Hebrews 8-9

A New Covenant. "When God speaks of a "new" covenant, it means he has made the first one obsolete. It is now out of date and will soon disappear." Hebrews 8:13. Christians are partakers of a NEW covenant enacted by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross of calvary. This covenant became necessary because God found fault with the first covenant for a variety of reasons; "if the first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no need for a second covenant to replace it." Hebrews 8:7. The old covenant had faults for 4 main reasons; the people could not fulfill their role or part of the covenant (Hebrews 8:8), the sacrifice itself made with the blood of animals could not purify the people's consciences so that they had to come back again and again atoning for the same sins ( Hebrews 9:9), the high priest who represented the people were not qualified, they had to offer sacrifices first for his own sins and then for the sins of the people (Hebrews 7:27), and lastly, the tabernacle itself where the sacrifices were offered was a shadow of the real thing (Hebrews 8:5). Jesus solved all of these problems and more when he offered his own sacrifice. "So Christ has now become the High Priest over all the good things that have come. He has entered that greater, more perfect Tabernacle in heaven, which was not made by human hands and is not part of this created world. With his own blood - not the blood of goats and calves - he entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever." Hebrews 9:11-12. Thank you Jesus. The old covenant with its systems and rules is now obsolete. The new covenant is better and with far better promises. For one, while the old covenant was enacted with conditions that pronounced curses along with blessings, the new covenant in Christ does not have a single curse attached to it. Thank you Jesus.