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'Written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; not in
tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart ... able ministers
of the new covenant (testament A.V.); not of the letter, but of the
spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life'.
The apostle goes on to show the superiority of the new covenant by a
series of comparisons:
The Old Covenant
The New Covenant
A ministration of death
The ministration of the spirit
A glory that was done away
Rather glorious
The ministration of
Much more the ministration of
condemnation ... glory
righteousness exceeds in glory
For if that which was done away
Much more that which remaineth
was glorious
is glorious
The face of Moses
The face of Jesus Christ
(2 Cor. 3:7 -13).
(2 Cor. 3:8 to 4:6).
The Epistle to the Hebrews provides an inspired commentary on this
basic feature of the New Covenant, and to the eighth chapter we will now
turn. The writer speaks of it as a better covenant which was established on
better promises, having Christ, not Moses, as its Mediator:
'For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place
have been sought for the second' (Heb. 8:7).
In much the same vein Paul wrote to the Galatians:
'If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily
righteousness should have been by the law' (3:21).
There was no defect in the law of God, the only 'fault' that could be
laid against it, was related to something it was never intended to do. Its
work was done when it led all men to see their need of Christ. 'The law made
nothing perfect', 'The law ... was weak through the flesh':
'The promise of a new covenant doth unavoidably prove the insufficiency
of the former, at least with the ends For Which The New One Is
Promised' (Owen).
The epistle proceeds to quote from Jeremiah 31, and concludes with the
observation:
'In that He saith, A new covenant, He hath made the first old. Now
that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away' (Heb.
8:13).
Had our quest been doctrinal, we should have been obliged to spend more
time in the examination of this section of the New Covenant. The references
in Hebrews 8 and in 2 Corinthians 3, show that the New Covenant of Jeremiah
31 had been in force up to a certain point, and it is that proviso, 'up to a
certain point', and its recognition which is of vital importance to the
student of prophecy. Hebrews 8 quotes Jeremiah 31:31 -34, but Jeremiah
continues with verses 35 to 40, and these verses are not referred to either
in Hebrews 8 or in 2 Corinthians 3. They are spoken of in Romans 11 (11:25 -