If you take a look at verse 6, just for a moment here in Hebrews chapter 8, we read these wonderful words concerning our Savior. But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant which was established upon better promises. Now we've noted all along in our studies in the book of Hebrews that the word better is one of the key words of this book. And the writer has set out to prove again and again that the Lord Jesus is greater and better than everyone and everything that has ever come before him. As the Son of God, he is better than the angels. As the Great Deliverer, he is better than Moses and Joshua. As our perfect High Priest, after the order of Melchizedek, he is better than the Old Testament priesthood. In chapters 8-10 in the Lord Jesus Christ we're told we have a better sacrifice. Here we're told he mediates a better covenant as the minister of the sanctuary of the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not banned. The history of Israel, God himself commanded his people to build a tabernacle as a place of worship. God gave to them the design, the pattern, how it was to be built, where it was to be built, everything was to be according to his specification. We noted that last week, that our worship is not something that we're free to make up ourselves, it must be according to the plan of God. This tabernacle, however, was only meant to be an earthly representation of the true tabernacle that exists in heaven. That means that the earthly priests were only a representation of the great heavenly priesthood of Christ. The sacrifices that they offered were meant to be a representation or a preview of that true sacrifice for sin, that the Lord Jesus would make it calvary. that he now offers at the throne of God's grace for us. The point that we're trying to emphasise here is that now in Christ, now that he has come, he has established all things. The priesthood ministry, which is carried out in heaven on the basis of his sacrifice, has superseded all of the old things that came before it. Let me give you a little analogy that might help our understanding. Suppose there's a young man who's to be married to a young lady, but for some reason, they have to be apart for a period of time before their wedding day. Maybe he's off working somewhere else, making ready for the day of his betrothal. And when he's apart, he gazes upon her photograph every day. Finally, the day of the wedding comes. And as he waits at the front of the church, that bride whose picture he has only seen in photograph form for such a long time now comes down the aisle to meet him at the front of the church in order to say their wedding vows. How foolish would that young man be if he continued to look upon the photograph and not upon the bride who is now beside him. The time for the photograph, the picture is over because the reality has now come. And if he were to insist upon still looking at a lifeless representation of her when he could actually be spending time with her, we would say he was altogether foolish. Now, that's what's happening here in terms of the things of the Old Testament passing away and God bringing in a new covenant. Many of the things that we find in the Old Testament are like that photograph. They are not permanent. They are designed by God to eventually be replaced with things that are new. The same is true of the covenant that God has made with his people in the times of the Old Testament. Christ, we are told here in verse 6 and 7, has obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that the first covenant had been faultless, then no place should have been sought for the second. Christ is a mediator of a better covenant, one that's established upon better promises, and you'll Note later on in the chapter from verse 10 onwards it speaks about the New Covenant. Now if you've ever wondered why your Bible is split in two, Old Testament and New Testament. Maybe you're wondering what's that all about? Is it two different books? Is it two chapters of the same book? What are the distinctions between the Old Testament and the New Testament? Well, if I told you that the word Testament is simply another word for covenant, would that help? the things of the old covenant or the things before Christ. And now that Christ has come, God has made a new covenant with man. Now, let me helpfully, I hope, explain some of the terms we're talking about. What is meant by the term covenant? A covenant can be described as a compact or an agreement between two parties. It's an agreement that binds them together with certain conditions that they're both expected to fulfill towards each other. You might think of marriage, for instance. We talk about the marriage covenant. Husband and wife are bound to each other by the vows that they make in their covenant to love, honour, cherish one another till death do us part and so on. It's a covenant, a binding agreement. When we talk about the covenant between God and man, we're talking about God's eternal plan to save undeserving sinners through the person and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We refer to this in technical terms as the covenant of grace. It is the divine plan whereby God is planning to save certain sinners through the finished work of Jesus Christ. The coming of the Lord Jesus is the realization of that plan. The plan itself did not begin with our Savior's birth. The plan, this covenant of grace, began in eternity past, even before the creation of the world. Let me read a couple of scriptures to you. Ephesians 1 and verse 4. According as he, that is God the Father, have chosen us, in him, that is the Lord Jesus Christ, so according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. So this is a very old plan indeed. stems right back even before the foundations of the earth. In Revelation chapter 13 and the verse 8, we're told that all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him whose names are written in the lamb's book of life, the lamb slain from the foundation of the earth or literally before the foundation of the earth. We have this covenant of grace. Now what took place in this covenant of grace? Well God the Father chose a people out of fallen mankind to save and to bring to glory. God the Father would choose a people. The Lord Jesus Christ consented to come to this world and to die for those people, securing their salvation. The Spirit of God then would in the fullness of time draw those whom the Father had elected, and that Christ the Son had died for, and would bring them unto saving faith in Jesus Christ. And the outworking of this eternal covenant is God's plan to save sinners through the life and the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now God is going to reveal this plan to man, but he's not going to reveal it all at once. He's going to reveal certain aspects of this plan throughout the history of mankind. And so we find that God makes a covenant with Adam. After the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, they fail into sin. God had told them that on the day that they sin and they eat of this fruit, that they will surely die. And death certainly entered into the world and all of the corruption because of that. But God came to them. in their fallen condition and revealed to them certain aspects of this covenant of grace. He made a covenant with Adam, a binding agreement. What was it? The promise of a saviour. So we read in Genesis 3 in verse 15, God says, directed towards the serpent here, I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise my head and thou shalt bruise his heel. promise of the seed of the woman who would come and destroy the power of the serpent of sin and with it bring about salvation for God's people. It was a promise of salvation through Jesus Christ. And so we have the first revelation of this covenant of grace made with man. Further revelations would be made in the process of time. We find God revealing more aspects of this covenant with Noah. Noah, of course, was saved from destruction by entry into the ark of salvation. God would then put his rainbow in the sky as a promise not to destroy the world with a flood anymore, but that grace might be found. through him. So a covenant was made with Noah. You go a little bit further forward in your Bible, you come to Abraham and God calls Abraham out of the air of the Chaldees, reveals himself to him, tells him of a promised land that he will give to him and his seed at a time that Abraham was without any children. But it's a promise of Christ, the chosen seed. that would bless all of the families and nations of the world. God entered into a covenant with Abraham. A little bit further forward, we get to Moses. We find him delivering God's people out of bondage in Egypt. They make their way through the Dead Sea to the Mount Sinai where they're going to receive the law and the commandments of God and the people will enter into covenant with God, an agreement to keep his laws by which God will promise to bless them. None of these are new covenants. These are all further revelations of the covenant of grace. It's almost like a subject that's too big for us to understand in its entirety, but if we take the time and see a little bit of it now, and a little bit later, and a little bit, and we build up a picture, a greater understanding of what God is speaking about. And so God's revealing more and more aspects of his covenant of grace with his people. And so the covenant of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ is the full realization of the covenant that God the Father made with God the Son in eternity past that was revealed to men in types and shadows and ceremonies all throughout the Old Testament period. They're looking at the picture of something real that is yet to come. That's our covenant. Now, we read this afternoon about a new covenant. It's a prophecy concerning a new covenant. What is this new covenant that's spoken of here in Hebrews chapter eight? Well, we read from Jeremiah chapter 31 just a little while ago, and it was to show you that this whole passage really is a quotation from Jeremiah chapter 31. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God revealed the details of a new covenant in the form of a prophecy. The prophecy of Jeremiah was made in a very dark period of Israel's history. The year is about 590 BC. The kingdom has split into two. You have the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom has already gone astray from God. They have been taken into captivity by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom of Judah has now fallen into apostasy and is about to be taken captive by the Babylonians. Judah is about to be destroyed in just a few years' time. The prophet Jeremiah looks back over the course of history of his people and he sees the reason for their sad state of affairs. It's their persistent failure to keep God's covenant that they made with him at Mount Sinai. The people of Israel were totally incapable of obedience. Time and again, God sent his prophets to them to call them back to the pathways of righteousness. Time and again, they rebelled against him, persecuted the prophets, killing many of them and destroying God's word. They persisted in their sins, especially in idolatry, seeking help from powerless pagan gods while refusing and rejecting the true God of heaven. There were some periods of revival, yes, But very soon afterwards, the people went back to their old sins and oftentimes were worse than what they were before. Because of this, there's no course of action left but for them to reap the awful consequences of breaking covenant with God. Many of them are going to die at the hands of the Babylonians. Many are going to be taken away into captivity. The Holy Temple at Jerusalem is going to be destroyed. Jerusalem itself is going to be destroyed. It's a sad state that the people find themselves in. They feel miserably to be God's people. And the question that Jeremiah has in mind is this, will this be the end? Is this the end for us? Is God going to give us up forever? Is he completely finished with his people? And the Lord comes to him and by way of revelation tells him the good news that God has not finished with his people yet. Their failure under the terms of the old covenant has actually fulfilled a very important purpose. It proves once and for all that the human heart is so sinful and depraved that man cannot live up to the expectations of a relationship with God based upon his efforts. That's why we read in verse 7 of Hebrews 8, for if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. The fact that there's a new covenant promised in Jeremiah 31 is an indication that there's a problem with the old covenant. And that's the old covenant specifically made with Israel at Mount Sinai that laid out all of the conditions and laws and commandments that the children of Israel bound themselves to. Remember what they said in Exodus 24 in verse seven, all that the Lord has spoken will we do and be obedient. Problem is, they didn't have the power to fulfill that. Now the Old Covenant itself is not the problem, but there is a problem associated with it. It requires righteousness, but it cannot produce righteousness. It tells us what we ought to be, what we ought to do, but it doesn't give us the power to actually do it. That's the problem. The problem is not with the law. The problem is with you and I. The conditions that they entered into were along these lines. As long as they obeyed all of the commandments and kept all of the laws and maintained their relationship with God, then they would benefit from and reap all of the blessings of his covenant. The Lord would be their God and they would be his people. They tried their best under this covenant. But they couldn't obey the laws perfectly. They kept going astray. They kept falling again and again into sin. Not one of them, not even the best of them, could measure up to the high demands of the old covenant. And the reason is very simple. It's that old but universal problem of the sinful heart of man. Jeremiah had already made this Observation back in chapter 17, he said the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it? And it's because of the problem of the heart that they failed under the terms of that old covenant. As long as the sinful heart remains, we continue to break the terms of this covenant. No one has the power to change or to reform the sinful heart. No one that is except God. And therefore we come to what is God's solution to this problem. There must be a new covenant. A new covenant in which God himself will change the sinful heart and give a new heart. That's what Ezekiel speaks of. God takes away the heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh, a new heart. In the New Testament, we call it a new birth. But this covenant, this new covenant, is not so much a replacement of the old, but a renovation, a renewal of the old covenant with something extra added onto it. With the new covenant, God is going to give the power to keep it. There are many people today that are still living under the terms of the old covenant. There are many people today that are basing their hope for heaven on the old covenant. If you ask them how they hope to get to heaven when they die, they say, well, I hope to get there. I try to live by the 10 commandments. Well, good luck with that. It's not going to work. If you're going to heaven based upon your keeping of the 10 commandments, you're going to be severely disappointed. You have to understand our inability to keep those commands. The law is a whole, and when we break one, we break the whole law. We're guilty before God. Now, there's nothing wrong with God's law. Let me emphasize that again. It has its purpose. Galatians 3 in verse 10 tells us that it is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But salvation by keeping the law? We can't do it. None of us can. By the works of the flesh, by the deeds of the law, not one of us are justified. So God has given to us a new covenant. based upon better promises. So what are the promises of this new covenant? Well, they were made back in Jeremiah that we're going to quote them from Hebrews, but they are terms with which the children of Israel would have been very familiar. The promises of this new covenant begin for us in verse 10. The first of them is this, the Lord says, I will be your king. I will be your king. Listen, I will put my laws into their mind and write them in their hearts. It's a king who writes laws. I will put my law, Jeremiah said, in their inward parts and write it in their heart. The laws and commandments of God will no longer be an external code. inscribed on tables of stone or written on pieces of paper, God's law will now be implanted within our hearts and in our minds. That means our compliance to those laws will be through an inner desire, not because of some outward compulsion. This implanting of God's law in the heart will effectively deal with that deep-seated problem of man's sinful heart. God is going to give him a transformed heart, a regenerated heart, a heart that now beats in time with God's will. There is to be a new heart along with the new covenant. God will cause his people to walk in loving obedience to his laws, not just outward observation of those laws, but an inward joy in keeping them. We'll fulfill what the psalmist spoke of in Psalm 40, when he says, I delight to do thy will, O God, yea, thy law is within my heart. God says, I will create a desire and an ability to obey within my people. That's what happened to us when the Lord saved us. When he found us, we were dead in our trespasses and sin. We had no ability to keep the law of God and no desire even to do that. But when God came to us in our dead condition, he breathed new life into us. He took away the old sinful heart. He gave us a new heart. We were born again of his spirit. And with that new birth, there comes a desire to keep the law of God. Now, as believers, we find this promise as yet only fulfilled in part, but when Christ comes and we are received into his presence, then all things are made new, perfectly. God says, I will be their king. He also says, I will be their prophet. Not only will he put his laws into their minds and write them in their hearts, I will be to them a God and they shall be to me a people. And then he says, And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest. I will be your prophet. The king writes his laws, a prophet declares the knowledge of God. And under the terms of this new covenant, God says of his people, they shall know me from the least to the greatest. They shall all know. Knowledge of God will extend to all ages and all classes, from the least to the greatest. There will be no religiously privileged elite people. The implications here is that under the terms of this new covenant, there will be no need for human intermediaries, no one to come between us and God. Under the terms of the old covenant, the Israelites depended upon a prophet to receive instruction from God and for a priest to offer prayers and sacrifices on their behalf. They relied on both of them. Under the new covenant, prophets are no longer needed. God's people will be able to relate with him without anyone coming between. How is this going to be accomplished? by the promise of the Holy Spirit, the one who will come and reveal unto us the things of God, personally, individually. Better still, he's coming to dwell within the heart of each and every believer. That's why today as Christians, we can have a close relationship with God through the Spirit who dwells within. We receive teaching from him and instruction from him and he speaks to us as we read the word of God. We offer prayers and service to God and he intercedes on our behalf. And each and every child of God can know and experience a close and intimate walk with him. Under the terms of the old covenant, There were ceremonies and there were types and symbols and pictures. All of those pictures have given way to reality now. Things should be clearer now. We walk in the full light of the glory of the gospel in Jesus Christ. There have been things revealed to us that, in terms of the Old Testament, they couldn't understand. In fact, we read in our New Testament of the prophets of old that looked upon the things that they had written and they wondered, what are these things about? Do they speak about now or future events? We walk in the clearness of the noonday sun. They walked in types and in shadows. There will be a deeper, more spiritual knowledge of Christ in gospel times than in any other time throughout history. Of course, we're still to wait for the fullest of the revelation to come. For now we see through a glass dorkly, but then Christ comes face to face. Now I know in part, but then shall I know even as I am. Under the terms of the new covenant, God will write his laws on our heart. that by his spirit he will reveal himself to men. I will be your prophet. He also says, I will be your priest. Verse 13. And that he sayeth a new covenant. Sorry, verse 12. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. Under this new covenant, our sins will be permanently dealt with once and for all through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That was not the case in Old Testament times. The priests under the old covenant kept making the same sacrifices every single day. The fire on the altar was never allowed to be extinguished because it pictured the wrath of God that could not be put out with the blood of lambs and goats. It's a continual remembrance that our God is a consuming fire. But here in New Testament times, there is a full atonement made by the sharing of the blood of Jesus Christ once and for all. There in the upper room before his crucifixion, the Lord Jesus assembled his disciples around him, brought the bread and the cup before them on the table. And as he broke the bread, he said, this is my body, which is broken for you. And he took the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all of it, for this is my blood of the new testament, the new covenant. which is shed for the remission of sins. The old covenant couldn't take away sins, but this new covenant will. Through the sharing of the blood of the Lamb of God, by virtue of his death and resurrection, he is the mediator of the new covenant, and he puts into this covenant certain things with immediate effect. He says there are sins, their iniquities, I will remember no more. There is perfect cleansing through the blood of Jesus Christ. I will be your king. I will write my law in your heart. I will be your prophet because all shall know me from the least to the greatest. I will be your priest and my sacrifice will deal with your sin forever. I will be your husband Jeremiah speaks of the need of a husband. Spiritually speaking, I will be their God and they shall be my people. He's speaking about union and communion. The Lord has promised us that. As it was under the old administrations, the old covenant as well as the new, the Lord said to his people, I will walk among you and will be your God and you shall be my people. people. God has promised to marry his people. His grace is such that he will ensure that that marriage will be successful and unbreakable. In the Old Testament terms, Israel was an unfaithful wife. But under the terms of the New Covenant, we are to be the pure bride of Christ. God being to us a God is a summary of all happiness. It's the fulfillment of every promise. I shall be your God and you shall be my people. There are a few more things I want to say and beg your time a little longer. I want you to think about how the new covenant is different than the old covenant. I'm going to enlarge upon these, I'm simply going to mention them and move on. The old covenant is before Christ and looks forward to him. The new covenant is after Christ and looks back upon him. Both people of the Old and the New Testament times are saved exactly the same way. By faith, through grace, them of the Old Testament times looking forward to the Christ who would come, and we of New Testament times looking back to the Christ who has come. The Old Covenant was delivered in types and shadows and pictures, The New Covenant delivers the gospel and the brightness of Christ's glory. Christ is revealed in both, but in one he is partly hidden by the types of the shadows and in the other he's fully revealed. Now when we talk about a shadow, if you see a shadow as it's coming around the corner, you get an idea of what's casting the shadow. You don't actually see the thing that's casting the shadow, The shadow reveals but it also obscures. In the New Testament terminology, Christ has come around the corner and we see him clearly. The revelation of God reaches its climax when the Word becomes flesh and dwells amongst us full of grace and truth. The shadows give way to sunshine. Prophecy gives way to fulfilment. Type gives way to anti-type. Symbols give way to reality. We are living in a clear understanding of gospel terms. We could also say that under the Old Covenant, it was primarily comprised of the Jewish nation with a few Gentiles sprinkled amongst us. The descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob. The new covenant is extended to all the nations of the world. Christ instructed his disciples to go on to the very ends of the earth and to tell the nations of the wondrous grace of God that has been revealed. The new covenant, there's a shift from the national to the international. The barriers of the nation of Israel have been removed and the church has become an international community. The blessings of this new covenant are far more reaching than before. In the Old Testament, the old covenant was ratified by the blood of animals. The new covenant is ratified by the blood of Christ. As we mentioned before, the sacrifices of the old covenant are never ceasing. Day after day, year after year, a constant stream of animal blood shed that could never take away sin. Whereas now there is one sacrifice never to be repeated. A sacrifice of infinite worth. So much so that the Apostle John would say that the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. There were multiple ceremonies in the Old Covenant. There are only two now in the New. Our Lord's Supper and Baptism. The old covenant, its shadows and ceremonies were temporary, but now the ordinances of the new are permanent until the return of Christ. One last thing I want to share with you, and it's this, the new covenant is now the only covenant. Verse 13, in that he saith, a new covenant he hath made the first old, now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away. The new covenant is the only covenant that provides hope for mankind of a relationship with God, a promise of forgiveness of sin. And the reason for that is given to us in our text The first has been made old, it now decayeth and waxeth old and is ready to vanish away. There are two words in our New Testament that speak of the word old, two Greek words. One is archaios, the other is palaios. One speaks in reference to time, the other in terms of function. We can think of antiques that are old, dating back hundreds of years, thousands of years. But we've also got things in our possession that are old simply because of advancements that are made. Think of computers that you had 10 years ago, or mobile phones that have become antiquated and obsolete in just a few years. They're not old in reference to time, but they're old in reference to function. How many people are there that update their wardrobe every year because this year's fashions are no longer in vogue next year, they're outdated. That's the word that's used here, outdated. Even in Jeremiah's time, the insufficiency of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant was recognized, the need of a new one was proclaimed, and the coming of the new would signal the end of the old. The old sacrificial system finished. And we're told when it finished. It finished when the veil of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom. When the Lord Jesus Christ died and cried out for all to hear, it is finished. It's finished. It's over, it's complete. And the veil of the temple was rent in two from top to bottom. That veil that had barred access to God for the Old Testament people, that veil was now rendered obsolete. The way of access to God has now been opened. The sacrifice of Christ has now been complete. The blood of the New Testament has now been shed, and it has been ratified by God and accepted, and the old covenant decayeth and waxeth old and is ready to vanish away. Now Paul is writing to Hebrew believers who are tempted to go back to the Old Testament system. That's what the whole book of Hebrews is about. They're tempted to go back to the old ways and Paul says, listen, the old system is ready to vanish away. They didn't realize it then, but in just a few short years after these words were written, that whole infrastructure was going to come crashing down, never to be revived again. Within about seven years of this book of Hebrews being written, there would be no temple. There would be no altar. There would be no Holy of Holies. Therefore, there could be no sacrifices and no ministering priesthood. And without a priesthood and without sacrifices, there is no old covenant. And they haven't started back since. The old covenant has been surpassed by the new one that has arrived in Jesus Christ. There is no going back. There is now therefore only one way of salvation and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. Here's the challenge to us this afternoon. Have you accepted the terms of God's new covenant? Have you come by faith to Jesus Christ who shed his blood to ratify this new covenant? Have you accepted God's promise of forgiveness through his son? Have you known that change of life from the inside, whereby God has written his law upon your heart? That you've come to an understanding and knowledge of who God is? That you're seeking each day to increase in that knowledge? Are you a partaker of the new covenant? Is your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who has brought this to us by virtue of his death and life and resurrection? Are you a new covenant believer? There is no going back. There should be no desire to go back either to the old ways. The keeping of the law, that only condemns us. That only reveals our inability to follow God and to keep his word. We need something better. We need a new and living way. And we're told that the Lord Jesus Christ has obtained a more excellent ministry, seeing that he is a mediator of a better covenant, established upon better promises. I trust this overview of this wonderful subject of the covenant of grace, this new covenant in Christ, will be one that will thrill your heart to think that he has done this for me. He has come to be my prophet, priest, and king, to wed me unto himself that I might be his for all eternity, and that there can be no severance of his love toward me. I trust that you will enter by faith into that wonderful relationship with Christ and know the joys that belong to the people of God and that you're able to say that this is my God and I am his people. Lord, bless your word to our hearts, we pray.