#DailyDevotion Jesus’ Covenant Abrogates The Whole Of The Sinai Covenant
Heb. 8 5Now, the priestly work that Jesus was given to do is more excellent, just as the covenant of which He is also the Mediator is a better one because God has based it on better promises. 7If that first covenant had been without a fault, no one would have wanted a second one. 8But God is finding fault with them when He says: See! The time is coming, says the Lord, when I will set up a new testament (covenant) with the people of Israel and the people of Judah, 9not like the covenant I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they have not been loyal to My covenant. And so I turned away from them, says the Lord. 10The testament (covenant] I will make with the people of Israel after those days, says the Lord, is this: I will put My laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. 11No more will anyone teach his fellow citizen or his brother and say, “Know the Lord!” They will all know Me from the least to the greatest of them, 12because I will forgive their wrongs and not remember their sins anymore. 13By saying “a new testament” (covenant), He made the first one old. When He treats it as old and it is getting old, it is ready to vanish.
Jesus has a more excellent priestly work than the Levitical priestly work. They offered up to the Father the blood of bulls and goats. Jesus offered up His own life. Jesus is the Mediator of a better covenant than the one made of Mount Sinai. The New Covenant is based on better promises. The Father found fault with the covenant He made with the Israelites. He then quotes Jer. 31:31ff.
The problem with the first covenant is that it was based on the people of Israel doing their part. They continually broke the covenant and were not loyal to it. The New Covenant God promised to make in Jeremiah is better than the first covenant. It is not based on what His people do. Just read it for yourselves. He puts His instruction into our minds and writes them on our hearts. He declares Himself to be our God and we His people. We will know Him because He forgives our sins and remembers them no more. It is a covenant based solely on what God has done; what He has done in Christ Jesus. These are much better promises than those of the old Sinaitic covenant. Its promises are based only on what Jesus has done. He mediated by His innocence, suffering, death, burial, resurrection and ascension to the right hand of power. Jesus instituted in at the Last Supper when He says in Luke 22:20, “This cup is the new testament in My blood, poured out for you.” Paul also witnesses this in 1 Cor. 11:25 “This cup is the new testament in My blood. Every time you drink it, do it to remember Me.”
We really need to get this into our thick heads. The Mosaic covenant, the covenant God made with the Israelites has been abrogated, ἀφανισμός, in the Greek text here. Paul in 2 Cor. 3:6 insists we are the ministers of a new covenant according to the Spirit, i.e. the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Law, the covenant God made with the Israelites on Mt. Sinai has been abrogated, destroyed, made of non-effect by the Gospel. The whole of that Law has been set aside, the moral, the ritual and the political commandments, i.e. the whole thing has been set aside, abrogated by the New. Does that mean there are no moral laws in the New Covenant? Of course not. You cannot read Paul without seeing the commandment to love your neighbor everywhere. These however are from the LORD writing them on our hearts and minds as promised. Our breaking them does not annul the covenant God has made with us. Jesus’ blood overcomes them all.
Heavenly Father, You have made a better covenant with us through the blood of Jesus. Give us faith to believe it and to do Your will. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.