In this message we will continue to consider our experience and enjoyment of Christ as the surety and Mediator of a better covenant, the new covenant.
Hebrews 8:6 tells us that a more excellent ministry that Christ has obtained in His ascension is of a better covenant, the new covenant, enacted upon better promises. The Old Testament, as the old covenant, was made with the outward law of the dead letters, whereas the New Testament, as the new covenant, was enacted upon better promises related to the things of eternal life.
Christ is the Mediator of a better covenant. The new covenant, which the Lord Jesus enacted, is better than the old covenant made through Moses. The new covenant is better than the old covenant, just as the reality of a person is better than his photograph. The old covenant, like a photograph, had only the outward form, but the new covenant, like the real person, has the inward life with all its reality. The old covenant was lifeless, but the new covenant is constituted with the indestructible life (7:16). In the old covenant all things were shadows, whereas in the new covenant everything is reality. Everything in the old covenant has been fulfilled and realized in the new covenant. Hence, it is a better covenant.
A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people, whereas a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things bequeathed to the inheritor. The new covenant consummated with the blood of Christ is not merely a covenant but a testament with all the things which have been accomplished by the death of Christ bequeathed to us. The term testament is the equivalent of the modern term will. A will becomes effective only after the death of the maker of the will. The Bible is composed of two wills—the Old Testament, which is the old will, and the New Testament, which is the new will. The Bible is not mainly a book of teachings; it is a will.
The new covenant has replaced the old covenant (8:7, 13). When a real person comes, he replaces his photograph, for the reality replaces the picture, the shadow. The old covenant had fault and became old, decrepit, and near to disappearing, and the new covenant was consummated to replace it. Now it is meaningless for anyone to still remain in the old covenant.
The new covenant, a better covenant, was enacted upon better promises (v. 6). The better promises, which are given in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and quoted in Hebrews 8:8-13 and 10:16-17, cover four major things: (1) propitiation for our unrighteousnesses and the forgetting (forgiveness) of our sins (8:12); (2) the imparting of the law of life by the imparting of the divine life into us (v. 10a); (3) the privilege of having God as our God and of being His people—the divine life’s enabling us to participate in the enjoyment of God in fellowship with Him (v. 10b); and (4) the function of life that enables us to know Him in the inward way of life (v. 11).
Under the old covenant there was no forgiveness of sins, only the covering of sins. In the new covenant we do not have merely the covering of sins but the forgiveness of sins. The forgiveness of sins, being the putting away of sins, is better than the covering of sins, which never removed the sins. In the new covenant there is the law of life, the blessing of having God and of being His people, and the inward ability of knowing God. These three things are of the divine life imparted into us in God’s regeneration. Because of the imparting of life and the forgiveness of sins, these are the better promises.
Among these four major blessings of the new covenant, the inward law of life is the focus. The old covenant was made with the outward law of letters, whereas the new covenant is enacted with this inward law of life. The old covenant was of letters; the new covenant is of life.
Every life has a law. The higher the life, the higher is its law. The divine life that we receive of God is the highest life; therefore, it has the highest law. By imparting His divine life into us, God puts this highest law into our spirit, whence it spreads into our inward parts, such as our mind, emotion, and will.
The law of life differs from the law of letters. The law of life regulates us from within by and according to its life element, whereas the law of letters regulates us from without by and according to its dead letters. The law of dead letters depends on outward teachings, but the law of life depends on the inward consciousness. Since we all, great or small, have the law of life, we do not need outward teachings that are according to the law of letters.
It is according to the law of life that we are a people to God and that He is God to us. God’s relationship with us today is based fully on the law of life so that today we do not need to walk according to the knowledge of the law of letters but should walk according to the consciousness of the law of life.