Christ, High Priest in the True Sanctuary, superseding the Levitical Priesthood—The
New renders Obsolete the Old Covenant. (76) Heb. 8: 6-9.
“For if that first covenant had been faultless then should no place have been sought for the second” (v. 7). The covenant which Jehovah entered with Israel at Sinai: see Ex. 19:5; 34:27, 28; Deut. 4:13. Israel’s response is recorded in Ex. 19:8, 24:3. It was ratified by blood: Ex. 24:4–8, and Moses was the Mediator of that covenant. This was not the “first” covenant absolutely, but the first made with Israel nationally. Previously, God had made a covenant with Adam (Hos. 6:7), and in some respects the Covenant at Sinai adumbrated it, for it was chiefly one of works. So too He had made a covenant with Abraham, which in some respects adumbrated the Everlasting Covenant, since it was one purely of grace. Prior to Sinai, God dealt with Israel based on the Abrahamic covenant, as is clear from Ex. 2:24; 6:3, 4. But it was on the ground of the Sinaitic covenant that Israel entered Canaan: see Josh. 7:11, 15; Jud. 2:19–21; 1Kg. 11:11; Jer. 34:18, 19. “For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.” For” is as follows: there he had affirmed that the Christian covenant is superior to the Judaic; here, he demonstrates that the old covenant must have been defective, otherwise the new had been superfluous. Wherein lay its “faultiness?” It treated with men in the flesh, and therefore the law was impotent through the weakness of the flesh Rom. 8:3. It provided a sacrifice for sin, but the value thereof was only ceremonial and transient, failing to put away sin. It was unable to secure actual redemption. “Every work of God is perfect, viewed in connection with the purpose which He means it to serve. In this point of view, the ‘first covenant’ was faultless. But when viewed as a saving economy as generally considered by the Jews, in all the extent of that word, it was not ‘faultless.’ It could not expiate moral guilt; it could not wash away moral pollution; it could not justify, it could not sanctify, it could not save. Its priesthood were not perfected—they were weak and inefficient; its sacrifices ‘could not take away sin,’ make perfect as concerning the conscience, or procure ‘access with freedom into the holiest of all.’ In one word, ‘it made nothing perfect’” John Brown. For finding fault with them, He saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (v. 8). The “finding fault “with it” or “with them” may refer either to the old covenant, or to the people themselves who were under it: for the Jews continued not in that covenant, and the Lord regarded them not, v. 9. He saith, Behold, the days come,” etc. The word “Behold” announces the importance of what follows. Here he quotes from Jer. 31:31. Adolph Saphir says, “It is in the night of adversity that the Lord sends forth bright stars of consoling hope. When the darkest clouds of woe were gathering above Jerusalem, and the prophet himself was in the lowest depths of sorrow, God gave to him the most glorious prophecies of Judah’s great redemption and future blessedness. The advent and reign of Messiah, the Lord our righteousness the royal dominion and priesthood of Israel’s Redeemer, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the renewal and restoration of God’s chosen people, the days of unbroken prosperity and blessedness—all the golden Messianic future was predicted in the last days of Jerusalem, when the magnificent fabric of its temple was about to sink into the dust, and its walls and palaces were about to be thrown prostrate on the ground.”
This new covenant God promised to make with “the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
