Why Keep The Old One?

Hebrews 8:7-12

The Old Testament law made no provision for the elimination of sin. It identified sin, and made provision for deferring judgment, but never eliminated it. As a result, it left mankind subject to the consequences of sin, death. The only things it could deliver were in the present physical life. It could not reach past death. Had it been able to eliminate sin, and consequently death, there would have been no value in a new covenant, a new testament. Even the promises of that old covenant were seldom attained because people didn’t meet their responsibilities under the agreement.

“For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: 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 continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord.” (Hebrews 8:7-9)

It was not possible that any set of laws could take away sin. God had promised Life, but sin had limited life by death. Laws made us aware of sin, but did not stop people from doing the sin. The old saying “you can’t legislate righteousness” is true. The law just sets a standard by which sin can be identified. Galatians 3:21 says that it is impossible to make laws which make people do right. “Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.” As a result, a new covenant was needed. Man still sinned. The standards will be in the hearts and minds of the believers, rather than on stone tablets.

“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.” (Hebrews 8:10-12)

Under the old law, man was still condemned, judgment was just postponed. Under the new covenant, the Condemnatio is removed. Romans 8:1-4 tells us. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

That same spirit will teach us so we are not dependent on others to know what God expects as we see from John 16:13. “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.” He will make those things a part of our life, writing them on our heart as Paul tells us in II Corinthians 3:3. “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.”

When a new thing is obtained, all prior ones are automatically old by comparison. By establishing a new covenant, God made the previous one old. Once the new one is obtained, it is like buying a new microwave, there is no longer a need to keep the old one, especially if it does not do what is needed. Hebrews 8:13 says the same is true of the Law. “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.”

Paul asks how we could insist on keeping the law in such a case. “But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?” (Galatians 4:9) Why would we insist on using something that doesn’t work very well, if at all, when we have something better?