Halloween is approaching and I was told a by someone recently at a dinner party that when they were a kid they remembered that one of the former Broncos players would give away VHS movies to kids who came to his home trick-or-treating. That sounds like an awesome gift in 1990. Now you can digitally download and stream movies in 4K/UHD. It’s safe to say that VHS cassettes and players are obsolete. You can still give them away for Halloween, but I
They don’t even make VHS/VCR players anymore. Japanese manufacturer Funai Electric stopped producing devices in the Summer of 2016 and surprisingly (surprisingly late) Sony stopped producing video tapes in Betamax format in 2015. This being 13 years after DVD’s surpassed VHS sales in 2002.
Although DVD’s still have a lot of life left in them, streaming and download services have surpassed them and DVD’s are predicted to one day share the same fate as
The point is that whatever technology is popular today it will become obsolete in the future. It will advance and improve because even though it was needed for its time it has a shelf life. It is temporary.
In Hebrews 8-9 the writer says the same thing about the Mosaic/Sinai covenant. It’s obsolete.
The Israelites were told through Jeremiah’s prophecy that the Lord would give them a new covenant. The first one had an undisclosed expiration date.
“The Torah is given for a specific period of time, and is then set aside – not because it was a bad thing now happily abolished, but because it was a good thing whose purpose had now been accomplished.”
N. T. Wright
The mystery of the new covenant/agreement was revealed in Jesus, who through his sacrifice on the cross became the Greater Minister who sits on the throne at the right hand of God in the true and greater sanctuary.
Jesus is seated because he has completed the great task of salvation.
What the high priests did in the earthly tabernacle and Most Holy Place, offering sacrifices on behalf of their own sins and the sins of the people Israel, Jesus did once for all mankind for all eternity.
The tabernacle and animal sacrificial system was a type, a shadow of what was to come. Jesus is the reality and fulfillment.
The tabernacle and the sacrificial ordinances were to be done with precision. There was a pattern to follow. Jesus came to perfect them. Jesus is now the perfect pattern.
Behind the second curtain in the Most Holy Place were holy artifacts. Jesus is now the holy living testimony.
The tabernacle, the blood of bulls and goats, the artifacts, the food restrictions were all external regulations performed in faith under the old covenant. Jesus entered into a more perfect tabernacle, heaven itself. He entered not by the blood of animals but through his own blood. And through his own
Greater Power, Path, and
Jesus redeemed mankind to God and he gave mankind the power to make the journey to heaven and bring heaven down to earth
A better covenant was necessary because the old covenant could only point the way forward; it could not provide man with the power to meet its requirements. They did not continue in my covenant. The old covenant was to give way to something far superior. The old law was but a signpost to direct man; the new covenant supplies the power to make the journey.
Raymond Brown, The Message of Hebrews
The first covenant could not cleanse the conscience of a person. Now God could live inside of us, making us his new temple. In doing so he places his law in our minds and hearts. What couldn’t be done through regulations Jesus does through relationship. Everyone under this new covenant will know God and he will not count their sins against them.
All men and women will know him. The new covenant is greater because Jeremiah says it is for both Israel and Judah. Two groups of Jews divided over religion would be reconciled under this new covenant.
True Worship vs. Vain Worship
Jews, Samaritans, and Greeks would be united under the new covenant. Jesus once said that it would no longer matter where Samaritans and Jews worshipped because God would soon raise up worshippers who would worship him in reality, no longer in types and shadows.
Worship would come from the inside out. For it is not what goes into a person that makes him unclean but what comes out of a person’s heart. The old covenant was limited in that it could not change your heart. Only Jesus can. He does that from the inside out.
External Christianity
Even as we may know this to be true, Christians still fall pray just as the readers of the Hebrew letter did to justification by works –
This includes what we wear, what we drink, our political affiliation, who we vote for, what we post and share to social media, what music we listen to, what shows we watch, what church we attend; just to name a few.
Weak Witness
When these are prioritized what we have is a version of Christianity that is only a shadow. Our faith is reduced to a far inferior form that is unattractive and repelling. This leads to witnessing the wrong things and ultimately leaving us with very little to say.
Instead what the world needs is a supreme Gospel and Savior. We need to think about what we believe as Christians and proclaim the Gospel boldly. We may believe in a new covenant but we present an old one.
John Stott has suggested:
One of the tragedies of the contemporary church is that, just when the world seems to be ready to listen, the church has very little or nothing to say. For the church itself is confused; it shares in the current bewilderment, instead of addressing it. The church is insecure; it is uncertain of its identity, mission
Stott, The Contemporary Christianand message. It stammers and stutters, when it should be proclaiming the gospel with boldness. Indeed, the major reason for its diminishing influence in the West is its diminishing faith.
In establishing the new agreement God didn’t give us a new religion he gave us his Son. With his Son, he gave us a new focus, love. And with love
These are the ethics of living in the new covenant and the kingdom under the Son. This is what love looks like when it is produced under the new covenant of Christ.
And love doesn’t have a shelf-life. Love has no expiration date.
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Jovan preaches for the Littleton Church of Christ near Denver, Colorado. Visit here to listen to sermons preached at the Littleton Church.