Hebrews 8:6

But now [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He also is a mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second... "Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah... I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people... For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more." In that He says, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. (Hebrews 8:6–13)

When Jesus brokers the deal, the covenant He negotiates leaves every other agreement obsolete.

A Better Deal Brokered

In 1974, a thirty-year-old film director was shopping a movie treatment and rough screenplay around to studios looking for funding. He already had a two-picture deal with Universal and had just finished the first film. When Universal's executives looked over his new treatment, they weren't interested, so they let him shop it elsewhere. He found an open door at Fox Studios, who offered him $50,000 to write the screenplay, $50,000 to produce, and $50,000 to direct.

While they were negotiating, his first film with Universal came out and became a runaway hit, instantly making a fortune. His agent came back convinced they could now get a half million, maybe a million dollars for the new movie. But the director wasn't interested in more money. He wanted something else—a new deal, something never asked for before and never done since. Fox agreed. What he wanted was the sequel rights and the licensing rights to all merchandise, because he hoped this single movie would become a series of nine films called Star Wars.

Forty years after it came out in 1977, that has proved to be a much better deal. The franchise has brought in over $31 billion. George Lucas retained the licensing rights for the entire movie, which he sold in 2012 to Disney for $4 billion. He is now one of the richest men in the world—worth some $5.1 billion—because his agent brokered a better deal that no studio will likely ever offer again. Fox still kicks itself for letting go of those rights. Someone negotiated a far better contract going forward.

Jesus Is the Mediator of a Far Better Covenant

Over the last four months we've been working through Hebrews, in which the author defends the position that Jesus is better. We've seen that Jesus is better than the patriarchs, the prophets, the angels, Moses, the priesthood, and the high priests. This whole book is an apologetic—a defense written for Jewish readers 2,000 years ago who had left Judaism to trust in Jesus, but were now being tempted, perhaps by family and friends, to abandon Christ and return to the covenants, the promises, the temple, the priesthood, and the law.

To them the author—whom I think is Timothy—says in verse 6 (New Living Translation): "Jesus is our high priest, and he has been given a ministry that is far superior to the old priesthood, for he is the one who mediates for us a far better covenant with God." Much like George Lucas's lawyer brokered a better deal, Jesus brokers a far better one—infinitely better than the deal Fox first offered, which itself yielded some 35,000 times the original money.

This is the first point: Jesus is the mediator of a far better covenant. Jewish readers understood covenants far better than we do. We rarely use the concept today unless we're contract lawyers, but their entire identity was wrapped up in covenants. The first 39 books of the Bible, Genesis through Malachi, were the entirety of their Scriptures—the Old Covenant.

In those books there are seven major covenants between God and humanity, each with a mediator, a broker. There were covenants made through Adam, through Noah, through Abraham and his descendants, through Moses—the most important for the Jewish people—through Aaron and the priests, and through David and his family. Every covenant has a mediator. And the author of Hebrews says Jesus has brokered a far better agreement between God and man than any that came through Adam, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, or Aaron.

Better Because of Better Promises

Why is Jesus' covenant better? Verse 6 says He "is mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises." This is the second point: His is a better covenant because it is based upon better promises.

It is hard for us to feel the weight of this for the original readers. Their entire national, geographical, historical, and cultural identity was centered on these covenants. The Promised Land came through the covenant with Abraham. Their identity as God's chosen people came through Moses. Their way to approach God came through Aaron's priestly covenant. Their hope of an eternal king came through the covenant with David. For 1,500 years their whole identity was wrapped up in these things.

Now the author tells them that all of it can be set aside. Everything they trusted in, looked back to, and found their identity in can be left behind, because they have been given a new identity. Though most of us today are not from a Jewish background, when you put your trust in Jesus you also receive a new identity—one found not in Moses, Abraham, the priests, the temple, or the feast days, but in Christ.

Imagine being asked to walk away from everything that makes you who you are culturally, nationally, and historically. Of course they would ask: how is this possible? How is this a better covenant than the one Moses brokered? To answer, Timothy does what he routinely does in this book—he goes back to Scripture, reaching back 500 years to the prophet Jeremiah, quoting Jeremiah 31:31:

Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, because they did not continue in My covenant, and I disregarded them, says the LORD. (Hebrews 8:8–9)

In other words: you should already know this. God promised through your own prophet, 500 years ago, that He would make a new covenant. You should expect to step away from the old covenant under Moses, because God Himself promised something new.

The Fault Was in the People, Not the Covenant

But why a new covenant? What was wrong with the old one? When you read the language of the contract itself, you won't find anything wrong with it. There was still a problem—but it lay elsewhere. This is the third point: the fault of the first covenant is the fault and failure of Israel, not the covenant itself.

Look again at verses 7–8: "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, He says..." A new covenant was necessary not because the covenant was flawed, but because the people with whom God made it failed. God says, in effect, "I'm making a new covenant because you broke My covenant."

Someone might object: if God knows all things, isn't it His fault for brokering a covenant with a broken people He knew would fail? When you enter a contract, even with a plumber, you check the reviews. You don't sign with someone you know will break it. If you enter a contract with someone you know won't keep it, you're a fool. So why would God enter a covenant with people He knew couldn't keep it?

That objection would hold if God's purpose in the old covenant was that Israel would keep it and be made perfect. But that was never the purpose. The purpose of the old covenant—the law, the temple, the sacrifices—was not salvation. It was never to purify or perfect the people or take away sin.

How do we know? Hebrews 10:1 says the law "can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect." If it could have made them perfect, the sacrifices would have ceased. Verse 4 says, "It is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin." God never entered that covenant hoping it would perfect them. He knew they could never keep it.

The Law's True Purpose: To Reveal Sin

So what was its purpose? Paul gives insight in Romans 3:20: "By the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified... for by the law is the knowledge of sin." In Romans 7:7 he says, "I would not have known sin except through the law." And in Galatians 3:24, "The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith."

The whole purpose of the old covenant was to show you and me just how sinful we are—and at that, the covenant was extremely good. The law is holy, just, and good, and it is very good at showing us we are complete failures. If you came to church today thinking that doing the works of the law will make you right with God, you're in deep trouble. You cannot do enough good to undo your sinful works. Even our righteous deeds are as filthy rags before God (Isaiah 64:6). The fault of the first covenant was that you and I are complete and total failures. That's the problem—not the covenant.

Faultless Because It Rests on His Faultlessness

So what now, once we realize our failure? Verse 10 continues the quotation from Jeremiah 31:33:

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 in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people... For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more. (Hebrews 8:10–12)

Notice the five "I wills" of God. Speaking through Jeremiah 500 years before Christ, God says: I will make a new covenant; I will put My law in your mind and heart; I will be your God; I will be merciful to your unrighteousness; I will remember your sins no more.

This is the fourth point: His new covenant is faultless because it relies entirely upon His faultlessness, and it forgives our failures. Paul writes in Romans 8 that "the law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do" by sending His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.

The old covenant said, "You must keep these requirements"—and there was no possible way for us to fulfill them. It was conditioned upon our perfect keeping. The new covenant is unconditional for us. God says, "I will, I will, I will, I will, I will." It is conditioned upon Him fulfilling it—and you can be certain of one thing: God fulfills His end completely, perfectly, in every way.

The Old Made Obsolete

Hebrews 8:13: "In that He says, 'A new covenant,' He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away." This is the fifth point: the new covenant has rendered the old obsolete and unnecessary. That is why we preach the gospel of the new covenant, not the laws of the old.

A Jewish reader might ask: what about the temple, the tabernacle, the Holy of Holies, the altar of incense—all the structures of the first covenant? Hebrews 9 answers. The first covenant had "ordinances and divine service and an earthly sanctuary": a tabernacle with the lampstand, the table of showbread, and behind the second veil the Holiest of All, with the ark of the covenant, the golden pot of manna, Aaron's rod, the tablets, and the cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat.

The priests went into the first part performing services, but only the high priest went into the second part, once a year, not without blood for himself and the people's sins. The Holy Spirit indicated by this that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing. It was symbolic for that time—gifts and sacrifices that could not make the worshiper perfect in conscience, "imposed until the time of reformation."

Christ Entered the True Sanctuary

Then comes verse 11: "But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands... Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption." He entered not the holy place on earth, but the Most Holy Place in heaven.

"If the blood of bulls and goats... sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." For this reason He is the mediator of the new covenant, "that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance."

All of us are transgressors under the first covenant, and the first covenant cannot deal with our sin. Its sacrifices could never pay the debt. So Jesus came at just the right time to give His life as the one sacrifice, once for all, that we might receive the better promises. And the better promise, right at the end, is "the promise of the eternal inheritance"—eternal life. The first covenant could not touch that.

The first covenant offered veiled access to God on the basis of limited atonement through perpetual animal sacrifices, conditioned upon perfectly fulfilling impossible commandments. The new covenant offers mercy for our unrighteousness and forgiveness for our iniquities on the basis of His unlimited atonement through His death, burial, and resurrection—once for all. That is good news. Amen.

Closing Prayer

Jesus, we thank You today that You are the broker, the mediator of a much better deal. God, we could never, by our own works, our own ability, our own strength, make ourselves right before You, a holy God. Many of us have tried to do better, to do away with our own sin, to live righteously for Your glory—but apart from Your strength we have absolute inability. We need Your grace. We try to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, but we thank You that it is You who works in us to will and to do Your good pleasure.

We thank You, Jesus, that You died once for all, the just for the unjust. You did what we could not do, what the law of Moses was unable to do because of the weakness of our sinful nature. You became sin for us that we might receive Your righteousness; You lived a perfect and holy life for us that we would receive Your forgiving grace. Help us to walk in the rest and liberty of Your forgiveness, to rejoice in it, that its joy would be seen in our lives by everyone we meet.

If you have been trying in your own strength to undo your sin, to keep some standard of righteousness in hopes that God will one day say, "Good job," know that the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be saved by faith—not by keeping the law, because no one can keep it perfectly enough. Jesus did for you what you could never do for yourself. If you would like to receive His forgiving grace, pray with me now:

Dear Jesus, I recognize my need for You. I pray that You would come into my life, that You would forgive me of my sin, that You would help me to follow You by faith. In Jesus' name, amen.