THE SECOND PART: A BIRD’S-EYE VIEW OF THE NEW TESTAMENT
The Epistle of Paul to the Hebrews
Message Three
A Better Covenant
Scripture Reading: Heb. 9:15-17; Eph. 1:3; Heb. 12:2; 7:25; 8:1-2; Jer. 31:31-34; Gal. 4:26-28, 31
I. The new covenant consummated with the blood of Christ is not merely a covenant but also a testament with all the things which have been accomplished by the death of Christ bequeathed to us—Heb. 9:15-17: (1998 WT, msg. 14)
A. A covenant and a testament are the same, but when the maker of the covenant is living, it is a covenant, and when he has died, it is a testament—vv. 16-17. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
B. A covenant is an agreement containing some promises to accomplish certain things for the covenanted people; a testament is a will containing certain accomplished things bequeathed to the inheritor—vv. 16-17; cf. Deut. 11:29; 28:1, 15; Jer. 31:31-32. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
C. If we would understand the new covenant, we need to know the difference between a promise, an oath, a covenant, and a testament—Heb. 8:6; 6:13, 17; 8:7-8; 9:16-17: (1998 WT, msg. 14)
1. God’s covenant is enacted upon God’s promise, which is a common, ordinary word without confirmation—8:6. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
2. After God made His promise, He sealed it with an oath, swearing by His Godhead that His promise would be fulfilled—6:13, 17. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
3. After God’s promise had been confirmed by an oath, it immediately became the covenant sealed by God—8:7-8. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
4. The One who made the covenant died so that the covenant might become a testament, a will—9:16-17. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
D. The contents of the new covenant are the contents of the entire New Testament—vv. 15-17: (1998 WT, msg. 14)
1. The bequests bequeathed to us by the Lord in the new testament are inexhaustible, and they are for us to experience and enjoy through the Spirit for eternity—v. 15. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
2. In the new covenant God gives us forgiveness, salvation, life, and all spiritual, heavenly, and divine blessings—Eph. 1:3. (1998 WT, msg. 14)
II. As the ascended One sitting on the throne in the heavens, Christ is now executing the new covenant, which He has bequeathed to us as a testament, interceding for us and ministering to us that we may realize, experience, and enjoy all the bequests contained in the new testament—Heb. 12:2, 7:25, 8:1-2: (1998 WT, msg. 15)
A. The new testament, the will, has been validated by Christ’s death and is being executed and enforced by Christ in His resurrection and ascension—v. 6. (1998 WT, msg. 15)
B. The new covenant has been bequeathed to us as the new testament, and now, in the mystical realm of His heavenly ministry, Christ is executing what he has bequeathed—8:1-2. (1998 WT, msg. 15)
C. Christ is now in the heavens, living, divine, and capable; He is able to execute the new testament in every detail, making every bequest in it available and real to us—7:25; 8:6; 9:15; 12:24; 7:22; 8:2; 13:20. (1998 WT, msg. 15)
III. The contents of the new covenant (Jer. 31:31-34: Heb. 8:8-12) include the following four blessings as God’s bequests to us: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
A. “I will impart My laws into their mind, and on their hearts I will inscribe them”—Heb. 8:10: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
1. The law of life, the law of the spirit of life, is the processed Triune God as the life-giving Spirit dwelling in our spirit—Rom. 8:2-3, 11, 34. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
2. The law of life is the spontaneous power of life; it is the natural characteristic and the innate, automatic function of life—v. 2. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
3. The function of the law of life is—vv. 2, 11-13: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
a. To make us God in life, nature, and expression but not in the Godhead, shaping us into the image of the firstborn Son of God so that we may become His corporate expression—vv. 2, 29. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
b. To constitute us the members of the Body of Christ with all kinds of functions—Eph. 4:11-12, 16. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
4. We enjoy the dispensing of life into our being for the accomplishment of God’s economy by the working of the law of the Spirit of life—Jer. 31:33; Heb. 8:10; Rom. 8:10, 6, 11. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
5. We need to cooperate with the installed and operating law of the Spirit of life by “switching on” this law—1 Thes. 5:16-18; Luke 8:15. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
B. “I will be God to them, and they will be a people to Me”—Heb. 8:10: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
1. For God to be our God means that He is our inheritance, and for us to be God’s people means that we are God’s inheritance—Eph. 1:11, 14, 18; 3:21. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
2. In the new covenant we have the privilege of having God as our God and of being His people—the enabling of life for us to participate in the enjoyment of God in fellowship with Him so that He can be known by us, apprehended by us, and lived by us—1 John 1:3, 7. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
C. “They shall by no means each teach his fellow citizen and each his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all will know Me from the little one to the great one among them”—Heb. 8:11: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
1. The function of life enables us to know God in the inward way of life—1 John 2:29. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
2. We can know God subjectively from within by the sense of life, which is the feeling, the consciousness, of the divine life within us—Rom. 8:6; Eph. 4:18-19; Phil. 3:10a. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
D. “I will be propitious to their unrighteousnesses, and their sins I shall by no means remember anymore”—Heb. 8:12; Jer. 31:34b: (1998 WT, msg. 16)
1. Christ made propitiation for our sins to appease God’s righteousness, to reconcile us by satisfying the demands of God’s righteousness—Heb. 2:17. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
2. The precious and all-efficacious blood of Christ resolves all our problems so that we can remain constantly in fellowship with God to continually enjoy His organic salvation—1 John 1:7-9; 2:1-2. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
3. Once God forgives us, He erases our sins from His memory and remembers them no longer—Psa. 103:12; Lev. 16:7-10, 15-22. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
4. God’s forgiveness of our sins results in our fearing Him and loving Him in our restored fellowship with Him—Psa. 130:4; Luke 7:47. (1998 WT, msg. 16)
IV. The new covenant will ultimately issue in the New Jerusalem, the embodiment of God’s new covenant to express Him in a corporate way to the uttermost for eternity—Gal. 4:26-28, 31. (1998 WT, msg. 16)