"6 But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises. 7 For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have been no occasion to look for a second.
8 For he finds fault with them when he says:
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord,
when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel
and with the house of Judah,
9 not like the covenant that I made with their fathers
on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt.
For they did not continue in my covenant,
and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord.
10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, declares the Lord:
I will put my laws into their minds,
and write them on their hearts,
and I will be their God,
and they shall be my people.
11 And they shall not teach, each one his neighbour
and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’
for they shall all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest.
12 For I will be merciful toward their iniquities,
and I will remember their sins no more.”
13 In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away."
Hebrews 8:6-13
The Apostle however leaves the subject of the Tabernacle for a moment, to deal with another subject arising from it. For Christ's more excellent ministry (6) in the true tabernacle leads him to the idea of the covenant. His supreme ministry in fact was to initiate God's new covenant with men. This however opens up a tremendous subject and we will do well to pause for a little here in order to make certain things clear. The point made in these verses is that the first or old covenant was faulty, and that this necessitated the institution of a new one. Now, there is a certain amount of confusion about what the Scriptures teach about the covenants, but we will not go wrong if we remember that both the old and the new covenants (testaments) belong to the idea of the everlasting covenant of grace, made by God with His Son with a view to the redemption of the world. There are two developments of that covenant: the old, which was preparatory and partial, and the new which is final and fulfilling. And the relation between the two is that of promise to fulfilment, rather than of law to grace. If then the old is merely preparatory, foreshadowing something that is to come, then obviously it vanishes away when the reality which it foreshadows appears. John the Baptist, the greatest prophet of the old economy, said (of Christ) - and his words express perfectly the relation of the old and the new - "He must increase, but I must decrease". Exactly. The old is ready to vanish away when the new is come. But more of this in tomorrow's Note.