Theological term
Old Covenant
65 sermons · All terms
The Ark of God Captured
Israel's defeat at the hands of the Philistines in 1 Samuel 4–5 exposes a perennial temptation: treating God as a mechanism to be manipulated rather than a sovereign to be obeyed. The elders of Israel asked the right question — 'Why has the Lord defeated us?' — but gave the wrong answer, fetching the Ark of the Covenant as a lucky charm rather than humbling themselves in repentance. God refused to be controlled, fulfilled His word of judgment against the corrupt priests Hophni and Phinehas, and then demonstrated His supremacy over the Philistine god Dagon without any help from Israel. The sermon closes with a call to approach God not by religious technique or formulaic bargaining, but through Christ alone, in humble obedience, trusting Him with outcomes.
The Object of Our Gaze
Hebrews 12:2 commands believers to run the race of faith by 'looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.' This sermon works through three aspects of that gaze: the means (faith, not physical sight), the direction (Christ alone, away from temple religion, self, and human performance), and the object (Jesus Christ as the one in whom faith, hope, and love have their only proper anchor). The practical burden is that every displacement of the gaze — onto one's own faithfulness, the visible condition of a congregation, the conduct of fellow believers, or the splendors of religious ceremony — is a form of the same error the first-century Jewish recipients of Hebrews were tempted toward, and must be corrected by a constant return to Christ as both the beginner and the completer of salvation.
A Tale of Two Covenants
Israel's repeated pledge at Sinai — 'all the words which the Lord has said we will do' — was broken almost immediately, exposing the fundamental weakness of the old covenant: its dependence on the faithfulness of sinful human parties. The new covenant does not repeat that weakness, because its covenant head is the Lord Jesus Christ, who as the second Adam pledged fidelity to the Father and executed every obligation perfectly, obediently, and completely. This sermon, preached in the context of the Lord's Supper, traces the contrast from Exodus 24 through Jeremiah 31, Matthew 26, and John 17 to show that justification rests entirely on Christ's active and passive obedience imputed to believers by faith alone. The application is a call to rest in the finished work of Christ rather than any mixture of personal faithfulness, and to come to the communion table with that covenant framework in view.
The Purpose of the Law
What is the purpose of the Mosaic law if the Abrahamic promise already secured salvation by faith? Galatians 3:19–25 forces this question, and the apostle Paul answers it not in terms of individual spiritual experience but in terms of redemptive history — the covenantal relationship between Sinai and the promise made to Abraham. The law was added to restrain and reveal sin, to preserve the biological and spiritual integrity of Israel until the promised seed, Christ, should come, functioning as a guardian or pedagogue over the covenant people until the fullness of time. The sermon closes by insisting that the expiration of the Mosaic covenant as a covenantal arrangement does not abolish God's moral law, which continues to bind believers as a pattern of sanctified life, while justification remains by faith alone in Christ alone.
The Superiority of Christ Over the Angels
Hebrews 1:4–14 opens the epistle's sustained argument for the superiority of Christ over the angels — an argument the apostle grounds not in assertion but in seven quotations from the Old Testament. The passage addresses Jewish Christians tempted to abandon Christ and return to old covenant rites, demonstrating from their own scriptures that the Messiah, as God-man and mediator, possesses a dignity and dominion infinitely exceeding that of the angels. The sermon traces two of four sections in the confirmation passage: Christ's unique filial relationship to the Father (Psalm 2:7; 2 Samuel 7:14), shown to be fulfilled in his resurrection and exaltation, and his relationship to the angels, who worship him and serve as his ministers. Throughout, the recurring motif of 'better' in Hebrews is shown to be the epistle's controlling theme: Christ and the new covenant are not merely different from the old, but surpassingly superior to it in every respect.