Sermon Tone Analysis

The first Covenant and second Covenant

Hebrews 8 (NKJV)

1 Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

2 a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man.

3 For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices.

Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer.

4 For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law;

5 who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle.

For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

6 But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second.

8 Because finding fault with them, He says: “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—

9 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers 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 disregarded them, says the Lord.

10 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 in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.

11 None of them shall teach his neighbor, and none his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.

12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

13 In that He says, “A new covenant,” He has made the first obsolete.

Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

We See a parralles between the First Covenant and the Second Covenant

Jesus Christ is the High Priest and mediator of the New Covenant

The Ne Covenant is established on better promisses

the ministry under the New Covenant is more excellent than the minitstry of the Old Covenant

The old Covenant is a shadow and copy of the New covenant

When the new Covenant came the old covenant became obselet and is vanishing away.

We will look at these parallez later

Inorder for us to truly understand the New Covenant in which we stand, we must understand the first Covenaant

The first Covenant/ The covenant of circumcision

Genesis 17:1–14 (NKJV)

1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.

2 And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.”

3 Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying:

4 “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations.

5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.

6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come from you.

7 And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you in their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and your descendants after you.

8 Also I give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

9 And God said to Abraham: “As for you, you shall keep My covenant, you and your descendants after you throughout their generations.

10 This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised;

11 and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you.

12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised, every male child in your generations, he who is born in your house or bought with money from any foreigner who is not your descendant.

13 He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.

14 And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant.”

Covenant is an Agreement between two people or parties

The first Covenant was made between God and Abraham and his descendants (seed) Genesis 17:2,4,7

When God sees the circumcision he remembers the covenant and promises he made to Abraham and his descendants.

God’s Part under the covenant

God would multiply Abraham exceedingly, and make him a father of many nations (Genesis 17:2,4)

He will be a God to Abraham and his descendant and establish his covenant with his descendants after him (Genesis 17:7)

He will give to Abraham and to his descendants all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession.

(Genesis 17:8, Genesis 15:18-12)

He will multiply his descendent as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea shore ( Genesis 13:16,22:17,15:5)

Abraham's descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and in his seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed ( Genesis 22:18)

The part of Abraham and his descendant under the Covenant

They are supposed to keep the sign of the covenant, Circumcision, upon their flesh, and anyone who is not circumcised would be cut off from the promises (covenant).

(Genesis 17:11-14)

anyone who is not uncercumcised is not part of the covenant and hence not heir of the promises of God.

The covenant of circumcision separated the people of Israel from all others peoples, because they became God’s people.

If anyone wanted to be God’s people is under the old covenant, he was to be circumcised.

Who are Abraham’s Seed or Descendants

The Hebrew Word “zera” translated seed (literal) is also translated descendent and sometimes offspiring in NKJV.

It sometimes can be confusing, but the literal translation is seed

Look at Genesis 13:15 footnote,

The word seed both in the Hebrew is a singular collective noun, it can refer to an individual and or to a collective group of people, much like offspirng.

Abraham has tow types of seed

A seed (descendants) according to the flesh (earthly seed)

A seed (descendants) according to the promise (heavenly seed)

Those that are counted as the true seed are the children of the promise or the heavenly seed

The old covenant was with Abraham and his earthly seed

The covenant was established with a blood of the covenant,

four things were added to the covenant

The law

The priesthood

The tabernacle

The sacrificial blood of the covenant

Everything about the first covenant was earthly or fleshly

Everything about the second covenant is heveanly in nature

This is because the first covenant was with the earthly seed and the second covenant was with the hevenaly seed

The earthly seed together with the first covenant was a shadow of the heveanly seed and the heavenly covenant.

The parallel.

The blood of the covenant / and the promise/ tabernacle

the first covenant was established by the blood of bulls and goats

The second Covenant was established by the Blood of Jesus Christ

Hebrews 9:1–28 (NKJV)

1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,

4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

5 and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat.

Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

6 Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services.

7 But into the second part the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance;

8 the Holy Spirit indicating this, that the way into the Holiest of All was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing.

9 It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered which cannot make him who performed the service perfect in regard to the conscience—

10 concerned only with foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances imposed until the time of reformation.

11 But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation.

12 Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

13 For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,

14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance.

16 For where there is a testament, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.