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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

The New Covenant

“Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah:…And they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more,” (Jeremiah 31:31-34)

The Epistle to the Hebrews contains (in chapters 7-10) the Holy Spirit’s comments upon this great prophecy; prominence being given to the truth that Jesus Christ is “the Surety” of this covenant, as well as “the Mediator” thereof (7:22; 8:6; 12:24); that it has been ratified “by His own blood” (9:12-24; 13:20), and that it is therefore “a better covenant, established upon better promises,” (8:6).

Further it is revealed in those chapters that, when Christ had offered that “one sacrifice for sins forever, and sat down on the right hand of God,” not only was the new covenant put into operation, but the old covenant and all its appointments---people, temple, priesthood, sacrifices, etc.----were forever abolished. Which things in fact were, even in their own era, nothing but ‘a shadow of good things to come,’ (10:1).

Moreover, God had never any pleasure in them, because, “it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” And surely, as we meditate upon the contents of Hebrews 9 and 10, we must perceive that God would abhor the very thought of setting up again that same system of vain sacrifices and ceremonies, which He abolished at the awful cost of the sacrifice of His own Son, and which had their complete fulfillment in the “one sacrifice for sins forever” offered at Golgotha.
-- By Philip Mauro, as quoted in the Shreveport Grace Church bulletin, October 8, 2006

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