HEBREWS - Chapter 8 - A NEW MAN IN THE THRONE WITH A MINISTRY (2024)
HEBREWS – Chapter 8
A New Man in the Throne with a Ministry
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Tuesday Morning Bible Study
Tuesday, April 8, 2024;January 10, 2012, The Years of our Lord
8:1: C.S.L.: Here then is the chief point of what I am saying---we really have such a high priest as I have been describing. One who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of majesty in the heavens. He performs His ministry in the most holy place of heaven, the real tabernacle set up by God and not man.
8:1: Amplified: He (Christ) has acquired a priestly ministry which is as much superior and more excellent (than the old) as the covenant of which He is the Mediator (the arbiter, agent)” (Amplified Bible).
“This is the sum. This is the bottom line. This is what it all adds up to. This is the eternal purpose of God simplified and clarified. The whole bible can be summed up in one statement: There is a New Man in the Throne with a Ministry!” (K.V.)
This is fulfilled in the Man Christ Jesus. The heart of the Father has ever cried for a new humanity in His image and likeness. Jesus is that Man. God married Israel in the Old Testament and brought forth a Son, Jesus Christ. God divorced Israel on the grounds of adultery and married again in the New Testament. Jesus married the Church (spiritual Israel) and is producing a son, a corporate son, a many-membered son. Throughout the Scriptures, we see the pattern of a man, a maid and a man child.
This is why the spirit of anti-christ is fighting against the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.
God’s desires a “spotless Bride,” that He may have sons in His image to perpetuate the Royal Seed, the nature and ministry of Jesus in the earth and universe.
8:3-5: For every high priest is ordained to offer gifts and sacrifices; wherefore it is of necessity that this man have somewhat also to offer. For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law; Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle; for, “See, said he, that you make all things according to the pattern shown to you in the mount.”
In the Old Testament, a person was appointed high priest for one purpose---to make offerings to God on man’s behalf. Jesus offered Himself. His offering was perfect. The fact that He is “seated” at God’s right hand is proof that His sacrifice was accepted and the atonement was completed forever. Jesus is not making an offering now. This part of His work is done. His work now is that of applying the benefits of His one perfect sacrifice to our hearts.
The Jewish tabernacle was a picture of the work of the Lord Jesus. The holy place where the priests could go, represented Jesus’ work on earth with His disciples. The veil of the tabernacle through which only the high priest went, was Jesus’ flesh broken on the cross (Heb. 10:10,20). The Veil was rent from top to bottom. The law was finished. Grace and truth prevailed. An age, an order, an era, changed. This happened over 2,000+ years ago…historically, literally. Our Savior died with violence to take away the first covenant, then rose in triumph to forever establish the New Covenant. The Most Holy Place, into which the high priest alone entered is now accessible by the Overcomer through the Blood of Jesus.
The writer of the Hebrews wants us to know the “why” and the “how” of His priestly ministry. What kind of ministry is it? How does it operate? How do I know that I have been chosen for such a ministry? As God helps us to answer these questions, He will enable us to discern between true ministries and those who are like “clouds without water.” (11 Pet. 2: 13-17; Jude 12).
8:6-7: But now has he (Jesus) obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless then should no place have been sought for the second.
The secrets of this more excellent ministry are being revealed to a people who have been called to the top of the mountain. Only the Father and the Son go to the top of the hill. As Abraham and Isaac began their ascent up one side of the mountain, a lonely ram began his ascent up the other side, invisible to the offerer and the sacrifice. They met at the top in a manifestation of the Name of God. His biddings are His enablings. Those whom God calls; He equips.
Do you want to share His throne? Then come boldly, for His blood has made the Way!
The concept of a covenant plays an important role in Hebrews, used by the writer at least seventeen times. The covenant between God and man must never be thought of merely as a contract between two equal parties. Rather God is the sole initiator, who sets down the terms under which the agreement will go into effect. He then invites all men to join with Him in it. The spiritual aspect of the ancient covenant is a pledge of loyalty or community of soul---which can best be represented by the expression “loyal love” or “steadfast love.” However, God comes to man with a deal and there is no bargaining. Man has nothing to say about the deal. He must take it or leave it.
The covenant which God made with Israel through Moses was an honest legitimate deal. He offered to take the Israelites and make them His own personal nation if they would obey His laws. Israel was unfaithful. She turned to other gods. She broke God’s Law right and left. Since the covenant was based on obedience, the covenant was broken soon after it was made.
The New Covenant, of which Jesus is the mediator, is completely different. It is not based on our obedience at all, but our faith in Jesus’ perfect obedience. The new covenant, made available to man through Jesus, is far superior to the old one. It is based on better promises. “Whosoever will” may put his trust in Christ and come under the new covenant. The program initiated by this new covenant is called Christianity.
The Old Testament blood could only “cover” the sin, which is the basic meaning of the word “atonement.” But the better blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of the New covenant, did more than cover our sin; His blood, the blood of the Lamb of God, took away sin! He removed it.
8:8-9: For finding fault with them, he said, Behold the days come says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah (quote from Jeremiah 31:31). Not according to the covenant that I made with their father in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant and I regarded them not, says the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.
Since man is a sinner, he needs help with his sin, not a law that tells him how bad he is. A city can enact perfect traffic laws, but they won’t make good drivers out of people. All those laws can do is show up their failures and punish them when they break them. Since man is a sinner, all any HOLY law can do is make him look bad. Therefore, the covenant of the Law failed because man is a sinner.
The writer turns to a famous passage in Jeremiah. He prophesied prior to the fall of Judah. The northern kingdom had been taken captive by the Assyrians 150 years earlier. The prophet cries out that the nation has forsaken God and turned to the false deities of the Canaanites. The covenant was broken. God would now let them go into exile for 70 years. But even as Jeremiah prophesies of the exile, he also prophesies of the New Covenant. “I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
At the end of the 70 years prophesied by Jeremiah, is the time of Daniel, Chapter 9, when Daniel who was in exile in Babylon was praying and asking the Lord for understanding of what would happen to Israel at the time of the end of the 70-year exile (Jer. 29:10). Gabriel prophesied of the restoring and rebuilding of Jerusalem beginning with the decree given to Ezra in 457 B.C. In Daniel 9:25, Gabriel announced that in 483 years, the Anointed One would come from the time of the rebuilding of the city. Throughout this prophecy, Gabriel was explaining to Daniel the “covenant” that Jeremiah had prophesied (Jer. 31: 31-34). This was the New Covenant with God’s laws written in men’s hearts.
This Anointed One is, Jesus Christ, mediator of the New Covenant. It is exactly 483 years (69 prophetic weeks --7 x 69), from the decree given to Ezra to the time when Jesus Christ received His anointing at His baptism in the Jordan in A.D. 27.
Hebrews 8:11-12: They shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.
This is not only forgiveness, but justification. Many believe that justification means that God looks upon the believer “just as if he had never sinned.” No! that cannot be. That would be God saying, “I know that you sinned, but I’ll act like you didn’t.” This is how man forgives. He forgives, but he won’t forget. This humanistic view of justification says, “You sinned. I’ll act like you didn’t, but you did.” Learn this, child of God and learn it now. Real Bible justification says, “You never sinned!” the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin.
Justification is a legal term. The guilty one (man) stands before God the Righteous Judge, but instead of a sentence of condemnation, he receives a sentence of acquittal. Justification is a state of acceptance into which one enters by faith. This acceptance is a free gift of God made available through faith in Jesus Christ. By nature, unregenerate man is not only a child of the evil one, but also a transgressor and a criminal. In regeneration (the new birth) man receives a new heart and a new nature; in justification man receives a new standing that includes:
1. The remission of the penalty of death.
2. The restoration to favor.
3. The imputation of righteousness.
The source of justification is the grace of God (Rom 3:24; Tit. 3:7). It originates in the heart of God. Realizing not only our lack of righteousness, but also our inability to attain to it, He in His kindness decided to provide His righteousness for us. It was His grace that led Him to provide it. He was under no obligation whatever to do it. In his grace He had regard to our guilt, and in His mercy, to our misery.
God remitted the penalty and restored man to favor. In justification our sins were not excused but punished and then removed through the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. His resurrection validated the purchase (Rom. 4:25), and the sending forth of the Holy Spirit to make that truth known to us revealed our acceptance in the Beloved.
8:13: In that he said, a New Covenant, he has made the first old, Now that which decays and waxes old is ready to vanish away.
A few years after the letter to the Hebrews was written, the Roman prince, Titus, leveled the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in A.D.70. This was in fulfillment of the decree made by Jesus in Mt. 24:2. The “end” of the sacrifices in the temple came in A.D. 70.
Jesus fulfilled the Law, the sacrifices, the priesthood, the Temple, and the Feast Days. There won’t be another covenant, priesthood, or another temple in Jerusalem except for the one anti-christ will build. Church do not put your money into it!!!
The Romans pitched their standards inside the temple court and offered sacrifice, acclaiming Prince Titus’ victory. Later, the city was sacked and burned. The Romans set fire to outlying areas and demolished the walls to the ground, with not one stone left upon another.
Zion became a plowed field, and Jerusalem became heaps and a forest (Mic. 3:12). There was no rebuilding of Jerusalem until A.D. 180. Today’s city is built upon the ruins of Prince Titus’ destruction. A Muslim mosque stands on the Temple Mount.
In the writings of the apostle Paul, the Holy Spirit replaces an earthly “city” and “sanctuary” of Jerusalem with a heavenly one (Gal. 4: 21-31; Heb. 12: 22-24).
Jesus is better than Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the angels. His promises, His priesthood, and His blood, are better. Everything about Jesus as written in this epistle is better; “nobler” or “stronger.” Jesus is the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. His death and resurrection changed the priesthood and the order of the testaments permanently. His King-Priest ministry after the order (manner, similitude) of Melchisedec is immutable.
Taught by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries Church, 10115 West Hidden Lakes Lane, Richmond, TX.
Scripture from K.J.V. and Amplified Bible as noted. Bibliography: C. S. Lovett’s Light on Hebrews; Whose Right it is, A Handbook of Covenantal Theology by: Kelly Varner; The Priesthood is Changing by: Kelly Varner and The More Excellent Ministry by: Kelly Varner.