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After God
brought the Jews out of Egypt, He made
a covenant with them in the wilderness of Sinai. That covenant had ordinances
of divine service and an earthly sanctuary which was made by Moses at God’s
command, according to the pattern shown him on Mount
Sinai. That sanctuary was divided into two parts: the
first part was called the Holy
Place and the second the Most Holy Place. The
levitical priests entered regularly into the Holy Place to carry
on their ministry, but only the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place, and that
only once a year, with the blood of certain animals which the High Priest
offered every year for himself and for the people’s sins. Therefore that
sanctuary was just a shadow of the true sanctuary which is in heaven and
which is not a man-made sanctuary, and those
sacrifices were a shadow of the true sacrifice Christ would offer in the fullness
of the time. They were a shadow because that blood could not blot out sins
from the worshipers’ conscience. Therefore the Old Covenant was based on
imperfect sacrifices which could not cleanse man’s conscience from dead works,
and in fact in those sacrifices there was a reminder of sins every year. But
God promised through the prophets that one day He would make a New Covenant
with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
not according to the covenant He made with their fathers when He brought them
out of Egypt,
for He would be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins He would
remember no more. God made this covenant in the fullness of the time through
Jesus Christ His Son, who sanctified us through the sacrificial offering of
His body; that is to say, by His precious blood Jesus cleansed our conscience
from dead works, which could not be taken away by the blood of bulls and
goats. God, because of the blood of Jesus, was merciful to our
unrighteousness and our sins He will remember no more. Therefore Jesus
dedicated the New Covenant with His blood which He shed for the remission of
our sins. And with that blood He entered – the same day on which the
disciples saw Him go into heaven – the heavenly sanctuary, and not a man-made
sanctuary like that into which the high priest entered once a year with blood
that was not his own, to appear for us in God’s presence and to intercede for
us always. Therefore we were reconciled to God by that blood, which is the
blood of the New Covenant which God predicted He would make with us. I said
before that both the earthly sanctuary and the sacrifices of the Old Covenant
were just shadows and not the realities themselves; however the High Priest
also was a shadow, for he symbolized the High Priest of the good things to
come, that is, Jesus Christ. He was a shadow because he himself was also
subject to weakness and because of this he had to offer sacrifices for his
own sins, as well as for the sins of the people, whereas Jesus Christ was in
all points tempted as we are, yet without sin, and thus He could bear our
sins and offer Himself for our sins. Under the Old Covenant there were many
of those priests since death prevented them from continuing in office, but
because Jesus lives forever He has a permanent priesthood, therefore He is
also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since
He always lives to make intercession for them. In addition to this, the high
priests under the Old Covenant became priests without an oath, but Christ became
High Priest with an oath by God, so that God might show more abundantly to
the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel.
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Therefore
the New Covenant is better than the Old Covenant because it was established
on better promises. The New Covenant is much more glorious than the Old
Covenant; the Old Covenant is ready to vanish away, while the New Covenant is
an everlasting Covenant and through the blood of this Covenant God brought up
our Lord Jesus from the dead, that great Shepherd of sheep. To Him be the glory now and forever. Amen.
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