It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they did not remain faithful to my covenant, and I turned away from them, declares the Lord.
Hebrews 8:9
When my brother suddenly died, everything fell on me. My parents didn’t have a will, living will, or anything else like that. So, I met with them and only asked one question; what do you want to happen? It wasn’t about what anyone else thought was right. It was their wishes. Their decisions.
After meeting with them a few times, we had everything ready for them to approve and sign. We put their answers into a bunch of different documents and reviewed everything with them to be sure that this was what they wanted. They signed all the necessary paperwork for when the unthinkable happens.
Not long afterwards, Mom died at 96 years old. Her will said that Pops got everything. Then, when Pops died at 101, everything passed to me. That was it. It was their last will and testament. There was nothing more to be said. No more decisions. It was their final words and wishes.
When the writer talks about a covenant, it’s like a last will and testament. It’s the final words that God wants to say about his people. Like any agreement, it says who’s on the different sides and what they promise to do. And there’s also words about what’s going to happen if someone doesn’t keep their word. Doesn’t hold up their end of the bargain.
Think about it like this. When you buy a house or rent anything, there’s always an agreement. A contract. And in this agreement, there are words describing all the promises that both sides are making and promising to keep. This is what a covenant is, a complete agreement between two sides that both have agreed on.
And like any contract, a covenant also must talk about what happens when someone doesn’t do what they said. For example, just look at your credit card statement. It says what happens if we don’t pay for what we’ve bought. How much interest they can change. It also says what happens if we overpay, but that happens so little that no one really knows about it.
So, when the writer is telling the Hebrews about God’s covenant with them, he’s describing promises that God is making with his people. And like all good covenants or agreements, there are two sides. Both sides must agree to the terms. They both have to say “yes” to all the promises and penalties.
This is where it gets a little bit confusing for the Hebrews in this letter. This new covenant, this new agreement between God and his people is unique. Think about the history of the Jewish nation for a minute. How successful had they been in keeping all the things that they agreed to?
The short answer is not at all. Over and over, the people of God had failed him as a nation. And they had not kept their part of the covenant as individuals either. They were a total mess. It seemed like they’d done nothing but disappoint God. Again and again, they couldn’t stop from failing God and the covenant.
So, this sort of put everyone in a tough spot. As people, we couldn’t do anything right. We were complete failures when it came to following any set of laws or rules that we would try to follow. And since God had promised all the punishments, he had to follow through on them.
When you think about this problem, it’s really a mess. There was only one way to fix this, and that was for God himself to be responsible for both sides of the covenant with people.
This is where Jesus comes in. He’s the one who stands on both sides of God’s agreement. He’s the one who came to forgive us from all our sins. He took the punishment that we earned and paid for our debt with God.
God alone can provide for our salvation through the once-and-for-all sacrifice offered on the cross by the Lord Jesus. It is a covenant because God agrees to give salvation to us, sinners. We receive it by faith in Jesus, his High Priest that he appointed.
It’s a last will and testament in the sense that God promises and gives salvation to us who receive it on his terms, which is faith. God makes the promise and keeps the promise that we couldn’t keep. This is the only way to make the agreement work.
Now, there’s no other covenant like this. Anytime that we break a promise in a contract, there are penalties. But God himself takes all the penalties that we deserve and pays the debt that we’ve earned.
For God, this is his last will and testament. There’s not going to be any other one. This is his final word. His greatest answer to our greatest problem[1]. There’s not going to be any updates or revisions. No changes. The only change is that we’re to accept all that God’s done. To receive his great offer and great payment for the great debt. That’s why it’s called good news. And it’s right there for the taking.
Noodling Questions
How hard is it to think about making our final decisions? Why?
Explain how failing over and over again changes our thinking? Our lives?
Where do you see God being faithful to you?
[1] Hebrews 1:2
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