More information on the Old Covenant can be found by clicking here.

1. Background of the Old and New Covenants

1. The Activation of the Old Covenant

   • The Old Covenant is another name for the Mosaic Law.
   • In Exodus the nation of Israel had just embarked on a journey with God. God was not pleased with the conduct of its citizens (Exodus 14:10-12; 15:24; 16:3, 27; 17:2-3) and so He determined to reveal the conditions for a successful relationship.
   • The Old Covenant was given to the nation of Israel through Moses (Exodus 20 and following).
   • One subdivision of the Old Covenant was the Palestinian Covenant (Deuteronomy 27 and following), which promised blessings on the nation if they were obedient and curses on the nation if they were disobedient. As long as the nation of Israel successfully kept the Law, God would bless them in their land. But, if they disobeyed the Law, God would temporarily take away their blessings and remove them from their land.
   • The punishments found in other systems of law in the Ancient Near East were often inappropriately severe. The Old Testament Law required that punishment fit the crime (i.e., "life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise [Exodus 21:23-25]").
   • Often the punishments listed in the Old Testament were the maximun allowed under the Law. God allowed mercy to be shown. Nathan reminded David that the penalty for his adultery and murder was his death. But God spared David's life and substituted other penalities (2 Samuel 12:5-14). The Lord Jesus Christ, Who kept the Law perfectly, did not require that the woman caught in adultery be killed, as the Law specified, but told her to sin no more (John 8:3-11).

 

2. Israel's Lack of Success Under the Old Covenant

1. ". . . Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law (Romans 9:31)."

• See also Acts 15:10.

 

2. From the very get-go, the nation could not keep the Old Covenant.

• upon Receiving the Old Covenant (Exodus 32:1-10).
• in Egypt (Ezekiel 20:4-9).
• first wilderness generation (Ezekiel 20:10-17).
• second wilderness generation (Ezekiel 20:18-26).
• in Canaan (Ezekiel 20:27-31).
• Click here for more commentary on the Ezekiel passages.

 

3. The Jews were exiled and Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BC as God's judgment for disobedience to the Old Covenant.

• While there have been partial returns from exile, most of the Jewish nation remains in exile to this day.

 

3. The Solution to the Problems Associated with the Old Covenant was a New Covenant.

• Ezekiel 20:32-44; 36:25-27; 37:21-29 (the Covenant of Peace, the Everlasting Covenant)

". . . I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances (Ezekiel 36:26-27)."

• See also Jeremiah 31:27-37; 32:36-44; 50:5.
• However, these passages were prophetic . . . the New Covenant had not yet been activated.

 

4. The Final Test Under the Old Covenant

• Early in our Lord's public ministry, He taught an enhanced version of the Old Covenant. For example see the Sermon on the Mount. It required absolute perfection from the nation of Israel before the Lord would bring in the Messianic Kingdom:

"Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48)."

• This was the nation of Israel's last chance under the Old Covenant.
• As expected, they failed to keep the Old Covenant and they rejected the messenger of the New Covenant (Matthew 12:24; John 19:15; Acts 2:23).

". . . this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hand of godless men and put Him to death (Acts 2:23."

• The Lord moved on, temporarily side-stepping the nation of Israel.

". . . the kingdom of God will be taken from you, and be given to a nation producing the fruit of it (Matthew 21:43)."

 

5. The Lord Jesus Christ Then Activated the New Covenant.

• The following passages indicate that the New Covenant was activated during the cross work of our Lord Jesus Christ. This list is also not comprehensive:

Passage	New Covenant Activation (NASV)
Matthew 26:28; Mark 14:24a, Luke 22:20	"'This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood (Luke 22:20).'"
1 Corinthians 11:25	"This cup is the new covenant in My blood; . . ."
2 Corinthians 3:14	". . . until this very day at the reading of the old covenant the same veil remains unlifted, because it is removed in Christ (verse 14)."
Galatians 3:19	"It was added . . ., until the seed should come . . ."
Hebrews 8:6	". . . He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted . . ."
Hebrews 8:13	"He has made the first obsolete."
Hebrews 9:15	". . . He is the mediator of a new covenant, in order that since a death has taken place . . ."
Hebrews 10:9	"He takes away the first in order to establish the second."
Hebrews 10:29	". . . has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant . . ."
Hebrews 12:24	". . . Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, . . ."

• The nation of Israel is the chief beneficiary of the New Covenant. But, like the Abrahamic Covenant that was also made with Israel, blessings flow from the New Covenant to the church. See the first two rows in the table above.

 

6. Thousands of Jews Trusted in Christ and His Work on the Cross and Became Beneficiaries of the New Covenant (Acts 2:41; 4:4).

"So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and there were added that day about three thousand souls (Acts 2:41)."

2. The Background of Hebrews:

1. The Recipients

1. Jewish

• The ancient title of the letter is "to the Hebrews (Leon Morris, Hebrews, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, volume 12, page 4)."
• The themes of the book are those with which Jews would be intimately familiar.

 

2. Christian (3:1; 6:9; 10:23)

 

3. Attended a Local Church

• were exhorted to faithfully attend its services (10:25)
• the church had qualified leadership (13:7-13)
• It may have met in Jerusalem on Mount Zion in a building (J. Julius Scott, Jr., Did Jerusalem Flee to Pella--a paper read at the Wheaton College Archaeology Conference in November 1998 that may be found at http://www.wheaton.edu/DistanceLearning/Pella.htm). Earlier commentators did not have access to this new information that this first century church building (dated just before 70 AD; Scott calls it a "Christian synagogue") has been discovered.
• The Jerusalem church would have been the assembly most affected by the temptation to return to the Old Covenant.
• It may be the early local church in Jerusalem that is described in Acts 2:42-47; 4:32 and following.
• However, the recipients of Hebrews are the second generation, not the first generation, of believers (2:3-4).

 

4. Persecuted for Separating from the Old Covenant Community (10:32-39)

 

5. Tempted with Returning to the Old Covenant Community to Lessen the Persecution

• Though implied, the temptation seems obvious from 10:32-39. The entire letter fits nicely within this thesis.

2. The Time of Writing

• Many conservative commentators indicate that the latest date for the writing of Hebrews is AD 67-70 (e.g., Zane C. Hodges, Hebrews, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, New Testament Edition, page 777; Leon Morris, Hebrews, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, volume 12, page 8; Ryrie Study Bible [RSB], NIV, expanded ed., page 1877; B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, page xlii).
• Hebrews was quoted in the non-canonical book, 1 Clement, that was written in AD 95 (Hodges, page 777).
• The indication of Hebrews 13:23 that Timothy has been released may indicate that Hebrews was written after his release from Roman imprisonment in the late 60's (RSB), page 1877).
• Hebrews seems to anticipate such a national calamity like Titus' destruction of the nation in AD 70.

 

 

3. The Theme: The Replacement of the Old Covenant with the New Covenant

B. F. Westcott, The Epistle to the Hebrews, and J. Dwight Pentecost, A Faith that Endures, especially pages 15-20, have interpretations of Hebrews that are similar to the one presented here.

The New Covenant permeates Hebrews from the first two verses to the benediction. The following study is basically a theology of this major theme of the Epistle. It also includes support from other New Testament books.

1. The New Covenant is Better than the Old Covenant.

 

 

2. For the Believer, the New Covenant has Replaced the Entire Old Covenant.

1. None of the Verses Above Specifically Limits the Replacement to Just a Part of the Old Covenant (e.g., the Ceremonial, the Civil, the Moral).

2. The Teachings of Various Theological Systems:

1. Dispensational Theology -- Replacement

• ". . . the entire system, including the commandments as a rule of life, ceased with the death of Christ (John 1:17; Rom. 10:4). The Law of Moses, to be sure, was an ad interim dealing in effect only until Christ should come (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, volume VII, pages 225-226)."

• "The fact that the death of Christ brought an end to the Mosaic law is quite clearly stated in the New Testament (Ro 10:4; Col 2:14). The importance of this fact is related to (1) justification and (2) sanctification, . . . (Charles Caldwell Ryrie, A Survey of Bible Doctrine, limited edition, page 125)."

• "The sinless mediation of Christ which fulfilled and ended the Mosaic covenant and opened the new dispensation of the new covenant is a major teaching in the letter to the Hebrews (Darrell L. Bock, Progressive Dispensationalism, page 198)."

• "The whole ground of the Sinai covenant is gone--we are dead under it: it can go no further. Law puts man under responsibility. Are you standing on your responsibility? You are lost if you are (John Darby, Notes on the Epistle to the Hebrews, The Serious Christian, pages 84-85."

• "As to the believer’s rule of life, the apostle does not say, 'To me to live is the law'; but, 'to me to live is Christ' (Philippians 1:21). Christ is our rule, our model, our touchstone, our all (C.H. Mackintosh quoted at http://www.svchapel.org/ThinkOnTheseThingsMinistries/publications/html/law1.html)."

• "The fact that God introduces a New Covenant means that the first is obsolete. Since this is so, there should be no thought of going back to the law (William MacDonald, Believer's Bible Commentary, page 2183)."

 

2. New Covenant Theology (A Recent Form of Covenant Theology) -- Replacement

• "So the covenant had to be removed, . . . And removed it was, through fulfillment. Through the obedience of the One (Mark LaVoie, Two Covenants: Old and New, http://www.solochristo.com/theology/nct/TwoCovenantsOldandNew.htm)."

 

3. Restoration Movement Theology (e.g., Church of Christ) -- Replacement

• "The result is, then, that the Old Testament as a law for God's people was removed by the death of Christ. Christians, therefore, are not to observe the Old Testament as the law for God's service today (William Woodson, Introducing the Church of Christ, http://www.collegestreet.org/introducing/chapter08.html)." However, a direct correspondence of New Testament equals New Covenant and Old Testament equals Old Covenant cannot be made.

 

4. Lutheran Theology -- Replacement

• "Now if anyone confronts you with Moses and his commandments, and wants to compel you to keep them, simply answer, 'Go to the Jews with your Moses; I am no Jew. Do not entangle me with Moses. If I accept Moses in one respect (Paul tells the Galatians in chapter 5:3), then I am obligated to keep the entire law.' For not one little period in Moses pertains to us (How Christians Should Regard Moses, sermon preached by Martin Luther on August 27, 1525, metochoi email dated June 23, 2002)."

 

5. Other Theologies

• Reformed theology understands that the civil and ceremonial portions of the Old Covenant have been replaced by the New.

• Theonomist theology believes only the ceremonial portions of the law have been replaced (Don Veinot, Joy Veinot & Ron Henzel, A Matter of Basic Principles, pages 125-133).

 

6. Gothardism -- Retainment

• Unlike the above evangelical theological systems, Gothardism teaches that the whole Old Covenant remains in effect for Christians: "The law is our schoolmaster to bring us to christ [sic]. When we fulfill our education, we do not discard it but rather use it throughout the rest of our lives (The Curriculum of the Great Commission, Series 1, Commands of Christ, page 60)." However, in the context of the Law being a schoolmaster in Galatians 3:24, the writer does not refer to the following verse: "But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor (Galatians 3:25)." Also, Gothardism is not consistent in the application of its theology. It does not apply all the Old Covenant laws to Christians but does apply laws from all areas (e.g., ceremonial, civil, moral). It "picks and chooses."

 

3. For non-believers, the Old Covenant is still being used to reveal their utter sinfulness (Galatians 3:24-25).

 

3. A Penalty was Assigned to the Recipients of Hebrews Who Fail to Thoroughly Separate Themselves from the Old Covenant.

Passage Hebrews	Warning If the Jewish Christians in the first century completely retrogress in their conduct form the New Covenant, in favor of the Old Covenant, they will . . .
2:1	. . . drift away from the New Covenant.
2:2-3	. . . be punished severely.
3:6	. . . not be a part of Christ's work through the New Covenant.
3:7-4:11	. . . be punished in the same way that the wilderness generation was punished.*
5:11-6:18	. . . they will not get another chance to repent.
10:26-31	. . . loose their lives dreadfully, if they defect to the unbelieving Old Covenant community, because such a defection dishonors Christ, His Covenant, and the Holy Spirit.
10:35	. . . loose great reward.
12:25	. . . not escape punishment.
12:29	. . . not escape God's consuming fire.

*Both saved and unsaved Jews died in the wilderness. Moses, himself, sinned and died without reaching the promised land (Deuteronomy 32:48-52). Yet, we know he was saved because he is seen, transfigured, in the first century (Matthew 17:1-8). The punishment addressed in Hebrews is not hell, but physical death. We can likewise expect that those Christian Jews of the first century, who were faithless in observing the New Covenant in their conduct, were punished with death but did not go to hell.

 

4. The Recipients of Hebrews Needed to Exhibit Faith in the New Covenant Rather than Keep the Old Covenant.

Passage Hebrews	Faith Note that "endurance," "holding fast," and "confidence" are synonyms of faithfulness and that ". . . Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, . . . (11:1)."
3:12, 19; 4:2-3	The recipients needed to exercise faith and incorporate the New Covenant into their lives.
4:14-16	The Son understands human frailties and will provide mercy and grace needed by those who remain faithful to the New Covenant.
6:12	The Jewish Christians should imitate the faithfulness of those who have gone on before.
10:19-25	The Jewish Christians should be faithful in their intimate fellowship with God (19-22), in their confession (23), and in their church attendance (24-25).
10:32	In the past they had demonstrated the required faithfulness even in suffering.
10:35-39	The Jewish Christians need to be faithful the New Covenant and not fall under the influence of Old Covenant keepers so that they may escape judgment.
11:2-12:3	Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Israel's exodus generation, Joshua, Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, the prophets, many unnamed Jews, and Jesus exhibited the faith that the first century Jewish Christians needed to demonstrate.
12:4-11	God is disciplining the Jewish Christians through limited sufferings administered by the Old Covenant nonbelievers so that the Christians' faithfulness might yield righteousness.

 

5. Summary: The Christian Jews Should Exercise Faith in God's Promise of Relief from Suffering for Those Who Separate Themselves from the Old Covenant Community because the Old Covenant Has Been Replaced with a Better New Covenant.

4. The Outcome:

The punishment for defecting first century Jewish Christians was their deaths in the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus in AD 70. However, ancient historians believe the Christian Jews left Jerusalem before its destruction and were safe in Pella:

• Josephus, a first century AD historian, in the Wars of the Jews, recorded an event that may have been properly interpreted only by the Christian Jews. Perhaps the previous warnings of Hebrews and Luke 21:20-22 were observed: ". . . a few days after that feast, on the twenty-first day of the month Artemisius [Jyar], a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared; I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sunsetting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the] temple, as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, 'Let us remove hence (IV,v 3 from Galaxy Software).'”

• "A veiled reference in the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (I, 36 and 39) is sometimes thought to be the oldest reference to the flight from Jerusalem by Christians at the time of the first century war with Rome.  I:39 says, "Everyone who, believing in the Prophet who had been foretold by Moses, is baptized in His name, shall be kept unhurt from the destruction of war which impends over the unbelieving and the place itself."  The problems with this identification are (1) the uncertain date of the Recognitions and the sources which underlie them and (2) whether or not these words do in fact refer to an exodus by Jerusalem Christians (J. Julius Scott, Jr., Did Jerusalem Christians Flee to Pella?, http://www.wheaton.edu/DistanceLearning/Pella.htm. This is a very helpful article. )."

• Eusebius was a fourth century church historian: "But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men. But the number of calamities which every where fell upon the nation at that time; the extreme misfortunes to which the inhabitants of Judea were especially subjected, the thousands of men, as well as women and children, that perished by the sword, by famine, and by other forms of death innumerable, - all these things, as well as the many great sieges which were carried on against the cities of Judea, and the excessive sufferings endured by those that fled to Jerusalem itself, as to a city of perfect safety, and finally the general course of the whole war, as well as its particular occurrences in detail, and how at last the abomination of desolation, proclaimed by the prophets, stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final destruction by fire, - all these things any one that wishes may find accurately described in the history written by Josephus (III:5 from Galaxy Software)."

• Besides describing the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple, Eusebius also estimated the number of Jews who were captured and the number that were killed during the war: "Now the number of those that were carried captive during this whole war was collected to be ninety-seven thousand; as was the number of those that perished during the whole siege eleven hundred thousand, the greater part of whom were indeed of the same nation [with the citizens of Jerusalem], but not belonging to the city itself; for they were come up from all the country to the feast of unleavened bread, and were on a sudden shut up by an army, which, at the very first, occasioned so great a traitness among them that there came a pestilential destruction upon them, and soon afterward such a famine, as destroyed them more suddenly (VI, ix 3 from Galaxy Software)."

• Philip Schaff (1819-1893) wrote about the outcome of the Temple: "God Himself destroyed the house, in which He had thus far dwelt, in which Jesus had taught, in which the apostles had prayer; He rejected His peculiar people for their obstinate rejection of the Messiah; He demolished the whole fabric of the Mosaic theocracy, whose system of worship was, in its very nature, associated exclusively with the tabernacle at first and afterwards with the temple; but in so dong He cut the cords which had before this bound, and according to the law of organic development necessarily bound the infant church to the outward economy of the old covenant, and to Jerusalem as its center. Henceforth the heathen could no longer look upon Christianity as a mere sect of Judaism, but must regard and treat it as a new, peculiar religion (History of the Christian Church (Vol. 1, Chapter VI, 39)."

.

5. The Application for Today's Believers of Putting the Old Covenant Aside and Taking On the New Covenant

1. We Should Stay Faithful to God in Our Trials (Hebrews 12:11).

 

2. Today Physical Death will not Necessarily Follow if We Do Not Totally Separate Ourselves from the Old Covenant.

1. The Death Penalty Specified in Hebrews was for Christians . . .

• . . . who were Jewish.
• . . . who were alive at an instant when God was seeking to separate the Christian Church from the Old Covenant Community.
• . . . who were living close enough to Jerusalem to participate in the Temple ceremonies.

2. However, There are a Few Examples of Physical Death being Such a Judgment (Acts 5:1-11; 1 Corinthians 11:30).

 

3. We Should Avoid Ecclesiology that Borrows Heavily from the Old Covenant.

1. The Balance -- The Millennial Temple of Ezekiel 40-48

• Some of the Old Covenant ceremonies and symbols will be used in this New Covenant Temple.

2. An Illustration of Something to Avoid -- The Catholic Mass

• "Two main ideas are involved in the doctrine of the Mass: (1) the change whereby the bread and the wine become the actual body and blood of Christ, i.e., transubstantiation; (2) the conception of the Mass as a sacrifice (J.G.G. Norman, The Mass, The New International Dictionary of the Christian Church, rev. ed., page 641)."
• If a worshipper believes Christ must be sacrificed over and over again, he has welded the Old and New Covenants together in such a way that surely dishonors Christ and His once for all sacrifice (Hebrews 7:26-27; 10:29).

 

4. We Should Avoid Basing our Conduct on Keeping the Laws of the Old Covenant

1. Romans 3:20--The Old Covenant Only has the Power to Condemn us as Sinners:

• ". . . no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

 

2. Hebrews 8:10--The New Covenant Replaces all of the Old Covenant Including the Portion that Deals with Sanctification.

• ". . . I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. . ."

 

3. Galatians 3:20--Life under the New Covenant is Lived by Faith:

• ". . . the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me."
• See also Hebrews 12:1-13.
• This is especially true in circumstances in which serious discomfort would seem to be the outcome of being faithful to God's promises.
• Numerous illustrations of faithful persons in such circumstances are given in Hebrews 11.

 

4. 1 Corinthians 10:13--Accept God's Word by Faith that No Temptation can Overcome Us:

• ". . . God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it."

 

5. Being Under the New Covenant Rather Than the Old Covenant (the Mosaic Law) does not Mean that We are Antinomian (Opposed to All Law).

• There is a New Covenant law that applied to us (e.g., Romans 8:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21; Galatians 6:2; James 1:25; 2:12).
• God's law is written on our hearts under the New Covenant (e.g., Hebrews 8:10;10:16).

 

 

4. We should Trust in Christ's Work on the Cross for Eternal Life not in Keeping the Old Covenant.

 

1. Acts 13:39

• "Through him [the Lord Jesus Christ] everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses."

 

2. Romans 3:20

• ". . . no one will be declared righteous [justified] in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin."

 

3. Galatians 2:16

• ". . . know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ."

 

4. Romans 4:25

• "He [the Lord Jesus Christ] was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."

© 2003, Ken Bowles -- October 08, 2003, Edition -- The NASV and the ASV were used in the preparation of this study.

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