BOOK OF HEBREWS
THE NEW CONVENANT
DR. JIM DIXON
SEPTEMBER 9, 1984
HEBREWS 8
The year was 171 BC. The place was the holy city of Jerusalem, and the event was the forming of a covenant, a covenant between Antiochus the fourth king of the Seleucid Empire and Menelaus high priest of Israel. Menelaus was corrupt. He had ascended the high priesthood through the assassination of Onias III and Taki the fourth was also corrupt. He had ascended the throne through the murder, through the assassination of Salus the fourth, an Anta The fourth was a ruler of a great nation, one of the most powerful rulers in the world of his day. Israel was of little significance to him, a small pond and a large game of chess. It was the treasures of Egypt that he coveted, and yet he entered into a covenant with Israel. He entered into a covenant with mins. He promised that the Jewish nation could retain some measure of political sovereignty.
He promised that the Jews could maintain their high priestly ordered their religious system, that they could maintain Judaism, but he demanded in return that Menelaus help him in the Hellenization of the Jews, that they might adopt Greek ways of fought and behavior. And this Menelaus was more than happy to do. But as the months passed, Antiochus IV grew in power. He had military victories in Egypt in another parts of the world. And by the year 169 BC, he began to think that he was God. He minted coins with his face on the coin with a laurel wreath upon his head with the rays of the sun descending upon him. And with the words on the face of the coin “Epiphanes,” God manifest, and he took the title Antiochus Epiphanes because he believed that he was God in human form throughout the world of that day.
The masses nicknamed him a Greek word that means madman, and he was mad in his great quest for power. And the year 168 BC three years after he had formed a covenant with Israel, he marched his army south to attack Egypt. Once again, he would deal Egypt its final blow. He would defeat the sons of Cleopatra and Ptolemy the fifth. He would defeat the fortress city of Alexandria itself. But he did not know. He did not know that Egypt had entered into an alliance with Rome. Now, Antiochus was greater than Egypt, but he was not greater than Rome and he brought his army south and as they were on the borders of Egypt drawing near to Alexandria, suddenly a Roman fleet came off the Mediterranean led by a Roman general named Pom Pius. And Pom Pius stood before Antiochus with their armies behind them, and Pom Pius drew a line in the sand, and he told Antiochus that if he crossed that line, he would be at war with Rome.
Antiochus epiphanies knew he could not win a war with Rome. He was swollen with conceit, but he was cunning, and he was shrewd. He turned his armies north and he left Egypt and began to march to his homeland. His swollen ego was wounded, he was enraged, he was irate. He had made a covenant with Israel, but he didn’t care anymore. He just needed a people to butcher. He needed somebody to slaughter, and so he took his armies over Jerusalem, and he began to butcher Jews by the hundreds, he marched on the hill of David to the Holy temple. He went into the holy place. He went into the Holy of Holies itself and he desecrated the temple of the Living God. He set up a statue of the Greek God, Zeus in the Holy of Holies, and by some accounts it has said he put an image of himself in the holy place in the presence of God, and he became known as the covenant breaker.
The Bible says that Antiochus epiphanies is a prototype, a foreshadowing of the anti-Christ who is to come, a hideous world ruler who will arise at the close of the age before the consummation at Armageddon, before the second coming of Jesus Christ. He will have great social, political and economic power, and he too will form covenants and he too will break them. He too will be a covenant breaker, and that should not surprise us because history is filled with broken covenants. In recorded history, 3,100 years nations have made 8,000 covenants and the average covenant has lasted no longer than two years, but there is one person who forms covenants and does not break them, and that person is God. 3,500 years ago, God made a covenant with Israel, a covenant based on the law, a covenant based on the commandments given through Moses on Mount Sinai, God said, God promised you obey my commandments, and I will bless you.
God said, God promised forgiveness, atonement for specific sins through the sacrifice of the blood of animals upon priestly alters, but the Jews did not abide by that covenant. They did not avail themselves of that forgiveness. They did not avail themselves of that blessing, though God was faithful and therefore, in the course of time, the Jews were scattered over the earth, scattered among the nations, sent into exile. But 2000 years ago, God made another covenant. The Bible calls it the new covenant. The Bible calls it the second covenant. It is a covenant not merely made with a Jews, but is a covenant made with every person on this earth. It is a covenant made with every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and this covenant is infinitely superior to the old covenant, to the first covenant. And in this covenant, God has promised three things eternally.
First of all, God promises. I will write my laws on your hearts, and I will place them in your minds. When you become a Christian, when you receive Jesus Christ as Lord and savior of life, when you accept the provisions of the new covenant, there is a sense in which God actually places his law into your hearts. The Jews received the laws of God 3,500 years ago on Mount Sinai, but the laws of God were never placed in their minds. The laws of God was never placed in their hearts. The law of God was external to them. It was a burden to them, and they knew it through the centuries. They learned that somehow, they needed to place the law of God in their hearts. Somehow, they needed the law of God in their minds, and so they wore phylacteries. The Jews wore small pouches containing verses of the law from Exodus and Deuteronomy.
They wore phylacteries on their foreheads called frontlets so that the law of God might be upon their mind, and they wore phylacteries on their left arm so that when they crossed themselves, the law of God might be upon their heart, but no matter how many fallacies they wore, they could not bring the law of God within. It remained external. It was not natural to them. The mind that Jew did not really understand the beauty and the purpose, and the significance of the law and the heart of the Jew did not really desire to perform the law. It was a burden, a standard of righteousness before which their righteousness was as filthy rags. It was a reminder of sin year after year after year, but 2,000 years ago, God did something beautiful. He offered a new covenant and to all who accept this covenant, he promised to take that law and put it in their hearts.
He did something beautiful with the law. He sent his son into the world and his son lived perfectly. The law his son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfectly fulfilled the law, the Lord Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed the law. And now God says by this new covenant that if you believe in the Son, if you put your faith in the Son of God, receiving him as Lord and Savior, you have salvation not by your conformity to the law, but by the conformity of the Son of God to that law. And in that moment you ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior, God actually sends His law within you. Do you know how He does that? He sends his Holy Spirit within you the moment you said, Lord Jesus, come into my life the moment you said, I accept you as my Lord and Savior, the moment you repented of your sins.
In that moment, God as provided in the new covenant sent His Spirit within you and that is all the difference in the world because the law came into your heart. You see, the Hebrew word for law is the word Torah from the Hebrew word rah, which means to instruct or teach. And the Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is the great teacher. Jesus said that when He left this earth, He would send the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all who believed, and He would teach us of all things. You see, the teacher has come into you if you’re a Christian, if you’ve accepted Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit begins to instruct you in the ways of God, begins to motivate you to keep the laws of God; begins to empower you. If you’re a Christian, you can disobey the law, but you can’t be fulfilled or happy disobeying the law because the law giver is in you within you, and he will never let you go.
I know most of you have heard of Eric Liddell. Eric Liddell won the gold medal in the 400 meters at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. He ran the 400 meters in 47.6 seconds, a new world and Olympic record. He blazed the first 200 meters in 22.2 seconds, unheard of in his time and his life was made famous by the Academy Award-winning movie Chariots A Fire.
Eric Liddell was a Scotsman, but he was born in China. His father was a missionary. He was a senior at Edinboro University when he made the Olympic team. And the movie pointed out how at the Olympics, Eric Liddell was so committed to the instructions of the Lord that he refused to run a heat of the hundred meters on Sunday. He gave up the possibility of winning the gold medal after years and years and years of training. He gave it all up because he would not violate what he believed to be the instructions of God concerning the Sabbath, and he would not run on a Sunday for that.
Eric Liddell has been respected through the years, and yet for some Eric Liddell is viewed as a legalist. Eric Liddell was not a legalist. He was in love with Jesus Christ, and he longed to please and honor the instructions of Jesus Christ as he understood them. He had the spirit of Christ, the spirit of the law within him. And after the Olympic Games, Eric Liddell went back to China, to Northern China where he became a missionary and he became a teacher at the Anglo Chinese University in Lain in northern China. There he taught mathematics and athletics and he spoke in a church near the university every Sunday. Now, one Sunday soccer players came up to him every Sunday after the church, certain university students would go and play soccer in the field. And one Sunday these soccer players came up to Eric Liddell and they said, will you play soccer with us after church?
Eric Liddell said, no, I feel that that would be a violation of the instructions of my Lord concerning Sunday. I can’t play with you on Sunday. I’d like to. And so they went and played soccer and there was a great fight and hostilities arose in animosity and there were broken relationships, and Liddell heard about it. He began to pray about it. The next Sunday, the students came to church, and they were amazed to see Eric Liddell in his soccer outfit. And after church, Liddell went, and he played soccer with them on Sunday. Why did he do that? Because he had the law in his heart, and he understood as no Jew ever could the essence of the law for Jesus Christ was in Him. And Jesus said, all the commandments of the law are summed up in this: that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and you love your neighbor as yourself.
And so he showed that love of Christ to those people on that Sunday afternoon as he was led of the Spirit of God, who is the law within us. Eric Liddell went on to give his life. He remained in China as a missionary. The Japanese invaded China in 1936. Liddell’ wife who was pregnant with child and his two daughters escaped to Canada. His wife lives there today, but Eric Liddell remained in China because he felt the spirit’s instruction that he stay and that he proclaimed the word of Jesus Christ despite the dangers that were there. He was thrown into a Japanese prison camp in the year 1941. He remained there for four years until he died there in February of 1945. Today he is alive. He is with the Lord Jesus Christ and with all Christians from all the generations pass. If you’re a Christian, if you’ve been born and new, you are like Eric Liddell
The Holy Spirit of God has come into you, the living Torah, and he wants to instruct you in life, but you might give yourself and the service of the kingdom of Christ, I will put my Lords into your hearts and into your minds. Secondly, in the new covenant, God says, they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. They shall all know me. The minute you become a Christian, the minute you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, you begin a great pilgrimage where you begin to enter a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, whereby you begin to actually know God personally and experientially you actually begin to know God. Last Friday night, Barb and I and Drew and Heather and some friends went to the Michael Jackson concert at Bronco Stadium. I must confess, I’m not really a Michael Jackson fan. In fact, I really can’t get into it at all. But Heather was totally buzzed as were 53,000 Michael Jackson fans in Bronco Stadium.
Now, there are many things written about Michael Jackson. Some people say that he takes female hormones in order to elevate his voice. Some say that he has had plastic surgery on his face. Some say that he has had cosmetic surgery on his eyes. Some say that he is a homosexual. Some say he is bisexual. Some say he is anorexic. Some say he is bulimic. Some members of the Jehovah’s Witness faith actually have begun to herald him as the Messiah, the second coming of Jesus Christ. All of these things, all of these things Michael Jackson denies. The truth of the matter is though there is no one in this room in all likelihood, no one who knows Michael Jackson. We know of Michael Jackson. We do not know him. And that is true of most celebrities. Millions of people in this world long to know celebrities, but we do not know them. We know of them certainly in this entire earth and in the universe. There is no greater celebrity than God, the source and sustainer of life.
King of Kings, the creator of all things enthroned in glory. Billions of people throughout history have longed to know him but have only known of him. But something new is now possible through the new covenant. The Bible says no one has ever seen the Father, the only son who is in the bosom of the Father. He has made him known. If you want to know God, there’s only one way You must accept the new covenant and enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And as you enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ, you actually begin to experience God because Jesus Christ is God in human form the Son of God who reveals the Father. That’s the only way that you possibly can begin to know God. David Walinski and Irving and Amy Wallace wrote a book. A book is called The Book of Lists.
They interviewed 17 prominent people from Art Buchwald to HR Haldeman. They asked these 17 famous people to list the 10 people they would like to invite to dinner if they could invite anyone who ever lived throughout all of history. Who would you have for dinner tonight? What 10 people would you like to know from all of history? They listed Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Pythagoras, Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Gandhi, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Winston Churchill, Queen Elizabeth, William, Shakespeare, Valier, Tolstoy Lenin, Leonardo DaVinci, and many, many others. But only three of the 17 mentioned Jesus Christ as someone they would invite to dinner, someone they’d like to get to know. There’s no one who has ever lived who is greater than Jesus Christ. All things were made for him. And by him, he is the eternal son of God, and only through him and a relationship with him, can anyone get to know God?
Phillip said to Jesus, show us the Father. We’ll be satisfied. Jesus said, have I been with you so long Philip, and you do not know me? He has seen me, has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? If you do not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me, Jesus Christ alone through the new covenant offers a living relationship with God. You shall know him. We live in a world where knowledge is increasing incredibly rapidly. So the prophet Daniel 2,500 years ago prophesy that at the close of the age at the consummation before the second coming of Christ, knowledge would increase rapidly on this earth. And indeed, there has been a proliferation of knowledge in our time since the turn of the century with the industrial and technological revolution, there have been breakthroughs in everything from genetics to space.
We have giant telescopes with which we can scan the macrocosm and the universe and the galactic systems. We have powerful microscopes, with which we can examine the microcosm in the world of atoms and subatomic particles. We are growing rapidly in knowledge. 80% of the scientists who have ever lived on this earth are alive on the earth today. 70% of the medicines that are used in the world today were unheard of. Prior to World War II, there were 15,000 scientific periodicals published today, some of which have a worldwide circulation. There has literally been an exponential growth of knowledge. In our time, man has never had more knowledge, and yet the Bible says, than mankind is ignorant until he comes to know God. And that is only possible through Jesus Christ. John says, our fellowship is with the Father and with his son, Jesus Christ.
And we are writing this, that your joy might be full. How do you have joy? How can you be fulfilled only through knowing God only through Jesus Christ that is offered uniquely through the new covenant. Buddhism can’t offer it. Confucianism, Hinduism, even Judaism, only Jesus Christ. And thirdly, and finally in the new covenant, God says, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins. No more the moment you become a Christian and accept Jesus Christ and enter in to this new relationship provided by the new covenant, your sins, all of your sins are actually forgotten. Some of you may have heard of the legend of Olga Lassa. Most of you I’m sure haven’t. It’s an African legend, centuries old. According to the legend, Olga Lassa had a wife who was pregnant with a child, and he had four older sons. One day he decided to go hunting and he went by himself, but he never returned. He went deep into the jungles where he met a leopard, and the leopard devoured him days and weeks passed, and the family forgot Olga. Lasa totally forgot him. The months passed, and SSA’s wife gave birth to a little baby boy, and they called him pulley. Pulley didn’t speak for three years, but after three years he said his first words: where is my father? And suddenly the family began to think, where is dad?
And the four brothers, the four older brothers then began his great search for Olga Lassa, and they traveled all through the deepest jungles and many adventures, and finally they found the bones of Olga Lasso, and they decided they’d bring him back to life. Now, these four brothers each had unique gifts, and one brother put the bones together and put flesh on it. The other brother breathed the breath of life into the body. A third brother gave the body a capacity for movement, and the fourth brother gave the body a capacity for speech. Olga Lasso, then being revived, returned to his tribe. He went into the tent, shaved his head as was required of anyone returning from the land of the dead. He killed a fatted calf. He threw a great party. He cut off the tail of a cow. He braided unusual, rare shells into that cow tail and also put precious jewels into that cow tail, a very special gift.
And he promised that he would give that gift to the one who was most responsible for his return from the dead. Well, the four brothers, four older brothers began to argue who was most deserving of that gift, but Olga Lasso as most of us would rather forget people, but God is the opposite. God never forgets people. No matter what we do, his eye is upon us, but he is willing to forget sin that it might indeed become dead. He is willing to forget sin. And in that moment, you say, Lord Jesus come into my life, and you repent, and you give yourself to him by the new covenant. There is a sense in which your sin is actually forgotten. What does it mean when we say that God forgets sin?
In 1983, Barb and I returned from Israel, and I shared with you how we went to the city of Jerusalem, and we met an 80-year-old Jewish man there whose name was God. His last name was Alone. His name was God Alone. Now, that’s not blasphemy for a Jew because they think of God as Elohim, as Yahweh, and he at one time had had been a prominent Jew, and Judy Webley who was with us, knew him from years before we went to his house, to God’s house. Judy knocked on the door and God answered.
Judy said, God, how are you? Do you remember me? And you could see on God’s face that he was totally confused, disoriented, perplexed. He didn’t know her, and God’s wife who was standing behind him said, God doesn’t remember so well anymore. Some people seem to think the living God is like that, that someday you’ll be able to stand before God and say, Hey, remember the affair I had and how I divorced my first wife? God will say, I didn’t even know you had a first wife. But God’s not like that because the Bible tells us that God is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows the beginning from the end and every single event and action in between. If he could forget one single action, one single event, he would not be omniscient, and the Bible would not be true. But there is a sense in which God is able to forget.
God is able to forget a grievance. God is able to forget anger. He is able to forget indignation. He is able to forget a wound and a hurt. When you come to Jesus Christ as if promised in the new covenant and you say, Lord, forgive me. Lord, come into my life. Be my Lord and Savior, the grievance that he has against you is forgotten, not the actions of your life. God is omniscient, but the grievance is forgotten. The indignation, the anger is gone, the wound, the hurt. It’s forgotten because Jesus Christ took the penalty for your sin upon himself. And when you accept him, that grievance is removed. That’s the new Covent. If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. A new covenant infinitely greater than the old, a covenant whereby God says, I will write my laws in their minds, and I will implant them in their hearts. He put his spirit within us. All of us who believe a covenant whereby God says, they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest. Everyone who is a Christian who is born anew through Jesus Christ begins to know the living God and a covenant whereby God says, I will be merciful to their iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more. Shall we pray?
Lord Jesus, we thank You that You have offered a new covenant, infinitely greater than the old, a covenant offered in Your blood and Your body broken for the sin of the world. Lord, we thank You that when we come to You, truly, You write Your laws upon our hearts for You, send Your spirit within us. We confess, Lord, that we sin, but we thank You for Your spirit’s conviction within.
Lord, We thank You because through You, we know the Father, we have the privilege of knowing You. We’re actually able to experience a living relationship with God, and we thank You because You have been merciful to our iniquities, and You remember our sins. No more. Lord, if there is anyone here who has never accepted Your offer of the new covenant, anyone here who’s never found forgiveness of sin, who doesn’t know what it’s like to truly know God and have an exciting relationship with him, if there’s anyone here who does not have the Holy Spirit within Lord, let this be the moment when they might say, come into my heart. Lord Jesus, I want to live for You or give me of my sins. Give me eternal life. Lord Jesus, we thank You that You are not a covenant breaker. You are faithful to Your word, and Your covenant is eternal. We thank You that when we ask You in, You do come in. Thank You, Lord Jesus. We love You. We pray these things and Your great name, amen.