 You're listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit nakedbiblepodcast.com and click on the support link in the upper right-hand corner. If you're new to the podcast and Dr. Heizer's approach to the Bible, click on newstarthere at nakedbiblepodcast.com. Welcome to the Naked Bible Podcast, Episode 193 Hebrews Chapter 8 on the layman, Trace Jerklin, and he's a scholar, Dr. Michael Heizer. Hey Mike, how's it feel to be home? It feels wonderful. There's just, I thrive in routine and yeah, I'm back doing a routine, so it's great. Absolutely. It's nice to have my own setup here and everything, it just feels right. I don't know, it just feels right. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. Well, Mike, all those interviews were good. We apologize on the last one in Episode 192. We had to cut two interviews because of the sound quality, so yeah, that's basically my fault. We didn't have tray with us, so it just didn't turn out well. I couldn't salvage it, so we went ahead and went too short, but we apologize for that. Then also, Mike, I mentioned in one of the episodes about our Naked Bible 7 coupon code and what it is, it's not actually a coupon code, but if you go purchase anything off of Logos.com and use that coupon code, it'll track your purchases and therefore we'll get credit for it. That's what it is. Also, Logos is giving you a 20% discount on the base packages plus five free books. The coupon code Naked Bible 7 is just a tracking code to track people, whatever they purchase to know that you're doing that through us to get credit for it. If you purchase anything at normal price, you're not going to get a discount on that, but go ahead and use that coupon code. You're not going to get a discount, but at least we'll get credit for it. However, on top of that, they are giving our listeners a 20% discount on the base packages plus five free books. There's a link on our episode page or on our Facebook page where you can get the link to that if you want. Then also, Mike, I'm going to put up some other recommendations that you recommend. You put together a list of scholarly works that you think would be a good one. Most of them are reference works, things like DDD, but there's a whole bunch of things that if you're going to develop some serious study skills and have access to some good material, reference material, there are sets I certainly recommend. So that's what Trey's talking about. Yeah. And so no discounts with those, but use code DECODEBible7 and we'll get credit for that if you purchase that. Then also, Mike, some fun news, me and you both made the playoffs in fantasy football as one and two. We both get the buy. So we're currently in a buy week and that's kind of nice. Just don't have to think about the lineup that week. Low stress. Yeah. All right. All right. So we're back into Hebrew. So after a month off, basically, and 10 episodes later almost, we're back into Hebrew. Boy, it just seems like a long time. It does. It sounds long. Yeah, it sounds long. But some of those were rapid release episodes. So it's not 10 weeks, but yeah, it's still a bit long. So we are back in Hebrews 8. We're going to do the whole chapter in this episode. We're going to go through it. There's one thing I really want to sort of camp on for at least, you know, half the episode, one topic. We'll hit a few things before we get there, but let's just read through the whole chapter. It's not that long and then jump into it. So Hebrews 8, again, I'm reading from the ESV. Now the point in what we are saying is this. We have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. A minister in the holy places in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. They serve a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain. But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better since it is enacted on better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. For he finds fault with them when he says, Behold the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people, and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, for I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. Now, that's the entirety of Hebrews 8, and lots of good stuff in there, and it sort of continues on this theme of Christ is better than fill in the blank, and we'll get to that in a moment, but just a few observations here and there in the passage before we sort of camp on the topic that I want to camp on, that's going to be the new covenant, but let's go to the first verse. The language of the first verse, again, is, you know, there's some interesting things in there, just to read the first verse again. Now, the point in what we are saying is this, we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Now, Lane, in his commentary, and this is the word biblical commentary, his commentary on Hebrews, the first volume, which is chapters one through eight, writes this, In eight one, the writer unites the themes of priesthood and heavenly session. Jesus' session, again, or his seating, again, his situation, his placement at God's right hand is linked with his priestly office only in this verse in eight one, and at chapter 10, verses 12 through 13. I'll just read that real quickly and then get back to Lane. Hebrews 10, 12 to 13 says, but when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. Back to Lane, he writes, the phrasing who has taken his seat at the right hand of the majesty in heaven in eight one, recalls the formulation in Hebrews chapter one, verse three, I'll read that. He, Christ is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, and there's that same phrase again, sitting down at the right hand of the majesty back to Lane. So this phrase recalls the formulation in Hebrews one, three, where the writer alluded to Psalm 110, verse one, to assert the exaltation of the incarnate son to a position of supreme honor. The session at God's right hand is invoked here, not for its connotation of transcendent dignity, but for its implication that Jesus exercises a heavenly office. The primary illusion to Psalm 110, one, the primary illusion is to Psalm 110, one, but the writer may have intended a secondary illusion to Zechariah 613 in the Septuagint, where the one who is seated at God's right hand is described as an anointed priest. That's the end of the Lane quotation. So again, there's this linkage of high priestly office and being seated at the right hand of God, which if you take it back to Psalm 110, one, and earlier episodes, is also linked to rulership and kingship. So we have this king priest thing going on. And because you have a king priest that is eternal and because you have a priest that's also a king, Jesus priestly ministry is by definition superior to the priestly ministry of the Old Testament, of the Mosaic system. Again, that's the point. And I thought, you know, Lane's illusion there, his comments were worth repeating. Now, if you get to, you go to Hebrews 8, 2, there's another little item there. And I'll read that. Again, we have a high priest seated at the right hand of the throne of the majesty in heaven. Here's verse two. Jesus is also a minister in the holy places in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man. There's a couple of things here in Hebrews 8, 2. Luke, Timothy, Johnson, Johnson, I think is worth quoting here when he comments on the term minister, which in Greek is leitorgos. And you can look at the transcript for the spelling there. Johnson writes, in the ancient Greek world, the verb leitorgene from which we derive the term liturgy refers generally to the performance of public service, most often at one's own expense. The leitorgia in turn, that's the liturgy or the ministry in term, is the public work and the leitorgos is the one who puts it on, the one who performs it. Given the public and pervasive character of ancient polytheistic religion, such public service, i.e., the providing of festivals and the like, naturally took on a religious coloration. It was appropriate therefore that the Septuagint used this language for the quote, public work of worship in Israel. Okay. The examples in the Septuagint there that Johnson quotes are Exodus 2835, Exodus 2930, where leitorgene is used. Exodus 3719, leitorgia in Numbers 822. So this term, this is me breaking in here. This term, again, has to do with, again, priestly duties to the wider public here, back to Johnson. He writes, in light of such usage, it is striking that the Septuagint does not employ the term leitorgos for the priests engaged in the cult. Only in Isaiah 61.6 are the priests referred to as leitorgoi theu, ministers of God. Instead, it used leitorgos for servants in the broader sense. In the New Testament, so also does Paul. Indeed, Hebrews itself employs the term in this broader sense in Hebrews one seven, with reference to the angels. This broader sense of public work should perhaps be kept in mind when Hebrews uses the substantive leitorgia in Hebrews 8.6 and again, in Hebrews 9.21. Now, again, the point there is that the ministry that is that the writer of Hebrews is talking about with respect to Jesus is just it's sort of all encompassing, it subsumes everything. And it is aimed not just at what a priest does for someone who, you know, trucks his goat up or his sheep or whatever for the sacrifice that day. It's not just aimed at at cultic, you know, sacrificial type of ministry. It's just broader. It's more all encompassing. And so, you know, Johnson is suggesting here that by using this language, the writer of Hebrews wants his readers to think of the priesthood of Christ as being as broad as it can possibly be and not just, you know, something that has to do with, you know, a particular ritual. Now, he's going to get the writer of Hebrews is going to get to the sacrifice issue in the next verse in verse three. Let me just read verses two, three, four and five here. For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices. Thus it is necessary for this priest, i.e. Jesus also to have something to offer. Now, if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all. OK, because he wouldn't be part of the Levitical system because, again, Jesus wasn't wasn't a Levite. And again, since the offering that those priests give, you know, were, were, you know, they were offering something outside themselves, you know, something that he's going to go on and say as temperature or excuse me, temporary. So if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all again, like the old system, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law, they were serving a copy and a shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he instructed, he was instructed by God saying, see that you make everything according to the pattern that was showing you on the mountain. So what the writer of Hebrews is doing here is he's comparing what Jesus offered that happened to be himself, which was eternal, which led to a priestly office in heaven that was created exclusively by God. There was no human, you know, artisan ship, no human help involved in that. These are all contrasts to the older system, where the sacrifices were temporary in nature, where the priest wasn't sacrificing himself, where it took place, you know, on, you know, at the tabernacular temple that was built by human hands, even though God, you know, instructed them how to do it. These are all points of contrast to illustrate how Jesus sacrificed his role as a high priest, just one ups, you know, is just superior to what was going on in the older system. Now, what about this reference to the true tent? Now, it's interesting that by using the word tent, I mean, most scholars would say this is a reference to the tabernacle and not the temple. I don't think that we can be sort of that clear cut here, because if you remember in Unseen Realm, I talked about how the tent of the tabernacle was moved inside the temple structure. Again, if you're curious about that, you can go read Unseen Realm and, you know, read a little bit about that. But nevertheless, the language here is still interesting because of the tabernacling idea. Hagner, in his commentary, brings this question up. He asks, why does Hebrews refer to the tabernacle rather than the temple? Again, just for the sake of the discussion, let's zero in our language to the tent, regardless of whether the tent was inside the temple or not. The writer of Hebrews is using tent language. So why does he do that? Now, here's Hagner's explanation and I'll give you a heads up. I'm going to disagree with it a bit. I think he complicates it unnecessarily, but I'm just going to read it to you because there's some things in here that are interesting. So Hagner writes, Hebrews refers consistently to the tent, the tabernacle, rather than to the temple, again, structurally. In fact, temple, he says, is a word not used by our author, the author of Hebrews. The word tent in this sense, though very common in the Pentateuch, occurs elsewhere in the New Testament, only in Acts 744. The tent refers to the portable tent shrine that was the center of Israel's religious life from the Sinai experience until Solomon built the first permanent structure that we call the temple. This tent shrine was the prototype of the Jerusalem temple. Our author, Hagner continues, refers to the tabernacle rather than the temple because the tabernacle was the original earthly manifestation of the sacrificial rule of the Old Covenant. Again, I think that's a little overstated because, hey, they were doing sacrifices at the tabernacle, too, but let's just continue on. Hagner says, it was the tabernacle that was set up according to the command of God, and that's referenced in Hebrews 8.5. But since the Jerusalem temple was the contemporary counterpart to the wilderness tabernacle, criticism of the latter was also implicit criticism of the former. This could not have been missed by any of the original readers. The sacrificial ritual of the temple was no more effectual than that of the tent shrine. Now, I'm going to say that I think he's just complicating things. I think it's much easier to understand why the writer of Hebrews is using tent language and not specifically temple language. It's just simpler. He's doing this because the tabernacle is associated with Moses. It's just so simple. You know, Moses didn't minister in the temple. The temple, you know, post-dated Moses considerably. So when you talk about the tabernacle, it immediately brings to mind Moses and the Mosaic system, i.e., the Torah system that he's consistently contrasting Jesus with. Jesus being superior to Torah. Jesus being superior to the Mosaic system. So that's why he's using tent language. It just conjures up the image of Moses again. Another question, what about this copy and shadow language? Let me read the verse again in Hebrews 8.4. It says, or Hebrews 8.5, they serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, i.e., those who are under the Mosaic system, the Israelites, the Jews, you know, of the writer of Hebrews Day, are serving a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. In other words, the heavenly reality is something associated with Jesus because he sees it at the right hand of the majesty in heaven. And the Mosaic system is lesser to that. It's inferior to that. But what about this copy and shadow language, earthly versus heavenly sort of language? Hagner, again, introduces something that I think is interesting. But again, I'm going to quibble with what he says a little bit here. But I'm using him to sort of get us into the subject. He has a heading in his book called Dualism in Hebrews, Metaphysical or Temporal. He writes, the dualism that we encounter in their reference to the earthly sanctuary and sacrifices as a quote, copy and shadow of the true or heavenly realities that exist in heaven sounds very much like that of the Greek philosopher Plato, who argued that earthly objects are the particular manifestation of perfect and eternal ideas or forms that cannot be perceived by the senses, but known only through the intellect. This dualism between matter and the idea or form was widely influential in the Hellenistic world. It is found extensively in the writings of Philo, a first century Hellenistic Jew of Alexandria. This is one important reason for associating the author of Hebrews with Alexandria, hence the plausibility of Apollos, as possibly the author of Hebrews, where this Greek dualism appears to have been very popular. Now, again, sure, the part of that is certainly true. I mean, the whole dichotomy, again, was and found extensively in Alexandria that this is part of the Hellenistic world, again, because it's related to Plato. That's true. Again, if Apollos was the writer of Hebrews, well, that makes sense as a connection, again, because of his own background and so on and so forth. But I'm going to say this is basically kind of overblown. And here's what I mean by that. Ancient Near Eastern religion, which is, again, long before Hellenism, the Hellenistic period, they had the same concept. You know, it's not as well known because there was no writer as well read as Plato, but they have the same concept of lesser form on earth versus the ultimate form in the heavens idea. I'll give you one classic example, the ziggurat. Okay, why would you build a ziggurat? Why would you build a temple for that matter? You're building something that you conceive of as the place where the deity resides, you know, that the God's house, so to speak, the God's house in his outer courtyard. You know that what you're building on earth is just a form or a representation, a copy, again, of this heavenly reality, again, where the gods live. So this notion of, boy, it isn't until Plato that we get this, you know, ideal form in the heavens versus some lesser form on earth idea, that's honestly, that's just bogus. If any of you have read Walton's book, you know, The Lost World of Genesis 1, he does a really good idea of showing how Genesis 1, again, conforms in the creation language, conforms to the way temples were dedicated, just literally the language used in the order of presentation. So even the earth itself, OK, even earth itself is a lesser form of this greater thing, again, the dwelling place, the gods, the ethereal heavens idea, something beyond, you know, the created heavens and earth. So I just think this is a bit overblown. So take it for what it's worth. It's interesting that, you know, for those of you in the audience, I know that that you're going to be familiar with, you know, Platonic philosophy and you're going to get you're going to have encountered these ideas before. But I wanted to introduce that not only because of the Apollos connection, some of you are interested in authorship, but also to say, yeah, you know, the language is related to this, but let's not take the point too far because Israelite thinking, ancient Near Eastern thinking, they're capable of the same categories. Hagner continues, and he says here, our author has a perspective quite different from that of Philo and Platonic dualism. So now he's compared it earlier. He compared it to Philo and dualism, the Platonic dualism. Now he's going to say, but, you know, our author does something a little bit different, which is this is useful. He thinks primarily in terms of historical sequence and of promise and fulfillment. The comparison he wishes to make is not between earthly and metaphysical realities, but rather between earlier and later realities between preliminary and finally effective realities. Thus, the dualism that our author employs is a temporal dualism and not a metaphysical dualism. It's not a vertical dualism, but a timeline dualism that involves a contrast between prophecy and fulfillment, between preparation or anticipation and finality. So what he's saying here is that the writer of Hebrews, his language about, hey, that the mosaic system, that was a copy and shadow of heavenly things. Hagner is saying, and I think there's some merit to this, Hagner is arguing that the writer is not saying, hey, you know, what was going on there in the time Moses just, you know, was a dim reflection of the heavenly reality and we have a vertical comparison going on. Again, Hagner is disputing that. I think there's something to that, but I also think there's something to what Hagner is saying, because we can situate all this in chronology. One preceded the other. And what Hagner does with that is he's saying, look, the comparison goes beyond this vertical comparison idea. He's saying that one thing sort of typologically prefigured the later thing. He's making the work of Christ eschatological, in other words, that's where Hagner wants to go with this. He's saying this was a foreshadowing prophetically, not just metaphysically, but prophetically. The Old Testament system was a foreshadowing of what Christ would do. So, yeah, there's a vertical dimension here to it. The priesthood of Christ, what's going on in heaven is superior to that, which happens on earth. We get that. But there's also this chronological thing going on where one was, again, like a type, a nonverbal prophecy, a foreshadowing, a prefigurement of something that would come later. And the thing that comes later is by nature is superior. So I thought Hagner's little treatment there was useful to get us thinking about both a vertical comparison and also this chronological or eschatological comparison. Now, Hagner says he winds up his treatment with this statement. He says, interestingly, Paul says something very similar concerning the Sabbath and dietary laws. Quote, he quotes Colossians 217. These, these things in the context of Colossians two, the Sabbath and dietary laws are only a shadow of what is to come. But the substance belongs to Christ. That's Colossians 217. Now, I think that is important. It sort of prepares us for some observations. I mean, look at the contrasts just in these first five verses of Hebrews. We have earthly priests versus the heavenly priest who is superior. That's Jesus. We have an old cultic role for a priest, again, not, you know, Leiturgos, you know, but, but we have that compared to the worship role of the greater priest, something more comprehensive, which is why the Leiturgos terminology gets used. So we've got an old system where it was just about sacrificing animals and whatnot. That's, that's what's in view here of, of what the priesthood is really about. But here on Jesus' side, yeah, we get the sacrificial element because he offers himself, but his role as a priest is much more comprehensive. So we get that contrast. We have the old tent versus the true tent. Of course, the true tent, the one in the heavens is the one that matters more. The old tent was built by men, granted at God's instruction, but the true tent is completely and only built by God. It's spiritual in nature. Men are not responsible for its existence in any way, only God is. You have Hebrews, you know, eight, two, you have the reference to the minister, being a minister in the holy places in the true tent that God set up and not man. That's the one that matters more. We have gifts and offerings of the old priesthood system. They had to kill an animal, kill something else versus the great priest, the great high priest who offers himself. Again, you have all these, these contrasts. Now take that, take those contrasts and look at Colossians 2.17 again. The gifts and offerings of the earthly cult and priesthood and the Sabbath and the dietary laws are, quote, a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. They are a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. Now, again, just, just let it sink in. It's not just the priesthood. It's not just the priesthood that is lesser than Jesus. That is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. It's not just the sacrifices. It's also the Sabbath and it's also the dietary laws. If you combine this statement here in Hebrews 8.4 and 5, specifically Hebrews 8.5 with Colossians 2.17, it's a clear statement that the gifts, the sacrifices, the offerings, the Sabbath, the dietary laws are all inferior to Christ. All of them, not just the ritual sacrifices, the cult. Now, this takes us back to an earlier episode. We're Christ. According to the writer of Hebrews, Christ is our Sabbath. Again, if you combine Hebrews 8.5 with Colossians 2.17, you not only get the Sabbath again, but you also get the dietary laws. These things are a shadow of the heavenly things. They are a copy. They are precursors. They are destined to be replaced. They are destined to become obsolete. They point us to something to come, something that is better. And all of those, everything that's better in all those respects is the work and ministry of Christ. So all of this raises a really simple question. Why would we go back to following Torah? Again, the writer of Hebrews would ask his audience, and he does in all these different ways, why would we go back to following Torah? Again, his concern is the Judaizer. The person who was at one time, again, trying to get heavy eternal life by following the law, and then they discover the salvation by faith in Christ. And then he's concerned about them falling away, going back to the old system, going back to the works mentality. If you remember Hebrews 6, it's really a huge concern because he even says their look. For someone who was in that kind of system and then they discovered salvation by faith, and then they forsake salvation by faith in Christ to go back to works, it's next to impossible for that person to ever come back to faith again. So this is a serious thing. So he's been doing this for seven chapters now. And here we are in chapter eight. These things are a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. And it's not, this is why I'm harping on this. He's not just talking about the sacrifices. He's talking about the Sabbath. He's talking about the dietary laws. If you bring, you know, Paul into this in Colossians 217, all of these things, the whole Torah system is a shadow and a copy of something later to come that's superior, the person in work of Christ, the person in ministry of Christ. So why should we go back to following Torah? Certainly not because there's anything to be gained in terms of God's relationship to us. We'd be trading the superior for the inferior, what God accomplished by his own power for something dependent on human service. I mean, do we really want to exchange something that God accomplished by his own power for something that, in certain respects, is dependent on human service? This is why if you want to do Torah, again, I'm speaking to many in the audience out there, if you want to do Torah, it's only theologically and spiritually legitimate or coherent if it's a conscience issue. Or if it's something that encourages your walk with Christ, it's not legitimate. If it substitutes for Christ, if it supplements Christ, if we think that the work of Christ needs it, that's illegitimate theology. In other words, if you're doing Torah things and that those things make you feel more connected to Jesus, but you realize that Christ is in fact superior and you just want some connection to the Old Testament roots of your faith, then fine. But if it transcends, if your Torah following transcends that sort of emotional connection to redefining the gospel, to redefining the work of Christ, or displacing the gospel, then you're like a New Testament Judaizer and you're following false doctrine. This is why I've wondered at several intervals in our series on Hebrews how the extreme, and I'm using that word intentionally, how the extreme Hebrew roots people can tolerate the book of Hebrews at all. They think they have an ally, I guess, in Hebrews because it talks about Hebrew stuff. It is not an ally to the Hebrew roots, the extreme Hebrew roots idea of replacing or displacing or supplementing Jesus. It is hostile to those ideas. Maybe the Hebrew roots folks, again, the extreme ones just hate the book of Hebrews. Maybe they just hate it. Maybe they don't understand it. Probably more likely. They think it's compatible, but it isn't. Now that, all that brings us to the heart of the point of chapter eight and really the rest of our main focus for the episode that's Hebrews 8, 6 through 13, which is dealing with the New Covenant and the High Priesthood of Christ. I'm going to read verses 6 through 13 again just so they're in our heads. The writer says, again, right on the heels of saying all this stuff is a copy, a shadow of the heavenly things, again, because, you know, you're comparing a tent that was made in part with human hands versus a true tent that's made entirely by God in the heavenly places. He says in verse 6, but as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is much more excellent than the old, as the covenant He mediates is better. Since it is enacted on better promises, for if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second. Perfectly logical. Verse 8, for he fault, he finds fault with them when he says, then now the writer is going to quote the Old Testament, he's going to quote the New Covenant passage, Jeremiah 31. He finds fault with them when he says, behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not continue in my covenant. So I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall not teach each one his neighbor and each one his brother saying, hey, no, the Lord, for they shall all know me and the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more than the last verse of the chapter. In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete and what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. Now I want to read a little selection from Guthrie's exposition. This is in Beal's commentary on the use of the Old Testament in the New Testament, which is an excellent resource. Guthrie wrote the portion on Hebrews. Guthrie writes this, the quotation of Jeremiah 31 versus 31 through 34, which in the Septuagint is chapter 38 versus 31 to 34. Septuagint numbers certain things differently. The quotation of that passage, the longest Old Testament quotation in the New Testament plays a vital role in the book's discourse on Christ's superior high priestly offering, laying the groundwork for the climax of the book's Christological exposition. Through use of this rich prophetic passage, the author establishes the superiority of the new covenant in Hebrews 8, 7 through 13 prior to addressing the superiority of the new covenant offering, which he's going to do in chapters 9 and 10. The development from one to the other follows the pattern identified in chapter 7, where he first asserts the superiority of Melchizedek's priesthood to the Levitical one and builds on that assertion by proclaiming the superiority of Jesus' Melchizedekian appointment as priest. The superiority of the institution is followed by the superiority of the new covenant expression of the institution. The author primarily establishes the superiority of the new covenant by pointing out that one, the first covenant was not faultless and thus gave rise to a second covenant. Number two, the term new in the quotation, Kine, means that the old covenant has been made obsolete in Hebrews 8, 13. In chapters 9 and 10, the author utilizes the passage from Jeremiah to focus on the forgiveness of sins promised in the quotation, thus associating the new covenant with cultic ideas of priesthood and sacrifice. That's the end of Guthrie's quotation. Now, there's an important textual variant in chapter 8 that starts us off here. Chapter 8, verse 8, and Guthrie comments on this right after he's talking about how the new covenant usage of the writer sort of sets up chapters 9 and 10 like we just read. He writes this. Again, I'm reading it because I think it's worth noting and it helps clarify the reading a little bit. He writes, the introductory formula for this quotation, again, we're talking about verses 9 through 13 or 8b through 13. The introductory formula for this quotation contains an important textual variant, which reads, for faulting them, he says. The autos reads as a direct object and a reference to the people who were under the old covenant. This is that's why I'm breaking it out. The ESV translates this for he finds fault with them when he says Guthrie's going to disagree with that translation because of a textual variant. He says, now he goes through and he talks about witnesses. This is in the papyri. He says it should say out our choice to them. And it's because it's in the papyri and some really old manuscripts. And he says, here's the effect on this reading. The clause introduces the quotation of Jeremiah 31 with this phrase for finding fault by implication with the old covenant for finding fault with the old covenant, he says to them. So he's not finding fault with people. He's finding fault with the old covenant and he's speaking to people. So I think that's worth pointing out because if we go back to ESV, just think about how this sounds now. ESV reads this for he finds fault with them when he says, well, who's them? You'd think, well, them is maybe that's the old priests. You know, he's fine. He's finding fault with the priests or maybe with the sacrifices or something. But then why does he quote the new covenant? You know, it's not really about priests and all that stuff Guthrie saying, this is the way we should translate it for finding fault. He says to them. Okay, to to basically he's saying Jeremiah spoke to the Israelites and he's not finding fault with the Israelites. He's finding fault with the whole system and he's telling the Israelites, look, something better is coming down the road. Behold, the days are coming declares the Lord when I will establish a new covenant with the House of Israel. So I wanted to point that out because I do think it makes more sense in wording, but you know, if it's sort of esoteric, just skip that part. And here we are at the heart of the matter. And that's the new covenant, what makes it superior to the old. Hebrews 8, 6 through 13, again, very obviously associates the fulfillment of the new covenant with the work and priesthood of Christ. The whole chapter does this. There's no ambiguity there. And that's consistent with the Old Testament context for the new covenant. We're going to read a little selection here from the dictionary, the Old Testament, the volume on the prophets. The author's name is Rada, R-A-T-A. And he writes this, the expression New Covenant appears only in the book of Jeremiah, but the concept, this is important, but the concept is present in other prophetic books such as Isaiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, and Malachi. Isaiah anticipates the new covenant primarily through the servant songs. That's Isaiah 42, 1 through 9, Isaiah 49, 1 through 13, Isaiah 50, versus 4 through 11. And of course, the suffering servant passage Isaiah 52, 13 through 53, 12. Rada writes, the servant of Yahweh, the embodiment of God's covenant is the agent through whom God's covenant blessing will be extended to all people, me breaking in here again. In other words, the servant in Isaiah, which of course the New Testament recognizes as Jesus when it's an individual servant, the servant is the one who mediates this new covenant idea. Okay, back to Rada. God declares that the servant himself will be a covenant for the people. That's Isaiah 42, 6. The servant himself will be a covenant for the people. The new covenant is also anticipated by Isaiah through the promise of the eternal covenant of peace. It's Isaiah 54, 10. This covenant will usher the period that will be characterized by the absence of divine wrath. The peace aspect of this covenant is more than just the absence of war or hostility. It also has the connotation of the sum total of covenant blessing. The servant of Yahweh is described in Isaiah. He will inaugurate a new covenant that has the Davidic covenant as its basis. It is therefore linked to Messianic hopes. This is an everlasting covenant associated with the person and work of the servant of Yahweh and it will result in everlasting joy according to Isaiah 55, 3 and Isaiah 61, 8. Now again, with that as a backdrop, this linkage in the prophets, here's the point. The new covenant idea specifically is Jeremiah 31 through 34 versus 31 through 34 in Jeremiah 31 as a chapter. That's where we think that's the chapter, the section, the passage we think of when we think new covenant. But the idea, the concept of a new covenant is found in other prophets. And when it is found in other prophets, especially Isaiah, it's linked to the servant of the Lord who is Jesus in New Testament theology. So Jesus and the new covenant are linked in the Old Testament prophets. The Messiah and the new covenant are linked in the Old Testament prophets. That's important because there are things we're going to read Jeremiah 31, 31 through 34 now. And then we're going to go back to Hebrews 8 and talk about what the writer of Hebrews does with this. And we're going to bring in some other ideas from other prophets about the new covenant to create a full picture of the relationship of the new covenant and Jesus and why that's better than the Old Covenant. So here's Jeremiah 31 versus 31 through 34. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the Old Covenant, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. My covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall one teach his neighbor and each his brother saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember their sin no more. Now some thoughts. This covenant is labeled new. It says it right there in the text. It's a new covenant. And so that differentiates it from the older covenants. And in particular, the mosaic covenant, because the writer of Hebrews specifically applies this new covenant passage. He quotes Jeremiah 31 here. He specifically applies it to the mosaic covenant, the Torah. That's the old one that has, you know, is is atrophying is has become obsolete. And the new one again is linked in Old Testament thinking and of course in the book of Hebrews to the Messiah to Jesus. So again, he the contrast is deliberate. The Torah system is inferior. It's obsolete. It's passing away. And now we have something new. And this is the new covenant that God intended with people. He's done that elsewhere. The writer of Hebrews in chapter three versus three through five. Let me just go back and read that. He says for Jesus has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses. I mean, how much more explicit could it get as much more glory as the builder of a house has more honor than the house itself. For every house is built by someone. But the builder of all things is God. And you can say in Hebrews eight, yeah, the builder of the true tent is only God. And the true tent is where Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the majesty. Now Moses Hebrews three five was faithful in all God's house as a servant to testify to the things that were to be spoken later. And of course, the things to be spoken later to the writer of Hebrews is all this Jesus stuff. Again, it was a shadow. The mosaic system, the Torah system was a shadow of things to come. Now second thought as the first thought is, hey, it's new for a reason differentiates it from the other one. Second thought is this covenant, the new covenant includes all the tribes of Israel, Israel and Judah are mentioned specifically. You say, well, you know, what wasn't the old covenant? You know, for all the tribes, yeah, it was. But where does the passage about the new covenant come from? It comes from Jeremiah, Israel, the 10 tribes of Israel are long gone. They are toast. They are history. They are scattered to the wind. And so Jeremiah is writing to the remnant of what we would think of as Israel. It's only, you know, Judah and little Benjamin subsumed in there. But he says in Jeremiah 31, Jeremiah says, look, the Lord's going to make a new covenant. It's going to be with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, all of you, all the tribes. That's going to become important a little bit later on. Number three, a new covenant was needed not because God goofed up the old one, but because the people failed to obey its terms. And frankly, they couldn't obey its terms perfectly. The Torah system was, as Paul put it, designed to direct us to a savior by showing we needed a savior. And there are some other thoughts that accrue to that. Let me read Galatians 3. Yeah, this is just a crucial passage. Galatians 3, 23 through 29. Paul writes, now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law. Just a great phrase. We were held captive under the law. Why would we want to be captives again? We were held captive under the law imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian. King James has our schoolmaster until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. Verse 25. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian under a schoolmaster for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. And he's writing to the Galatians there. There's neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male or female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. And then the kicker verse verse 29, I've read this many times on the podcast. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring. You are Abraham's seed heirs according to the promise. Again, this passage redefines what it means to be Abraham's seed. It is no longer about lineal physical descent. Okay, you are Abraham's offspring by faith. If you are Christ's, you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise. Now, again, you take this back to the book of Hebrews. This is why the new covenants better. Because it's all encompassing. And it's not a covenant, but it's broader in scope. Okay, you know, all this Paul language, neither this nor that, neither this nor that will look at the new covenant language. They're all going to know me from the least to the greatest. Okay, it's not only better for that reason, but it's better than the old covenant, because the old covenant was something that people could fail at because it was again, it was about Torah, you know, observance in the sense that to, you know, to be a sort of functioning member of the people of God. Again, you had to believe that Yahweh was who he was, all that. But this is how you showed, you know, your, your loyalty. It was, it was, it was defined by the Torah system. And what, what the new covenant offers is it says, look, salvation's still by faith, but there's no like system that goes with it. Okay, we just need to follow Christ. We need to be disciples. We need to be conformed to his image. That's how we walk. Okay, we need to be filled with the spirit, all what's the filling of the spirit. This is what we need to be like. And it's not that we need to be it to keep God happy with us. It's just, this is the way we show our faith. This is the way we show we're loyal to the gospel. This is the way we show that we believe the gospel. We don't have to do rituals. We don't have to bring sacrifices. We don't have to observe specific calendars. We don't have to observe the Sabbath. We don't have to observe the dietary laws to demonstrate what we believe. Now, we can do those things if we want. Again, back to my earlier comments, if there are issues of conscience, or they just have, it just gives you an emotional connection back to the roots of all this back in the Old Testament, fine. But you don't substitute those things for faith. You don't substitute those things for the work of Christ. You can show your believing loyalty with those things or without them, but you don't substitute the gospel for those things. It's casting a wider net. You can show your believing loyalty to Christ with those things or not. Those things are obsolete. They have passed away. Christ is now our Sabbath. Christ is now our offering. Christ is now our gift. So again, just trying to belabor the point, because honestly, I do think it needs to be belabored. Salvation has always been about believing in what God has promised. Okay, that's a no-brainer. In the Old Testament mosaic system, the way you showed your believing loyalty was you had to do the Jewish thing. You had to do the mosaic system. That was how you expressed what you believed. You couldn't just go off and worship another God. You couldn't just not worship the Lord. This is the way you show your allegiance to the true God. On the other side of the cross, you don't need those things to show your allegiance to the gospel. Again, if you want to do those things, fine, as long as they don't become a substitute for the gospel, as long as you keep it in the right perspective that Jesus is superior to these things. God and I would be in right relationship because I believe the gospel, whether I observe the Sabbath or not, whether I observe this part of the calendar or not, okay, whether I did this dietary thing or not, you're free to do them, you're free to not do them. That's the point. And some people enjoy doing those things because they're meaningful in such a way that it helps them draw closer to Jesus. No problem there. And again, Paul does these things. Paul does mosaic things, but Paul is very clear about the gospel, about the work of Christ being superior to the Torah, to the mosaic system. He's very clear about that. And so is the writer of Hebrews. So it's not like a prohibition against doing Jewish things, doing mosaic things. Again, Paul does them, the early, early followers of Jesus did them. But again, we can't just take those examples in the book of Acts and then throw out Galatians 3 and throw out the book of Hebrews and say we all need to be Torah observant now. Again, that is just contrary, not only to Hebrews 8 and frankly, most of the book of Hebrews, but it's contrary to other parts of the New Testament as well. Stuff that was written by Jews, like Paul, and the writer and the writer of the Hebrews, whoever that was, okay? It's fine to attach yourself to Torah things. If it encourages your walk with Christ, who is superior to Torah things, it is not fine to redefine the gospel or to say that the work of Jesus on the cross needs to be supplemented by Torah for it to work or something. That's not fine. And there's a reason why there's a new covenant. Fourthly, the new covenant describes the law of God written on the heart being put into the mind. In other words, we don't have tablets of stone or Torah scrolls now. This is something that happens internally. This speaks to some internal witness to God's will, God's law. Everyone in the new covenant community, and think about this, everyone in the new covenant community, the real, genuine new covenant community, will know the Lord, not just some. It entails forgiveness of iniquities and sins. So the new covenant is tied to the forgiveness of sin for everyone in the community, from the smallest to the greatest. Now, what does all that stuff mean? Well, let's go to some other passages in the Old Testament that I think will contribute a few things and we can kind of tell what's going on here, what this language actually means. Back to the diction of the Old Testament, the prophet's volume. Again, the new covenant gets described outside Jeremiah, so we need to look at some of that. Rata, back to him, R-A-T-A, is the author's name. Rata writes this, Ezekiel emphasizes. Now we're in Ezekiel now, talking about what Ezekiel talks about as far as this internal transformation stuff, because that's in the book of Ezekiel too, just like it is in the Jeremiah New Covenant passage. Ezekiel emphasizes that the institution of the new covenant in the hearts of the people is possible only through the presence of God's spirit in the people's hearts. Twice in the book of Ezekiel, God promises to give the people a new heart and to put his spirit within them. That's Ezekiel 1119 and Ezekiel 3626. Only under such conditions can the people now obey God's rules and commandments. And that is from Ezekiel 3627 which says, and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. Again, there's this link to spirit enablement to again, live a life that pleases the Lord. Again, it's not living a life so that God owes a salvation. It's just it's being godly so that God, you know, can and will bless us and so that we have the kind of life God wants us to have. I'm not going to go rehearse the whole thing about the purpose of the law, but the purpose of the law was not, you know, I'll say this much, the purpose of the law was not, hey, here's a ticket, here's a means by which God will owe you eternal life. Do this stuff and God will owe it to you. It's not merit based. The law of God is about preventing people from going off and worshiping other gods and not doing self-destructive things and therefore having a miserable life. It's not about earning merit so that God owes you salvation and a rabbit trail there. The writer of Hebrews, again, going back to this internal transformation stuff, the spirit, you know, transforming from within so that the language of Ezekiel, the language of Jeremiah 31 makes sense. The writer of Hebrews ties all that to the work of Christ, which of course makes sense. The new covenant was instituted by Jesus at the Lord's Supper Luke 2220. I'll read a couple of these. Likewise, the cup after he took the cup after they had eaten saying this is the cup or this cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. 1 Corinthians 11 25. In the same way also he took the cup after supper saying this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink of it in remembrance of me. Again, there are New Testament passages that link the new covenant with what happens at the Last Supper, which of course again itself is linked to what's going to happen on the cross. Now think about all this. Think about this stuff in relationship to what the new covenant is supposed to be and supposed to do. What does it all mean? Well, the new covenant says that all of the tribes, all 12 tribes are included. And frankly, as we see this worked out, that's going to include even half breed Jews, people who aren't pure in their blood and Gentiles. Think about it. Jews scattered all over the ancient world as a result of the exile. Where did they get the spirit? Where does the spirit come in and start indwelling people? It's Pentecost. Jews from all over the ancient world as a result of the exile come to Jerusalem at Pentecost. They hear the Gospel and they believe it. They also receive the Holy Spirit. It's an Acts 238. It's the old repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Peter says that in Acts 2 at the Sermon at Pentecost. Spirit reception was repeated through the book of Acts. You have Acts 8, which is important here because it includes Samaria. That's where the impure, you know, the half-breed Jews were. Hey, they're the new covenant as well. Paul again, receives the spirit. Gentiles receive the spirit. You know, you go through the book of Acts. Everybody. It's the same spirit. Again, to quote Pauline language. They all drink of one spirit. OK, it's the same spirit in all of them. The new covenant is all encompassing. Now, this was a new idea. It's a new idea to have the same spirit, glory, presence that was in the tabernacle. Now, tabernacling in believers who not coincidentally are described as the temple of God or their bodies are described as, you know, being little tabernacles. Again, this language is an unseen realm. We've talked about it before as well. That's a new idea. OK, you're not going to read anywhere in the Old Testament and get this notion that, oh, the glory cloud over there, you know, the presence of God there in the tabernacle or the temple, you know, whatever the context is. That's in us. You never see that. That's new covenant stuff. And then you think about the interconnections of the glory, the spirit and Jesus in New Testament theology. And we saw in the Ezekiel passages we just read that the spirit and the glory are connected. Paul interchanges phrases like Christ in you, the hope of glory with the language about indwelling of the spirit. Paul refers to Jesus as the spirit. Second Corinthians 3, you know, read a few verses here. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters on stone and he's talking about the law, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the spirit have even more glory? Again, there's a contrast between the law and the spirit. For if there was glory in the midst of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceeded in glory. You go down to verse 12. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses who put a veil over his face that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end, that is the law. But their minds were hardened for to this day when they read the Old Covenant, the Old Covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read a veil, lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now, the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the spirit. Now, being conformed to the image of Christ, the image of his son, you know, is linked here to the spirit as well. It's a spirit driven process. The writer of Hebrews links the glory to Jesus as well. I'm going to read a little paragraph here from Newman's article in the dictionary of the later New Testament and its development. It's part of the Intervarsity series. He writes this, Hebrews 1.3, let me just, I'll just quote the passage, Jesus, he is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And that's the same language in Hebrews 8. Hebrews in that passage describes Jesus as the radiance of his glory. And there's a link between Jesus and the glory there and the exact representation of his being, the juxtaposition of glory, dog-saw in Greek with hypostasis in the ontological characterization of Jesus clearly articulates Jesus' status. Jesus is God's glory, his very being. And that's the end of the quote. The full treatment of glory and Christ, glory Christology, just a little sidebar here. Newman has a book. It's called Paul's Glory Christology. It's published by Brill. Again, it's just excellent stuff. But there's this link. What I want you to get here is there's this link between the person of Christ and the Spirit and the glory. And all of those things are tied into and wrapped up in New Covenant. The New Covenant is inseparable from, you know, from Jesus and the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant. And the New Covenant brings with it this notion that the Spirit, the Lord who is the Spirit, the Spirit is, you know, Jesus, but he also isn't. Again, back to unseen realm kind of stuff. All of these things work together. They're a matrix of ideas that blend together because we are indwelt by the Spirit, the glory. We're indwelt in effect by Christ. Remember, you know, again, some of the New Testament language for this, I'm not going to go back and repeat it again, but we're indwelt by the Spirit, the glory. Because of that, the law of God is written on our hearts. We have the Spirit prompting us and enabling us to believe and obey. In other words, this idea of the law of God being written on our hearts as believers, as people who are indwelt. This isn't just conscience now. Paul talks about that early in Romans, but this is more than conscience. This is linked to indwelling. Because we're indwelt by the Spirit, we have an internal prompting, an internal enabling. It will produce a transformation in us because there's something inside of us now that is working to transform us to be conformed to the glory, conformed to the image of Christ, who is the glory. And that thing is the Spirit. The Israelites didn't have that. There's no concept, again, of the glory presence being anywhere except the tabernacle of the temple. There's no talk of this kind of indwelling situation. The Spirit did come upon certain individuals for service, judges and kings and prophets. We all know that. But it was not true that everyone, from the smallest to the greatest, I'm quoting New Covenant language here deliberately, it was not true that everyone from the smallest to the greatest had the Spirit. That's never said. It's new. The idea is new. That's why the Covenant that will bring the Spirit in that way is called a New Covenant. And consequently, when you get to the New Testament era, when you get to the work of Christ, the resurrection, the ascension and Pentecost, when you get to that, that stuff. For the first time, in the New Covenant community, which is another way of referring to the body of Christ, the church, the real church, the body of Christ, in the New Covenant community, it could be presumed that every member of the community knew the Lord. Again, that wasn't true in Israel. Many Israelites were not believers. They were idolaters, especially as you go later on in history. But everyone in the body of Christ is a believer. Now, I speak here, and so does Jeremiah, of the true body of Christ, that's like a metaphysical or theological concept here. Everyone who believes is put into the body of Christ, Paul's language, baptized into the body of Christ. I'm talking about that one, the one that God recognizes as the real body of Christ. Everyone in that community, everyone in that New Covenant community knows the Lord. By definition, you can't be in it unless you believe. Now, the visible body of Christ, you know, like what we see going on around us in churches and in people who profess to believe, the visible body of Christ may have pretenders in it. But the point is that in the true people of God, the true New Covenant community, everyone knows the Lord in the sense that they have the indwelling spirit. In the Old Testament, people of God meant Israelites as physical descendants of Abraham. And you could believe or not believe and still be a physical descendant of Abraham. But in the New Testament, the people of God who are those who believe back to Galatians 3, if you are Christ's, you are Abraham's seed. But as many of you have been baptized in Christ, I've put on Christ, if you are Christ, you are Abraham's seed. So again, we have to get these ideas straight. Again, the New Covenant is, you know, it is a big deal. And what the writer of Hebrews is doing is significant here. I'm going to read a little bit from Radha's article again in the Diction of the Old Testament, The Prophets. It's an interesting section that compares the old of the New Covenants and then we'll close. He writes, The specific stipulations of the New Covenant are enumerated in Jeremiah 31 verses 33 through 34. The Mosaic Law was written on tablets of stone. And these stones could be broken. The law could be lost or burned or drowned or different references to that happening in the Old Testament. But the law written on the heart is permanent. The central motif of the New Covenant is the knowledge of Yahweh, Jeremiah 31-34. This knowledge was first accomplished through the teaching of the law. Moses was instructed to teach this law to the people and they in return were to teach to their children. The prophets emphasized that knowing God meant obeying the covenant stipulations. Thus, Hosea rebuked the people for not knowing God when they went astray. This lack of knowledge is synonymous with the lack of the knowledge of the law. What God desires is both knowledge and love for him. Again, this believing loyalty thing. Hosea 6-6. Rada continues, one of the greatest promises in the New Covenant is that the New Covenant in general and the promise of knowing God specifically are not restricted to a specific social class or age group. Rather, and I would say it's not restricted to an ethnic group either, like Israelite, genealogically, physically. Rather, God promises, quote, they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, Jeremiah 31-34. This knowledge of God is also tied in with the forgiveness of sin. I will remember their sin no more. It is the last promise of this unbreakable covenant. It is through God's forgiveness of sin that the universal knowledge of God is possible. The author of Hebrews quotes Jeremiah 31 verses 31-34 in its entirety in Hebrews 8-12 to emphasize that this covenant is superior to the old covenant, not merely because of better promises, but because of Christ being its mediator. Indeed, the book of Hebrews affirms Jesus' superiority over Moses, Melchizedek, the priests, and the angels. Again, look at the way the chapter ends. In speaking of a New Covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away. So we'll close with our question again. Why would we want to go back to the old covenant? Wanting to go back to Torah and to minimize or reject Christ means you, in effect, would like to return the Holy Spirit, too. Now, more radical Hebrew roots folks don't say that because they wouldn't want that. And my guess is they don't really comprehend it. They don't see the link between the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit and what they're saying. Why trade in something that means eternal life as a gift in response to belief for something that couldn't produce eternal life because people can't perfectly perform. It's theological insanity. So when you put it in those terms, when you look back at the warning passages in Hebrews, we've already seen the book of Hebrews seems to have Judaizers and it would be the New Testament equivalent to the extreme Hebrew roots folks. It seems to have them specifically in mind. As we saw earlier in the Hebrews 6 episode, it's a near impossibility for those who went from works to faith, the real gospel, and then rejected the real gospel to go back to works. It's nearly impossible for those people to return to faith. So it's a serious thing. So to wrap up here in Hebrews 8, again, the New Covenant is new for a reason. It's new because it's better. It's new because the old one was temporary by design. The new one is something accomplished completely by God. Therefore, it would stand to reason that God is good with it. God approves of it. If God designed it and God created it and God says to you, look, this is what you need for eternal life. Believe this, it would seem to you to stand to reason that that's what we need for eternal life. We do not need to return to Torah. Christ is our Torah. Christ is our Sabbath. Christ is superior to all these things by divine design. Again, so I'm not mistaken. If it helps you in your Christian life, your Christian life, if it helps you in your walk with Jesus who is superior to Torah, if doing Torah things helps you to depend on Jesus' sacrifice more, if it just helps your thinking there, if it just helps you emotionally, good. But if you're trading the Gospel in for Torah, you're in deep trouble. You need to stop and think about what you're doing because you are really in the crosshairs of the writer of Hebrews, not only in this chapter, but pretty much everything that's gone up to this point. So we need to take the writer of Hebrews seriously and not fall back into those things. All right, Mike, feels good to get back into scripture. Yeah, it does. It does. I mean, and again, there was a lot of that that was fairly repetitious. But look, listeners out there, you don't you don't see my inbox. You know, people struggle with this. And now we have, again, I don't want to I don't want to say don't do Torah stuff. You know, if if if it's a blessing, again, by all means, but if you are substituting the Gospel for it, that is not a good thing. That's just that's just bad theology. It's false teaching. And there are a lot of people, their whole movements now that are promoting this idea. And they even get to the point of, boy, we like this Torah stuff so much, we don't need Jesus. Who's this Jesus guy? What? How did we even fall for that? That Gospel Jesus stuff? We've got Torah now. That's just bad news. All right, Mike, well, with that, I just want to remind everybody, if you can, please go leave us a review and rate us on iTunes or anywhere you consume us. Mike, I noticed that we had over 400 stars ratings now on iTunes. Oh, wow. So that's pretty good and almost 200 reviews. So we appreciate everybody that has taken time to do so. And I just want to remind everybody on that 20 percent discount that logo seven has graciously offered to our listeners. So please check out the link on our episode page for that or Facebook page for that link to get that 20 percent discount plus five free books. And I think that's going to be going on all month. And with that, I just want to thank everybody for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. God bless. Thanks for listening to the Naked Bible Podcast. To support this podcast, visit www.nakedbibleblog.com. To learn more about Dr. Heizer's other websites and blogs, go to www.ermsh.com.