The Supremacy of the New Covenant
Good morning. I feel blessed and somewhat apprehensive to be before you today. And I think that's a healthy attitude for a preacher to have for anybody who stands before God's people and expounds his word. I appreciate your patience and your encouragement and your prayers.
Groundwork: Understanding Covenant Theology
Before we jump into the text today, there's some groundwork that needs to be laid. The last time I was blessed to stand before you, some of you probably picked up on the fact that I was alluding to something that's called covenant theology. And covenant theology sometimes has a bad reputation, especially among Baptists, because it sounds Presbyterian. But really, at the core of covenant theology, all it is is a way to look at the structure of scripture as how God has chosen to give his revelation to his people through a series of covenants.
And each of the biblical covenants were given to a specific group of people at a specific time in redemptive history. Most of the biblical covenants were solemn agreements between God and his ethnic people. And that's important, his ethnic people, the Israelites. Essentially, if the people would hear and obey his commands, God would bless them in a specific way.
Now, your handout shows a list of the major biblical covenants and where they can be found in scripture. And for the purposes of brevity, I will refrain from commenting on each of them, but they are as follows:
- Philippians 2 and John 17 show the covenant of redemption
- Genesis 1 and 2 show the Adamic covenant
- Genesis 9 shows the Noic covenant
- Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, and 22 show the Abrahamic covenant
- Deuteronomy 11 shows the Mosaic covenant
- 2 Samuel 7 shows the Davidic covenant
- Jeremiah 31, 1 Corinthians 11, Luke 22 show the new covenant
Now, that begs the question, which of these covenants, if any, apply to us today? That's a trick question because they all do. However, as New Testament Christians, and we'll see this later as we look at the text, we are not held bound by the stipulations of any but the new covenant, which was inaugurated by Jesus on the night when he was betrayed.
Federal Headship
Another biblical truth that's important to note before we move on is that of something I mentioned before when I was with you a few weeks ago. That's federal headship. We know because of texts like Psalms 51 and Ephesians 2 that each one of us is born into sin. We're born spiritually dead. We have a predilection towards cosmic treason and it's hardwired into our DNA and it's passed down to each one of us through the bloodline of our fathers. Ultimately, our sinful nature is passed down to us from the first man, Adam.
Romans 5:18 explains it thusly. So then, as through one transgression, there resulted condemnation to all men. Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.
Now, this text from Paul's epistle to the Romans hearkens back to Genesis chapter 3 wherein Adam acting as the federal head or the representative of all humanity chose death with his wife over eternal life with God. And in doing so, Adam failed to fulfill his requirements in what is known as the covenant of works. And he forever doomed all of his progeny to be born with a sinful nature. It's only through the supremacy of the new covenant that God's people that we as God's people, excuse me, that our federal head was changed from Adam to Jesus.
Scripture Reading: 2 Corinthians 3
Now that that foundation's been laid, open your copy of God's word to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. The Apostle Paul writes:
Are we beginning to commend ourselves again or do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you? You are our letter written in our hearts, known and read by all men, being manifested that you are a letter of Christ, cared for by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts. Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Now that we are adequate in ourselves to excuse me, not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. But if the ministry of death and letters engraved on stones came with glory, so that the sons of Israel could not look intently at the face of Moses because of the glory of his face fading as it was, how will the ministry of the spirit fail to be even more with glory? For if the ministry of condemnation has glory, much more does the ministry of righteousness abound in glory. For indeed what had glory in this case has no glory because of the glory that surpasses it. For if that which fades away was with glory, much more that which remains is in glory. Therefore, having such a hope, we use great boldness in our speech. And are not like Moses, who used to put a veil over his face, so that the sons of Israel would not look intently at the end of what was fading away. But their minds were hardened. For until this very day, at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted because it is removed in Christ. But to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as from the Lord the spirit.
May God bless the reading of his holy scripture.
I. The Vanity of Identity
The first point that I want us to take away from this text is the vanity of identity. And today's text was part of Paul's second epistle to the church at Corinth. Now, it's important to understand that the city of Corinth's location made it a hub for sea traffic, a place where commerce brought people from all over the world. And surprisingly enough, some of these people from all over the world, they had a desire to do harm to Christians.
In Acts 24:4-5, Paul was falsely accused of sedition, of causing civil unrest among the Roman ruled Jewish people. He writes, "But that I may not weary you any further, I beg you to grant us by your kindness a brief hearing. For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes."
That sounds familiar. That sounds familiar because this tactic is suspiciously close to the one that was used against Jesus himself on the night in which he was betrayed in that kangaroo court before the high priest. The wicked will do anything to continue suppressing the truth of the God that they clearly hate and claim that they don't believe exists.
In addition, it appears that those who brought false charges against Paul failed to recognize the irony of them breaking the ninth commandment in their Jewish zeal to eradicate Christians. In any case, the truthfulness of Paul's apostleship came under scrutiny. Undoubtedly, the members of the true church universal were hated, badgered, and persecuted for believing that the son of a carpenter from Nazareth was the Messiah, that he was God in the flesh. And certainly they remembered the death of Stephen. And they remembered Paul as the man who held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen and later persecuted them with a fury hitherto unseen. They had every right to question Paul's identity.
But this type of identity examination was more insidious than merely that. These people intentionally slandered Paul's name in order to call his integrity into question.
Galatians 2:4. Yet it was a concern because of the false brothers secretly brought in who had sneaked in to spy on our freedom which we have in Christ Jesus in order to enslave us.
Here we see that when Paul was in Galatia, he'd had to deal with false converts, people who lied about having become Christians and they came into the early church with the express purposes of discrediting him. He faced so much dissent that he mentions it here in the second letter to the church at Corinth.
Verse one, do we need as some letters of commendation to you or from you?
The letters to which Paul refers here are documents of identity, proof of his claim to his apostleship. Think of it, think of these letters as a document akin to a modern passport. Think of it. Excuse me. You may remember in Acts nine, Paul, who back then was referred to as Saul, had obtained some letters. And these letters gave him permission from the high priest in Jerusalem to carry out this treacherous plan against the members of what they saw as a false religion. This sect that saw an itinerant preacher from Galilee as God himself in the flesh. No doubt Paul wrote this section of the text with a touch of bitter irony.
And he goes on to say in verse two that he does not need to provide letters of recommendation because the existence of the church of Corinth is proof enough. How can a person or a group of persons be a group, excuse me, be proof of identity? When you encounter Jesus Christ, when you are predestined, when you were called, when you were justified, as mentioned in Romans 8:30, you are forever changed. You have cast off the squalid vestments of your unbelief, and you have received the pure and unstained robes of the righteousness of Christ himself.
Paul mentions this in verse three of today's text: being manifested that you are a letter of Christ cared for by us written not with ink but with the spirit of the living God not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.
This portion of the text is in reference to the prophecy set forth in Ezekiel 36 wherein God promises to change his people for the sake of his own name. Paul is saying here that the life change that happened in the people of the church of Corinth that's proof of his claim to apostleship.
As if he really needs to prove his qualifications, he does so anyway. In Acts chapter 1, the remaining 11 disciples, they lay out the qualifications for choosing the replacement of Judas the Iscariot. And the main qualification that they came up with for that chapter was that the individual was to have been a part of the three-year ministry of Christ. Well, guess what? Paul was not a part of that ministry. And that caused some people to continue to call his authority as an apostle into question. And he wrote a strong rebuttal to this foolishness in 2 Corinthians 11.
Paul describes the persecution that he'd received as a result of his service to Jesus. And honestly, what he describes here has to have been just a small portion of what he had experienced throughout his life. Paul says that he was imprisoned. He was beaten with rods, beaten with whips, that he had been shipwrecked. He had been robbed. He had experienced poverty. He had experienced insomnia. He'd experienced anxiety for the salvation of others. No person in all of history has suffered for the cause of Christ quite like the Apostle Paul.
In Galatians chapter 6 verse 17, he writes, "From now on, let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the marks of Christ."
He wasn't talking about a trendy t-shirt or a cross necklace or a tattoo of three nails. He literally bore physical scars upon his body because of his persecution. Because of the hatred that God's enemies have for God himself, they also hate God's people. That's all the letters of recommendation that Paul needed.
But the main point of this text is the vanity of false identity. And I chose that word vanity because it bears two definitions. The first is an inflated pride in oneself. The second definition is the quality of being futile. Paul's true calling and identity was firmly rooted in the resurrected Christ. And not everyone can say the same. The vanity of identity is readily apparent in the lives of those false teachers whose lives and teachings don't give honor and glory to Christ, but instead blaspheme his name. At least it's readily apparent to true believers.
People like Benny Hinn and TD Jakes, Stephen Furtick, Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, and I could go on and on. There are Christian, and I use the quotes with intent, denominations that drape their buildings, their sanctuaries in rainbow flags and trans flags. There are churches who pay lip service to the name of Christ. Yet they have a woman who plays dress up every Sunday cosplaying as a pastor and has the audacity to stand before God's people and say, "Thus saith the Lord." These false teachers don't read and exposit the true word of the Lord. Rather, they twist holy scripture. They give anecdotes. They provide motivational speeches that appeal to the flesh and add money to their own pockets.
The Puritan Richard Baxter wrote a scathing denouncement of such. He said, "Of all preaching in the world, I hate that preaching which tendeth to make the hearers laugh or to move their mind with tickling levity and affect them as stage players used to do instead of affecting them with a holy reverence of the name of God."
While Baxter's words were prophetic, scripture is the final authority in the life and practice of true Christians. The Bible has much to say about false teachers.
Philippians chapter 3:19 says, "Whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is their shame, who have their minds on earthly things."
The motivation of false teachers isn't the eternal glory of holy God. Rather, their motivation is rooted in selfishness and depravity. The thinly veiled veneer of false piety cannot hide the putrid, rotting, decomposing hearts of false teachers. Jesus himself made note of this fact when he referred to the Pharisees as whitewashed tombs in Matthew 23.
But therein lies the truth of the statement, the statement that vanity of false identities. Now, as a quick aside, don't be mistaken. The God that we worship, sovereign over all existence, can and will use false teaching for that purpose for which he ordained it in eternity past. That having been said, the vanity of false teaching is in its temporary reward. There will be no crowns in heaven for the wicked false teachers. There will be no eternal reward for those who are enemies of God. Regardless of their money, mansions, and jets, the false teachers will be surprised on judgment day.
The Lord himself noted as much in Matthew 7:21-23. Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name cast out demons and in your name perform many miracles?" And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you. Leave me, you who practice lawlessness."
Most eternally terrifying words that could ever be heard.
II. The Tyranny of the Law
The next point I want us to take away from the text is the tyranny of the law. That word tyranny has been thrown around a lot lately in our culture and I don't think people really understand what that word means. We're going to explore this text and we will at the end of it. Verse 7 tells us that the law brings death. What could the Apostle Paul possibly have meant by this statement?
Under the covenant of works or the Adamic covenant, God placed Adam and Eve into this paradise into the Garden of Eden. And he told them, "Work the garden. Take care of it. But you cannot eat from one tree. You can eat from everywhere else, but not this one." And it's from the tree of knowledge.
In Genesis 2:17, "But from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For on the day that you eat from it, you will certainly die."
Doesn't that seem harsh? Seem a little bit extreme? Doesn't capital punishment seem a little bit steep for taking one bite of forbidden fruit? Don't forget about Romans 6:23, which states that the wages of sin is death. Not to mention that these creatures from the dirt defied a direct order from holy God himself. It was made abundantly clear to them, if you eat from this, you're going to die.
Think about this. In the Mosaic covenant or the covenant made at Mount Sinai, God gave the Old Testament law to his ethnic people, the Israelites. And in this law, there were 613 different laws. 613 thou shalts and thou shalt nots, if you will. And these laws covered everything from morality to worship to how judges should rule over court cases. Do you think that you could possibly obey all 613 laws all the days of your life?
Let's find out. Let's start with the Ten Commandments. I used to use this a lot when I was street preaching to show the depravity of natural man. Consider this. You ever told a lie? Most people would be honest and say yes. Have you ever stolen anything? Come on now. Let's be honest and say yes. Maybe not, but I did. Have you ever had hate in your heart for anybody? If you said yes to all three of those by your own admission, you're a lying, thieving, murderer by the standards of scripture. And I've not gone through the rest of the ten commandments. Not to mention, there are 603 more laws that God gave in the covenant at Mount Sinai.
And to make matters worse, the book of James says that if we've broken any one law, then we're guilty of breaking all of them.
James 2:10, for whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all.
Therein lies the tyranny of the law. It does not have the power to save, only to condemn. It offers no hope, only anxiety. Imagine living your entire life hoping, praying, gambling on the possibility that you had prayed enough, that you had read enough scripture, that you had proclaimed the gospel enough to secure your place in heaven. You could never know. You could never have the peace. You could never have the Sabbath rest, if you will, in knowing that your salvation is secure and the payment for your sins was final and the peace when you're laying on your deathbed that you are soon to be with Jesus.
And that's the brutal reality that 22.7 million Seventh Day Adventists live with daily. That's the harsh existence under which 17.5 million Mormons operate every day. And that's the oppressive weight carried by 8 million Jehovah's Witnesses. If you've done any reading into those three cults, you'll understand they believe they're under the tyranny of the law. They just have no assurance. And that's why the law is tyranny.
It's true that the Old Testament law is tyrannical. It's also glorious. When God gave the law to his ethnic people, the Israelites, he did so through Moses as an intermediary. And after spending 40 days and nights in the presence of God, during which time he neither ate nor drank, by the way, Moses's face, his countenance was so magnificent that it was necessary for him to wear a veil over his face as it frightened his countrymen and it attracted undue attention.
Exodus 34. When Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. But whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he would take off the veil until he came out. Whenever he came out and spoke to the sons of Israel what he had been commanded, the sons of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses's face shone.
The question remains, what caused the radiance of Moses's face? Was it the law as the text seems to indicate or was it from being in the presence of God? The answer is yes, both. And I'm going to tell you why. The 613 laws of the Old Testament attest to the immutable, faultless holiness of God. It speaks to the absolute perfection of the character of the creator of the universe. Isaiah's vision as mentioned in chapter 6 of the book written by the same prophet says that the angels that uphold the throne of God had to cover their faces. When Isaiah observed the holiness of God, what did he do? The text says he fell on his face and he said, "Woe is me because I'm a sinner." The same holiness made it necessary for Moses to cover his face.
Not only does the law point to the holiness of God, it points to the necessity of Christ. As mentioned before, the words I'm about to say are careful, you'll understand. As mentioned before, not one human being who was born in sin was capable of fulfilling all of the 613 laws of the Old Testament.
The Apostle Paul makes note of this Romans chapter 3:23 when he wrote, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."
Not some. All. Not most. All. Not 99%. All have sinned. Regardless of what some full-fledged Pelagians will tell you, there's no point in your life where you have reached a state of sinless perfection. That's not going to happen. Every person that's ever lived has broken at least one of God's commandments and as such deserves to be eternally separated from him as he pours out his wrath upon them.
Nevertheless, the law points to someone who hasn't fallen short. The law points to someone who did fulfill every prophecy and every law to the letter and that was Jesus Christ.
The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:24, "Therefore, the law has become our guardian to lead us to Christ so that we might be justified by faith."
The law is a sign. It's a guidepost. It points us in the direction of the savior that we all so desperately need because we're all born into sin and wickedness.
So why was it necessary to have a new covenant in the first place? The sacrificial system of the Old Testament was a bloody affair. Spend some time, spend a few minutes researching how many animals the nation of Israel slaughtered in a year. I don't think we really understand that without looking at those numbers. The Old Testament sacrificial system required the slaughter of thousands of animals annually. The fact remains that regardless of how many of these animals were killed to pay for the sins of God's ethnic people, it was never enough.
Hebrews 10:4 says, "For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins."
The Old Testament sacrificial system could pay for sin, but it never affected any real change. This is proven in how the Israelites returned to idolatry over and over and over again through the pages of scripture from Genesis all the way to Malachi. The Old Testament law just had no power to change the hearts of stone.
The Puritan Thomas Watson wrote about this very subject. The moral law requires obedience but gives no strength. As Pharaoh required brick but gave no straw. But the gospel gives strength. It bestows faith on the elect. It sweetens the law. It makes us serve God with delight.
III. The Liberty of Grace
The last point I want us to take away from this text is the liberty of grace. Consider the first part of verse 14 of our text.
But their minds were hardened. For until this very day at the reading of the old covenant, the same veil remains unlifted.
In this particular verse, the Apostle Paul was referencing how the Jews of the time were blinded by their stubborn and inescapable adherence to the law. And to this day, Orthodox Jews remain steadfast in their belief that Jesus was not the prophesied Messiah. He was not the prophesied suffering servant. And they believe that their blind allegiance to the Torah will guarantee their place in heaven. But with the advent of modern technology, with centuries of history, anthropology, and Bible commentaries at their fingertips on their cell phone, a wealth of information free, how do they still not believe?
1 Corinthians 1:18 says, "For the word of the cross is what? It's foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God."
The lost are blind to their own hypocrisy. They do not see the disconnect between decrying the evils of separating families through deportation while celebrating the slaughter of unborn children. They don't understand how wicked that is or else they choose to ignore it. One or the both maybe. But the sin of unbelief chains the lost to their eternal condemnation.
Have you ever thought about how unbelief itself is wickedness? It's evil. It's depravity. It's a rebellion against the commands of God himself. In Mark 1:15, after having defeated his adversary, Satan during the temptation in the wilderness, after having fulfilled the Old Testament prophecy of being baptized, Jesus began to preach. And his message in that short text in Mark was repent and believe the gospel. And to not do so is disobedience. That's a command from the creator of all existence.
Now, it's my opinion. Let's put a star, put an asterisk. It's Pastor Kevin's opinion that the sin of unbelief is the worst of the evils for which Christ died for his people.
Charles Spurgeon said it better than me because of course he did. He wrote this. We took our sins and drove like nails through his hands and feet. We lifted him high up on the cross of our transgressions and then we pierced his heart through with the spear of unbelief.
A friend of mine reached out to me recently and we were speaking about Pilgrim's Progress and that's where this comes from. The burden of unbelief is illustrated beautifully in John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. It's an allegorical novel about the Christian life. The main character, aptly named Christian, he carries this large, huge, unwieldy, heavy burden strapped on his back for a large portion of his journey to the celestial city. This loathsome cargo was representative of his sin. It was representative of his unbelief and it hindered him physically, emotionally, spiritually. It wore him down as he tried to climb the mountain, as he tried to go through this narrow, rocky, difficult path.
But when Christian arrives at the cross, when he kneels before the cross and he prays, his pack miraculously falls off, rolls down the hill into a tomb, the tomb of an empty tomb by resurrected Jesus. And the message is clear. The cross of Christ sets his people free from the burden of unbelief. Amen.
In addition, when Christ removes the burden of unbelief, he also removes the blinders that keep the lost from understanding universal truth. This is referenced in verse 16 of today's text.
But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
When you see people celebrating sexual debauchery in the streets, when you see people hosting a party, a party for the senseless murder of an unborn child, when you see people cheering on the death of a Christian martyr who was murdered for no other reason than the fact that he was a Christian, you begin to understand the depths of total depravity. You begin to comprehend the length to which God's enemies will go in order to suppress not just the truth of God but all truth as mentioned in Romans chapter 1.
John 14:26, "But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."
I said some harsh things about the enemies of God, but I was once an enemy of God. I was born into my own sin, just like the people of this world. But the two most beautiful words in all of scripture are found in Ephesians. But God, he condescended to save me and make me different. And he gave me the Holy Spirit. And that's when I began to see. That's when the blinders were taken off. You see, it takes the indwelling Holy Spirit to shine the light of understanding into the dark and wicked hearts of unsaved men. Then and only then do we begin to reflect the glory of the Lord that's mentioned in our text verse 18.
The Supremacy of the New Covenant
Lastly, I want us to consider the supremacy of the new covenant. The Adamic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and the Davidic covenant. They were all predicated on the ability of man. This was by design in order to point to the helplessness of man. This was foreseen by God and revealed as far back as Genesis chapter 3 and the protoevangelium as noted a few weeks ago. It's also revealed through the writings of several of the prophets.
Jeremiah 31:31. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
The new covenant's also referenced in Ezekiel 36 when the Lord promises to replace the hearts of stone with hearts of flesh. What's different about the new covenant? It's every single bit of it has already been fulfilled by Jesus.
The writer of the book of Hebrews clinches the argument for Hebrews 8:13 when he said, "When he said a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear."
This does not mean that any of the old covenants have nothing to teach God's elect. This does not mean to unhitch the Old Testament from the New Testament. That's blasphemy. What it means is that all of the covenants were fulfilled in and surpassed by Jesus himself. The new covenant is supreme for one reason. It's rooted in Christ himself.
As stated before, Ephesians 2 says, "The natural man is dead in his trespasses and sins." What can a dead person do? Nothing. Rot. That's about it. That having been said, Jesus was not born of man. He left his eternal place in heaven. He condescended to come to this place. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and his mother Mary. Jesus lived a perfectly sinless life. He completely fulfilled all the messianic prophecies of the Old Testament and the law itself. And it's through the active and passive obedience of Jesus Christ that the salvation of his people was secured forever.
The Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck wrote this. Freedom from the law consists then not in the fact that the Christian has nothing more to do with the law, but lies in the fact that the law demands nothing more from the Christian as a condition of salvation. The law can no longer judge and condemn him. Instead, he delights in the law of God according to the inner man and yearns for it day and night.
Closing Questions for Reflection
In closing, I want to leave you with a couple questions. Are you trusting the completed perfect work of Christ or are you instead relying on the inadequacies of your good works? Is your confidence in Christ as your federal head and the supremacy of the new covenant? Or are you still in Adam tragically believing that you can fulfill the perfect requirements of the tyrannical law?
