Lesson 15 – Jesus’ Superior Covenant
Read Hebrews 8 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.8.esv

We have studied how Jesus is a better High Priest than Aaron, and even than the king-priest, Melchizedek. And now we come to the purpose of why this is so important to us.

Chapter 8 begins with the words, “we have such a High Priest.” Of all the priests or High Priests who came before, the perfect one, the eternal one has now come – He has come to be *our* High Priest. Unlike every other priest to ever live, only Jesus sits at the right hand of God in the heavens! Again we are reminded, in verse 4, that if He were only a human He would not be qualified to be a High Priest for us. But He is more than just human.

But verse 6 tells us something wonderful about Jesus’ Priesthood – He is High Priest over a better ministry and covenant (promise) than any other priest had ever been. This is the subject of this lesson.


Why would God change a covenant He Himself had made with mankind? Didn’t He make the best covenant before? Was the first one faulty?

In verses 8 through 12 we see promises quoted from the Old Testament where God had prophesied through different prophets that a new covenant would come one day. He even told them some things about the new covenant.

The first covenant was a covenant of law. God said to the people, “If you can follow My laws then I will bless you.” In Romans 7:7 we hear the Apostle Paul asking the question, “If the law had to be replaced, did that make the law wrong?” And he also answers that with an emphatic “no!”

God’s first covenant of law was necessary so we could know His standards. If He had only said, “I want you to be like Me,” we would never have known what He expected of us because we cannot see Him. He had to show us His expectations. Otherwise, we would have each set our own ideas of what He meant by loving our neighbors or loving Him. If He sets the targets we are to shoot for, then we can see how far short we come in our own efforts.

Paul also said this in Romans 7 – we thought we were doing pretty well at hitting targets that were close enough for us to see. But God set his targets so far away we could barely see them, and there was no way we could even get close.

God’s new covenant in Jesus Christ didn’t change where God had set His targets – it only made a way for us to be able to reach those targets. And the only way is for Jesus to stand with us, to help us see, give us His strength, His wisdom, His endurance to shoot for the target.

 Even as a Christian, our strength is never enough to do so on our own. Only He can do it through us.