Hebrews 8:1-13

The New Covenant

Why was the law of Moses given? There are many reasons.

The law was given to teach us how to love each other. It is one thing to say, “Love others.” It is something else to say, “Don’t lie, steal, covet, or commit adultery.” All of these later things are components of how to love others. 

The law was given to keep us from destroying each other. (I guess that is a corollary to the first point.)

The law was given to lead us to Christ. (Galatians 3:24) What does that mean? It means a couple of things. It means that when we look at Christ we see the only person who fulfilled the law. That should point us to Him. It also means that when we look at ourselves we see how incapable we are of keeping the law.

Fortunately the law was not given for our salvation. No one is saved by keeping the law. That is a good thing since we aren’t able to keep it. 

The writer of Hebrews quotes the prophet Jeremiah to bring out the point that even before Messiah came it was clearly God’s plan to replace the old covenant with a new covenant. Jesus said in Luke 22:20 that the new covenant was His blood poured out for us. And what a wonderful covenant this is! Under the new covenant God will forgive our wickedness and remember our sins no more. That is straight forward and powerful. That is something we can do because we don’t have to do it. God does it. 

I like this covenant. I want to be a part of this covenant. This is good news, indeed!