Chapter Eight

8.1-6 the sum: kephalaion-principal thing, main thing. The author now offers the glory of Jesus Christ. He has proclaimed in chapter one Christ’s eternal power and godhead and mediator glory. In the chapters two through seven he presents Christ’s human nature, Christ’s offices, and His priesthood. The author presents that Christ has purged our sins, and has moved to His throne in Glory and sat down having finished the grand plan of eternal salvation for humanity. And now, the author presents the principal thing. He does so in a fashion of words found no where else in Holy Scripture: this is the sum. The whole of revelation is here stated: The person of Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus. In Jesus we have an advocate who hears our prayers always. In Jesus we have everlasting assurance, He will provide. He who was dead and is alive, and now liveth forevermore is on the throne of the majesty on high. He reigns, waiting for His people, waiting to be gracious, clothed in a priestly vesture dipped in blood. This is the sum.

8.7-13 the covenant. The author now introduces one of his most prolific arguments for Christianity being better than Judaism. Thousands of years of history were built on this old covenant with the Jewish nation. He introduces the comparison of the two covenants. Jesus Christ came to rewrite the script for the future. Jesus Christ brought a superior covenant with better promises and this new covenant was without fault. This argument had need to be addressed because of the weight of the Old Testament. The old covenant had been the shield for the Jew against the world for thousands of years. It was their identity in every country of the dispersion. Therefore, it was not easy for these who had been steeped in this life for so long to let it go. The author masterfully addresses this subject. He announces the old, former covenant is palaioo: worn out. This covenant is kainos: new in age, freshness. The author further establishes there are but two covenants. There is an old and a new, a first and a second. There are no more covenants. The old was the blood of animals for the atonement of a soul’s sin. The new covenant is based solely in the blood of Jesus Christ. All attempts to fabricate salvation and atonement outside these two covenants is non Biblical. The law in its morality was blameless-amomos, but in saving us it was defective, and so not faultless, amemptos. The old covenant has faded under the shadow of the cross and vanished away, never to return. It was an apt moment when Jesus on His way to the cross, stopped and wept over Jerusalem and said, “behold, your house is left unto you desolate”. The house of animal sacrifice has been replaced with an upper room and a better covenant. On the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two, when the Jewish world came together to celebrate the giving of the law on Sinai, Jesus Christ gave the first fruits of the New Covenant.

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