Yesterday and again today I was reflecting on some verses from the Letter to the Hebrews 8:6-13 NIV:
[6] "But in fact the ministry Jesus has received is as superior to theirs as the covenant of which he is mediator is superior to the old one, since the new covenant is established on better promises. [7] For if there had been nothing wrong with that first covenant, no place would have been sought for another. [8] But God found fault with the people and said :
“The days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
[9] It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt,
because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
[10] This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord.
I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
[11] No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another,
'Know the Lord,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest.
[12] For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. ”
[13] By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear."
The larger chunk of the verses above come from the Book of Jeremiah, and are a promise spoken by God to establish a "new covenant". The author of the letter is tying this promise to the "new covenant" Jesus spoke about in Luke 22:20, at the Last Supper. The point is that Jesus was instituting a new covenant, one whose primary characteristics were to be relationship (verse 11 above) and forgiveness (verse 12 above).
What I find so interesting is the next statement, that God's plan was to make the old covenant obsolete. Remember that the author is writing this to the Hebrews, so this talk of the covenant is particularly sensitive and is core to the understanding of who they are, for they are the children of the promise (based on the Covenant God made with Abraham). He established the covenant of the Law with them after rescuing them from Egypt. By using the word (here translated obsolete), the author was saying the old testament is old, worn out and no longer beneficial, and will soon disappear.
So the primary questions in my mind relates to what happens to the substance of the old covenant? Does the new covenant effectively cancel the old out, and all its requirements? Does the new covenant build upon the old, and thus reuse much of the rules and regulations? What parts of the old covenant are meant to be carried forward, if any? Are the Gentiles expected to embrace the old covenant requirements when they come to the Lord?
These are actually the same questions that were discussed during the first years of the early church, after the Lord revealed to the church that Gentiles were to be saved as well (See Acts 10 & 11). Those that were Jewish believers wanted to hold onto the requirements of the law, and Paul, who became the apostle to the Gentiles, argued strongly against this perspective (See Acts 15). At the end of chapter 15 in Acts, we find a very significant letter to the Gentile churches, written by the Apostles and church leaders. Here is how they answered the questions from above:
Acts 15:23-29 NIV:
[23]With them they sent the following letter:
"The apostles and elders, your brothers,
To the Gentile believers in Antioch, Syria and Cilicia:
Greetings. [24] We have heard that some went out from us without our authorization and disturbed you, troubling your minds by what they said. [25] So we all agreed to choose some men and send them to you with our dear friends Barnabas and Paul--- [26] men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. [27] Therefore we are sending Judas and Silas to confirm by word of mouth what we are writing. [28] It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements: [29] You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality. You will do well to avoid these things.
Farewell."
That is the summary of the all the requirements of the old covenant that were passed to the new Gentile believers. Later in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, chapter 8, Paul makes it quite clear that food sacrificed to idols is actually fine to eat as well. Later Paul writes the following: “I have the right to do anything,” you say---but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”---but not everything is constructive. [24] No one should seek their own good, but the good of others. [25] Eat anything sold in the meat market without raising questions of conscience, [26] for, “The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it.” (1 Cor 10:23-26 NIV) So in summary, the requirements of the old testament are boiled down to abstaining from sexual immorality.
This really is pretty amazing when you think about the whole list of things they could have passed on to the new Gentile believers, this was their one concern. Later Paul and the other authors of the epistles do provide lists of things to avoid and flee from, but here we see the totality of the old covenant requirements boiled down. As the author of the Hebrews wrote, the old is obsolete and soon to disappear.
So why am I focusing on this? The reason is simple, in many of our understandings of our faith, we would list parts of the old covenant as requirements for living a righteous life. If we really take this to its base foundation, even the Ten Commandments were given as a part of the covenant of the law. Jesus gave us a new commandment, to love one another as He loved us (John 13:34-35). One could say that Jesus gave us a new commandment along with the new covenant, and as I mentioned before - it is all about relationship and forgiveness. We are to love God (relationship) and one another (relationship & forgiveness) as He loved us. All the rest of the guidelines and lists provided by Paul and others were just expansions of these two basic commands.
So often we want to just know the rules so we can follow them, but Jesus' constant invitation is to relationship. He doesn't want rule followers, He wants friends and family members (adopted). It is always in the context of relationship first, that any of the guidance and encouragements found in the Epistles are given. As the church, we often want to pass on the rules first, so that people can get there lives "cleaned up" prior to them joining the church. The problem is this is just not in line with the example provided in scripture, nor modeled by Jesus.
Righteousness by works is from the old covenant, and according to the author of Hebrews, obsolete, so why do we continue to teach this way? The truth of the Good News is that we receive Christ's righteousness through relationship (and faith) with Him, and that is the only way! Apart from connection (relationship) with Jesus, we will never bear eternally good fruit, no matter how hard we work. Paul writes about this in his famous verse from his first letter to the church in Corinth (1 Cor 13:1-3).
Finally, I go back to the verses from Hebrews, the New Covenant is superior to the old covenant, and based on better promises (Heb 8:6). Why would I ever want to embrace that which is old, obsolete and inferior?
So, my encouragement today is to continue to focus on relationship with the Lord, and others. We are called to love, first and foremost, and to forgiveness. Let us not burden ourselves or others with requirements that were never added by the Lord! Let us pursue Him and follow Him and be identified as His followers by our love for one another, not by our rigid alignment with the rules.
Amen!
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