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Mediator of a Better Covenant

Now the main point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, ²a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up. ³For every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; hence it is necessary for this priest also to have something to offer. ⁴Now if he were on earth, he would not be a priest at all, since there are priests who offer gifts according to the law. ⁵They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of the heavenly one; for Moses, when he was about to erect the tent, was warned, “See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.” ⁶But Jesus has now obtained a more excellent ministry, and to that degree he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted through better promises. ⁷For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need to look for a second one.

⁸ God finds fault with them when he says:

“The days are surely coming, says the Lord,

when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel

and with the house of Judah;

not like the covenant that I made with their ancestors,

on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt;

for they did not continue in my covenant,

and so I had no concern for them, says the Lord.

This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel

after those days, says the Lord:

I will put my laws in their minds,

and write them on their hearts,

and I will be their God,

and they shall be my people.

And they shall not teach one another

or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord,’

for they shall all know me,

from the least of them to the greatest.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,

and I will remember their sins no more.”

¹³ In speaking of “a new covenant,” he has made the first one obsolete. And what is obsolete and growing old will soon disappear.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

9. Not according to the covenant, etc. Here is expressed the difference between the covenant which then existed and the new one which he caused them to expect. The Prophet might have otherwise said only: “I will renew the covenant which through your fault has come to nothing;” but he now expressly declares that it would be one unlike the former. By saying that the covenant was made in the day when he laid holds on their hand to rescue them from bondage, he enhanced the sin of defection by thus reminding them of so great a benefit. At the same time he did not accuse one age only of ingratitude; but as these very men who had been delivered immediately fell away, and as their posterity after their example continually relapsed, hence the whole nation had become covenantbreakers.

By saying that he disregarded them or cared not for them, he intimates that it would profit them nothing to have been once adopted as his people, unless he succored them by this new kind of remedy. At the same time the Prophet expresses in Hebrew something more; but this has little to do with the present question. ¹³³¹³³ See Appendix E 2.

¹³³ See Appendix E 2.