege. All barriers between Jew and Gentile, bond and free, male and female, are removed when God graciously makes spiritual covenant with spiritual beings.
III. The working of the new covenant involves free forgiveness of the sins of the older covenant.—This difficulty might come to the minds of those who were called to enter into the new and spiritual covenant—What is to be done with the penalties which rest on us because of the breaking of the old? The promise of Jehovah through Jeremiah is, that when men come into the new covenant, their sins and inquities shall be remembered no more. When men are brought into right relations with God, their past can be dealt with in a way of free forgiveness. Their sins can be blotted out. As the application of his point the writer urges, that to call the former covenant old implies that it had done its work, had become effete, and was ready to be put aside. The old covenant did not match the new times. Nobody need regret the putting aside of that old covenant, if they would enter fully into all the high spiritual privileges of the new. “What is very old is near dissolution.” “If ‘nigh unto vanishing’ at the time when Jeremiah wrote, well might it now be believed to have passed away.” Accept fully the new covenant, which pledges on your part the obedience of love.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Heb_8:10. God’s Side in the New Covenant.—“Called of God a high priest.” One of the grave perils of the evangelical setting of the redemption truths lies in the misapprehension of its teaching which men only too readily make. Fixing such exclusive attention on what Christ suffered and did, many persons are found to cherish the notion that the Atonement is something which Christ devised and carried through, if not in opposition to God, yet in some way to get over difficulties which, for some inscrutable reason, God could not surmount Himself. Notions of appeasing wrath, and uncareful settings of the idea of propitiating, tend to nourish such untrue and unworthy notions. It is the absolutely primary and essential truth of Christianity that the Redemption is God’s redemption, the Atonement is God’s own providing, and the Sacrifice is God Himself in sacrifice. There is no ground whatever for separating God from Christ in the work of the Atonement, either in the Scriptures, or in the doctrine of the Church. What has to be dealt with is the cherished sentiment of many persons, and the evil influence of undisciplined and enthusiastic teachers. It may therefore be shown—
1. That throughout our Lord’s life, and as a marked characteristic of all His teachings, He put Himself in the second place, and the Father-God first. His supreme idea was to get men to think well of God. It is to dishonour Christ to attempt to put Him in a place which He wholly refused to occupy. This kind of thing He asserted continually: “The Father’s who sent Me”; “Thou hast sent Me.”
2. The apostles, in their teaching, carefully keep Christ in the ministerial and mediatorial place, and ascribe all the glory of the world’s redemption to God. One passage may guide the Bible student to many. St. Peter, speaking of Christ, says, “Who by Him do believe in God, who raised Him up from the dead.”
3. A redemption for man could not be satisfactory unless it were God’s devising. This may be shown by the figure of a covenant. It were of little account to us if God were forced, by something Christ did, to enter into covenant with us. The persuasion is on us to enter into covenant, because God so graciously offers it, and provides the Person for negotiating it.
Heb_8:12. The Considerateness of the New Covenant.—“For I will be merciful to their iniquities, and their sins will I remember no more.” This is part of the anticipative description of the covenant that was to be made in the latter days; and it gives the supreme point of interest in that covenant. In a sense the old covenant of works had in it no considerateness. It demanded an absolute and perfect formal obedience to formal rules, and took no account whatever of human frailties. Its terms concerned conduct; every man was assumed to be able to order his conduct; and he must order it so as to secure a perfect obedience, or he must endure the punishment that must come on the disobedient. How inconsiderate of human infirmity the old covenant of works was comes into full view when the Pharisees try to translate that covenant for their day, and exaggerate its characteristics. They elaborated its demands until they put men’s lives into prison bonds. They allowed no excuses for failure, and so bound grievous burdens on men’s shoulders beyond their power to bear. The sin of Rabbinism lies in its exaggeration of the inconsiderateness of the formal covenant of works. Or the weakness of the old covenant, and the superiority of the new, may be seen from another point of view. It dealt with men’s legal offences, not with their moral conditions. It dealt with their sins against rules, but not with their sins against God. It did not take into its consideration the iniquities which burdened men’s consciences, but did not find expression in acts which disturbed relations. The considerateness of the new covenant is seen in its contrast with the old in both these respects. It does take account of men’s frailties. It seeks a response of good-will from men, and is pitiful and compassionate when the good-will is thwarted from adequate expression by human infirmities. Nay, in view of human frailty, it proposes to be a power in men. “The method of the kingdom is to have the law written on the heart. Thereby the keeping of all that is essential is effectually provided for.” And the covenant does deal with men’s iniquities, with men’s sins before God, assuring a full Divine forgiveness for the things which burden the conscience and oppress the heart.
Heb_8:13, taken with Heb_10:9. The True Sacrifice.—Simply a theological expression of the unvarying and unvaried process of all things pertaining to human life. From the embryo to the decaying time of life, all constitutions of men everywhere obey this law. As soon as life comes, it begins to grow, grows to greatness, and then passes on to decay. The writer distinctly states that these “tables of stone,” “written by the finger of God,” the goat’s hair, and the rams’ skins dyed red, and the badgers’ skins, and all these things, said to be ordered by God, are worn out. “Finding fault” with them, he tells us that they are no longer of any possible utility; that though asserted to be of Divine origin, yet they were human in their conditions, and when they got down to earth they were subject to moth, rust, and decay. And, holding up the old covenant as a worn-out vesture, he says, “it is ready to vanish away.” Necessity has ordered it so, that all things shall seem Divine to men which are accepted as such by the wisest men of the time; and, on the other hand, nothing ought to be Divine to any man except the soul of the wisest sees it to be so. Do we really believe that God instituted these sacrifices? The conception of God which led to sacrifice was like most of our thoughts about God. It was born in the human heart. It was of humanity. It is impossible that man can conceive of any God except in his own likeness. The thought of sacrifice proceeds out of sinful hearts, addresses itself to sinful souls, and it belongs to the morning-time of the world, when men were unable to think of a restoration to favour without a material guarantee. Those who are weak require the crutch of Forms. Man grows slowly out of the childish trappings of a time when only through these outward things could be made visible the unseen. The prophets arose, and cast scorn upon the useless system of sacrifices. The people still clung to it, because they thought that all this outward business was a very good substitute for inward repentance and purity; but their wise men knew that there can be no sacrifice of any avail without a penitent soul and a sad heart. Now in this manner of religion you can have habits and forms without any true religion at all; skeletons without any life; substitutes for thought. And the mere observances of such outward forms, things that are done from mere habit, are done at the expense of the soul. Men come to fast without caring or fearing, to bow without reverence, to sing without enthusiasm. Isaiah scorned the Sodom-apple of outward purity when there was no heart of reality within. At last these forms came to be looked upon as dead. Then began the bloodless religion. Wheresoever Paul went, there the knife was sheathed, the fire died down, the beast ceased to be offered up. Wheresoever Christ was preached, and the religion of Christ was introduced, this wonderful effect always followed—the ascending smoke of the sacrifice on the altar was for ever done away with. Even in the Romish Church, they do not offer sacrifice, but only a bloodless offering, in memory of a sacrifice. The orthodox belief touching the death of Jesus Christ is the sublimest progress that man has ever made, up to the time when, through the very sublimity of this progress, it became necessary to go much further. What a wonderful difference there is in the spiritual conception of sacrifice! When the beast died, he died unwillingly; but when the Divine sacrifice was made, it was the sacrifice of Christ’s own will. To come forth freely to save the people is one thing, but to be the unwilling victim of the sacrificing priest is quite another. Therefore the whole thought of the death of Christ, as a free-will offering laid down by Himself in the midst of perfect power to refuse, is an amazing gain, a wonderful improvement in spiritual conception. If we look at it from the other side of it, what a gain! In the old times man supplied the victim; in the new times, God. In the old days the sinner found the sacrificial lamb; in the new days the God against whom man had sinned found “the Lamb of God.” This was the greatest gain that ever theology made, and so complete was it that man dare not afterwards offer his little pitiful sacrifices. God had sent a sacrifice, and it was impossible after that to be offering rams and lambs and bulls. When a man has been sacrificed, when for sinning man the only begotten Son, the beloved of God, has been sacrificed, when He has died, man sees at once that all other sacrifices now are dust and ashes. After the Son of God had been given, what could come? After this great High Priest had sacrificed His own life, after this Son of man had entered into the “Holy of Holies” and sacrificed Himself, the knife must be sheathed for ever, and the altar become cold. “There remaineth now no more sacrifice for sin.” Doth God require any sacrifice before He can forgive? There is the life of Christ, and there is the death of Christ. That throws light upon the old Jewish history. He is perfect manhood filled with Divineness, who laid down His own will in order that the will of God might be all in all. From what direction shall we gather the light in which we are to view the death of Christ? Shall the light be borrowed from Paganism, Judaism, and the old world, or developed from the whole life and spirit of Christ Himself? The Atonement is the reconcilement in a man of the Divine and the human so perfectly, that men following its laws are necessarily redeemed? In them the hostility between heaven and earth has ceased; the will of God has been perfectly done; and therefore all the ends at which religion has ever aimed have been attained, and the supreme victory won at last—the victory of the Spirit over the flesh, of duty over pleasure, of the will of God over the weak wishes and desires of man.—George Dawson, M.A.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 8
Heb_8:11. From the Least to the Greatest.—Why this order, “from the least to the greatest”? We might have expected the gospel to come into the world as the sun begins to shine, first tipping with gold the summits of the loftiest hills, and thence finding its way down to the depths of the valleys. No, it is “from the least to the greatest,” as if that were the natural way for Christianity to work. And so it is—it is God’s way. He chooses the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and “out of the mouths of babes and sucklings perfects His praise.” And this, by the way, affords an answer to an objection which may be made to our Sabbath-school operations abroad. It may be said, What good can your little work do there? This is the old objection—“Master, we have here five barley loaves, and two small fishes; but what are they among so many?” Yes, what are they in man’s hands? We know what they were in the hands of our Lord. “From the least even to the greatest,” that is the history of Christianity. It is the little grain of mustard seed dropped into the ground, which indeed is the least of seeds, but afterwards becomes a tree affording shelter for the birds of the air: it is like the pebble from the brook, which once felled the Philistine giant; it is like the stone cut from the mountain, which destroyed the great image, and filled the whole earth.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On v7 Pursuant to the great double experimental salvation of the…
ARGUMENT 6
THE TWO COVENANTS
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Pursuant to the great double experimental salvation of the gracious economy, everything in the Bible is double. Suntheekee means a covenant of man with man. Diatheekee means a covenant of God with man. This latter word is injudiciously translated testament. Instead of calling God’s book the Old and New Testament, we should say the Old and New Covenant, as that is the correct meaning of both the Hebrew and the Greek. The Mosaic is the old covenant, and being the most conspicuous transaction of the former dispensation, it gave name to God’s book. Hence we call it the Old Testament or, as we should say, the Old Covenant. The covenant of redemption made by the divinity and humanity of Christ is the great transaction of the New Testament. Hence it gives name to that wonderful book which should be called the New Covenant. These two covenants are unanswerable confirmations of the two works of grace wrought in the heart by the Holy Ghost, in the consummation of experimental salvation. Since the new covenant is the plan of salvation, of course it was inaugurated in heaven, about the time of the fall, when the Son of God espoused the lost cause. Abel and all of the antediluvian saints, as well as the postdiluvian patriarchs, were saved under the new covenant. It is called new in contradistinction to the covenant of probation which collapsed in Eden on Satan’s invasion. The adjective “new” has a further and deeper signification in the purely and transcendently gracious character of that covenant. “Old” conveys the idea of decay, dilapidation and evanescence. God, angels and redeemed spirits are eternally new. The grace of God is always new, bright, vital and heavenly. Hence when we receive the glorious experience of Christian perfection, pursuant to the wonderful provisions of the new covenant, our experience is no longer stale and old, but ever fresh, bright and buoyant. It is an effectual fortification against old age. Sanctified old people have the spiritual freshness and vigor of youth. The Mosaic covenant is called old, because it is a reminiscence of the primary probationary covenant, forfeited by Adam and Eve in the fall. Again it is called old because of its destined decay and transiency consequent upon its imperfection. The Edenic covenant once forfeited could never he regained. Under the omnipotent intervention of the new covenant, through the vicarious atonement of the eternal Son, the Edenic state is regained in the human soul in entire sanctification, and in the world in the millennium. Hence, as Paul says, the old covenant, or the law, is a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith. The great signification of the law dispensation through its copious bloody rites and ceremonies, is to teach the world the great work of Christ, through the atoning and cleansing blood, and that of the Holy Ghost in regeneration and sanctification, emblematized by water, blood, fire and oil. The old covenant gives great prominence to the material phases of religion, i.e. the robed priest officiating and interceding, and bleeding birds and beasts, purifying ablutions and paying tithes, while the new covenant in its transcendent prominence of spiritualities throws all materialities into eternal eclipse.
7. This verse declares the imperfection of the Mosaic covenant, i.e., the justified experience.
8-10. These verses indisputably settle the question confirming the identity of the old covenant with the Mosaic, and at the same time certifying its insufficiency. Where your English says, “I will make a new covenant,” the Greek says, “I will complete a new covenant.” Hence the idea that the new covenant was a de novo transaction in the days of Christ on the earth, is untrue and untenable. When Christ came He perfected the new covenant of redemption, projected in heaven when He espoused the rescue of this fallen world, the same covenant He sealed with His blood when He died on the cross.
10. “This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; putting my laws in their mind, truly I will write them on their heart: and I will be unto them a God, and they shall be unto me a people.” Here God clearly defines and lucidly expounds the differentia of the new covenant. It is peculiarized by His putting His laws in our minds, and writing them in our hearts, so we have nothing to do but read them, the Holy Spirit giving us all the help we need to discern and understand them.
11. “And they may not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know ye the Lord because all shall know me from their small even unto the greatest.’” These verses clearly and unequivocally define the character and privilege of the new covenant. When we enter that covenant the Holy Spirit writes the laws of God in our minds, and superscribes them in our hearts, so that all, great and small, have a personal acquaintance with God, so clear, full and satisfactory, as to preclude the necessity of human teaching. The illiterate Hottentot, when fully saved, and filled with the Spirit, knows his duty to God each fleeting moment, and has at his command all the grace requisite to do God’s will. Hence you see the citizens of the new covenant are neither subject to, nor dependent on, human leaders and teachers. The Holy Ghost has become the Teacher and Leader of all, great and small, educated and illiterate. Unconverted people follow Satan only. Unsanctified Christians follow the Lord in a measure, but very largely do they follow human leaders. People who are sanctified wholly follow the Lord alone, enjoying the perfect freedom of God himself, which is full liberty to do everything good and nothing bad. This is the glorious freedom of God, angels and redeemed saints, which makes heaven so sweet. The new covenant was gloriously inaugurated by the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire on the day of Pentecost, consuming all the debris of original sin out of the heart, and sweeping away all the rubbish of Levitical rites and ceremonies. No wonder the carnal clergy in all ages have fought Christian perfection, because it interferes with their plan of ruling the people. Sanctified Moses was delighted when God raised tip seventy elders to share with him the labor and responsibility of leading Israel. When his and-holiness friends interposed and asked him to shut their mouths, lest they supersede him in his official majesty, in the chagrin of his righteous soul he shouted aloud, “Would to God that every man in Israel did prophesy!” Sanctified preachers are delighted with the relief from care and responsibility which legitimately supervenes upon the sanctification of their members. The poor deluded pastors fret and chafe, paralyze their nerves, get old prematurely and die before their time, because the care, labor and responsibility of leading their people is more than they can bear. If they were only sanctified they would let Jesus the Omnipotent Sanctifier bear all their burdens, cares, labors and responsibilities. How sad to see the Gospel Church in all lands toiling and sweating in legal bondage. They have not only resumed the laws of Moses, but they have made a thousand more and added to their burdens, already intolerable. The people work night and day and still fall far short of their duty, incurring the galling yoke of a guilty conscience in addition to insuperable toils of legal bondage. All this was apologetical during the dispensation of Moses. But since the Omnipotent Christ has forever superseded Moses and Aaron, triumphantly fulfilling the law by paying its full penalty, it is lamentable to see the ecclesiastical world again staggering under the law dispensation. This has postponed the millennium eighteen hundred years.
“Truly I say unto you that there are certain ones of those standing here who may not taste death till they may see the Son of man coining in His kingdom.” (Mat 16:28)
We see clearly from this declaration of the Savior the glorious possibility of getting the world ready for the Lord to ride down on His millennial throne before the death of the Pentecostal generation. The Greek subjunctive shows the human contingency involved, which verily came to pass, i.e., the apostasy from the Pentecostal experience postponed the coming kingdom, by defeating the evangelization of the world. Consequently, the Lord is still waiting for sanctification to furnish a sufficiency of charter members to set up His kingdom. The glory of the millennial reign obtains largely in the fact that every subject, great and small, rich and poor, cultured and ignorant, will have the laws of God written in his heart and superscribed in his understanding. This will be the secret of universal harmony. It is true now with all who are wholly and really sanctified. Regardless of race, color, nationality, country, language, costume, sect or creed, they are a perfect unit and a universal brotherhood. What unutterable relief from the perplexity, ambiguity, incertitude and consummate bewilderment of human creeds, sectarian jargon, and autocratic despotism, to have the laws of God inscribed in our minds and written in our hearts, so we know our duty every moment of our existence, have all the grace we need to perform it, and are so delighted in doing the sweet will of God that we actually enjoy a heaven in which to go to heaven. What delectable relief from legal bondage! No wonder two hundred millions of martyrs died rather than surrender this glorious freedom. Reader, are you in the new covenant of glorious spiritual light and liberty, or plodding along in the old covenant, two thousand years behind the age, your necked galled with the yoke of legal bondage?
12. Truly the glorious liberty of the new covenant settles the sin problem and keeps it settled forever. Omnipotent grace manages that vexed question.
13. We see from this verse that God’s plan was for the old covenant to vanish eternally before the splendors of Pentecostal glory and the triumphs of the millennial reign. Oh, how sad the apostasy of the Apostolic Church back into the law dispensation Humanity has always been a failure. It failed in Eden. It failed in the antediluvian dispensation. It failed in postdiluvian patriarchy. It failed in the Mosaical and prophetical ages. But the saddest failure of all is the collapse from the Pentecostal victories and glories of the new covenant, and the glorious privileges of the Melchisedec priesthood back into the burdensome drudgery of the moonlit dispensation.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv10–12
Hebrews
THE ARTICLES OF THE NEW COVENANT: GOD’S WELTING ON THE HEART
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Heb 8:10
WE can scarcely estimate the shock to a primitive Hebrew Christian when he discovered that Judaism was to fade away. Such an earthquake might seem to leave nothing standing. Now, the great object of this Epistle is to insist on that truth, and to calm the early Hebrew Christians under it, by showing them that the disappearance of the older system left them no poorer but infinitely richer, inasmuch as all that was in it was more perfectly in Christ’s gospel. The writer has accordingly been giving his strength to showing that, all along the line, Christianity is the perfecting of Judaism, in its Founder, in its priesthood, in its ceremonies, in its Sabbath. Here he touches the great central thought of the covenant between God and man, and he fall back upon the strange words of one of the old prophets. Jeremiah had declared as emphatically as he, the writer, has been declaring, that the ancient system was to melt away and be absorbed in a new covenant between God and man. Is there any other instance of a religion which, on the one side, proclaims its own eternal duration - ‘the Word of the Lord endureth for ever’ - and on the other side declares that it is to be abrogated, antiquated, and done away? The writer of the Epistle had learned from sacreder lips than Jeremiah’s the same lesson, for the Master said at the most solemn hour of His career, ‘This is the blood of the New Covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.’
These articles of the New Covenant go very deep into the essence of Christianity, and may well be thought. fully pondered by us all, if we wish to know what the specific differences between the ultimate revelation in Jesus Christ, and all other systems are. The words I have read for my text are the first of these articles.
I. Let us try to ascertain what exactly is the meaning of this great promise.
Now it seems to me that the two clauses which I have read for my text are not precisely parallel, but parallel with a difference. I take it, that ‘mind’ here means very much what we make it mean in our popular phraseology, a kind of synonym for the understanding, or the intellectual part of a man’s nature; and that ‘heart,’ on the other hand, means something a little wider than it does in our popular phraseology, and indicates not only the affections, but the centre of personality in the human will, as well as the seat of love. So these two clauses will mean, you see, if we carry that distinction with us, two things - the clear perception of the will of God, and the coincidence of that will with our inclinations and desires.’ In men’s natural consciences, there is the law written on their minds, but alas! we all know that there is an awful chasm between perception and inclination, and that it is one thing to know our duty, and quite another to wish to do it. So the heart of this great promise of my text is that these two things shall coincide in a Christian man, shall cover precisely the same ground; as two of Euclid’s triangles having the same angles will, if laid upon each other, coincide line for line and angle for angle. Thus, says this great promise, it is possible - and, if we observe the conditions, it will be actual in us - that knowledge and will shall cover absolutely and exactly the same ground. Inclination will be duty, and duty will be inclination and delight. Nothing short of such a thought lies here.
And how is that wonderful change upon men to be accomplished? ‘I will put, I will write.’ Only He can do it. We all know, by our own experience, the schism that gapes between the two things. Every man in the world knows a vast deal more of duty than any man in the world does. The worst of us has a standard that rebukes his evil, and the best of us has a standard that transcends his goodness, and, alas! often transcends his inclination.
But the gospel of our Lord and Saviour comes armed with sufficient power to make this miracle an actuality for us all.
For it comes, does it not, to substitute for all other motives to obedience, the one motive of love? They but half understand the gospel who dwell upon its sanctions of reward and punishment, and would seek to frighten men into goodness by brandishing the whip of law before them, and uncovering the lid that shuts in the smoke of a hell And they misinterpret it almost as much, if there be any such, who find the chief motive for Christian obedience in the glories of the heavenly state. These are subordinate and legitimate in their secondary place, but the gospel appeals to men, not merely nor chiefly on the ground of self-interest, but it comes to them with the one appeal, ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments.’ That is how the law is written on the heart. Wherever there is love, there is a supreme delight in divining and in satisfying the wish and will of the beloved. His lightest word is law to the loving heart; his looks are spells and commandments. And if it is so in regard of our poor, imperfect, human loves, how infinitely more so is it where the heart is touched by true affection for His own infinite love’s sake, of that ‘Jesus’ who is ‘most desired!’ The secret of Christian morality is that duty is changed into choice, because love is made the motive for obedience.
And, still further, let me remind you how this great promise is fulfilled in the Christian life, because to have Christ shrined in the heart is the heart of Christianity, and Christ Himself is our law. So, in another sense than that which I have been already touching, the law is written on the heart on which, by faith and self-surrender, the name of Christ is written. And when it becomes our whole duty to become like Him, then He being throned in our hearts, our law is within, and Himself to His ‘darlings’ shall be, as the poet has it about another matter, ‘both law and impulse.’ Write His name upon your hearts, and your law of life is thereby written there.
And, still further, let me remind you that this great promise is fulfilled, because the very specific gift of Christianity to men is the gift of a new nature which is ‘created in righteousness and holiness that flows from truth.’ The communication of a divine life kindred with, and percipient of, and submissive to, the divine will is the gift that Christianity - or, rather, let us put away the abstraction and say that Christ - offers . to us all, and gives to every man who will accept it.
And thus, and in other ways on which I cannot dwell now, this great article of the New Covenant lies at the very foundation of the Christian life, and gives its peculiar tinge and cast to all Christian morality, commandment, and obligation.
But let me remind you how this great truth has to be held with caution. The evidence of this letter itself shows that, whilst the writer regarded it as a distinctive characteristic of the gospel, that by it men’s wills were stamped with a delight in the law of God, and a transcript thereof, he still regarded these wills as unstable, as capable of losing the sharp lettering, of having the writing of God obliterated, and still regarded it as possible that there should be apostasy and departure.
So there is nothing in this promise which suspends the need for effort and for conflict. Still ‘the flesh lusteth against the spirit.’ Still there are parts of the nature on which that law is not written. It is the final triumph, that the whole man, body, soul, and spirit is, through and through, penetrated with, and joyfully obedient to, the commandments of the Lord. There is need, too, not only for continuous progress, effort, conflict, in order to keep our hearts open for His handwriting, but also for much caution, lest at any time we should mistake our own self-will for the utterance of the divine voice.
‘Love, and do what thou wilt,’ said a great Christian teacher. It is an unguarded statement, but profoundly true as in some respects it is, it is only absolutely true if we have made sure that the ‘thou’ which ‘wills’ is the heart on which God has written His law.
Only God can do this for us. The Israelites of old were bidden ‘these things which I command thee this day shall be on thy heart,’ and they were to write them on their hand, and on the frontlet between their eyes, and on their doorposts. The latter commands were obeyed, having been hardened into a form; and phylacteries on the arm, and scrolls on the lintel, were the miserable obedience which was given to them. But the complete writing on the heart was beyond the power of unaided man. A psalmist said, ‘I delight to do Thy will, and Thy law is within my heart.’ But a verse or two after, in the same psalm, he wailed, ‘Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of my head. Therefore my heart faileth me.’ One Man has transcribed the divine will on His will, without blurring a letter, or omitting a clause. One Man has been able to say, in the presence of the most fearful temptations, ‘Not My will, but Thine, be done.’ One Man has so completely written, perceived, and obeyed the law of His Father, that, looking back on all His life, He was conscious of no defect or divergence, either in motive or in act, and could affirm on the Cross, ‘It is finished.’ He who thus perfectly kept that divine law will give to us, if we ask Him, His spirit, to write it upon our hearts, and ‘the law of the spirit of life which was in Christ Jesus shall make us free from the law of sin and death.’
II. Now, secondly, note the impassable gulf which this fulfilled promise makes between Christianity and all other systems.
It is a new covenant, undoubtedly-an altogether new thing in the world. For whatever other laws have been promulgated among men have had this in common, that they have stood over against the Will with a whip in one hand, and a box of sweets in the other, and have tried to influence desires and inclinations, first by the setting forth of duty, then by threatening, and then by promises to obedience. There is the inherent weakness of all which is merely law. You do not make men good by telling them in what goodness consists, nor yet by setting forth the bitter consequences that may result from wrong-doing. All that is surface work. But there is a power which says that it deals with the will as from within, and moves, and moulds, and revolutionises it. ‘You cannot make men sober by act of parliament,’ people say. Well! I do not believe the conclusion which is generally drawn from that statement, but it is perfectly true in itself. To tell a man what he ought to do is very, very little help towards his doing it. I do not under-estimate the value of a clear perception of duty, but I say that, apart from Christianity, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that clear perception of duty is like a clear opening of a great gulf between a man and safety, which only makes him recoil in despair with the thought, ‘how can I ever leap across that?’ But the peculiarity of the gospel is that it gives both the knowledge of what we ought to be; and with and in the knowledge, the desire, and with and in the knowledge and the desire, the power to be what God would have us to be.
All other systems, whether the laws of a nation, or the principles of a scientific morality, or the solemn voice that speaks in our minds proclaiming some version of God’s law to every man- all these are comparatively impotent. They are like bill-stickers going about a rebellious province posting the king’s proclamation. Unless they have soldiers at their back, the proclamation is not worth the paper it is printed upon. But Christianity comes, and gives us that which it requires from us. So, in his epigrammatic way, St. Augustine penetrated to the very heart of this article when he prayed, ‘Give what Thou commandest, and command what Thou wilt.’
III. Note the freedom and blessedness of this fulfilled promise.
Not to do wrong may be the mark of a slave’s timid obedience. Not to
wish to do wrong is the charter of a son’s free and blessed service. There is a higher possibility yet, reserved for heaven - not to be able to do wrong. Freedom does not consist in doing what I like - that turns out, in the long run, to be the most abject slavery, under the severest tyrants. But it consists in liking to do what I ought. When my wishes and God’s will are absolutely coincident, then and only then, am I free. That is no prison, out of which we do not wish to go. Not to be confined against our wills, but voluntarily to elect to move only within the sacred, charmed, sweet circle of the discerned will of God, is the service and liberty of the sons of God.
Alas! there are a great many Christians, so-called, who know very little about such blessedness. To many of us religion is a burden. It consists of a number of prohibitions and restrictions and commandments equally unwelcome. ‘Do not do this,’ and all the while I would like to do it. ‘Do that,’ and all the while I do not want to do it. ‘Pray, because it is your duty; go to chapel, because you think it is God’s will; give money that you would much rather keep in your pockets: abstain from certain things that you hunger for; do other things that you do not at all desire to do, nor find any pleasure in doing.’ That is the religion of hosts of people. They have need to ask themselves whether their religion is Christ’s religion. Ah! brethren! - ‘My yoke is easy and My burden light; not because the things that He bids and forbids are less or lighter than those which the world’s morality requires of its followers, but because, so to speak, the yoke is padded with the velvet of love, and inclination coincides, in the measure of our true religion, with the discerned will of God.
IV. Lastly, one word about the condition of the fulfilment of this promise to us.
As I have been saying, it is sadly far ahead of the experience of crowds of so-called Christians. There are still great numbers of professing Christians, and I doubt not that I speak to some such, on whose hearts only a very few of the syllables of God’s will are written, and these very faintly and blotted. But remember that the fundamental idea of this whole context is that of a covenant, and a covenant implies two parties, and duties and obligations on the part of each. If God is in covenant with you, you are in covenant with God. If He makes a promise, there is something for you to do in order that that promise may be fulfilled to you.
What is there to do? First, and last, and midst, keep close to Jesus Christ. In the measure in which we keep ourselves in continual touch with Him, will His law be written upon our hearts. If we are for ever twitching away the paper; if we are for ever flinging blots and mud upon it, how can we expect the transcript to be clear and legible? We must keep still that God may write. We must wait habitually in His presence. When the astronomer wishes to get the image of some far-off star, invisible to the eye of sense, he regulates the motion of his sensitive plate, so that for hours it shall continue right beneath the unseen Beam. So we have to still our hearts, and keep their plates - the fleshy tables of them - exposed to the heavens. Then the likeness of God will be stamped there.
Be faithful to what is written there, which is the Christian shape of the heathen commandment - ‘Do the duty that lies nearest thee; so shall the next become plainer.’ Be faithful to the line that is ‘written,’ and there will be more on the tablet to-morrow.
Now this is a promise for us all However blotted and blurred and defaced by crooked, scrawling letters, like a child’s copy-book, with its first pot- hooks and hangers, our hearts may be, there is no need for any of us to say despairingly, as we look on the smeared page, ‘What I have written I have written.’ He is able to blot it all out, to ‘take away the hand-writing’ - our own - ‘that is against us, nailing it to His Cross,’ and to give us, in our inmost spirits, a better knowledge of, and a glad obedience to, His discerned and holy will. So that each of us, if we choose, and will observe the conditions, may be able to say with all humility, ‘Lo! I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do Thy will, yea! Thy law is within my heart.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv8, 10, 11, 12 The New Covenant, Summary:
The New Covenant, Summary:
(1) "Better" than the Mosaic covenant not morally, but efficaciously Heb 7:19; Rom 8:3; Rom 8:4.
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(2) Established on "better" (i.e. unconditional) promises. In the Mosaic Covenant God said, "If ye will" Exo 19:5, in the New Covenant He says, "I will" Heb 8:10; Heb 8:12.
(3) Under the Mosaic Covenant obedience sprang from fear Heb 2:2; Heb 12:25-27 under the New from a willing heart and mind Heb 8:10.
(4) The New Covenant secures the personal revelation of the Lord to every believer Heb 8:11.
(5) the complete oblivion of sins Heb 8:12; Heb 10:17; Heb 10:3.
(6) rests upon an accomplished redemption Mat 26:27; Mat 26:28; 1Co 11:25; Heb 9:11; Heb 9:12; Heb 9:18-23.
(7) and secures the perpetuity, future conversion, and blessing of Israel. Jer 31:31-40. See also "Kingdom (O.T.)," and 2Sa 7:8-17.
The New Covenant is the eighth, thus speaking of resurrection and of eternal completeness.
Covenant
I. The Eight Covenants, Summary:
(1) The Edenic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 1:26") conditioned the life of man in innocency.
(2) The Adamic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 3:14") conditions the life of fallen man and gives promise of a Redeemer.
(3) The Noahic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 9:1"). establishes the principle of human government.
(4) The Abrahamic Covenant (See Scofield "Gen 15:18") founds the nation of Israel, and confirms, with specific additions, the Adamic promise of redemption.
(5) The Mosaic Covenant (See Scofield "Exo 19:25"). condemns all men, "for that all have sinned."
(6) The Palestinian Covenant (See Scofield "Deu 30:3") secures the final restoration and conversion of Israel.
(7) The Davidic Covenant (See Scofield "2Sa 7:16") establishes the perpetuity of the Davidic family (fulfilled in Christ), Mat 1:1; Luk 1:31-33,; Rom 1:3 and of the Davidic kingdom, over Israel, and over the whole earth; to be fulfilled in and by Christ; 2Sa 7:8-17; Zec 12:8; Luk 1:31-33; Act 15:14-17; 1Co 15:24.
(8) The New covenant rests upon the sacrifice of Christ, and secures the eternal blessedness, under the Abrahamic Covenant Gal 3:13-29 of all who believe. It is absolutely unconditional, and, since no responsibility is by it committed to man, it is final and irreversible.
II. The relation of Christ to the eight covenants is as follows:
(1) To the Edenic Covenant, Christ, as the "second Man," the "last Adam" 1Co 15:45-47 takes the place over all things which the first Adam lost; Col 2:10; Heb 2:7-8.
(2) He is the "Seed of the woman" of the Adamic Covenant Gen 3:15; Joh 12:31; 1Jn 3:8; Gal 4:4; Rev 20:10 and fulfilled its conditions of toil Mar 6:3 and obedience.
(3) As the greatest son of Shem, in Him was fulfilled supremely the promise to Shem in the Noahic Covenant. (See Scofield "Gen 9:1") Col 2:9.
(4) He is the "Seed to whom the promises were made" in the Abrahamic Covenant; the son of Abraham obedient unto death Gen 22:18; Gal 3:16; Php 2:8.
(5) He lived sinlessly under the Mosaic covenant and bore for us its curse. Gal 3:10-13.
(6) He lived obediently as a Jew in the land under the Palestinian Covenant, and will yet perform it gracious promises Deu 28:1 to Deu 30:9.
(7) He is the "Seed," "Heir," and "King" under the Davidic Covenant Mat 1:1; Luk 1:31-33.
(8) His sacrifice is the foundation of the New Covenant Mat 26:28; 1Co 11:25.
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv8, 10, 11, 13 General Information:
General Information:
In this quotation the prophet Jeremiah foretold of a new covenant that God would make.
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with the people
"with the people of Israel"
See
"Look" or "Listen" or "Pay attention to what I am about to tell you"
the days are coming
The future is spoken of as if it were moving toward the speaker. AT: "there will be a time" (See: Metaphor)
the house of Israel and with the house of Judah
The people of Israel and Judah are spoken of as if they were houses. AT: "the people of Israel and with the people of Judah" (See: Metaphor)
I took them by their hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt
This metaphor represents God's great love and concern. AT: "I led them out of Egypt like a father leads his young child" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
God
day
covenant
house
Israel
Judah
ancestor
Egypt
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7–13 8:7-13 The author quotes Jer 31:31-34, an Old Testament…
8:7-13 The author quotes Jer 31:31-34, an Old Testament prophecy concerning the new covenant that includes a number of striking promises. Establishing the superiority of the new covenant lays a foundation for the argument in Heb 9:1–10:18 that the Son’s offering under the new covenant was superior to the offerings of the old covenant.
8:7 The first covenant, made at Sinai, was not faultless. It was not the end of God’s plan, because it didn’t solve human weaknesses (see 7:11-28; 8:9).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.