LAWS WRITTEN ON OUR HEART
Hebrews 8:1-13
Dr. Christian Barnard, first to do a heart transplant, later asked his patient if he would like to see his heart. He took down a glass container and handed it to him. He was first ever to hold his heart in his hands. He exclaimed: “So this is my old heart that caused me so much trouble!” He handed it back, turned, and left it forever.
Points to problem with any system that tries to get us to God by obeying laws.
However valid the laws may be, we all face the same problem:
That old heart causes us so much trouble!
Hebrews 8 addresses this problem.
It presents the contrast between Christ’s ministry
and that of the old legalistic system represented by Israel’s Levitical priests.
God’s people are considering throwing in the towel to escape the pressure.
If they go back to the old system, they can still worship the true God but escape the pain.
Hebrews encourages us to hang in there, to wait patiently, because God has established a better system that makes the old deficient. Going backwards isn’t the answer!
SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST’S PERSON 1-7
1-4 Jesus is the best revelation of the Father
—the best One to speak to us on God’s behalf
5-7 Jesus is the best High Priest—the best to speak to God on our behalf.
SUPERIORITY OF CHRIST'S WORK 8-10:18
SERVED BY A BETTER HIGH PRIEST 8:1-5
Bridge into the discussion of Jesus’ ministry by summarizing what he has been saying about Christ’s Person, especially His role as Priest.
Jesus’ priesthood is superior to Levi’s:
Old Priesthood New Priesthood
Weak 18 <=> Energized by the power of an indestructible life 16
Ineffective Based on a better hope 19
Perfected nothing 19 Based on a better covenant 22
The old was deficient because of death: Priests die!
The old was deficient because of sin: Priests sin!
They had to offer sacrifices for their own sin first.
The old was deficient because of repetition:Priests offer sacrifices over and over.
Jesus offered Himself, as a sinless sacrifice once for all and now lives forever, to intercede on our behalf at the Father’s right hand.
No priest presented these credentials!
“We have such a High Priest!” 8:1
Jesus is seated at the right hand of God (in heaven).
One obvious contrast between Jesus’ priesthood and Levites is that He sat down.
There were never any chairs in the Holy Place!
Their work was never finished. Jesus’ work is finished.
He offered Himself as a sacrifice ONCE–It never needs to be repeated!
Now He sits at the Father’s right hand, to intercede on our behalf.
[Second way Jesus’ priesthood is better than that of Levi: ]
Jesus serves in the true sanctuary. 8:2-5
God Himself built this one–in heaven–not the scale model built down here!
The earthly tabernacle was just a photocopy!
8:5 Combines two terms: “a shadowy outline” –NOT the real thing.
Jesus couldn’t even be a priest in the earthly sanctuary!—not from the right tribe. Old order still has that role—but it’s in a copy, a shadow, of the real thing.
Jesus offers His sacrifice in Heaven—in a tabernacle God Himself built
Therefore, His priesthood is better!
Now the focus shifts from Jesus’ Person to His ministry.
Jesus has a superior ministry 8:6
BASED ON A BETTER COVENANT 8:6-13
For Christ to function under a different priesthood,
there must first be a new arrangement, a new legal contract, a new covenant.
Christ’s ministry is better because it is based on a new and better covenant.
Deficiency of old covenant 8:6-9 8:6-7
Replacing 1st covenant with new covenant shows the 1st is deficient.
Have you ever bought a new, “state-of-the-art” computer? What happens to it? No matter when you buy it, the next day a new model comes out! It has more memory, faster speed, larger hard drive, CD Rom, or multi-media capacity, your “new” computer didn’t have. The new renders the old out-of-date. “State-of-the-art” becomes deficient when a new model comes out.
If you’ve experienced that feeling, you’ll understand what Hebrews is talking about.
That’s what the writer is saying about the law.
The old covenant is outdated.
The law has been replaced by a new “state-of-the-art” model.
The new priestly ministry demonstrates that the old was lacking.
The old covenant had a defect. God “found fault with it”
The problem with the old covenant wasn’t in what it requires.
Romans 7 assures us that the law is good (7:12).
What was its problem? 8:8a => the people 8:8-9
The people didn’t remain faithful.
That’s always the problem with law-based covenants. We don’t fulfill them.
They could never establish our righteousness because the defect is inside us.
To prove his point, the writer quotes Jeremiah 31:31-34.
God spoke over 600 years earlier, in Josiah’s time.
The law had been discovered and read.
A time of national repentance followed. Again Israel failed to remain faithful
In the midst of failure, God promises a new covenant—fully dependent on Him.
So even while still under the old covenant, God promises a new provision that will solve the problem, a new covenant, written on their hearts.
That’s why going back won’t work. It doesn’t solve real problem: our unfaithfulness. They have come to the only real solution. This isn’t the time to turn back!
Solution through the new covenant 8:10-12
The new covenant solves the problem because God changes the heart.
The problem with old covenant: => the law was written on stone.
It provides no power to carry out the standard.
We don’t have to be told. He writes it on the inside. His people know intuitively what will please Him—like two people deeply in love for many years–they sense what the other is thinking, they know what pleases their loved one.
What God wants from us is engraved on our hearts.
Doesn’t depend on us, but on God!
This is God’s covenant with Israel. 8:10a
This is how He solves their problem with unfaithfulness:
“I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts.”
“I will be their God and they will be my people.”
“They will all know me, from the least to the greatest.”
“I will forgive their wickedness.”
“I will remember their sins no more.”
The new covenant is motivated by internal change,
NOT external legalism.
Compliance is the result of inner desire, not outward compulsion.
Ezekiel also promised internal transformation: “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments and do them” (Ezek. 36:26-27)
This new standard is written on the heart, not on stone.
The new covenant is based on a personal relationship–with God!
NOT fear and separation.
The new covenant is accompanied by forgiveness,
NOT condemnation.
We hear a lot these days about “values.”
Values are important when we consider what motivates us to live godly lives.
At risk of oversimplifying, I want to use a simple version of levels of values development.
Christians, like other people, go through 3 LEVELS OF DEVELOPMENT related to values:
Infants begin with PAIN AND PLEASURE as their motivation for making decisions.
Spankings and candy motivate small children to behave.
Infant Christians also function on that basis
–not candy and spankings, but pain and pleasure nevertheless!
We don’t do certain things for fear that God will “zap” us if we do.
“He’ll punish us!” “It will hurt!”
We do other things because God will reward us, or bring prosperity into our life.
Some people never outgrow this stage of making life-decisions
on the basis of pain and pleasure, reward and punishment.
A second stage of values development is LEGALISM.
“Just tell me the rules, and I’ll do it.”
These people always want a list of rules to live by. What does the book say?
Just tell me the rules God requires and I’ll be satisfied.
The problem is that none of us perfectly obey the rules.
Legalism leads to condemnation. It sends us on a guilt trip!
We can’t measure up to God’s standards.
That’s the problem Hebrews is trying to show us with the old covenant.
Yet, people still try to live by legalism!
The third stage of values development is based on LOVE.
Decisions are made because we desire to do what’s right.
Christians on this level seek to do whatever pleases God,
not to avoid punishment or enjoy pleasure,
not because the rulebook says so,
but because we long to please Him.
These are the people the new covenant describes.
GOD’S LAW IS WRITTEN ON OUR HEART.
When we learn something “by heart,” we make it our own and it remains with us.
When the Holy Spirit deals with us, we don’t have to go to Exod. 20 to see what law says.
We carry within ourselves a scale, a standard by which we can evaluate things.
We have the law of God written on our heart, so that, as soon as we look at something, we perceive whether there’s evil in it, or whether it’s good.
We have a sensitivity which helps us discern good and evil.
But the law is not fully written in the heart till a person delights to obey it.
He says, “My highest happiness lies in doing what You want me to do.
We don’t look for an excuse for sin; we want, above anything else, to be holy!”
God makes it as natural for us to be holy as it used to be for us to be unholy!
The natural reason to be good is. “If I’m good, I’ll go to heaven;
and if I’m bad, I’ll go to hell.”
That’s a slave’s motive; but the child of God is no longer a slave.
We have been delivered from our former bondage.
We respond: “Tell me how I can show my gratitude to such a gracious God.”
That’s the difference having God’s law written on our hearts makes!
While the covenant was specifically for Israel,
it describes how God works among all His people.
We’re no more capable than they were of keeping God’s laws.
The only way anyone pleases Him is by coming to the High Priest by faith.
He writes His law on our heart;
He plants the desire to please Him inside.
Then He forgives our wickedness and remembers our sin no more.
A Christian struggling with a habit, resolved to give it up, but each time he fell.
After losing yet another battle, he cried out, "Lord, I've done it again!"
Expecting a stern rebuke, he was stunned when God responded,
"WHAT have you done again?"
God “remembers our sins no more.”
Satan remembers! He accuses us night and day–over and over again!
God removes them as far as the East is from the West. Ps. 103:10, 12
He hurls them to the bottom of the deepest sea. Mic. 7:19
Obsolescence of old covenant 8:13
“By calling this covenant ‘new,’ he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.”
The writer’s point in this passage isn’t to show that WE receive the new covenant.
He isn’t speaking to that issue.
His point is to show that even the Old Testament affirms that the old covenant–the Levitical system–has to go! It will never cut it!
A new covenant is needed–a covenant written on people’s hearts.
The institution of this new covenant makes the old covenant obsolete.
The moment God announced there would be a new covenant, He served notice that the old was temporary, that it would eventually be terminated.
There’s no point going back to Judaism–to the legalistic approach;
we can never make it that way.
Israel needed a new heart.
God promised to provide one.
He will do it when Christ comes to establish His kingdom on earth.
He will give them a new heart.
That promise points to the deficiency and obsolescence of the OLD covenant.
That’s why a new one is needed–It’s that old heart that caused so much trouble!
For us too; we need a new heart.
We have chronic heart trouble. We need a new heart.
That’s just as true for us as it was for Israel!
That’s what the good news is about. God does what we couldn’t do!
We would never keep the law; we rebel and refuse to submit to Him.
But God comes and changes our will, renews the heart, and changes our affections, so that what we could never do, He does for us!
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR US TODAY?
God has provided a better way, based on a better covenant.
He provides a new heart, with God’s laws and knowledge of God, written on the inside.
We have all sinned and come short of God’s standard.
But He has provided a High Priest to offer an acceptable sacrifice for us.
Though legalism will never make a way for us to come to God, His grace will.
We have such a High Priest, who sits at the right hand of the Father, in the true tabernacle, and intercedes on our behalf.
We need no other recourse! That’s good news!
We don’t need a “Plan B!”
Whatever circumstances we may face . . .
However hard times may be . . .
We can be sure that WE have such a great High Priest.
He is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He intercedes on our behalf–always and forever!
We can trust Him!
Are YOU trusting Him this morning?