Year 3, Day 112: Hebrews 8

True Tent

Once more the author of Hebrews makes a poignant statement about the supremacy of Christ.  After Christ died, He rose from the dead.  After He had risen, He ascended into heaven.  As our creeds say, “He is seated at the right hand of the Father.”  Jesus is not in a tomb.  He is not there.  He is risen and He has ascended to be with the Father.

Why is this significant?  Well, God gave Moses the plans for the tabernacle.  It was to be a representation here on earth of God’s temple in heaven.  It was not a perfect mirror imagine.  It was a representation.  The priests who served faithful did so representing relationship with God.  I don’t mean to say that it wasn’t real.  I mean to say that it is as real as it could be on this world, in this physical life, and according to our physical ability to understand it.  It was as real as it could get; but it was still a representation.

On the other hand, Jesus has ascended to the true throne of God.  Jesus is no longer here representing God; He is with God in truth!  He is in the presence of God – well, besides being God Himself, of course.  But here’s the deal.  Jesus isn’t here on earth acting out a representation of dwelling with God.  He is in heaven actually dwelling with God.  Since He is actually in heaven dwelling with God, He is superior to any of us religious folk still left here on earth.

Again, that doesn’t make any of us wrong or bad – other than our inherent sinfulness, of course.  It simply means that He is superior.  Yes, He is superior because He is God and we are not.  But we have proof of His superiority because He ascended.  We all will wait until His return before we will ascend with Him to heaven.  But He is there now.  This is proof of His superiority to any spiritual leader who came before Him or who shall come after Him.

Quoting Our Recent Friend

I love the fact that we find a quote in this chapter from Jeremiah 31, largely because we just finished reading Jeremiah and that quote is fresh in my mind.  No, I didn’t plan that.  Yes, I believe God did.

This quote from Jeremiah is one of my favorites.  I love the focus from God’s perspective about establishing a New Covenant.  This New Covenant will not be like the old covenant.  The old covenant could be broken.  The old covenant could be “opted out” as the Hebrew people eventually did – hence the story of Jeremiah.  The old covenant could be ignored, discarded, and even abused.

But this New Covenant will be different.  This New Covenant will not be external.  It will be internal.  The ways of the Lord will be written on our hearts.  We will not need to tell each other to “know the Lord” because we will know Him personally.

Of course, this is not an excuse to neglect evangelism.  When we look around we can see a world that does not know the Lord.  We can see a world where we need to tell the lost that they need to know the Lord. 

What we do not need to do is to tell the people who are in Christ to know the Lord because we who are in Christ do know the Lord personally.  We know what it is like to have the Lord deep within us.  We know what it is like to have the Lord in our life everyday as He speaks to us and guides us.  We who are in Christ do indeed know the Lord!

We know Him because He has given His Holy Spirit to us.  He has written His ways upon our heart by sending the Holy Spirit within us.  We can know God personally because God has come and “tabernacled” with us personally.

Obsolete

Therefore, since we have the Holy Spirit with us the old covenant is obsolete.  We need to be very careful here, though.  We must understand what the author of Hebrews is speaking about because if we aren’t careful we end up throwing away the baby with the bath water.  The author of Hebrews is not saying that the Law is obsolete.  God’s ways are God’s ways.  Sin is still sin.  God is still offended by the things He has always been offended by.  Relationship with God is still broken by the things that have always broken relationship with God.  As I said, God’s ways have and always will be God’s ways.

What has changed is how our relationship with God can be restored.  The old covenant was that if we sinned we had to provide atonement.  An animal had to die and blood had to be shed to atone for our sins.  That was the old covenant.

Now, we no longer need an animal sacrifice.  We have our great high priest: Jesus Christ.  He died for our sake.  He died to pay the price we could not pay.  He paid it once for all.  He paid it in full.  The new covenant is that Jesus has covered the wages of sin for us.  We must simply receive His grace and then humble ourselves to abide in His will as a response to the salvation that He mercifully gives to us.

Many have called this the Great Exchange.  God gave us His Son and had Him die for our sake.  We give God our sin and through Christ He exchanges it for righteousness.  That’s a New Covenant indeed!

What a blessed exchange.  What an incredible gift.  When put in those terms, how little it seems for us to simply humble ourselves to Him!  Yet how hard even humbleness before God is to achieve on account of our innate sinfulness.  Oh, how we need that superior high priest in Jesus Christ!

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