If any book in the New Testament disproves the Reformed idea that the Sinai covenant
and the new covenant are one and the same, it must be Hebrews, which makes it clear
beyond a doubt that these two covenants are very different – indeed, that they are
mutually exclusive – and that the Mosaic covenant has been abolished in Christ. 1 I will
be brief on this – having dealt with it in other places throughout the book and
elsewhere 2 – but since it has large implications for the issue of the believer and the law,
and since Hebrews deals with it so fully, it would be wrong not to take at least a glance
at what it says on the two covenants.
But before I get to individual passages, may I suggest, reader, that you read (aloud)
Hebrews 7:11 – 10:18? May I further suggest that you read it again, in a version or two
different to the one you normally use? To my mind, the argument is overwhelming. We
have a new covenant, a new priesthood, a new order, a new system, a new sacrifice, a
new commandment... new everything. Except, according to Reformed teaching, the
law! And yet the law is the covenant, and the covenant is the law! Whatever else is new
under the new covenant, it must be the law! Hebrews 7:11 – 10:18, I say, is irrefutable
evidence that it is so. |
